Heatwaves to soar above the hot air of climate politics, Future generations will fear, rather than fend for, the global environment.Nature , 20 June 2017 “……… on planet Earth the heat is rising. Britain was hit by a heatwave at the weekend that forecasters say could last for weeks, and temperatures in California are predicted to reach record levels in a few days’ time. The world is cooking and we should anticipate more of the same.
From extreme rainfall to rising sea levels, global warming is expected to wreak havoc on human lives. Sometimes, the most straightforward impact — the warming itself — is overlooked. Yet heat kills. The body, after all, has evolved to work in a fairly narrow temperature range. Our sweat-based cooling mechanism is crude; beyond a certain combination of high temperature and humidity, it fails. To be outside and exposed to such an environment for any length of time soon becomes a death sentence.
And that environment is spreading. A death zone is creeping over the surface of Earth, gaining a little more ground each year. As an analysis published this week in Nature Climate Change shows, since 1980, these temporary hells on Earth have opened up hundreds of times to take life (C. Mora et al.Nature Clim. Changehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3322; 2017). At present, roughly one-third of the world’s population lives for about three weeks a year under such conditions. If greenhouse-gas emissions continue to rise unchecked, that figure could climb, exposing almost three-quarters of the population by the end of the century.
The analysis also reveals that even aggressive reductions in emissions will lead the number of deadly heatwaves to soar in the coming decades. Cities including London, New York, Tokyo and Sydney have all seen citizens die from the effects of excessive heat. By 2100, people in the tropics could be living in these death zones for entire summers. It’s true that warmer winters will save lives further north. And those living in urban environments may find ways to adapt to the new norm of extreme heat. But, if the researchers are correct, the politics of Pruitt and those who try to hold him to account will seem quaint and anachronistic to our grandchildren. For they will live in a world in which most will see the environment less as something to protect, and more as something to protect themselves and their families from.http://www.nature.com/news/heatwaves-to-soar-above-the-hot-air-of-climate-politics-1.22164
A huge part of Antarctica is melting and scientists say that’s bad news, CNN, By AJ Willingham, June 20, 2017NASA: Rising sea levels more dangerous than thought
Story highlights
Rain and significant ice melts in Antarctica surprised scientists
In the future, these events could cause ice to melt and break off, which would make sea levels rise
(CNN)Antarctica is experiencing weird weather, and the changes have some scientists worried about the future.
There’s an area on the west side of the icy continent called the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and last January, scientists found a 300,000-square-mile portion of its perimeter was melting. That’s an area roughly two times the size of California, covered in slush.
“A melt of this magnitude is relatively rare in Antarctica,” said Julien Nicolas, one of the paper’s authors at the Ohio State University Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. “There have been about three or four events of this size in the last 40 years.”
For more than two weeks in January 2016, a passive microwave satellite observed surface ice melt two times the size of California.
The news also is ominous for another reason: It means the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is essentially being melted from both sides. El Niños push warm water under the sheet. On top, colder westerly winds usually do enough to stave off any approaching warm weather, but in the 2016 incident, they didn’t.
This event also brought about another surprise for scientists: Rain.
“We saw in our observations that there were some rain, we heard from some parties on the Ross Ice Shelf, and we saw it on the weather models,” Nicolas said. “That’s very unusual. We don’t have a record of rain in Antarctica, so we don’t know how often it’s happened in the past.”
Why it matters
Rain and slush would make for a miserable day anywhere, but the weird weather patterns observed over the two-week period in 2016 painted a potentially worrisome picture for the future.
If more extreme El Niños occur, ice shelves such as the Ross Ice Shelf on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt and be weakened. Sometimes, those ice melts can lead to dramatic rivers and waterfalls that leak off of the ice structure. Take a look at a recent video [top of this post] of the Nansen Ice Shelf, which is north of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet:….http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/19/weather/antarctica-melt-texas-rain-climate-change-trnd/index.html
Mother Jones 12th June 2017, Over the last century, many glaciers have pulled back farther than humans
have ever previously witnessed. While the retreat of glaciers, and changes
in the cryosphere more generally (which includes ice sheets and
permafrost), can be seen as purely symbolic representations of the
unwavering march of climate change, they are shifting geography as they
melt and thaw, leaving dangerous implications behind.
