Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainability

Featured Centers/Institutes/Projects

• Research Centers
  • UCLA Sustainability
  • UCLA Sustainable Resource Center
  • Center for Tropical Research (CTR)
  • Urban Center for People and the Environment
  • Southern California Particle Center
  • Center for Energy, Science and Technology Advanced Research (CESTAR)
  • Water Technology Research Center (WaTeR)
• Institutes
  • UCLA Institute of the Environment (IOE)
• Laboratories
  • Yang Yang Laboratory
  • Yaghi Laboratory

Leadership

• Thomas Smith
  Acting Director, UCLA Institute of the Environment

• Laura Zahn
  Director, UCLA Sustainable Resource Center

• Stephanie Pincetl
  Director, UCLA Institute of the Environment, Urban Center for People and the Environment

• John Froines
  Director, Southern California Particle Center

• Mohamed Abdou
  Director, Center for Energy Science and Technology Advanced Research (CESTAR)

• Yoram Cohen
  Director, Water Technology Research Center (WaTeR)

• Yang Yang
  Director, Yang Yang Laboratory

• Omar M. Yaghi
  Director, Yaghi Laboratory
  

News

• Google.org Invests More Than $10 Million in Breakthrough Geothermal Energy Technology By Wall Street Journal.com, August 19, 2008
  
  In the continuing effort to develop electricity from renewable energy cheaper than from coal, through its philanthropic arm Google.org, announced $10.25 million in investments in a breakthrough energy technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). This announcement also includes funding for research on next-generation geothermal resource mapping, EGS information tools, and a policy agenda for geothermal energy.
  
  Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California
  By Matthew L. Wald, New York Times, August 14, 2008
  
  Two California companies said Thursday that they would each build solar power plants that were 10 times bigger than the largest now in service, creating the first true utility-scale use of a technology now mostly confined to rooftop supplements to conventional power supplies.
  
  Giant Retailers Look to Sun for Energy Savings
  By Stephanie Rosenbloom, New York Times, August 10, 2008
  
  Retailers are typically obsessed with what to put under their roofs, not on them. Yet the nation’s biggest store chains are coming to see their immense, flat roofs as an untapped resource. In recent months, chains including Wal-Mart Stores, Kohl’s, Safeway and Whole Foods Market have installed solar panels on roofs of their stores to generate electricity on a large scale. One reason they are racing is to beat a Dec. 31 deadline to gain tax advantages for these projects.
  
  
• Japan Sees a Chance to Promote Its Energy-Frugal Ways
  By Martin Fackler, New York Times, July 4, 2008
  
  

With its towering furnaces and clanging conveyer belts carrying crushed rock, Taiheiyo Cement’s factory looks like an Industrial Revolution relic. But it is actually a model of modern energy efficiency, harnessing its waste heat to generate much of its own electricity.

Engineers from China and elsewhere in Asia come to study its design, which has allowed the company to slash the amount of power it buys from the grid.

• Air board's ambitious plan to battle warming
  By Matthey Yi, San Francisco Chronicle, June 22, 2008
  
  California's air board, for years an obscure state agency, will take center stage this week when it unveils a blueprint for the nation's most aggressive fight against global warming that is expected to affect every resident, industry and government agency in the state in the coming decade.
  

• Congressional stalemate over renewable energy
  San Francisco Chronicle, June 18, 2008
  
  Even as lawmakers of both parties talk about the need to shift the country toward clean, renewable energy, Congress is in danger of letting key tax credits that have fueled the growth of wind and solar power expire at the end of the year. The Senate failed for the second time in a week Tuesday to pass a bill to help businesses and homeowners switch to renewable energy. The tax incentives have strong bipartisan support, but they have been caught up in a fight between Democrats and Republicans over how to pay for them.
  

• Honda rolls out fuel cell car
  CNN Money, June 16, 2008
  
  Honda's new zero-emission, hydrogen fuel cell car rolled off a Japanese production line Monday and is headed to southern California, where Hollywood is already abuzz over the latest splash in green motoring. The FCX Clarity, which runs on hydrogen and electricity, emits only water and none of the gases believed to induce global warming.
  
  

• IEA: $45 Trillion Needed To Cut CO2 Emissions 50% By 2050
  Environmental Leader, Saturday, June 7, 2008
  
  The International Energy Agency says that it will take $45 trillion in additional clean technology investments between now and 2050 in order to reduce CO2 emissions to 50 percent. That’s 1.1% of average annual global GDP over the period.

• Water crisis to be biggest world risk
  Telegraph Media, June 6, 2008
  
  A catastrophic water shortage could prove an even bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the relentless exhaustion of energy reserves, according to a panel of global experts at the Goldman Sachs "Top Five Risks" conference.
  

