American West's changing climate means economic changes, too

climate envelope” — they cannot be too cold or too hot. Unfortunately, modeling shows that climate change threatens to wipe out far more wine country than it will create.

Snow levels down
Diffenbaugh’s research shows that higher temperatures mean lower spring snow levels, as well. By 2070, historically low-snow years will account for over 80 percent of winters in the West.

This is worrisome not only because snowpack provides a crucial source of freshwater for Western, and particularly Californian, agriculture, but because it means major changes for the Pacific Northwest’s extensive hydropower infrastructure.

According to Stephen Wright, administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration, which markets approximately 30 percent of the Northwest’s electricity, the West’s relatively low carbon dioxide emissions relative to the rest of the country are largely due to the disproportionate role played by hydroelectricity. But changes in temperature threaten that system.

This whole hydropower system was built around the idea that you have snow and you’re capturing snowpack,” Wright said.

With increasing snowmelt at unusual times of the year, the system may not be equipped to store as much water as will later be needed.

California in the driver’s seat
The release notes that one prominent response to the threat posed by climate change is California’s AB 32, or the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Seeking to reduce California greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, the law provides for measures such as a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program (which held its first auction last week), an expansion of California-based renewable energy sources, a low-carbon fuel standard, and stricter transportation emissions standards.

With comprehensive climate change policy currently stalled at national and international levels, “California is essentially going alone in this fight,” said Dave Rogers, climate change manager for Chevron.

As both Wright and Rogers pointed out, however, California’s size and economic importance mean AB 32 has economic and political influence far beyond the state’s borders. California is the second largest energy consumer in the nation, after Texas, and the largest player in the transportation fuels market.

Bonneville Power, for instance, scuttled several new long-distance transmission lines in response to California’s new commitment to local renewables. Chevron has been forced to search for low-carbon fuel sources. Rogers cited studies that stated California would put $50 billion into the Brazilian sugarcane ethanol industry between now and 2020. In order to meet AB 32’s requirements, the production of advanced biofuels, plug-in hybrids, electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles will all need to increase dramatically as well.

Ultimately, California’s reductions will have no effect on global warming unless they influence policies outside the state: Rogers stated that California’s emissions reductions could be offset by as little as three months’ worth of Chinese coal plant construction.

When it comes to the changing landscape of the West, there is little question that the environment is changing, and little question about the direction it’s heading in. Many of the specifics of how Western states can fight back, however, remain hazy.

As Wright said: “At what point do we know enough to begin to change the way we operate the system?”