Camp Century is only one such instance. Built underneath the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet
in 1959 by the the US Army Corps of Engineers as part of Project Iceworm,
the project was designed to create a network of mobile nuclear missile
launch sites in Greenland. Intended to study the deployment and potential
launch of ballistic missiles within the ice sheet, the base was eventually
abandoned and decommissioned in 1967. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/06/camp-century-global-warming/
Seventy-four percent of the world’s population will be exposed to deadly heatwaves by 2100 if carbon gas emissions continue to rise at current rates, according to a new study. Even if emissions are aggressively reduced, the percent of the world’s human population affected is expected to reach 48 percent.
Seventy-four percent of the world’s population will be exposed to deadly heatwaves by 2100 if carbon gas emissions continue to rise at current rates, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change. Even if emissions are aggressively reduced, the percent of the world’s human population affected is expected to reach 48 percent.
“We are running out of choices for the future,” said Camilo Mora, associate professor of Geography in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and lead author of the study. “For heatwaves, our options are now between bad or terrible. Many people around the world are already paying the ultimate price of heatwaves, and while models suggest that this is likely to continue, it could be much worse if emissions are not considerably reduced. The human body can only function within a narrow range of core body temperatures around 37oC. Heatwaves pose a considerable risk to human life because hot weather, aggravated with high humidity, can raise body temperature, leading to life threatening conditions.”
A team of researchers lead by Mora conducted an extensive review and found over 1,900 cases of locations worldwide where high ambient temperatures have killed people since 1980. By analyzing the climatic conditions of 783 lethal heat episodes for which dates were obtained, researchers identified a threshold beyond which temperatures and humidities become deadly. The area of the planet where such a threshold is crossed for 20 or more days per year has been increasing and is projected to grow even with dramatic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, about 30% of the world’s human population is exposed to such deadly conditions each year.
Numerous examples, such as the 2003 European heatwave that killed approximately 70,000 people, the 2010 Moscow heatwave that killed 10,000 people and the 1995 Chicago heatwave that killed 700 people are staggering examples of the risk to life posed by heatwaves. But beyond these highly cited examples, little was known about how common such killer heatwaves are.
The international group of researchers and students coordinated by the University of Hawaii at Manoa set out to answer that question. From over 30,000 relevant publications, the researchers identified 911 papers with data on 1,949 case studies of cities or regions, where human deaths were associated with high temperatures. From those cases, dates were obtained for 783 lethal heatwaves in 164 cities across 36 countries, with most cases recorded in developed countries at mid-latitudes. Some of the cities that have experienced lethal heatwaves included New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, London, Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney and Sao Paulo.
When analyzing the climatic conditions for those cities, the researchers discovered a common threshold beyond which temperatures and humidities became lethal. In agreement with human thermal physiology, the threshold was such that as relative humidity increases, lower temperatures become lethal.
“Finding a threshold beyond which climatic conditions turn deadly is scientifically important yet frightening,” said Farrah Powell, a UH Manoa graduate student and one of the co-authors in the study. “This threshold now allows us to identify conditions that are harmful to people. And because it is based on documented cases of real people across the globe, it makes it that more credible and relevant. The scary thing is how common those deadly conditions are already.”
A web-application accompanying the paper allows counting, for any place on Earth, the number of days in a year when temperature and humidity exceed such a deadly threshold. For example, by 2100 New York is projected to have around 50 days with temperatures and humidities exceeding the threshold in which people have previously died. That same year, the number of deadly days for Sydney will be 20, 30 for Los Angeles, and the entire summer for Orlando and Houston.
The study also found that the greatest risk to human life from deadly heat was projected for tropical areas. This is because the tropics are hot and humid year round, whereas for higher latitudes the risk of deadly heat is restricted to summer.
“Warming at the poles has been one of the iconic climatic changes associated with the ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases,” said co-author Iain Caldwell, a UH Manoa post-doctoral researcher. “Our study shows, however, that it is warming in the tropics that will pose the greatest risk to people from deadly heat events. With high temperatures and humidities, it takes very little warming for conditions to turn deadly in the tropics.”
