California Has the Country’s Most Ambitious Climate Goals. Will They Go Up in Smoke?

The case for saving trees.

Deforestation caused by wildfires, development, and agriculture could be a major source of carbon emissions in California. Mark Rightmire/ZUMA

Last week California Gov. Jerry Brown made headlines when he announced that his state would pursue the most aggressive greenhouse gas emissions cuts in the nation. The new goal—to reduce emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030—is an interim step meant to help achieve a final goal set by Brown’s predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, of an 80 percent reduction by 2050.

Exact details on how the new target will be achieved haven’t yet been released, but it will likely include a combination of new clean energy mandates and pollution reduction rules for power companies, as well as incentives for electric vehicles. That’s a good place to start: Transportation and the energy sector are the two biggest portions of the state’s carbon footprint, accounting for roughly 36 percent and 21 percent of emissions, respectively. Those sectors are also the two biggest in the nationwide carbon footprint, which is why President Barack Obama’s climate rules have likewise focused on cars and power plants.

But there’s another slice of the carbon pie that gets very little airtime, and on which California and the US as a whole fare very differently: Land use. Trees and soil store a lot of carbon, and any time they get destroyed (logged for timber, burned in a fire, plowed for agriculture, paved over for urban development), there are associated carbon emissions. On the national level, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, land use is actually a carbon sink, meaning that the carbon stored by forests and other vegetation outweighs emissions from messing with them. It’s no small piece; land use offsets up to 13 percent of the total US carbon footprint, according to the EPA (through policies such as minimizing soil erosion and limiting the conversion of forests into cropland).

New research indicates the trend may be very different in California, contrary to conventional wisdom in the state. Since the passage of the state’s first global warming legislation, A.B. 32 in 2006, California’s carbon targets have been set with the assumption that there would be no net increase in land use emissions. The greenhouse gas inventory published by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the state’s air pollution regulatory agency, makes no mention of forestry or land use emissions. But a peer-reviewed study commissioned by CARB and published last month by the National Park Service’s top climate change scientist, Patrick Gonzalez, in conjunction with UC-Berkeley, found that over the last decade land use in California has been a source, not a sink, of carbon emissions.

Gonzalez’s research aggregated, for the first time, a vast collection of satellite data and on-the-ground measurements to estimate how much carbon is stored in vegetation in the state. It’s a pretty staggering amount: The state’s 26 national parks store the rough equivalent of the average annual carbon emissions of 7 million Americans. But even more revealing was how that number has shrunk over the last decade, as wildfires, development, and agriculture chip away at forests and other “natural” landscapes. Every year, the disappearance of these carbon stocks emits about as much carbon dioxide as the city of Dallas, says Gonzalez—that’s roughly 5 to 7 percent of California’s total carbon footprint.

In other words, Gonzalez says, if California wants to meet its climate targets, the state has a hole that needs to be filled with better land management. Unfortunately, climate change itself is likely to make this situation even worse. Two-thirds of the land use emissions Gonzalez identified was the result of wildfires, meaning that better managing fires—and thereby keeping carbon locked away inside forests—is a key step for reducing the state’s overall emissions. Climate change makes wildfires worse by increasing the severity and frequency of droughts, and as the state’s unprecedented drought enters its fifth year, experts say the wildfire season there is already shaping up to be a “disaster.”

Overall, deforestation needs to take on a much more prominent role in the state-wide climate conversation, says Louis Blumberg, director of the Nature Conservancy’s climate program in California. “There’s no way to meet the ambitious targets without dealing with deforestation,” he says.

A spokesperson for CARB said that the agency is still skeptical that land use is as much of a problem as the Gonzalez study indicates, and that the study likely underestimates the amount of carbon still stored in forests due to uncertainties in the satellite data. Meanwhile, bureaucratic complications have so far precluded CARB from including forests in its carbon accounting (most of the forests are managed by federal, rather than state, agencies). Still, state officials appear to be increasingly aware of the significance of land use in its climate planning. In his inaugural address in January, Gov. Brown discussed the need to “manage farm and rangelands, forests and wetlands so they can store carbon.” Both the Nature Conservancy and National Park Service are now working with state regulators to track the climate impact of deforestation and to develop policies to keep more carbon safely stored away in trees.

Deforestation “is a new part of the puzzle,” Blumberg said. “But it’s essential.”

This post has been updated.

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/1Qiuerl

The case for saving trees.

Deforestation caused by wildfires, development, and agriculture could be a major source of carbon emissions in California. Mark Rightmire/ZUMA

Last week California Gov. Jerry Brown made headlines when he announced that his state would pursue the most aggressive greenhouse gas emissions cuts in the nation. The new goal—to reduce emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030—is an interim step meant to help achieve a final goal set by Brown’s predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, of an 80 percent reduction by 2050.

Exact details on how the new target will be achieved haven’t yet been released, but it will likely include a combination of new clean energy mandates and pollution reduction rules for power companies, as well as incentives for electric vehicles. That’s a good place to start: Transportation and the energy sector are the two biggest portions of the state’s carbon footprint, accounting for roughly 36 percent and 21 percent of emissions, respectively. Those sectors are also the two biggest in the nationwide carbon footprint, which is why President Barack Obama’s climate rules have likewise focused on cars and power plants.

But there’s another slice of the carbon pie that gets very little airtime, and on which California and the US as a whole fare very differently: Land use. Trees and soil store a lot of carbon, and any time they get destroyed (logged for timber, burned in a fire, plowed for agriculture, paved over for urban development), there are associated carbon emissions. On the national level, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, land use is actually a carbon sink, meaning that the carbon stored by forests and other vegetation outweighs emissions from messing with them. It’s no small piece; land use offsets up to 13 percent of the total US carbon footprint, according to the EPA (through policies such as minimizing soil erosion and limiting the conversion of forests into cropland).

New research indicates the trend may be very different in California, contrary to conventional wisdom in the state. Since the passage of the state’s first global warming legislation, A.B. 32 in 2006, California’s carbon targets have been set with the assumption that there would be no net increase in land use emissions. The greenhouse gas inventory published by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the state’s air pollution regulatory agency, makes no mention of forestry or land use emissions. But a peer-reviewed study commissioned by CARB and published last month by the National Park Service’s top climate change scientist, Patrick Gonzalez, in conjunction with UC-Berkeley, found that over the last decade land use in California has been a source, not a sink, of carbon emissions.

Gonzalez’s research aggregated, for the first time, a vast collection of satellite data and on-the-ground measurements to estimate how much carbon is stored in vegetation in the state. It’s a pretty staggering amount: The state’s 26 national parks store the rough equivalent of the average annual carbon emissions of 7 million Americans. But even more revealing was how that number has shrunk over the last decade, as wildfires, development, and agriculture chip away at forests and other “natural” landscapes. Every year, the disappearance of these carbon stocks emits about as much carbon dioxide as the city of Dallas, says Gonzalez—that’s roughly 5 to 7 percent of California’s total carbon footprint.

In other words, Gonzalez says, if California wants to meet its climate targets, the state has a hole that needs to be filled with better land management. Unfortunately, climate change itself is likely to make this situation even worse. Two-thirds of the land use emissions Gonzalez identified was the result of wildfires, meaning that better managing fires—and thereby keeping carbon locked away inside forests—is a key step for reducing the state’s overall emissions. Climate change makes wildfires worse by increasing the severity and frequency of droughts, and as the state’s unprecedented drought enters its fifth year, experts say the wildfire season there is already shaping up to be a “disaster.”

Overall, deforestation needs to take on a much more prominent role in the state-wide climate conversation, says Louis Blumberg, director of the Nature Conservancy’s climate program in California. “There’s no way to meet the ambitious targets without dealing with deforestation,” he says.

