The United Nations conference on climate change went into overtime in Paris as the parties reached an historic accord. This week in CIB.

Climate Change Update: Agreement in Paris

The deal has been done in Paris on climate change. Negotiators worked past their original Friday end date to achieve a final settlement to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol.

The final accord, agreed to by the representatives of 195 nations (including the United States), is based on the overall goal of holding average global temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees Centigrade by 2100. The parties agreed on the need to move away from carbon-based fuels, and on a basic plan for doing so.

Initial analysis of the plans volunteered by participating nations predicts that if implemented they will achieve only about half of the emissions reductions necessary to achieve that goal. Therefore, the plan’s requirement for future monitoring and reporting, and negotiations for additional reductions every five years, will be a critical component for making the overall plan work.

Updated analysis from North Carolina-based Climate Post will be posted here as it is developed.

CIB expects to run more complete comment and analysis next week.

Washington Watch: Dirty Deals?

A furious debate is raging in Washington as the usual ally and adversarial coalitions have shifted and split on the linked questions of oil exports and renewable energy tax credits. Both subjects have become tied into the debate over ‘must-pass’ year-end government spending legislation.

At one point, the deadline for passage of such legislation was last Friday. However, in order to avoid the expiration of federal government spending authority, Congress on Friday passed a bill to extend that deadline through this Wednesday (December 16).

Among the issues delaying resolution of this omnibus year-end spending bill are dueling provisions regarding environmental and energy policies. Republican negotiators seek to undo Obama Administration rules protecting clean water and air and acting on climate change, and to lift the long-standing bar against the export of oil produced from U.S. wells. Democratic negotiators seek to protect environmental policies and to make permanent key tax credits for wind, solar, and other renewable energy projects.

Defending the clean air, clean water, and public health protection rules is straightforward. They are among the critical public interest protection policies cited as non-negotiable by a coalition of nearly 200 national and state environmental, health, consumer, labor, and other public interest protection groups.

A proposed deal to link lifting of the oil export ban with adoption of renewable energy tax credit provisions is more controversial. It has split up usual allies on both sides. Some fossil fuel industry supporters are pushing hard for the export authority, while the most ideologically anti-renewable forces won’t check off on anything that promotes clean energy development.

On the environmental side, 18 major environmental groups have co-signed a letter to Congress, emphasizing that “there is no conceivable ‘deal’ that would be sufficient for our organizations to withdraw our objections to lifting the crude export ban.” These groups include the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, and others. They reference both the climate impacts of increased oil burning, and the direct environmental impacts of more drilling in sensitive natural areas.

For LCV President Gene Karpinski’s analysis of the dangers, see here.

Some Congressional supporters of clean energy have been willing to use the oil export ban as a bargaining chip in the search for tools to block unacceptable pollution policy riders and gain long-term reinstatement of key clean energy tax credits. The clean energy production tax credit expired at the end of 2014, and the clean energy investment tax credit expires at the end of 2016. About a dozen other tax credits dealing with energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and biofuels have also expired.

The negotiations have been fluid, and developments are likely to outpace reporting deadlines here. As of Friday evening, the matters were unresolved.

Administrative Watch: Customers Only

We’re so relieved that our state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is maintaining its open door policy of consulting with our state’s “best environmental stewards.” We only wish that they saw fit to include citizen and community groups among that number.

Alas, DEQ’s “customer-friendly” attitude clearly continues to apply only to the “customers” holding or seeking permits for air and water pollution discharges – the “regulated community”. Their views on “how to improve environmental protection” are actively sought.

Those of us who just live downstream or downwind? Sorry, we’re not the “customers” who count with the “state environmental leaders” in DEQ.

Environomics: Business Leader Says NC Missing Out

A major corporate business leader from the Tar Heel state went to Paris for the international climate conference, and sent back a message to her fellow North Carolinians: We’re missing out on jobs and opportunity because we let our renewable energy tax credits lapse.

Letitia Webster, a top official with VF Corporation (based in Greensboro), had this to say about the NC General Assembly’s failure to extend the renewable energy tax credits this year: “I think we’ve shown already in North Carolina that when you provide the incentives – the investment tax credits for solar; when you have the renewable energy portfolio – it works. It provides green jobs. Money comes into North Carolina. Jobs are created in North Carolina. I don’t understand what the problem is. There is no problem. Renewable energy is fueling our economy. North Carolina is one of the best states in the country in renewables, but now we’re moving in the opposite direction.”

The good news is that this is a correctable error – if our state legislators will acknowledge and fix their mistake in 2016.

That’s our report for this week.