“Climate change has put humanity on a path that will become increasingly dangerous and difficult to reverse if greenhouse gas emissions are not taken much more seriously,” says Mora. “Actions like the withdrawal from the Paris agreement is a step in the wrong direction that will inevitably delay fixing a problem for which there is simply no time to waste.”
It’s so hot in Phoenix that airplanes can’t fly, WP , By Amy B WangJune 20 , 17, There are certain truths that accompany summer in Phoenix: Triple-digit temperatures persist well past sundown. It’s not considered abnormal to drive with oven mitts or ice packs in the car. And after a certain threshold, even the “it’s a dry heat” jokes cease being funny.
Usually, the hot season is met with a certain amount of pearl-clutching disbelief by people outside of Arizona. Meanwhile, locals shrug, knowing simply to stay indoors as much as possible or escape to the cooler climes of Northern Arizona.
But this week has felt different, even for seasoned desert-dwellers. As the Capital Weather Gang reported, the Southwest is experiencing its worst heat wave in decades. Excessive heat warnings have been in effect from Arizona to California and will be for the remainder of the week.
How hot has it been? On Monday, temperatures in Phoenix hit 118 degrees, according to the National Weather Service, which announced the record-tying heat against a stock image of a flaming ball of fire.
And it was so hot that dozens of flights have been canceled this week at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
American Airlines alerted its customers over the weekend, offering fee-free changes to upcoming flights that were departing or arriving at Phoenix between 3 and 6 p.m., when temperatures peak.
Monday and Tuesday, the Fort Worth-based airline canceled 50 flights in and out of Phoenix, according to American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein. Delays were expected for at least seven more flights to Sky Harbor on Tuesday, he said.
Regional flights on American Eagle were the most affected, because they use Bombardier CRJ planes that can only operate at temperatures of 118 degrees or below, Feinstein said. Flights on larger Airbus and Boeing planes were not canceled because they are able to operate at higher maximum temperatures: 127 degrees for Airbus and 126 degrees for Boeing.
Each aircraft manufacturer sets its own parameters for operating temperatures, Feinstein said. As of Tuesday morning, Sky Harbor officials said no other airlines had been affected.
FT 16th June 2017, The Bank of England will probe banks’ exposure to climate change as it
steps up efforts to tackle what it says are “significant” financial threats
posed by global warming. Climate change experts said the BoE’s decision to
do an internal review of the banking sector, which the central bank
revealed on its website on Friday, marked a first. “This is
ground-breaking,” said Ben Caldecott, director of the sustainable finance
programme at Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the
Environment. “This is the first time a financial regulator has looked at
climate risk in such a comprehensive way and at the banking sector in
particular.” https://www.ft.com/content/ec4d3446-52a1-11e7-a1f2-db19572361bb
BY NICOLE WINFIELD ASSOCIATED PRESS VATICAN CITY (AP), 20 June 17 — German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Pope Francis encouraged her to work to preserve the Paris climate accord despite the U.S. withdrawal and shared her aim to “bring down walls,” and not build them.
What impact did climate change have on Portugal’s deadly fires? http://www.euronews.com/2017/06/18/what-impact-did-climate-change-have-in-portugal-s-deadly-wildfireEuronews, Chris Harris, 19 June 17 Global warming was a factor in a deadly wildfire that hit central Portugal and left more than 60 people dead, it’s been claimed. Thomas Curt, a researcher at the National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture, said climate change had extended the wildfire season from two to up to five months.
Curt, asked what role global warming plays in wildfires such as the ones seen in central Portugal, said: “It is a certainty, we are witnessing a rise in temperatures, but a warmer air is synonymous with drier, more flammable vegetation.
“These meteorological conditions increase the risk of fire but also their intensity. We can now see fires, like that of Portugal, which firefighters can hardly extinguish.
“Moreover, during the last fifty years, the fire season, before reduced to July and August, is extended from June to October.”
Curt said on top of climate change Portugal had an ‘enormous amount of combustible vegetation’ such as pine forests and eucalyptus trees.“In addition, the entire Iberian peninsula, including Portugal, is currently facing a particular meteorological situation. It is much hotter and much drier than usual in June.