A spokesperson for CARB said that the agency is still skeptical that land use is as much of a problem as the Gonzalez study indicates, and that the study likely underestimates the amount of carbon still stored in forests due to uncertainties in the satellite data. Meanwhile, bureaucratic complications have so far precluded CARB from including forests in its carbon accounting (most of the forests are managed by federal, rather than state, agencies). Still, state officials appear to be increasingly aware of the significance of land use in its climate planning. In his inaugural address in January, Gov. Brown discussed the need to “manage farm and rangelands, forests and wetlands so they can store carbon.” Both the Nature Conservancy and National Park Service are now working with state regulators to track the climate impact of deforestation and to develop policies to keep more carbon safely stored away in trees.

Deforestation “is a new part of the puzzle,” Blumberg said. “But it’s essential.”

This post has been updated.

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/1Qiuerl

We’re in the Process of Decimating 1 in 6 Species on Earth

The extinction rate is rising rapidly, a new study finds. And climate change is to blame.

A wood frog lays eggs on a pond surface. Many frogs like this are breeding earlier in the spring because of climate change. Mark Urban

Plants and animals around the world are already suffering from the negative impacts of manmade global warming—including shrinking habitats and the spread of disease. A great number are also facing the ultimate demise—outright extinction—among them the iconic polar bear, some fish species, coral, trees… the list goes on.

While most of the research on this topic so far has been piecemeal, one species at a time, a new study out today in Science offers the most comprehensive view to date of the future of extinction. The outlook is pretty grim.

The research, conducted by evolutionary biologist Mark Urban of the University of Connecticut, analyzes 131 other scientific papers for clues about how climate change is affecting the overall rate of species extinction. The result is alarming: One out of every six species could face extinction if global warming continues on its current path. The picture is less dire if we manage to curb climate change, dropping to only 5.2 percent of species if warming is kept within the internationally-agreed upon target of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The analysis makes clear that the climate change threat isn’t necessarily a separate issue from things like habitat loss and disease; indeed, it’s often climate change that is the driving force behind those impacts. The risk appears to be spread evenly across all types of plants and animals (i.e., trees, amphibians, mammals, etc.), but is more severe in geographic ares where there are more unique species and exposure to climate impacts.

South America takes the lead, with up to 23 percent of its species threatened. One classic case study there is the golden toad, a native of mountaintop rain forests that was last seen in 1989. The toad was driven to extinction in part due to an epidemic of chytrid fungus (which is wiping out amphibians worldwide), and because climate change-related drought is destroying the forests they called home. Australia and New Zealand also ranked highly at risk, with up to 14 percent:

Urban, Science 2015

Urban’s paper offers perhaps the most comprehensive scientific companion to a terrifying narrative made popular last year in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Sixth Extinction,” by Elizabeth Kolbert. The New Yorker journalist argued that when you look at the combined toll that pollution, habitat destruction, and climate change is taking on the planet’s biodiversity, humans are driving extinction on a scale only preceded in the geologic record by cataclysmic natural disasters (like the meteor that likely brought about the demise of the dinosaurs). Never before has one species been responsible for the demise of so many others. (Check out our interview with Kolbert here).

Still, Urban’s study makes clear that many species that avoid extinction still face grave threats from climate change:

“Extinction risks are likely much smaller than the total number of species influenced by climate change,” Urban writes. “Even species not threatened directly by extinction could experience substantial changes in abundances, distributions, and species interactions, which in turn could affect ecosystems and their services to humans.”

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/1IdwU8a

The extinction rate is rising rapidly, a new study finds. And climate change is to blame.

A wood frog lays eggs on a pond surface. Many frogs like this are breeding earlier in the spring because of climate change. Mark Urban

Plants and animals around the world are already suffering from the negative impacts of manmade global warming—including shrinking habitats and the spread of disease. A great number are also facing the ultimate demise—outright extinction—among them the iconic polar bear, some fish species, coral, trees… the list goes on.

While most of the research on this topic so far has been piecemeal, one species at a time, a new study out today in Science offers the most comprehensive view to date of the future of extinction. The outlook is pretty grim.

The research, conducted by evolutionary biologist Mark Urban of the University of Connecticut, analyzes 131 other scientific papers for clues about how climate change is affecting the overall rate of species extinction. The result is alarming: One out of every six species could face extinction if global warming continues on its current path. The picture is less dire if we manage to curb climate change, dropping to only 5.2 percent of species if warming is kept within the internationally-agreed upon target of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The analysis makes clear that the climate change threat isn’t necessarily a separate issue from things like habitat loss and disease; indeed, it’s often climate change that is the driving force behind those impacts. The risk appears to be spread evenly across all types of plants and animals (i.e., trees, amphibians, mammals, etc.), but is more severe in geographic ares where there are more unique species and exposure to climate impacts.

South America takes the lead, with up to 23 percent of its species threatened. One classic case study there is the golden toad, a native of mountaintop rain forests that was last seen in 1989. The toad was driven to extinction in part due to an epidemic of chytrid fungus (which is wiping out amphibians worldwide), and because climate change-related drought is destroying the forests they called home. Australia and New Zealand also ranked highly at risk, with up to 14 percent:

Urban, Science 2015

Urban’s paper offers perhaps the most comprehensive scientific companion to a terrifying narrative made popular last year in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Sixth Extinction,” by Elizabeth Kolbert. The New Yorker journalist argued that when you look at the combined toll that pollution, habitat destruction, and climate change is taking on the planet’s biodiversity, humans are driving extinction on a scale only preceded in the geologic record by cataclysmic natural disasters (like the meteor that likely brought about the demise of the dinosaurs). Never before has one species been responsible for the demise of so many others. (Check out our interview with Kolbert here).

Still, Urban’s study makes clear that many species that avoid extinction still face grave threats from climate change:

“Extinction risks are likely much smaller than the total number of species influenced by climate change,” Urban writes. “Even species not threatened directly by extinction could experience substantial changes in abundances, distributions, and species interactions, which in turn could affect ecosystems and their services to humans.”

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/1IdwU8a

California’s Fire Season Is Shaping Up to Be a “Disaster”

It’s already looking bad, and it’s going to get worse.

Firefighters battled a pair of brush fires in Granada Hills, Calif., on Monday. David Crane/AP

On Monday, 200 firefighters evacuated an upscale residential neighborhood in Los Angeles as they responded to a wildfire that had just broken out in the nearby hills. Ninety minutes later, the fire was out, with no damage done. But if that battle was a relatively easy win, it belied a much more difficult war ahead for a state devastated by drought.

California is in the midst of one of its worst droughts on record, so bad that earlier this month Gov. Jerry Brown took the unprecedented step of ordering mandatory water restrictions. Snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is currently the lowest on record for this time of year. And the outlook for the rest of the year is bleak: The latest federal projections suggest the drought could get even worse this summer across the entire state (as well as many of its neighbors):

NOAA

That’s a very bad sign for California’s wildfire season. After several years of super-dry conditions, the state is literally a tinderbox. “The outlook in California is pretty dire,” said Wally Covington, a leading fire ecologist at Northern Arizona University. “It’s pretty much a recipe for disaster.”

To date this year, the overall national tally of wildfires has actually been below average: 14,213 fires across 309,369 acres, compared to the 10-year average of 20,166 fires across 691,776 acres, according to federal data. After a peak in 2006, early year wildfire activity in the last few years has been somewhat stable:

But in California, the trend looks very different. The tally of fires so far this year is 967—that’s 38 percent higher than the average for this date since 2005. The number of acres burned is up to 4,083, nearly double the count at this time last year and 81 percent above the average since 2005:

And here again, the outlook for the rest of the summer is grim. Just look at the overlap between the map above and the map below, which shows that most of California is at above-average risk for fires this summer:

NIFC

This is all costing California taxpayers a lot of money. According to Climate Central, California typically spends more money fighting wildfires than the other 10 Western states combined, totaling roughly $4 billion over the last decade. That’s partly due to the state’s size and vulnerability to big wildfires, and also to the close proximity of high-value urban development to easily ignited forests and grasslands. (Wildfires in the Alaskan wilderness, by comparison, can grow much bigger but cost much less, because without homes or towns nearby, they’re often allowed to simply burn out.)

