CAFE Standards, Climate Change, and The Story We Need to Tell
In July, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), with the help of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE), issued a “Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Draft EIS) for The Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles Rule for Model Year 2021–2026 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks.” This Draft EIS analyzed the direct, indirect, and cumulative environmental impacts of nine possible alternative fuel economy standards as mandated by The Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (EPCA). You may recall yet another acronym – CAFE – the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, and this is what is addressed in the report. CAFE was enacted by Congress after the 1973–74 Arab Oil Embargo to improve the average fuel economy of cars and light trucksand thus to help get us off our dependency on foreign oil.
Mileage standards are a big deal because in 2016, the transportation sector accounted for 78 percent of total U.S. petroleum consumption. Thus, this 500+ page report goes to great lengths to describe the impacts each alternative would have on our lives.
To calculate the cumulative impacts of these alternatives, the report had no choice but to discuss how each would also impact climate change. And here’s where the far bigger story emerged, because this report was produced from a department within the Trump administration. The report goes into great detail on exactly what is known about climate change to date, and what the science says will happen by the year 2100.
Here is my best attempt at directly quoting the most salient points, but please read the report for yourself (https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/ld_cafe_my2021-26_deis_0.pdf)because there is far more to it than I can fit into this column.
“Global climate change refers to long‐term (i.e., multi-decadal) trends in global average surface temperature, precipitation, ice cover, sea level, cloud cover, sea‐surface temperatures and currents, ocean pH, and other climatic conditions. Average surface temperatures have increased since the Industrial Revolution. From 1880 to 2016, Earth’s global average surface temperature rose by more than 0.9°C (1.6°F).”
“Global mean sea level rose by about 1.0 to 1.7 millimeters per year from 1901 to 1990, a total of 11 to 14 centimeters (4 to 5 inches). After 1993, global mean sea level rose at a faster rate of about 3 millimeters (0.12 inches) per year. Consequently, global mean sea level has risen by about 7 centimeters (3 inches) since 1990, and by 16 to 21 centimeters (7 to 8 inches) since 1900.”
“Global atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased 44.6 percent from approximately 278 parts per million (ppm) in 1750 to approximately 403 ppm in 2016. Atmospheric concentrations of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) increased approximately 150 and 20 percent, respectively, over roughly the same period.”
“In recent decades, annual average precipitation increases have been observed across the Midwest, Great Plains, Northeast, and Alaska, while decreases have been observed in Hawaii, the Southeast and the Southwest. Nationally, there has been an average increase of 4 percent in annual precipitation from 1901 to 2016.”
“Rising temperatures across the United States have reduced total snowfall, lake ice, seasonal snow cover, sea ice, glaciers, and permafrost over the last few decades.”
“Climate change threatens forests by increasing tree mortality and forest ecosystem vulnerability due to fire, insect infestations, drought, disease outbreaks, and extreme weather events. Currently, tree mortality is increasing globally due in part to high temperatures and drought.”
“Recent global satellite and ground-based data have identified phenologyshifts, including earlier spring events such as breeding, budding, flowering, and migration, which have been observed in hundreds of plant and animal species.”
“Isotopic- and inventory‐based studies have indicated that the rise in the global CO2 concentration is largely a result of the release of carbon that has been stored underground through the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, and natural gas) used to produce electricity, heat buildings, and power motor vehicles and airplanes, among other uses.”
So, let me summarize – this report clearly states climate change is real, it’s ongoing, and it’s largely due to the combustion of fossil fuels.
More importantly, what about the future cumulative impacts of continuing burning fossil fuels the way we have been? Again, these are all direct quotes from the report.
“The cumulative impact on sea-level rise from the scenarios show sea-level rise in 2100 ranging from 70.22 centimeters (27.65 inches) under the No Action Alternative to 70.28 centimeters (27.67 inches) under Alternative 1.” (Note: the “No Action Alternative” is to keep the CAFE standards as they currently are. “Alternative 1” is the administration’s preferred alternative, which reduces these standards.)
“Under the No Action Alternative, assuming an emissions scenario that considers a moderate global effort to reduce GHG emissions, the cumulative global mean surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.216°C (2.189°F) by 2040, 1.810°C (3.260°F) by 2060, and 2.838°C (5.108°F) by 2100.”