“However, each time you gain degrees, you increase the risks and intensity of fires.
“As a further aggravating factor, the Iberian Peninsula is experiencing global warming more severely than other regions.Curt also said there was a growing trend of large, covering 100 hectares, and ‘mega’ wildfires, affecting more than 1,000 hectares. “It is really a growing problem all over the world and especially in Mediterranean Europe,” he added.
“They are still rare, accounting for only 2-3 percent of the fires, but are responsible for three-quarters of the burned areas.The different analyses of climate change show that these great fires will become more and more probable.”
Climate Change 40 countries are making polluters pay for carbon pollution. Guess who’s not.
Most people who have given climate change policy any thought agree that it is important to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions. They are a form of harmful waste; those producing the waste should pay for the harms http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/t/2460133000468975388
Sweden passes ambitious climate law to be carbon neutral by 2045. Sweden passed a new Climate Act on Thursday, legally binding the country to reach net-zero emissions by the year 2045. The act, which passed in parliament by a vote of 254 to 41, is even more ambitious than what the Scandinavian country pledged under the Paris Agreement: Under the new act, Sweden will reach carbon neutrality five years earlier. http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/t/2460133000468975393
Belgium – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC) and the European Union launched in Brussels today (16 June) the report, “Making Mobility Work for Adaptation to Environmental Changes: Results from the MECLEP Project’s Global Research”.
The ground-breaking research was conducted in six pilot countries: Dominican Republic, Haiti, Kenya, Mauritius, Papua New Guinea and Viet Nam. A major finding of the study is that migration often has a positive impact on adaptation as it allows households affected by environmental and climate change to diversify income, to improve their employment, health and education opportunities and to increase their preparedness for future hazards. Moreover, the study suggests that at least 40 per cent of the migrant households surveyed learnt new skills through migration. On the other hand, displacement due to natural hazards poses more challenges to adaptation, often linked to increasing vulnerability of those displaced.
The report is the final publication of the European Union-funded “Migration, Environment and Climate Change: Evidence for Policy” (MECLEP) project, a three-year research project which aimed at contributing to the global knowledge base on the relationship between migration and environmental and climate change. MECLEP was implemented by IOM in a consortium of six universities.
The final comparative report builds on desk reviews, household surveys and qualitative interviews conducted in the six project countries to assess the extent to which migration, including displacement and planned relocation, can benefit or undermine adaptation to environmental and climate change.
“Data analysis allows for a proactive, coherent and informed approach to policy development,” stated Frank Laczko, Director of IOM’s Data Analysis Centre. “By assessing in which ways migration can represent an adaptation strategy to environmental and climate change, the MECLEP data facilitates the development of informed policy responses,” he stressed.
Many policy implications emerge from this unique comparative study. Among others, the importance of integrating migration into urban planning to reduce challenges for both migrant households and the communities of destination and the need of paying particular attention to gender issues and to the needs of vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and trapped populations that cannot move.
The report is launched jointly with the European Commission Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO) at the IOM Regional Office in Brussels. The conceptual approach that guided the study and the research methodology were also presented during the launch event.
In addition to this final comparative report, the MECLEP project produced other publications focusing on the migration and environment nexus: six national assessments, six country survey reports, 20 policy briefs, a training manual in five languages, a methodology paper and a glossary in three languages. All the publications are available on the Environmental Migration Portal, the knowledge platform developed in the context of the MECLEP project.
For further information, please contact Susanne Melde at IOM GMDAC in Berlin, Tel. +49 171 5474 165, Email: smelde@iom.int
Why wait until 2025 to close Diablo Canyon? The Tribune, BY BEN DAVIS JR. 17 JUNE 17, PG&E has reached an agreement (currently being reviewed by the state Public Utilities Commission) with environmental groups not to seek re-licensing for Diablo Canyon, thus ending energy production in 2025.
Some, including the Mothers for Peace in San Lois Obispo, are still working to close Diablo sooner. The administrative law judge in these PUC proceedings has agreed that considering closing the plant earlier than 2025 is a legitimate issue that can be addressed.