California burned through its $209 million firefighting budget in just a few months of this fiscal year; back in September, Brown had to pull an additional $70 million from a state emergency fund. A spokesperson for the state’s department of finance said the wildfire budget has since been increased to $423 million. (Running way over budget on wildfires isn’t unique to California; the federal government routinely underestimates how much wildfires will cost and ends up having to fight fires with funds that are meant to be spent preventing them.)

Scientists have long predicted that an increase in both the frequency and severity of wildfires is a likely outcome of global warming. The Obama administration’s National Climate Assessment last year cited wildfires as one of the key threats posed to the United States by climate change. Longer periods of drought mean wildfire “fuels” like grass and trees will be drier and easier to burn; at the same time, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means these same fuels will accumulate more quickly. And there’s a feedback loop at play: Deforestation caused by wildfires contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, meaning that the increasing threat of wildfires will make climate change worse.

When it comes to wildfires, Covington said, “with increased climate change, there’s a train wreck coming our way.”

For a more detailed explanation of the link between climate change and wildfires, watch the original Climate Desk video below:

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/1QiqGoN

It’s already looking bad, and it’s going to get worse.

Firefighters battled a pair of brush fires in Granada Hills, Calif., on Monday. David Crane/AP

On Monday, 200 firefighters evacuated an upscale residential neighborhood in Los Angeles as they responded to a wildfire that had just broken out in the nearby hills. Ninety minutes later, the fire was out, with no damage done. But if that battle was a relatively easy win, it belied a much more difficult war ahead for a state devastated by drought.

California is in the midst of one of its worst droughts on record, so bad that earlier this month Gov. Jerry Brown took the unprecedented step of ordering mandatory water restrictions. Snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is currently the lowest on record for this time of year. And the outlook for the rest of the year is bleak: The latest federal projections suggest the drought could get even worse this summer across the entire state (as well as many of its neighbors):

NOAA

That’s a very bad sign for California’s wildfire season. After several years of super-dry conditions, the state is literally a tinderbox. “The outlook in California is pretty dire,” said Wally Covington, a leading fire ecologist at Northern Arizona University. “It’s pretty much a recipe for disaster.”

To date this year, the overall national tally of wildfires has actually been below average: 14,213 fires across 309,369 acres, compared to the 10-year average of 20,166 fires across 691,776 acres, according to federal data. After a peak in 2006, early year wildfire activity in the last few years has been somewhat stable:

But in California, the trend looks very different. The tally of fires so far this year is 967—that’s 38 percent higher than the average for this date since 2005. The number of acres burned is up to 4,083, nearly double the count at this time last year and 81 percent above the average since 2005:

And here again, the outlook for the rest of the summer is grim. Just look at the overlap between the map above and the map below, which shows that most of California is at above-average risk for fires this summer:

NIFC

This is all costing California taxpayers a lot of money. According to Climate Central, California typically spends more money fighting wildfires than the other 10 Western states combined, totaling roughly $4 billion over the last decade. That’s partly due to the state’s size and vulnerability to big wildfires, and also to the close proximity of high-value urban development to easily ignited forests and grasslands. (Wildfires in the Alaskan wilderness, by comparison, can grow much bigger but cost much less, because without homes or towns nearby, they’re often allowed to simply burn out.)

California burned through its $209 million firefighting budget in just a few months of this fiscal year; back in September, Brown had to pull an additional $70 million from a state emergency fund. A spokesperson for the state’s department of finance said the wildfire budget has since been increased to $423 million. (Running way over budget on wildfires isn’t unique to California; the federal government routinely underestimates how much wildfires will cost and ends up having to fight fires with funds that are meant to be spent preventing them.)

Scientists have long predicted that an increase in both the frequency and severity of wildfires is a likely outcome of global warming. The Obama administration’s National Climate Assessment last year cited wildfires as one of the key threats posed to the United States by climate change. Longer periods of drought mean wildfire “fuels” like grass and trees will be drier and easier to burn; at the same time, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means these same fuels will accumulate more quickly. And there’s a feedback loop at play: Deforestation caused by wildfires contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, meaning that the increasing threat of wildfires will make climate change worse.

When it comes to wildfires, Covington said, “with increased climate change, there’s a train wreck coming our way.”

For a more detailed explanation of the link between climate change and wildfires, watch the original Climate Desk video below:

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/1QiqGoN

How the Fukushima Disaster Crippled Japan’s Climate Plans

Japan’s climate strategy is broken. Can President Obama help fix it?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2013. Japan Pool/ZUMA

Japan used to have a pretty good reputation on climate change. Thanks to its robust industrial economy, it has the fourth-largest carbon footprint in the G20 nations. But it gets a sizable chunk of its power from zero-carbon sources like hydro dams and, at least until the 2011 disaster at Fukushima, nuclear plants. And in 2009, the country agreed, along with the other G8 nations, to reduce its carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050.

Back in 1992, Japan played host to the negotiations that led to the Kyoto Protocol, the first time a group of countries agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Even though the United States never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, it was a groundbreaking agreement. But today, in the context of a decade and a half of additional scientific research, policy advances, and public pressure, it’s woefully insufficient to ward off the worst effects of climate change. That’s why the international community is planning to craft a new agreement to replace it in Paris later this year. And this time around, Japan isn’t looking so hot.

Today, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in Washington to address Congress about his plan to expand his country’s military operations in Asia. He’ll also meet privately with President Barack Obama. According to the White House, climate change is on the agenda. It seems likely that the two leaders will discuss what Japan plans to bring to the table in Paris: Last week deputy national security adviser Caroline Atkinson told reporters that one of the main goals of the meeting is “to help build momentum towards a successful and ambitious climate agreement.” The United States met a United Nations deadline at the end of March to announce its carbon contribution—that is, how much it will be willing to cut its carbon footprint—in preparation for the Paris talks. But a month after the deadline, Japan has yet to make an official announcement (some disappointing clues have leaked out; more on that in a minute).

In fact, recently Japan has found itself at the center of several unflattering climate stories. Last year, the country pledged $1.5 billion to a UN-controlled fund that aims to help poor nations adapt to climate change. But a couple of months later, the Associated Press revealed that a separate pot of money Japan designated as “climate finance” actually contained $1 billion in investments in coal-fired power plants overseas. In March, the AP uncovered another half billion dollars of coal investments that Japan had labeled as climate finance. The Japanese government maintained that the funds were in fact climate-friendly, because even though coal is indisputably the greatest source of carbon emissions, these funds went toward cutting-edge coal technology that is cleaner than what might have been built otherwise.
Japan’s coal spree is also playing out inside its own borders. The country has 43 coal-fired power plants either planned or under construction, according to Bloomberg News. If built, those plants would have a combined carbon footprint equal to 10 percent of Japan’s current total emissions, and equal to 50 percent of the total emissions it aims to have in 2050. Even now, the country’s coal consumption is on the rise, and its emissions in 2013, the year for which the most recent data is available, were the second highest on record.

“Japan appears to be backsliding at the moment,” said Taylor Dimsdale, head of research at the sustainability nonprofit E3G, in a call with reporters yesterday. “There’s a risk for Japan that it’s leaving itself marginalized in an issue [climate change] that’s increasingly an international policy priority.”