“The band of estimated CO2 concentrations as of 2100 is narrow, ranging from 687.3 ppm under the No Action Alternative to 687.9 ppm under Alternative 1 and Alternative 2.” (Note: currently we are at 410 ppm CO2, the highest ever recorded).
“The frequency and magnitude of the heaviest precipitation events is projected to increase everywhere in the United States. Floods that are closely tied to heavy precipitation events, such as flash floods and urban floods, as well as coastal floods related to sea-level rise and the resulting increase in storm surge height and inland impacts, are expected to increase.”
“Dry spells are also projected to increase in length in most regions, especially in the southern and northwestern portions of the contiguous United States . . . analyses using higher emissions scenarios project with high confidence that the western United States will see chronic, long-duration hydrological droughts . . . A dramatic increase in the area burned by wildfire is projected in the contiguous United States through 2100, especially in the West. Tree species are predicted to shift their geographic distributions to track future climate change.”
“Both globally and in the United States, sea-level rise, storms and storm surges, and changes in surface water and groundwater use patterns are expected to compromise the sustainability of coastal freshwater aquifers and wetlands.”
“Rural livelihoods are less diverse than their urban counterparts are and are frequently dependent on natural resources that have unknown future availability such as agriculture, fishing, and forestry . . . Due to this lack of economic diversity, climate change will place disproportionate stresses on the stability of these rural communities . . . Tourism patterns could be affected by changes to the length and timing of seasons, temperature, precipitation, and severe weather events . . . Changes in the economic values of traditional recreation and tourism locations will affect rural communities because tourism makes up a significant portion of rural land use.”
“Climate change, particularly changes in temperatures, could change the range, abundance, and disease-carrying ability of disease vectors such as mosquitoes or ticks. This, in turn, could affect the prevalence and geographic distribution of diseases such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, plague, tularemia, malaria, dengue fever, chikungunya virus, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, and Zika virus in human populations.”
“Rising temperatures are reducing ice volume and surface extent on land, lakes, and sea, with this loss of ice expected to continue. The Arctic Ocean is expected to become essentially ice free in summer before mid-century under future scenarios that assume continued growth in global emissions, although sea ice would still form in winter.”
And, finally, what about irreversibility? “A large fraction of anthropogenic climate change resulting from CO2 emissions (e.g., global mean temperature increase, and a decrease in ocean pH) is irreversible on a multi-century to millennial time scale . . . Surface temperatures will remain approximately constant at elevated levels for many centuries after a complete cessation of net anthropogenic CO2 emissions.”
There’s lots more, but let’s leave it at that – please remember this is a report released in July by the current administration, so it can’t be framed as a liberal “hoax.”
I write about this now for two reasons. One, to try my best to help all of us, whatever our political beliefs, understand what is at stake, and to see that this is truly not a partisan issue. The climate cares not one iota what party you or I belong to, nor will our kids and grandkids care in 2050.
And two, to help us understand this is an issue for all humanity to come together around and to respond to with courage, friendships, and inventiveness against what appears to be overwhelming odds. To paraphrase one author, if climate change were an asteroid, alien invasion or Hitler type, we’d know exactly what to throw at it, which is everything we’ve got.
The new climate story we must begin to tell is one of overcoming the odds rather than giving in and “adapting,” because there isn’t any real adapting to this future climate scenario. The new story we need to live has to be about our courage to fight for what we believe in, which can be as simple as believing in giving as good a life to our children as we’ve been blessed with.
We need the power of alliances literally with everyone and every country – there’s no going this alone, and there’s no time for political rhetoric. We’ve got to be all-in with renewable energy – electric cars, solar panels, wind turbines, you name it, followed by an innovation explosion and a continuation of reduced energy use.
I’m 66, so I’ll see some of what is coming, but I won’t begin to see the worst of it. Down the road I want my kids to see me in their mind’s eye as someone who fought for them in an epic task. Someone who lived with grit and not by giving in. We need the greatest story of the 21stcentury to be how we solved climate change.
If you can’t bring yourself to believe this, then stop now and read the above EIS. I learned a long time ago that who the messenger is matters. As the report again and again and again shows, the administration knows exactly what the climate score is. Some people don’t want to face it because they believe it’s political, or they don’t like the solutions, or they believe that we’re not capable of fighting it. But we have to fight it. I don’t care what your political party is. It’s time to step up, all of us, Republicans/Democrats/Independents, and step big.
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