In 2008, the Washington State legislature passed statutory greenhouse gas emission limits with a provision that the limits should be updated based on developing science. In response to scientific developments over the past decade — in particular the IPCC’s report on limiting global warming to 1.5 °C (as identified as a goal in the 2015 Paris Agreement) — the Washington State Department of Ecology recommended strengthening the emission limits. A bill currently in the Washington State House, SHB 2311, would implement these recommendations in addition to declaring it state policy to promote carbon dioxide removal techniques and technologies, which will likely be necessary to meet the Paris Agreement goals. I provided written testimony (formatted version in the link; text copied below) to the Washington State House Appropriations Committee on behalf of myself as an expert in climate science and the University of Washington Graduate and Professional Student Senate’s Legislative Advisory Board, which included responding to climate change as priority in its legislative agenda.
Testimony in support of SHB 2311
Dear members of the Washington State House Appropriations Committee,
As a member of the University of Washington Graduate and Professional Student Senate’s Legislative Advisory Board and a scientist who specializes in the physics of Earth’s climate system, I am testifying in favor of Substitute House Bill 2311, which amends state greenhouse gas emission limits to reflect the advances in our understanding of climate change and its impacts since 2008. I would like to highlight two aspects of SHB 2311 that I consider particularly important: 1) The recognition that current greenhouse gas emission limits are insufficient for meeting Washington State’s contribution to keeping global warming below 1.5 ºC (2.7 ºF); and 2) the recognition that removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it securely is an important component of keeping global warming below 1.5 ºC.
1. Limiting global warming to below 1.5 ºC requires stronger state emissions targets
The new section added to Chapter 70.235 RCW by SHB 2311 states that the “longer we delay in taking definitive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the greater the threat posed by climate change to current and future generations, and the more costly it will be to protect and maintain our communities against the impacts of climate change.” The situation is actually worse than even this bleak assessment implies, as the challenge of mitigation also grows greater the longer it is delayed due to the long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As detailed in the recent United Nations Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap Report[1], if serious action toward meeting a 1.5 ºC target had begun in 2010, annual emissions cuts of 3.3% on average would have been sufficient. Because of a decade of delay, we now need to cut emissions at an average rate of 7.6% per year. Even more extreme action will be needed in the future if strong action is not taken now.
Although less stringent (but still very ambitious) emissions reductions would be required to stabilize warming at 2 ºC (3.6 ºF), we know[2] that many significant negative impacts will be felt from climate change globally and in Washington State even at a warming level of “only” 1.5 ºC. Stronger greenhouse gas emission targets are necessary if Washington State is to meet its commitment as a founding member of the U.S. Climate Alliance to work toward the Paris Agreement temperature goals.
2. Research, development, and deployment of carbon dioxide removal techniques will be a key element in limiting warming to below 1.5 ºC
None of the integrated assessment models assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change[3] were able to achieve emissions reductions consistent with limiting warming below 1.5 ºC without relying on “negative emissions,” or the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Most scenarios involve removing and sequestering billions of tons of carbon dioxide per year by the end of the century. Unfortunately, the technology to capture and sequester carbon dioxide at this scale does not currently exist.
Washington State is well-positioned to be a leader in the research, development, and (when justified) deployment of emerging carbon dioxide removal practices and technologies. As just one example, the Columbia River Basalt Group in eastern Washington has a vast geological potential for storing captured carbon dioxide as stable carbonate minerals. One study[4] estimated the sequestration potential in these rocks as possibly exceeding 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide, an amount one-thousand times greater than Washington State’s annual carbon dioxide emissions. Clearly, tapping even a very small percentage of that potential could make a large difference.
Partnerships between Washington State and its many world-class institutes of higher learning, such as the creation of the Clean Energy Institute and the Washington Ocean Acidification Center at the University of Washington, have already proven themselves as important sources of information and innovation for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Declaring that it is the policy of Washington State to promote carbon dioxide removal, as SHB 2311 rightly does, should be followed by significant investments in research into the most promising avenues for capturing and sequestering carbon at the scales required to limit global warming to below 1.5 ºC.
Sincerely,
Michael Diamond
[1] Available at https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2019
[2] Snover, A.K., C.L. Raymond, H.A. Roop, H. Morgan, 2019. “No Time to Waste. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C and Implications for Washington State.” Briefing paper prepared by the Climate Impacts Group, University of Washington, Seattle.
[3]Rogelj, J., et al., 2018. Mitigation pathways compatible with 1.5°C in the context of sustainable development. In: Global warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty [V. Masson-Delmotte et al. (eds.)].
[4] McGrail, B. P., Schaef, H. T., Ho, A. M., Chien, Y.-J., Dooley, J. J., & Davidson, C. L. (2006). Potential for carbon dioxide sequestration in flood basalts. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 111(B12201).
Diamond group @ Florida State 