Which brings us back to the Paris talks. Over the past couple weeks, unnamed government officials have leaked various figures for Japan’s carbon reduction target to the Japanese media. They aren’t looking very ambitious, and the reaction from analysts has been roundly critical. The most recent leak, reported Friday by the Asahi Shimbun, a leading national daily newspaper, said the stated goal is going to be a 25 percent reduction from 2013 levels by 2030. That’s weak compared to the US goal of 28 percent by 2025 and the EU goal of 35 percent by 2030. (Even the US and EU targets are probably insufficient to keep global warming below the internationally agreed-upon threshold of 2 degrees Celsius.) What’s more, the 25 percent emissions cuts being floated would set up Japan to miss its preexisting 2050 emissions target, said Naoyuki Yamagishi, head of the climate division at World Wildlife Fund Japan. Meanwhile, the country’s most recent energy strategy, which is a key part of how these carbon targets are reached, envisions a future with increased dependence on coal and with no designated targets for renewable energy.

What the heck went wrong? In a word: Fukushima.

In the aftermath of that disaster—in which an earthquake caused a tsunami that flooded the plant and led to meltdowns in half of its nuclear reactors—Japan decided to indefinitely shutter all of its nuclear power plants. The last one closed in September 2013, completely eliminating an energy source that had once provided nearly a third of the country’s power. That hole has since been filled by coal, oil, and natural gas, which goes a long way toward explaining Japan’s poor performance on emissions in recent years.

It may also explain why the government has been reluctant to set more aggressive targets for Paris: Heavy-duty emission cuts aren’t possible without nuclear power, and although Prime Minister Abe is pushing to reopen some of the closed plants, nuclear power remains deeply unpopular with the Japanese people. Moreover, the increase in fossil fuel use has made Japan more dependent on imports (it has no fossil fuel resources of its own), which, in combination with a weak yen, has driven up electricity prices. And rising energy prices, Yamagishi said, have eroded support for renewable energy incentives that could cost ratepayers even more.

Overall, since Fukushima, political will to address climate change has evaporated, Yamagishi said. Even among the general public, what was once a popular issue now barely makes the news in Japan.

“After Fukushima, everyone’s attention shifted away from climate change,” he said. “That’s why we’re having a hard time pushing on this issue.”

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/1QiqHck

Japan’s climate strategy is broken. Can President Obama help fix it?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2013. Japan Pool/ZUMA

Japan used to have a pretty good reputation on climate change. Thanks to its robust industrial economy, it has the fourth-largest carbon footprint in the G20 nations. But it gets a sizable chunk of its power from zero-carbon sources like hydro dams and, at least until the 2011 disaster at Fukushima, nuclear plants. And in 2009, the country agreed, along with the other G8 nations, to reduce its carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050.

Back in 1992, Japan played host to the negotiations that led to the Kyoto Protocol, the first time a group of countries agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Even though the United States never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, it was a groundbreaking agreement. But today, in the context of a decade and a half of additional scientific research, policy advances, and public pressure, it’s woefully insufficient to ward off the worst effects of climate change. That’s why the international community is planning to craft a new agreement to replace it in Paris later this year. And this time around, Japan isn’t looking so hot.

Today, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in Washington to address Congress about his plan to expand his country’s military operations in Asia. He’ll also meet privately with President Barack Obama. According to the White House, climate change is on the agenda. It seems likely that the two leaders will discuss what Japan plans to bring to the table in Paris: Last week deputy national security adviser Caroline Atkinson told reporters that one of the main goals of the meeting is “to help build momentum towards a successful and ambitious climate agreement.” The United States met a United Nations deadline at the end of March to announce its carbon contribution—that is, how much it will be willing to cut its carbon footprint—in preparation for the Paris talks. But a month after the deadline, Japan has yet to make an official announcement (some disappointing clues have leaked out; more on that in a minute).

In fact, recently Japan has found itself at the center of several unflattering climate stories. Last year, the country pledged $1.5 billion to a UN-controlled fund that aims to help poor nations adapt to climate change. But a couple of months later, the Associated Press revealed that a separate pot of money Japan designated as “climate finance” actually contained $1 billion in investments in coal-fired power plants overseas. In March, the AP uncovered another half billion dollars of coal investments that Japan had labeled as climate finance. The Japanese government maintained that the funds were in fact climate-friendly, because even though coal is indisputably the greatest source of carbon emissions, these funds went toward cutting-edge coal technology that is cleaner than what might have been built otherwise.
Japan’s coal spree is also playing out inside its own borders. The country has 43 coal-fired power plants either planned or under construction, according to Bloomberg News. If built, those plants would have a combined carbon footprint equal to 10 percent of Japan’s current total emissions, and equal to 50 percent of the total emissions it aims to have in 2050. Even now, the country’s coal consumption is on the rise, and its emissions in 2013, the year for which the most recent data is available, were the second highest on record.

“Japan appears to be backsliding at the moment,” said Taylor Dimsdale, head of research at the sustainability nonprofit E3G, in a call with reporters yesterday. “There’s a risk for Japan that it’s leaving itself marginalized in an issue [climate change] that’s increasingly an international policy priority.”

Which brings us back to the Paris talks. Over the past couple weeks, unnamed government officials have leaked various figures for Japan’s carbon reduction target to the Japanese media. They aren’t looking very ambitious, and the reaction from analysts has been roundly critical. The most recent leak, reported Friday by the Asahi Shimbun, a leading national daily newspaper, said the stated goal is going to be a 25 percent reduction from 2013 levels by 2030. That’s weak compared to the US goal of 28 percent by 2025 and the EU goal of 35 percent by 2030. (Even the US and EU targets are probably insufficient to keep global warming below the internationally agreed-upon threshold of 2 degrees Celsius.) What’s more, the 25 percent emissions cuts being floated would set up Japan to miss its preexisting 2050 emissions target, said Naoyuki Yamagishi, head of the climate division at World Wildlife Fund Japan. Meanwhile, the country’s most recent energy strategy, which is a key part of how these carbon targets are reached, envisions a future with increased dependence on coal and with no designated targets for renewable energy.

What the heck went wrong? In a word: Fukushima.

In the aftermath of that disaster—in which an earthquake caused a tsunami that flooded the plant and led to meltdowns in half of its nuclear reactors—Japan decided to indefinitely shutter all of its nuclear power plants. The last one closed in September 2013, completely eliminating an energy source that had once provided nearly a third of the country’s power. That hole has since been filled by coal, oil, and natural gas, which goes a long way toward explaining Japan’s poor performance on emissions in recent years.

It may also explain why the government has been reluctant to set more aggressive targets for Paris: Heavy-duty emission cuts aren’t possible without nuclear power, and although Prime Minister Abe is pushing to reopen some of the closed plants, nuclear power remains deeply unpopular with the Japanese people. Moreover, the increase in fossil fuel use has made Japan more dependent on imports (it has no fossil fuel resources of its own), which, in combination with a weak yen, has driven up electricity prices. And rising energy prices, Yamagishi said, have eroded support for renewable energy incentives that could cost ratepayers even more.

Overall, since Fukushima, political will to address climate change has evaporated, Yamagishi said. Even among the general public, what was once a popular issue now barely makes the news in Japan.

“After Fukushima, everyone’s attention shifted away from climate change,” he said. “That’s why we’re having a hard time pushing on this issue.”

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/1QiqHck

There’s a Fight Brewing Over Who Profits From Solar Power

And it’s coming to your roof.

acilo/iStockphoto; skodonnell/iStockphoto

In the ongoing wars over solar energy, one power company is consistently painted as the archetypal, mustache-twirling nemesis of clean electricity: Arizona Public Service. So you might be surprised to learn that this same company is about to become a big new producer of rooftop solar power.