• Schwarzenegger proclaims that California is in a drought
  Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2008
  
  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed a statewide drought Wednesday, warning that California's water supply is falling dangerously low because of below-average rainfall and court-ordered water restrictions aimed at protecting fish.
  

• Global warming to wreak havoc on U.S. crops and forests, report says
  Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2008
  
  Climate change is increasing the risk of U.S. crop failures, depleting the nation's water resources and contributing to outbreaks of invasive species and insects, the Department of Agriculture said in a report released Tuesday.
  
  Those and other problems for the U.S. livestock and forestry industries will persist for at least the next 25 to 50 years, said the report compiled by 38 scientists for use by water and land managers.
  

• Bay area passes carbon tax
  Los Angeles Times, May 21, 2008
  
  Air pollution regulators in the San Francisco Bay area voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to approve new rules that impose fees on businesses for emitting greenhouse gasses.
  

• Plug-in hybrids promise more power, greater efficiency
  By Jim Downing, Sacramento Bee, May 21, 2008
  
  

  With a recent mandate that effectively requires major automakers to put at least 58,000 gas-electric vehicles on California roads by 2014, the state is prodding new technology forward.

  After years in the prototype stage, auto industry giants and startup companies are investing, researching and building prototype vehicles that can be fueled either with gas or electricity from a wall socket.

• New Trend in Biofuels Has New Risks
  By Elisabeth Rosentha, New York Times, May 21, 2008
  
  ROME — In the past year, as the diversion of food crops like corn and palm to make biofuels has helped to drive up food prices, investors and politicians have begun promoting newer, so-called second-generation biofuels as the next wave of green energy. These, made from non-food crops like reeds and wild grasses, would offer fuel without the risk of taking food off the table, they said. But now, biologists and botanists are warning that they, too, may bring serious unintended consequences.
  

• Energy Department says wind power could be savior
  By David R. Baker, San Francisco Chronicle, May 13, 2008
  

  Windmills spinning over the Great Plains and along the coasts could supply 20 percent of U.S. electricity by the year 2030 and put a significant dent in greenhouse gas emissions, federal officials said Monday.

  Although wind farms now generate just 1 percent of the nation's electricity, a new report from the U.S. Department of Energy found that wind power could play a far larger role in the future. It could supply roughly the same percentage of the nation's power as nuclear plants provide today. Read the full report.
  
  

• Global warming will negatively impact tropical species, study shows
  By Stuart Wolpert, UCLA Newsroom, May 5, 2008
  
  Global warming is likely to reduce the health of tropical species, scientists from UCLA and the University of Washington report May 6 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.   At the same time, a little bit of warming may actually move certain organisms, particularly insects, in the high latitudes closer to their optimal temperature, the researchers say.
  

• Oxygen-poor ocean zones are growing
  By Kenneth R. Weiss, Los Angeles Times, May 2, 2008
  
  Oxygen-starved waters are expanding in the Pacific and Atlantic as ocean temperatures increase with global warming, threatening fisheries and other marine life, a study published today concludes.
  

• "Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet"
  
  Jeffrey Sachs, author of the new book, "Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet" and the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is a leading expert in economic development, poverty elimination, and environmental sustainability. To learn more about his work, please visit his website.

• Peak Water: Aquifers and Rivers Are Running Dry. How Three Regions Are Coping.
  By Matthew Power, Wired Magazine, April 21, 2008
  
  That the news is familiar makes it no less alarming: 1.1 billion people, about one-sixth of the world's population, lack access to safe drinking water. Aquifers under Beijing, Delhi, Bangkok, and dozens of other rapidly growing urban areas are drying up. The rivers Ganges, Jordan, Nile, and Yangtze — all dwindle to a trickle for much of the year. In the former Soviet Union, the Aral Sea has shrunk to a quarter of its former size, leaving behind a salt-crusted waste.
  

• "Gassing Up with Hydrogen"
  Yaghi Laboratory at UCLA
  
  Researchers are working on ways for fuel-cell vehicles to hold the hydrogen gas they need for long-distance travel. Read the entire article.
  

• The Food Chain
  The New York Times, Tuesday, April 15, 2008
  Articles in this series examine growing demands on, and changes in, the world’s production of food.
  

• California utility customers to fund think tank on climate
  By Elizabeth Douglass, Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2008
  
  The PUC-approved institute would research ways to cut emissions, but some question the fairness of charging ratepayers. California utility customers will foot the bill for a $600-million global-warming think tank under a Public Utilities Commission program that critics say is a costly and questionable departure from the agency's mission to make sure ratepayers get affordable and reliable power.
  

