The impacts of global warming are already being felt. If we don’t act now, the climate crisis will become much worse, dramatically impacting people around the world and causing irreversible damage to the environment. Friends of the Earth believes we can and must solve this crisis and do so in an equitable and responsible way, but the path ahead is not easy. It will require bold leadership and a broad transformation of our society.
Friends of the Earth is working for aggressive legislation in the United States that quickly reduces -- and eventually ends -- our country's emissions of heat-trapping gasses. We are also participating in Friends of the Earth International's efforts to bring the international community together behind a strong global climate agreement, without which this problem cannot be solved.
Read the latest news and updates from our Global Warming campaign:
The last week’s deliberations on climate legislation in the House Energy and Commerce Committee 
did not leave environmental safeguards from biofuels unscathed. The bill containes severely compromised language on forest protections for the Renewable Fuels Standard’s biofuels mandate. While several amendments to further weaken forest protections were introduced, they fortunately failed to get enough votes in committee voting.
The biggest looming threat, however, is increasingly noisy calls to hold the climate bill hostage if the global warming protections in the Renewable Fuels Standard are not significantly weakened. While amendments to weaken this provison did not pass in committee, these global warmng provisions are still under attack by the powerful agricultural committee.
The nations of the world expect U.S. leadership this year in international climate negotiations, which will culminate in the Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark in December. The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES Act) begins to take steps to address key issues in the international negotiations, such as emissions reductions targets and support for international adaptation, clean technology and the protection of tropical forests. But in all these areas, the ACES Act fails to meet the necessary level of ambition from the United States to reach a strong and equitable global climate agreement.
On Wednesday, we released a joint statement with Greenpeace and Public Citizen to express our concern about disturbing changes to the new climate bill currently being discussed in Congress:
We are extremely troubled by the reports coming out of the Energy and Commerce Committee last night on additional compromises to the already flawed American Clean Energy & Security Act. The world needs real leadership from Congress and the Administration to address global warming — action that will enable us to transform our economy with clean, renewable energy technology, new green jobs and show leadership internationally. If reports are true, the compromises being struck on the bill undermine these goals.
As part of powerful coalition of international development agencies, faith-based groups, and environmental agencies, Friends of the Earth helped organize a series of events on April 30 – May 1, 2009 to highlight the impacts of climate change and how communities can and must adapt to these changes.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released draft rules for the Renewable Fuels Standard. Included in this life cycle emission accounting are the emissions from indirect land use change. The biofuels and agribusiness industry lobbied EPA intensely, asking that EPA ignore the law and not include these potent emissions in the life cycle calculations. But, thankfully, EPA did not cave to industry demands. However, EPA also included in the analysis a gimmick, which would allow biofuels that are bad for the climate to squeak through the reduction requirements by averaging the emissions from indirect land use change over the course of 100 years.
Gas flares are created when oil companies burn off extra gas that escapes as a result of oil drilling.
Gas flares burn several stories high throughout the Niger Delta, often within a few hundred yards of communities. Some flares, like the one pictured here, have been burning constantly day and night for over 30 years.
People living in villages near the flares suffer from polluted air and water, and contract asthma and cancer as a result of breathing flare smoke.
As congress currently debates federal climate and energy policy, one policy poses a potential threat to our nation's forests: The Renewable Electricity Standard. While the Renewable Electricity Standard is an important step forward as far as promoting renewable energy such as wind and solar, the inclusion of biomass energy is potentially devastating.
Friends of the Earth's Michelle Chan testified before the Ways and Means Committee on March 26 about the financial aspects of reducing carbon emissions. She emphasized that existing financial regulations, as well as those in major cap-and-trade bills, are inadequate to govern carbon trading, creating a potentially huge regulatory gap. We must rapidly reduce global warming pollution, but we must do so in a way that limits financial risks.
The biofuels lobby is again urging the EPA to ignore emissions from indirect land use change in EPA's accounting of global warming pollution from biofuels. EPA is due to release their calculations of what these emissions would be any day now. Over the past year, scientists and economists have warned that the emission figures from deforestation and habitat destruction that occur as a result of increased biofuel production are significant, potentially causing biofuels to emit twice as much global warming pollution as gasoline. It is critical that EPA follow the law and include these emissions in their analysis of global warming pollution from biofuels.
By increasing funding for efficient and affordable transportation options like public transit and high-speed passenger rail, President Obama’s budget proposal for the Department of Transportation would serve as a down payment on a more efficient, lower-carbon transportation system. We were pleased to see the Administration plans to continue this process with a commitment to work with Congress to fundamentally reform our nation’s transportation policy, which is both economically and environmentally unsustainable.
Image provided by GreaterGreaterWashington.org