APS is an unlikely solar patron: In the summer of 2013, the Phoenix-area utility launched a campaign to weaken Arizona’s net metering rule, which requires utilities to buy the extra solar power their customers generate and provides a major incentive for homeowners to install rooftop panels. A few months later, APS admitted giving cash to two nonprofits that ran an anti-solar ad blitz in the state. Early this year, the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that a letter criticizing the solar industry’s business practices, sent by members of Congress to federal regulators, was originally authored by an employee of APS. And a couple weeks ago, APS asked state regulators to let the company quadruple the fees it tacks on to the monthly bills of solar-equipped homeowners.

It makes sense that the company would be worried about solar’s epic takeoff. In many ways, the solar boom poses an unprecedented threat to big electric utilities, which have done business for a century with essentially zero competition. In the first quarter of this year, applications for solar permits in APS’s service area were 112 percent higher than the same period last year, and every one of those is one less customer for APS’s regular power supply, 40 percent of which comes from coal. Now the company thinks it has found a solution to the problem: It wants to start owning its own rooftop solar.

In December, the Arizona Corporation Commission gave a green light to APS to plunk down $28.5 million on 10 megawatts of solar panels, enough to cover about 2,000 of its customers’ roofs. (Tucson Electric Power, another utility in the state, was also approved for a smaller but similar plan.) The idea is that APS will target specific rooftops it wants to make use of—in areas where the grid needs more support, for example, or west-facing roofs, which produce the most power in the late afternoon, when demand is the highest. APS would offer homeowners a $30 credit on their monthly bill, according to Jeff Guldner, an APS vice president for public policy.

The credit essentially serves as rent for the roof, where an APS-contracted local installer will set up a solar array. APS owns the panels, can use the power however it wants, and gets to improve its clean energy portfolio without losing customers to third-party solar companies. Meanwhile, the homeowner gets a lower bill.

Sounds great, right? Apparently, more and more utilities are starting to think so. Power companies in New Hampshire backed a state bill this month that would have made it easier for them to own rooftop solar, but it was killed in committee. San Antonio’s CPS Energy recently put out a call for contracts with local solar installers to develop projects on its customers’ roofs. Nick Culver, the lead US solar analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, thinks the trend is gaining traction and predicts that more utilities like APS will jump into the rooftop solar market.

“It’s all about control,” he said. Utilities “can justify it [to their shareholders] by saying we’re going to profit from this, rather than waiting for other solar companies to take all of the market.”

But independent solar companies and some regulators are concerned that letting big utilities into the rooftop solar market will unfairly squeeze out competition, hurt innovation, and ultimately stick customers with higher costs. The result, they argue, will be that fewer households end up choosing solar power.

“The utilities are using their vast economic resources to encourage people to go with them,” said Gabe Elsner, executive director of the Energy & Policy Institute, a clean energy think tank in Washington, DC. “What we’re seeing is a monopoly trying to retain its monopoly.”

There are a couple of concerns here. One is that power companies will be able to use their deep pockets and preexisting control of the energy market to undercut smaller third-party companies like SunRun or SolarCity, if those companies aren’t able to offer monthly savings greater than APS’s $30 credit. (Last year, SolarCity told the Arizona Republic that most customers who lease panels from them save about $5 to $10 per month.)

Noncompetitive strong-arming came to a head in Washington last year, where utilities backed a bill introduced by Democratic state Rep. Jeff Morris that would have banned third-party solar companies from offering leases in areas where a utility company was also offering rooftop solar. That bill was killed, but the potential was enough to spook New York regulators, who decided last month to bar utilities from owning their own rooftop systems except in rare cases. “By restricting utilities from owning local power generation and other energy resources, customers will benefit from a more competitive market, with utilities working and partnering with other companies and service providers,” the state’s Public Service Commission said in a statement at the time.

The other concern is that utilities will be able to leverage their monopoly to make all their customers pay for the panels the company buys.

“We welcome the utilities competing in open markets, but that’s not what this is about,” said Bryan Miller, a vice president of SunRun, a prominent national solar installer. “This is about guaranteed profits.”

Here’s what he means by that: Electricity markets are different than those for other products. In most parts of the country, electric utilities are a monopoly; they get complete control of the market in exchange for having their business heavily regulated by the government. Whereas, for most other products, competition between businesses drives prices down, utilities have always been rewarded for spending lots money on infrastructure like power plants and transmission lines. That’s because utilities are generally allowed to charge those investments back to their customers in the form of higher electric rates. In fact, that’s the fundamental way utilities make money.

The same process would apply to rooftop solar panels, APS’s Guldner said. The next time APS goes before the state’s corporation commission to ask for a rate increase (probably sometime within the next year), they’ll count these rooftop systems alongside power plant upgrades and other infrastructure that should come back as revenue through their customers’ bills.

“The solar resources that come from these systems are going to all the customers,” Guldner said. So, he argues, it makes sense that everyone should chip in for them like they would with any other part of the grid system.

The program will also help get solar onto roofs that normal net metering and solar leasing programs wouldn’t cover. For example, APS plans to target low-income customers, who might not have a high enough credit score to apply for their own solar lease.

APS also plans to target west-facing roofs. The vast majority of solar arrays face south, which usually yields the highest annual power output. That’s ideal for most solar homeowners because with net metering, the more sun you capture, the more money you get. But those panels’ peak production is at midday, so it doesn’t jibe with overall demand on the grid, which peaks in the late afternoon as people come home from work and flip on their lights, TVs, and air conditioners. West-facing panels, by contrast, produce up to 20 percent less energy than south-facing panels overall, but they produce at least 20 percent more in the late afternoon as the sun is setting, according to energy software company Opower. That makes west-facing panels more attractive to utility companies, and with net metering out of the equation, customers shouldn’t care if their panels are a bit less productive.

The debate over whether utilities should be able to own solar panels on your roof is still in its early days. Guldner says APS hasn’t yet built any panels for this new program (they plan to start within a couple months). And Bloomberg’s Culver said that nationwide, the amount of utility-owned rooftop solar is still so minuscule that there isn’t even any good data on it. But as more utilities compete for their customers’ rooftops, there should be some lessons ahead about how to make the grid more compatible with a solar-powered future.

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/1QiqG8i

And it’s coming to your roof.

acilo/iStockphoto; skodonnell/iStockphoto

In the ongoing wars over solar energy, one power company is consistently painted as the archetypal, mustache-twirling nemesis of clean electricity: Arizona Public Service. So you might be surprised to learn that this same company is about to become a big new producer of rooftop solar power.

APS is an unlikely solar patron: In the summer of 2013, the Phoenix-area utility launched a campaign to weaken Arizona’s net metering rule, which requires utilities to buy the extra solar power their customers generate and provides a major incentive for homeowners to install rooftop panels. A few months later, APS admitted giving cash to two nonprofits that ran an anti-solar ad blitz in the state. Early this year, the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that a letter criticizing the solar industry’s business practices, sent by members of Congress to federal regulators, was originally authored by an employee of APS. And a couple weeks ago, APS asked state regulators to let the company quadruple the fees it tacks on to the monthly bills of solar-equipped homeowners.

It makes sense that the company would be worried about solar’s epic takeoff. In many ways, the solar boom poses an unprecedented threat to big electric utilities, which have done business for a century with essentially zero competition. In the first quarter of this year, applications for solar permits in APS’s service area were 112 percent higher than the same period last year, and every one of those is one less customer for APS’s regular power supply, 40 percent of which comes from coal. Now the company thinks it has found a solution to the problem: It wants to start owning its own rooftop solar.