• Al Gore: Climate-change prophet
  TED.com, April 9, 2008
  
  In Al Gore's brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of "generational mission" -- the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement -- to set it right. Gore's stirring presentation is followed by a brief Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates' climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future.

• SCE To Install Solar Panels On 2 Sq Miles Of California Roofs
  The Executive’s Daily Green Briefing, Environmental Leader, March 27, 2008
  

• Majoring in Renewable Energy
  By Keith Schneider, New York Times, March 26, 2008
  
  
• Fuel for the Future
  Tuesday, March 4, 2008, Sacramento
  
  Engineering Professor Vasilios Manousiouthakis (from left) explains UCLA's hydrogen-fueled car to Lt. Gov. John Garamendi and alumnus Robert Holeman. UCLA showcased its green research projects during UC Day in Sacramento. Read more ...

• Soot may play big role in climate change
  By Tami Abdollah, Los Angeles Times, March 25, 2008
  

• Recommendations of the Economic and Technology Advancement Advisory Committee (ETAAC) Final Report: "Technologies and Policies to Consider for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in California.  This report was submitted to the California Air Resources Board on February 11, 2008.

• On Thursday, February 28, California state lawmakers unveiled a package of bills designed to spur investment in clean-energy research and help California compete with other states and nations for green jobs.

• See a graphic illustrating human impact on the world's oceans, and a slide show on threatened marine ecosystems. This multimedia presentation appeared in the New York Times on Monday, February 25, 2008.

• Chemical Exposures Cost California an Estimated $2.6 Billion
  Click here to read the new policy report endorsed by 127 UC faculty
  
  Serious gaps in existing laws regulating the production and use of hazardous chemicals fail to protect public health and the environment, according to a new report to be released Thursday, Jan. 17, by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and UCLA. As a result of this inadequate oversight, chemical and pollution-related diseases among children and workers in California cost the state's insurers, businesses and families an estimated $2.6 billion in direct and indirect costs, says the report, which includes a set of recommended policy reforms for the state.
  

• State to pump up access to biofuels
  By Elizabeth Douglass, Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2008
  

• Increasing energy efficiency through innovation
  February 7, 2007
  

• Water troubles in the West may worsen
  By Alan Zarembo, Los Angeles Times, February 1, 2008
  

• Blue and Gold Goes Green
  UCLA Impact Magazine, February 2008

• Gift will establish first law school center in U.S. on climate change
  January 25, 2008
  

• Toyota Will Offer a Plug-In Hybrid by 2010
  By Micheline Maynard, New York Times, January 14, 2008
  

• UCLA researchers develop method for production of more efficient biofuels
  January 2, 2008
  

• Molecular Ecology, Evolutionary Change in Human-Altered Environments
  January, 2008

• 1 Gallon of Gas, 100 Miles — $10 Million: The Race to Build the Supergreen Car
  By Eric Hagerman, Wired Magazine, December 20, 2007
  

• Snowpack Studies See Grim Future
  By Betsy Mason, The Mercury News, December 12, 2007

• The People We Have Been Waiting For
  By Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, Op-Ed Columnist, December 2, 2007

• Green Initiative Finds a High-Profile Friend, Inside Higher Ed
  November 8, 2007

• Greenhouses Gases Responsible for 2006's Record Warmth
  By Andrea Thompson, LiveScience, August 28, 2007

• Science&Health: Summit to link politics, environment
  Daily Bruin, February 8, 2007

Reports

Harvesting California's Renewable Energy Resources
The Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology, August 19, 2008

The Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies released a report last Friday, that surveys the landscape of the clean energy sector here in California. You will find the link to the PDF of the report listed below as well as an article from today’s LA Times about the report.  Alexandra Paxton from CRA is quoted extensively in the report, beginning on page 25.

Index to the Digest of Green Reports and Studies
California Employment Development Department, July 16, 2008

To encourage the discussion on how green technology affects the workplace and economy, a consortium of local, state, and federal entities is currently reviewing "green" literature to create a "Digest of Green Reports and Studies." As reports and studies are identified, they are added to the Index to the Digest. A participant then reviews the report and prepares a brief summary including the report's contents, methodology, and author. Links to the summary and to the original study are then added to the Green Digest Index.

California Green Innovation Index
Next 10, 2008 Inaugural Issue

The inaugural California Green Innovation Index produced by Next 10 provides a comprehensive look at the role of innovation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions while growing the economy. The Index measures progress toward green innovation—green in the sense that it generates both
environmental and economic benefits.

