The Top 5: How to Fight Climate Change without Washington? An LCFS.

Happy Thursday friends! Here’s my weekly take on the five most interesting developments in future fuels and vehicles trends over the last week.

1. How to Fight Climate Change without Washington: The Boston Globe says by implementing an LCFS in Massachusetts and other northeast states.
2. The Stronger the LCFS, the Greater the Benefits: That’s the main finding of a report released this week commissioned by Ceres and other organizations and completed by ICF. The consultancy found that cap-and-trade and LCFS policies in California are complementary to one another, helping the state to meet its GHG and petroleum reduction goals economically and more effectively relative to cap-and-trade alone.
3. 18% of Pre-Term Births Linked to PM2.5: A new study, led by a team from The Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York, has found that in 2010, about 2.7 million preterm births globally—or 18% of all pre-term births—were associated with outdoor exposure to PM2.5.
4. Turbocharged Engines Aren’t All They’re Cracked Up To Be: An article in the Chicago Tribune this week references J.D. Power’s 2016 Vehicle Dependability Study, which is based on 2013 vehicle owner responses after three years of ownership. According to the study, turbocharged engines had nearly 30% more consumer complaints than nonturbos.
5. The Alliance Asks Pruitt to Withdraw the Final Determination on the Fuel Economy/GHG Standards: And my bet is that this is exactly what he’s going to do.

1. The Boston Globe: How to Fight Climate Change without Washington

Hint: It involves implementing an Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS) program in Massachusetts and the other northeast states that initially considered it several years ago. An editorial in the Globe this week advocated for a revival of a regional LCFS program that was on the table back in 2011 and faded away given the litigation that was ongoing in California over its LCFS at the time and the fact that states couldn’t agree on a common program. The editors say:

“The ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency probably spells an end to all federal leadership on climate change for the next four years. States have to pick up the slack, and reviving the program — known by the jargony term ‘low-carbon fuel standard’ — would be a good way to start.”

The paper put the “prospects of responsible policy-making on the federal level” at a zero. If the LCFS is coupled with tighter fuel efficiency standards, investments in public transit “so that fewer residents need to drive in the first place,” and a LCFS is implemented significant GHG reductions would occur. The paper advocated the following also:

• Link the LCFS to the California, Oregon, and British Columbia programs, so that credits can be traded among all four. “California and Oregon are in the process of harmonizing their programs. The more jurisdictions coordinate, the better.”

• Include heating oil. “Home heating oil, which is used primarily in the northeast and is essentially identical to diesel fuel, contributes to climate change. Although it may prove sensitive politically, including heating oil would allow the region to tackle a second source of emissions at the same time.”

• Coordinate a LCFS with a stepped-up effort to popularize electric cars.

• Create a fair, transparent, system for rating the carbon intensity of fuels.

Prior to the election of Donald Trump, I thought a national LCFS was not only a distinct possibility but even an inevitability to replace the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) program ― despite the rhetoric about preserving it. One reason is that aside from implementing a national ZEV standard, the only “landmark” or “legacy-creating” initiative Clinton could have undertaken in fuels and transport would be a national LCFS. We all know a national LCFS is absolutely not going to happen in a Trump Administration. But as part of the “resistance” and outright dismay that is quickly gaining steam on a range of issues in the U.S. beyond climate and energy, states (especially in the Northeast) that are looking to reduce GHGs are going to go their own way and this editorial is just one example. The same goes for cities. Whether the Northeast states pick the LCFS mantle back up and what the federal government does about it, if anything, is an issue to watch closely this year.

2. Ceres, et. al: Cap-and-Trade Cuts GHG Emissions More Economically With a Strong LCFS

“The stronger the LCFS, the greater the benefits.” That’s the main finding of a report released this week commissioned by Ceres and other organizations and completed by ICF. Read more about it here.

3. University of York: Study Links Outdoor Air Pollution with Millions of Preterm Births

A new study, led by a team from The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York, has found that in 2010, about 2.7 million preterm births globally—or 18% of all pre-term births—were associated with outdoor exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5).The open-access study is published in the journal Environment International.  For the first time, scientists have quantified the global impact by combining data about air pollution in different countries with knowledge about how exposure to different levels of air pollution is associated with preterm birth rates. The figure below shows the percentage of total preterm births that were associated with ambient PM2.5 in 2010 using a low concentration cut-off of a) 4.3 μg m−3, and b) 10 μg m−3.