In December, the Arizona Corporation Commission gave a green light to APS to plunk down $28.5 million on 10 megawatts of solar panels, enough to cover about 2,000 of its customers’ roofs. (Tucson Electric Power, another utility in the state, was also approved for a smaller but similar plan.) The idea is that APS will target specific rooftops it wants to make use of—in areas where the grid needs more support, for example, or west-facing roofs, which produce the most power in the late afternoon, when demand is the highest. APS would offer homeowners a $30 credit on their monthly bill, according to Jeff Guldner, an APS vice president for public policy.

The credit essentially serves as rent for the roof, where an APS-contracted local installer will set up a solar array. APS owns the panels, can use the power however it wants, and gets to improve its clean energy portfolio without losing customers to third-party solar companies. Meanwhile, the homeowner gets a lower bill.

Sounds great, right? Apparently, more and more utilities are starting to think so. Power companies in New Hampshire backed a state bill this month that would have made it easier for them to own rooftop solar, but it was killed in committee. San Antonio’s CPS Energy recently put out a call for contracts with local solar installers to develop projects on its customers’ roofs. Nick Culver, the lead US solar analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, thinks the trend is gaining traction and predicts that more utilities like APS will jump into the rooftop solar market.

“It’s all about control,” he said. Utilities “can justify it [to their shareholders] by saying we’re going to profit from this, rather than waiting for other solar companies to take all of the market.”

But independent solar companies and some regulators are concerned that letting big utilities into the rooftop solar market will unfairly squeeze out competition, hurt innovation, and ultimately stick customers with higher costs. The result, they argue, will be that fewer households end up choosing solar power.

“The utilities are using their vast economic resources to encourage people to go with them,” said Gabe Elsner, executive director of the Energy & Policy Institute, a clean energy think tank in Washington, DC. “What we’re seeing is a monopoly trying to retain its monopoly.”

There are a couple of concerns here. One is that power companies will be able to use their deep pockets and preexisting control of the energy market to undercut smaller third-party companies like SunRun or SolarCity, if those companies aren’t able to offer monthly savings greater than APS’s $30 credit. (Last year, SolarCity told the Arizona Republic that most customers who lease panels from them save about $5 to $10 per month.)

Noncompetitive strong-arming came to a head in Washington last year, where utilities backed a bill introduced by Democratic state Rep. Jeff Morris that would have banned third-party solar companies from offering leases in areas where a utility company was also offering rooftop solar. That bill was killed, but the potential was enough to spook New York regulators, who decided last month to bar utilities from owning their own rooftop systems except in rare cases. “By restricting utilities from owning local power generation and other energy resources, customers will benefit from a more competitive market, with utilities working and partnering with other companies and service providers,” the state’s Public Service Commission said in a statement at the time.

The other concern is that utilities will be able to leverage their monopoly to make all their customers pay for the panels the company buys.

“We welcome the utilities competing in open markets, but that’s not what this is about,” said Bryan Miller, a vice president of SunRun, a prominent national solar installer. “This is about guaranteed profits.”

Here’s what he means by that: Electricity markets are different than those for other products. In most parts of the country, electric utilities are a monopoly; they get complete control of the market in exchange for having their business heavily regulated by the government. Whereas, for most other products, competition between businesses drives prices down, utilities have always been rewarded for spending lots money on infrastructure like power plants and transmission lines. That’s because utilities are generally allowed to charge those investments back to their customers in the form of higher electric rates. In fact, that’s the fundamental way utilities make money.

The same process would apply to rooftop solar panels, APS’s Guldner said. The next time APS goes before the state’s corporation commission to ask for a rate increase (probably sometime within the next year), they’ll count these rooftop systems alongside power plant upgrades and other infrastructure that should come back as revenue through their customers’ bills.

“The solar resources that come from these systems are going to all the customers,” Guldner said. So, he argues, it makes sense that everyone should chip in for them like they would with any other part of the grid system.

The program will also help get solar onto roofs that normal net metering and solar leasing programs wouldn’t cover. For example, APS plans to target low-income customers, who might not have a high enough credit score to apply for their own solar lease.

APS also plans to target west-facing roofs. The vast majority of solar arrays face south, which usually yields the highest annual power output. That’s ideal for most solar homeowners because with net metering, the more sun you capture, the more money you get. But those panels’ peak production is at midday, so it doesn’t jibe with overall demand on the grid, which peaks in the late afternoon as people come home from work and flip on their lights, TVs, and air conditioners. West-facing panels, by contrast, produce up to 20 percent less energy than south-facing panels overall, but they produce at least 20 percent more in the late afternoon as the sun is setting, according to energy software company Opower. That makes west-facing panels more attractive to utility companies, and with net metering out of the equation, customers shouldn’t care if their panels are a bit less productive.

The debate over whether utilities should be able to own solar panels on your roof is still in its early days. Guldner says APS hasn’t yet built any panels for this new program (they plan to start within a couple months). And Bloomberg’s Culver said that nationwide, the amount of utility-owned rooftop solar is still so minuscule that there isn’t even any good data on it. But as more utilities compete for their customers’ rooftops, there should be some lessons ahead about how to make the grid more compatible with a solar-powered future.

from Climate Desk http://ift.tt/1QiqG8i

Election 2015: The King’s Fund’s hopes for the future of the NHS

The King’s Fund is an independent charity working to improve health and healthcare in England. As part of our General Election coverage, we asked Catherine Foot – their Assistant Director of Policy – for her organisation’s opinions on what the next government’s health policy should look like.

The next election is too close to call. But already, the NHS has been at the heart of a great deal of campaign discussion – particularly the thorny issue of how to fund the NHS and integrate it with social care.

However these issues are solved, the next Government must focus on improving the quality of care for patients. Its challenge will be to transform services in order to meet the needs of patients in the 21st century.

So how can this happen? At the King’s Fund, we feel there are four key priorities – improving productivity, increasing funding, improving quality and reforming the system.

Improving productivity

The NHS needs to do more with the resources it has. In other words, it needs to improve its productivity. Good progress has been made in recent years. Savings have been made by limiting staff salary rises, reducing the prices paid to hospitals for treatment and cutting management costs – but these options have now been largely exhausted.

Other money-saving options must now be used, these include:

• a stronger national focus on collating and disseminating good practice in improving efficiency
• more emphasis on encouraging clinicians to lead changes in clinical practice that improve care and reduce costs
• stronger leadership at a regional level to plan and make these changes
• more sophisticated approaches to incentivising NHS organisations to improve efficiency

Additional funding

Improving productivity won’t be enough on its own to avoid a financial crisis. Unless significantly more money is found, patients will suffer as staff numbers are cut, waiting times rise and quality of care deteriorates.

And it’s absolutely vital that new funding isn’t spent simply propping up unsustainable services. Instead, it should be used to meet the cost of essential changes to services, and to ensure that care is better co-ordinated around the needs of patients.

As such, we think the next Government should establish a ring-fenced health and social care transformation fund, to be used to develop new community-based services and to cover double-running costs during the transition between old and new models of care.

Improving quality

The shocking failures of care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, outlined in the Francis report, marked a watershed for the NHS, refocusing it on its core purpose – providing high-quality care.

The report has led to a major overhaul of the hospital inspection regime, a new ‘duty of candour’ (requiring staff to report instances of poor care), and a number of initiatives to make more information available to the public about the performance of services. Meanwhile, hospitals have responded by recruiting additional staff to boost staff–patient ratios.

Much of this is a good step forward, although it remains to be seen whether hospitals will be able to sustain staffing levels in the face of financial pressures.

But it’s important to be realistic about what can be achieved by regulation. The first lines of defence against poor-quality care aren’t rules. The culture of an organisation is the most important influence on the ability of its staff to deliver high-quality, compassionate care. This means creating a culture in which patients come first, and openness, transparency and accountability are the norm.