Pro nuclear groups have suggested such an early closure would be a blow to our state’s fight against global warming. However, even assuming nuclear power may be needed globally while transitioning from fossil fuels, Diablo itself has no impact on global warming and, as the most dangerously situated nuclear power plant in the U.S., according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the California Energy Commission (CEC), it is not worth the risk to California……..
Contrast these minimal potential contributions to climate change with the fact that PG&E’s recent NRC required studies (2015) show that nearby faults can subject Diablo to double the ground shaking that occurred at Fukushima, well beyond what Diablo is currently licensed for. The NRC has meetings scheduled this year to consider these new findings.
And there’s more. PUC President Michael Picker in 2015 requested a cost effectiveness study from PG&E detailing “the costs, benefits and safety issues of cycling the Diablo Canyon units to mitigate over-generation problems on the grid.”
According to the energy commission, this means “… if renewable sources and DCPP are running at capacity then there is a risk that the load on the grid may exceed specifications making it necessary to curtail GHG free renewable generation.”
California has an over generation problem in which nuclear power is actually competing with renewables for grid space, making it necessary to curtail renewables when we have too much energy— thus contributing to global warming.
To date, PG&E has not replied to Picker’s information request.
Furthermore, Diablo uses ocean water for cooling, a practice being phased out because it is devastating to ocean life, and Diablo is the largest such plant in the state, larger than all the rest combined.
Thus we have a dangerously situated, minimally insured nuclear power plant killing marine life to contribute a small amount of energy to a state with a large surplus, while competing for grid space with renewables.
The need for accurate, balanced information in considering our energy future is precisely why I support both the Mothers for Peace in calling for an early closure of Diablo Canyon in current PUC proceedings, and the current legal actions of the World Business Academy to require the State Lands Commission to complete an Environmental Impact Report before allowing continued operation of Diablo Canyon.
When the public is presented with balanced environmental/economic information it will be eminently clear that nuclear power is not worth the risks to California.
Anti-nuclear activist Ben Davis Jr. drafted an initiative the led to the eventual closure of Rancho Seco Nuclear Power Plant in Sacramento County. He also tried unsuccessfully to get an anti-nuclear initiative on the November 2016 ballot, which, if passed, would have resulted in the closure of Diablo Canyon Power Plant. http://www.sanluisobispo.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article156805984.html
Herald 16th June 2017, Sarah Beattie-Smith, Senior Climate and Energy Policy Officer, WWF Scotland: THIS week the Scottish Government announced that it hit the
annual target for cutting climate changing emissions. The news that
emissions fell by three per cent from 2014 to 2015 was welcomed by us and
many other environmental groups.
It’s yet more evidence that we can meet ambitious targets and it should drive even stronger action to embrace the
benefits of a low-carbon Scotland – from cleaner air to job creation and
from improving health to cutting fuel poverty. The hit target shows that
real progress has been made on waste and on energy, particularly on
renewables, which now meet more than half of Scotland’s electricity demand.
That progress means that, for the first time, the energy sector is no
longer the biggest emitter.
That unwelcome honour now falls to transport –
a sector where emissions have barely changed in 30 years. Indeed, emissions
from transport went up by 0.4 per cent in 2015, largely due to increased
road traffic. Such poor progress on emissions underline the urgent need for
bold, transformative action.
Across the world, other nations are setting high ambitions on switching from polluting fossil-fuelled cars to low or
zero-carbon electric vehicles. In India, a target has been set to end the
sale of new petrol and diesel cars in favour of 100 per cent electric
vehicles by 2030. In Norway, that target is for 2025. In Scotland, our goal
is to phase out just half of fossil-fuelled vehicles by 2030, and only in
urban environments. That equates to only 27 percent of new cars being
electric by 2030.
World Coal Production Just Had Its Biggest Drop on Record, Bloomberg ,by Rakteem Katakey June 14, 2017,
Fossil fuel sees ‘decisive break’ from period of demand growth
Carbon emissions show little or no growth for third year: BP
It’s the end of an era for coal.
Production of the fossil fuel dropped by a record amount in 2016, according to BP Plc’s annual review of global energy trends. China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, burned the least coal in six years and use dropped in the U.S to a level last seen in the 1970s, the company’s data show.