The researchers combined national, population-weighted, annual average ambient PM2.5 concentration, preterm birth rate and number of livebirths to calculate the number of PM2.5-associated preterm births in 2010 for 183 countries. Uncertainty was quantified using Monte-Carlo simulations, and analyses were undertaken to investigate the sensitivity of PM2.5-associated preterm birth estimates to assumptions about the shape of the concentration-response function at low and high PM2.5 exposures, inclusion of provider-initiated preterm births, and exposure to indoor air pollution.

When a baby is born preterm (at less than 37 weeks of gestation), there is an increased risk of death or long-term physical and neurological disabilities. In 2010, an estimated 14.9 million births were preterm—about 4–5% of the total in some European countries, but up to 15–18% in some African and South Asian countries. The study revealed that while many other health impacts of air pollution have been documented—most notably through the Global Burden of Disease studies—the focus has been mainly on premature deaths from heart disease and respiratory problems.

A pregnant woman’s exposure can vary greatly depending on where she lives—in a city in China or India, for instance, she might inhale more than 10 times as much pollution as she would in rural England or France. The study did not quantify the risk in specific locations, but rather used the average ambient PM2.5 level in each country, and analyzed the results by region. India alone accounted for about 1 million of the total 2.7 million global estimate, and China for about another 500,000. Western sub-Saharan Africa and the North Africa/Middle East region also had particularly high numbers, with exposures in these regions having a large contribution from desert dust.

SEI is working to support more than 20 developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America to develop plans to reduce emissions leading to particulate air pollution. Transport, especially diesel, is a key target. One of the researchers said:

“To reduce the PM2.5 problem, you need to control many different sources, but in many developing countries, certain emission sources dominate. This includes emissions from cooking with biomass fuels (which is also associated with very harmful indoor pollution), diesel vehicles and other transport, and particles emitted when agricultural residues are burned in fields. Forest fires also contribute to ‘regional haze’.”

4. Chicago Tribune: Turbocharged Engines Don’t Always Improve Fuel Economy

Turbocharged engines aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, according to an article that appeared this week in the Chicago Tribune. Read more about it here.

5. GreenCar Congress: Auto Alliance Urges EPA to withdraw premature Final Determination on Light-Duty GHG Regulations, Resume Midterm Evaluation Process with NHTSA

GreenCar Congress reports that the Auto Alliance sent a letter to new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt requesting that EPA withdraw the Final Determination on the Appropriateness of the Model Year 2022-2025 Light-Duty Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards under the Midterm Evaluation which EPA announced on January 13, 2017. Key nuggets from the letter include the following:

• The Alliance argues that by rushing to issue the Final Determination (which maintains the current GHG standards as defined through 2025) in January 2017, EPA abrogated its commitment to a robust Midterm Evaluation of the standards in coordination with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which is conducting its own midterm review of the fuel economy standards through 2025. “EPA issued the Proposed Determination without coordinating with NHTSA. EPA demanded comments by December 30, 2016, even though the Proposed Determination was not published in the Federal Register until December 6. The public and industry had a mere 24 days, spanning a major national holiday, to comment on nearly 1,000 pages of documents, plus additional cited documents and computer modeling, regarding requirements that will profoundly affect the automobile industry and the more than 900,000 American workers it directly employs.”
• “EPA has ample authority to withdraw the Final Determination on its own initiative, irrespective of whether EPA considers it a rule or an adjudication. If the Final Determination is a rule, it is clearly a nonfinal one, because it has not been published in the Federal Register.”
• “The Alliance is not asking EPA to make a different Final Determination at this time. All we are asking is that EPA withdraw the Final Determination and resume the Midterm Evaluation, in conjunction with NHTSA, consistent with the timetable embodied in EPA’s own regulations. We believe that, if carried out as intended, the Midterm Evaluation can lead to an outcome that makes sense for all affected stakeholders and for society as a whole.”

It remains to be seen what Administrator Pruitt will actually do, but my bet is that he will indeed withdraw the Final Determination and resume the review.

Honorable mentions this week:

Presentations from the recent ICAO seminar on alternative fuels event are now available; IEA and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have released its “How2Guide for Bioenergy Roadmap Development and Implementation,” Reuters reports that Stuttgart is banning diesel cars that do not meet emission standards from its city center and Singapore plans to introduce a carbon tax in 2019 and has restructured its diesel duty to discourage consumption, the Straits Times reports.