This will be a long haul. The job for the next Government will be to ensure this type of culture is developed and adopted across the NHS. And the local leaders responsible must be supported throughout the process in order for these changes to be maintained.

Also, a shift is needed to involve patients much more closely in decisions about their care. It’s time to make shared decision-making between doctors and patients a reality; when patients are fully informed about their options, they often choose different, and fewer, treatments.

While not appropriate for all patients, the new personal budgets make care more personalised and could be used more widely. The NHS should make better use of data and technology to support patients in managing their own care.

Reform

As a country, our needs have changed dramatically since the NHS was established in 1948. We’re living longer, healthier lives and huge progress has been made in reducing early deaths from the biggest disease killers, including cancer.

But despite these changes, the NHS remains a service that diagnoses and treats sickness, instead of one that predicts and prevents it.

This needs to change. Care needs to move out of hospitals into the community, and more focus is needed on prevention. And this needs to be supported by a long-term commitment to improving the population’s health, with local authorities using their new responsibilities for public health to lead the way locally, supported by government regulation where necessary.

In practical terms, this means tackling obesity, reducing alcohol-related health problems, and addressing persistent inequalities in health between rich and poor. We must never forget that four out of 10 cancer cases could be prevented if we all led a healthy lifestyle, while 19,000 cancer deaths could be avoided if we closed the inequality gap.

On top of this, the UK population is ageing, and more of us are living with a chronic condition.

If we’re to meet this challenge, services will need to work much more closely together to provide care co-ordinated around the needs of the individual.

To deliver integrated care at scale and pace, the next Government should focus on removing the barriers that stand in its way. This should include:

• addressing the fragmentation of the way care is commissioned across the NHS
• tackling perverse financial incentives in the way that services are paid for
• and ensuring the drive to improve efficiency through competition does not hinder collaboration between services.

Ultimately, we need to end the historic divide between the health and social care systems by moving to a single, ring-fenced budget, and a single local commissioner of services.

The election is now just two days away. These are all substantial challenges for whoever ends up the winner – or more likely, winners. But they’re challenges that need urgent solutions if we’re to keep the NHS on track.

Catherine

• This post draws on The King’s Fund’s ‘Priorities for Next Government’, which is available here.

Image

• NHS bike image from Flickr, under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1ENRdp2

The King’s Fund is an independent charity working to improve health and healthcare in England. As part of our General Election coverage, we asked Catherine Foot – their Assistant Director of Policy – for her organisation’s opinions on what the next government’s health policy should look like.

The next election is too close to call. But already, the NHS has been at the heart of a great deal of campaign discussion – particularly the thorny issue of how to fund the NHS and integrate it with social care.

However these issues are solved, the next Government must focus on improving the quality of care for patients. Its challenge will be to transform services in order to meet the needs of patients in the 21st century.

So how can this happen? At the King’s Fund, we feel there are four key priorities – improving productivity, increasing funding, improving quality and reforming the system.

Improving productivity

The NHS needs to do more with the resources it has. In other words, it needs to improve its productivity. Good progress has been made in recent years. Savings have been made by limiting staff salary rises, reducing the prices paid to hospitals for treatment and cutting management costs – but these options have now been largely exhausted.

Other money-saving options must now be used, these include:

• a stronger national focus on collating and disseminating good practice in improving efficiency
• more emphasis on encouraging clinicians to lead changes in clinical practice that improve care and reduce costs
• stronger leadership at a regional level to plan and make these changes
• more sophisticated approaches to incentivising NHS organisations to improve efficiency

Additional funding

Improving productivity won’t be enough on its own to avoid a financial crisis. Unless significantly more money is found, patients will suffer as staff numbers are cut, waiting times rise and quality of care deteriorates.

And it’s absolutely vital that new funding isn’t spent simply propping up unsustainable services. Instead, it should be used to meet the cost of essential changes to services, and to ensure that care is better co-ordinated around the needs of patients.

As such, we think the next Government should establish a ring-fenced health and social care transformation fund, to be used to develop new community-based services and to cover double-running costs during the transition between old and new models of care.

Improving quality

The shocking failures of care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, outlined in the Francis report, marked a watershed for the NHS, refocusing it on its core purpose – providing high-quality care.

The report has led to a major overhaul of the hospital inspection regime, a new ‘duty of candour’ (requiring staff to report instances of poor care), and a number of initiatives to make more information available to the public about the performance of services. Meanwhile, hospitals have responded by recruiting additional staff to boost staff–patient ratios.

Much of this is a good step forward, although it remains to be seen whether hospitals will be able to sustain staffing levels in the face of financial pressures.

But it’s important to be realistic about what can be achieved by regulation. The first lines of defence against poor-quality care aren’t rules. The culture of an organisation is the most important influence on the ability of its staff to deliver high-quality, compassionate care. This means creating a culture in which patients come first, and openness, transparency and accountability are the norm.

This will be a long haul. The job for the next Government will be to ensure this type of culture is developed and adopted across the NHS. And the local leaders responsible must be supported throughout the process in order for these changes to be maintained.

Also, a shift is needed to involve patients much more closely in decisions about their care. It’s time to make shared decision-making between doctors and patients a reality; when patients are fully informed about their options, they often choose different, and fewer, treatments.

While not appropriate for all patients, the new personal budgets make care more personalised and could be used more widely. The NHS should make better use of data and technology to support patients in managing their own care.

Reform

As a country, our needs have changed dramatically since the NHS was established in 1948. We’re living longer, healthier lives and huge progress has been made in reducing early deaths from the biggest disease killers, including cancer.

But despite these changes, the NHS remains a service that diagnoses and treats sickness, instead of one that predicts and prevents it.

This needs to change. Care needs to move out of hospitals into the community, and more focus is needed on prevention. And this needs to be supported by a long-term commitment to improving the population’s health, with local authorities using their new responsibilities for public health to lead the way locally, supported by government regulation where necessary.

In practical terms, this means tackling obesity, reducing alcohol-related health problems, and addressing persistent inequalities in health between rich and poor. We must never forget that four out of 10 cancer cases could be prevented if we all led a healthy lifestyle, while 19,000 cancer deaths could be avoided if we closed the inequality gap.

On top of this, the UK population is ageing, and more of us are living with a chronic condition.

If we’re to meet this challenge, services will need to work much more closely together to provide care co-ordinated around the needs of the individual.

To deliver integrated care at scale and pace, the next Government should focus on removing the barriers that stand in its way. This should include:

• addressing the fragmentation of the way care is commissioned across the NHS
• tackling perverse financial incentives in the way that services are paid for
• and ensuring the drive to improve efficiency through competition does not hinder collaboration between services.

Ultimately, we need to end the historic divide between the health and social care systems by moving to a single, ring-fenced budget, and a single local commissioner of services.

The election is now just two days away. These are all substantial challenges for whoever ends up the winner – or more likely, winners. But they’re challenges that need urgent solutions if we’re to keep the NHS on track.

Catherine

• This post draws on The King’s Fund’s ‘Priorities for Next Government’, which is available here.

Image

• NHS bike image from Flickr, under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1ENRdp2

The annals of “I’m not antivaccine,” part 17: More Nazis versus freedom! [Respectful Insolence]

Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging. So it was last night when I had to go to a work-related meeting and didn’t get back until late. Still, that means today’s a perfect opportunity to do what I’m usually not very good at: A brief post. I’ve related time and time again how when antivaccinationists claim to be “pro-vaccine safety” or “pro-freedom” (the latter of which is the newest favorite meme used by antivaccine advocates to argue that they aren’t antivaccine, or, as I call it, an antivaccine dog whistle), they’re either deluding themselves or lying. I’ve pointed out how sometimes, in a perverse way, I almost respect antivaccinationists who actually come right out and say they’re antivaccine, because at least they’re being honest with themselves and the world. None of that stops me from deconstructing their nonsense, but you do have to sort of respect the honesty about that point, at least, even as you’re ripping apart the intellectual dishonesty of their arguments against vaccine.