Coal, the most polluting fuel that was once the world’s fastest growing energy source, has been a target of countries and companies alike as the world begins to work toward the goals of the Paris climate agreement. Consumption is falling as the world’s biggest energy companies promote cleaner-burning natural gas, China’s economy evolves to focus more on services than heavy manufacturing and renewable energy like wind and solar becomes cheaper……https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/coal-s-era-starts-to-wane-as-world-shifts-to-cleaner-energy
The Larsen C ice shelf collapse hammers home the reality of climate change , Guardian, John Abraham, 12 June 17, Very soon, a large portion of an ice shelf in Antarctica will break off and collapse into the ocean. The name of the ice shelf is Larsen C; it is a major extension from of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and its health has implications for other ice in the region, and sea levels globally.
How do we know a portion is going to collapse? Well, scientists have been watching a major rift (crack) that has grown in the past few years, carving out a section of floating ice nearly the size of Delaware. The speed of the crack has increased dramatically in the past few months, and it is nearly cracked through.
Project Midas provides frequent updates on the Larsen C shelf. You can read a summary there, which reports:
In the largest jump since January, the rift in the Larsen C Ice Shelf has grown an additional 17 km (11 miles) between May 25 and May 31 2017. This has moved the rift tip to within 13 km (8 miles) of breaking all the way through to the ice front, producing one of the largest ever recorded icebergs. The rift tip appears also to have turned significantly towards the ice front, indicating that the time of calving is probably very close.
The rift has now fully breached the zone of soft ‘suture’ ice originating at the Cole Peninsula and there appears to be very little to prevent the iceberg from breaking away completely.
When it calves, the Larsen C Ice Shelf will lose more than 10% of its area to leave the ice front at its most retreated position ever recorded; this event will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula. We have previously shown that the new configuration will be less stable than it was prior to the rift, and that Larsen C may eventually follow the example of its neighbor Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002 following a similar rift-induced calving event……..
Why does all this matter? Well it is important for a number of reasons. First, when an ice shelf melts or collapses, it can unpin other ice that is sitting on land, which allows it to flow more quickly into the ocean. It is this secondary effect – the loss of ice resting on land – that changes the rate of sea level rise. Loss of a major ice shelf can also activate ice that rests on bedrock topography that makes it fundamentally unstable – ice that, once moving, will move faster and faster, until a large region is afloat.
The entire Larsen Ice shelf, which is the fourth largest in Antarctica, covers nearly 50,000 square km (20,000 square miles) according to reporting at ABC science. The ice on the land upstream of the shelf is enough to raise sea level, eventually, by ten centimeters. This is not, by itself, a major threat to the world’s coastlines, but it reveals the path that other, even larger areas are likely to take in the future.
Perhaps a quotation from a seminal work on Antarctic ice sheets best sums up the situation. In a 1978 paper, John Mercer from the Institute of Polar studies concluded:
One of the warning signs that a dangerous warming trend is under way in Antarctica will be the breakup of ice shelves on both coasts of the Antarctic Peninsula, starting with the northernmost and extending gradually southward. These ice shelves should be regularly monitored by LANDSAT imagery.
Grist 12th June 2017, Cities and states may be able to officially join the Paris Agreement after
all. Patricia Espinosa, head of the United Nations climate change body that
negotiated the accord, told ministers at a June 11-12 meeting that she
hopes to bring U.S. cities and states into the fold. “This is obviously
important, because cities like New York and states like California that
intend to pursue the same direction — of reducing emissions very
ambitiously — will have a voice and will be able to sign agreements
inside the international convention on climate change,” said Espinosa, as
reported by Politico.
After Trump announced the U.S. would drop out of the
Paris deal, numerous states, cities, and businesses reiterated commitments
to reducing emissions. But the actual legality of cities and states joining
international treaties remains murky under the U.S. Constitution. “It’s
a little bit early to know what exactly is meant by” Espinosa’s
comment, says Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate
Center. Arroyo says it could refer to subnational representatives, like
governors, receiving credentials to attend climate talks and participate in
discussions, rather than state or municipal governments literally signing
on. http://grist.org/briefly/cities-and-states-may-be-able-to-officially-join-the-paris-agreement-after-all/
