[GWSG] 7,400 mayors pledge to Paris; Perry & the folly of baseload; 3 years warning letter; coal CCS plans abandoned

[Tilley, Al]

1.  In a global covenant of mayors, the leaders of more than 7,400 cities vowed to follow the pledges Barack Obama made two years ago. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/28/global-covenant-mayors-cities-vow-to-meet-obama-climate-commitments



2.  Energy Secretary Rick Perry's claim that renewable energy renders the power grid unreliable is not supported by experience, here or elsewhere, and is best viewed as a propaganda tool of the fossil fuel industry.  https://thinkprogress.org/rick-perry-raises-fears-about-grid-reliability-810357fb7d6b  "Base load" seems to be a term meant to support coal, nuclear, and natural gas interests.  The reliability of the grid depends instead on the variety of power sources, on redundancy, and on power management.  http://reneweconomy.com.au/baseload-an-outdated-term-that-should-not-be-confused-with-reliability-34961/



3.  Christiana Figueres, Stefan Rahmstorf, Michael Mann, Governor Jerry Brown, Michael Oppenheimer, and 66 other leaders have published a letter in Nature warning that we have three years to act if we are to have a reasonable chance to avoid runaway global heating.  (Heating can initiate positive feedbacks such as methane release in the Arctic which will defeat any human attempt at moderation.)  They suggest goals including 30% electricity from renewable energy by 2020, decarbonization by 2050, 15% electric vehicles by 2020, and reforms to land use, agriculture, heavy industry, and finance.  The group takes heart at the flat emissions of the past three years and calculates that we must begin decreasing emissions by 2020.  Though decreases could in theory come somewhat later and still allow the possibility of remaining under 2C of warming, that becomes greatly more difficult.  The letter hopes to motivate action at the coming G20 meeting.     https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/28/world-has-three-years-left-to-stop-dangerous-climate-change-warn-experts  The letter itself supplies how it has calculated its action schedule and a list of signers.  http://www.nature.com/news/three-years-to-safeguard-our-climate-1.22201



4.  The Southern Company has suspended work on the Kemper coal plant in Mississippi meant to demonstrate the feasibility of capturing and sequestering CO2.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/06/28/this-isnt-the-clean-coal-news-trump-wanted-during-energy-week/?utm_term=.de155ef49da9  ?

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