In the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak earlier this year, several states are considering measures to tighten up the process for getting nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. The largest of these is, of course, California, with its SB 277, which would eliminate nonmedical vaccine exemptions. Not surprisingly, there’s been a backlash among the antivaccine movement and its fellow travellers, such as conservatives who mistakenly conflate freedom with the freedom not to vaccinate their children.

Apparently, this backlash is leading to attempts at legislation:

Rep. David Sawicki, R-Auburn, is asking Maine lawmakers to approve a bill that would make it illegal to discriminate against any person who decides to forgo certain vaccinations.

Sawicki is the sponsor of LD 950, An Act to Prohibit Discrimination against a Person Who Is Not Vaccinated.

Sawicki said Monday that his bill is simple, in that if a person or the parent of a child decided against vaccinations for any reason, he or she could not be discriminated against by a school, employer or any other entity.

While Maine already allows for a “philosophical exemption,” Sawicki said his measure strengthens that and would make it difficult for the state to ever rollback that exemption.

“We are naturally born with a genius immune system, endowed by our creator, that has enabled the human race to grow and thrive over the eons,” Sawicki told the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee on Monday. “The immune system we are born with today has evolved and improved over the centuries as our environment and way of life has changed, and we have adapted. On the other hand, the existence of the vaccine business, relative to the existence of human beings, is but a tiny blip, 50 or so years.”

Sawicki said Mainers concerned that unvaccinated children might spread illness and disease in public schools shouldn’t worry if their children are vaccinated against the diseases they are worried about and they believe in vaccines.

The stupid, it burns.

I mean, seriously. Our immune system was so great that our children died like flies due to epidemics of infectious diseases and, as recently as 100 years ago, the deaths of children from diseases that are now preventable with vaccines were not uncommon and as recently as 60 years ago people lived in fear of polio. As for unvaccinated children being a threat to the vaccinated, once again, Mr. Sawicki apparently needs to be educated that no vaccine is 100% effective. Vaccinated children have less to worry about than unvaccinated children when coming in contact with the unvaccinated, but less is not “nothing.” That’s leaving aside the concept of herd immunity, which acts as a brake on the spread of disease.

Meanwhile, another legislator speaking in favor of the bill, Robert Foley, made the same argument, asking ““I know there are those who will argue that my choice not to vaccinate or to vaccinate under a different protocol somehow impacts their child’s health. But I ask you, how does my not vaccinating my child impose any risk to your child that you’ve chosen to vaccinate, if the vaccinations prevent the disease in the first place?”

See above for the answer.

Of course, Sawicki can’t resist the usual analogy made by antivaccine activists:

He also said the idea that people could be forced to take a vaccine they don’t want conjured visions of “the horrors of Nazi Germany, forced sterilization, interment, execution and involuntary medical experimentation.”

Yes, because requiring children to be protected against vaccine-preventable diseases is just like forced sterilization, interment, execution, and involuntary medical experimentation. Does Sawicki realize just how offensive his analogy is, particularly to Jews?

Then, of course, there’s the “informed consent” trope, which, as I have argued many times before, is really misinformed consent, in which the benefits of vaccination are vastly understated while the risks are massively overstated, to the point where nonexistent “risks” of vaccines, such as autism, are stated as though they are facts.

Same as it ever was…

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1zwkXYn

Every so often, real life intrudes on blogging. So it was last night when I had to go to a work-related meeting and didn’t get back until late. Still, that means today’s a perfect opportunity to do what I’m usually not very good at: A brief post. I’ve related time and time again how when antivaccinationists claim to be “pro-vaccine safety” or “pro-freedom” (the latter of which is the newest favorite meme used by antivaccine advocates to argue that they aren’t antivaccine, or, as I call it, an antivaccine dog whistle), they’re either deluding themselves or lying. I’ve pointed out how sometimes, in a perverse way, I almost respect antivaccinationists who actually come right out and say they’re antivaccine, because at least they’re being honest with themselves and the world. None of that stops me from deconstructing their nonsense, but you do have to sort of respect the honesty about that point, at least, even as you’re ripping apart the intellectual dishonesty of their arguments against vaccine.

In the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak earlier this year, several states are considering measures to tighten up the process for getting nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. The largest of these is, of course, California, with its SB 277, which would eliminate nonmedical vaccine exemptions. Not surprisingly, there’s been a backlash among the antivaccine movement and its fellow travellers, such as conservatives who mistakenly conflate freedom with the freedom not to vaccinate their children.

Apparently, this backlash is leading to attempts at legislation:

Rep. David Sawicki, R-Auburn, is asking Maine lawmakers to approve a bill that would make it illegal to discriminate against any person who decides to forgo certain vaccinations.

Sawicki is the sponsor of LD 950, An Act to Prohibit Discrimination against a Person Who Is Not Vaccinated.

Sawicki said Monday that his bill is simple, in that if a person or the parent of a child decided against vaccinations for any reason, he or she could not be discriminated against by a school, employer or any other entity.

While Maine already allows for a “philosophical exemption,” Sawicki said his measure strengthens that and would make it difficult for the state to ever rollback that exemption.

“We are naturally born with a genius immune system, endowed by our creator, that has enabled the human race to grow and thrive over the eons,” Sawicki told the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee on Monday. “The immune system we are born with today has evolved and improved over the centuries as our environment and way of life has changed, and we have adapted. On the other hand, the existence of the vaccine business, relative to the existence of human beings, is but a tiny blip, 50 or so years.”

Sawicki said Mainers concerned that unvaccinated children might spread illness and disease in public schools shouldn’t worry if their children are vaccinated against the diseases they are worried about and they believe in vaccines.

The stupid, it burns.

I mean, seriously. Our immune system was so great that our children died like flies due to epidemics of infectious diseases and, as recently as 100 years ago, the deaths of children from diseases that are now preventable with vaccines were not uncommon and as recently as 60 years ago people lived in fear of polio. As for unvaccinated children being a threat to the vaccinated, once again, Mr. Sawicki apparently needs to be educated that no vaccine is 100% effective. Vaccinated children have less to worry about than unvaccinated children when coming in contact with the unvaccinated, but less is not “nothing.” That’s leaving aside the concept of herd immunity, which acts as a brake on the spread of disease.

Meanwhile, another legislator speaking in favor of the bill, Robert Foley, made the same argument, asking ““I know there are those who will argue that my choice not to vaccinate or to vaccinate under a different protocol somehow impacts their child’s health. But I ask you, how does my not vaccinating my child impose any risk to your child that you’ve chosen to vaccinate, if the vaccinations prevent the disease in the first place?”

See above for the answer.

Of course, Sawicki can’t resist the usual analogy made by antivaccine activists:

He also said the idea that people could be forced to take a vaccine they don’t want conjured visions of “the horrors of Nazi Germany, forced sterilization, interment, execution and involuntary medical experimentation.”

Yes, because requiring children to be protected against vaccine-preventable diseases is just like forced sterilization, interment, execution, and involuntary medical experimentation. Does Sawicki realize just how offensive his analogy is, particularly to Jews?

Then, of course, there’s the “informed consent” trope, which, as I have argued many times before, is really misinformed consent, in which the benefits of vaccination are vastly understated while the risks are massively overstated, to the point where nonexistent “risks” of vaccines, such as autism, are stated as though they are facts.

Same as it ever was…

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1zwkXYn