GREEN LA, An Action Plan to Lead the Nation in Fighting Global Warming
The City of Los Angeles, May 2007

This plan presents a framework for confronting global climate change; engaging residents to create a cleaner, greener, sustainable Los Angeles; and growing the green economy. The plan also outlines a public process to conduct community outreach and foster public-private partnerships to reduce CO2 emissions beyond the city’s jurisdiction.

New Initiatives

• University of California Research Initiatives to Fight Global Warming

For more than a half century, the University of California has studied the phenomena
of global climate change from a wide range of scientific perspectives. Today, UC
researchers are developing technological solutions to curb global warming and mitigate its
environmental, economic and health impacts. Click here to view a brochure that highlights just some of these research achievements, ongoing efforts and recent news headlines.

• California Air Resources Board Aims to Develop a California-specific Carbon Calculator

Check out this new Carbon Calculator created by Next 10 and their partners the California Air Resources Board, the California Energy Commission, University of California Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The calculator is unique because it focuses on California specifically.

 

Events

• Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy
  “Facing Our Energy Challenges in a New Era of Science”
  Patricia M. Dehmer, Director, Office of Basic Energy Sciences
  June 12, 2008
  
  

  On Thursday, June 12, UCLA hosted an event sponsored by The Council of Energy Research and education Leaders (CEREL). Patricia Dehmer, Deputy Director for Science Programs in the Office of Science  in the department of Energy, delivered a presentation titled, “Facing Our Energy Challenges in a New Era of Science.” (This PowerPoint Presentation is a 43MB downloadable file).

  Abstract:
  Global stability, economic prosperity, and quality of life all are linked to abundant energy. However, even with aggressive conservation and energy efficiency measures, the projected increase of the Earth’s population, accompanied by rapid technology development and economic growth, is projected to double the demand for energy by mid century and more than triple the demand by the end of the century. The reserves of fossil fuels that currently account for 85% of U.S. primary energy will fall short of demand over the long term, and their use is associated with environmental contaminants ranging from greenhouse gases and toxic gases to particulates. Furthermore, reserves of one of our most important fossil fuels – liquid petroleum for the transportation sector – reside largely outside of the U.S.
  
  Our energy challenges cannot be met by incremental improvements to existing technologies. Transformational changes and disruptive technologies will be required to provide clean, reliable, economic solutions. As in the past, many of these changes will likely come from fundamental research in the physical sciences. How we approach the problem as a Nation and how we respond as a community of scientists will determine our success.
  

• Earth 2100
  
  

  In an unprecedented television and internet event, ABC News is asking you to help answer perhaps the most important question of our time — What will our world be like over the next one hundred years if we don’t act now to save our troubled planet?

  The world’s brightest minds agree that the “perfect storm” of population growth, resource depletion and climate change could converge with catastrophic results.
  

• Lecture Series
  "The Voyage for Cleaner Energy"
  Robert Swan
  May 12, 2008
  

  British Polar Explorer, Robert Swan, is scheduled to lecture at UCLA on Monday at 4:00pm.  Robert is the first person in history to walk to both the north and south poles and has recently launched his Voyage for Cleaner Energy.  During this first phase of the voyage, Robert will be speaking at 22 universities on the west coast of the U.S.A.  This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet Robert Swan and hear him speak about his journeys that have led him to launching the Voyage for Cleaner Energy.
  

• Special Public Lecture
  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Challenges of Climate Policy, Equity and Ethics
  Wednesday, January 16, 2008

• Oppenheim Lecture Series Event
  The 11th Hour
  January 31, 2008
  

• Evolutionary Change in Human-altered Environments
  February 8-10, 2007

• The UCLA Institute of the Environment
  Oppenheim Lecture Series
  "A Blueprint for Healing the Bay”
  Focusing on the Los Angeles region, Dr. Gold will present and discuss solutions to Santa Monica Bay’s and the region’s water quality problems. 
  Monday, February 11, 2008

• UC Day will be Tuesday, March 4, in Sacramento
  UC Day is the annual event that brings together University of California family of alumni, stakeholders and friends to share their UC story with California’s elected officials in Sacramento. That message emphasizes the vital role that the University of California plays in:

  • Providing a high-quality, affordable education
  • Improving the quality of life for Californians through its fundamental missions of teaching, research and public service
  • Creating solutions for the health, environmental, social and economic challenges facing the state

  This year’s theme will be “UC Goes Green,” showcasing the public service the 10-campus system provides California through environmental innovation. UC, named one of America’s greenest schools last year by Sierra magazine, is also a leader in researching environmental issues, hosting the new Energy Biosciences and Joint BioEnergy institutes.

Nonprofit and Community Organizations

• Coalition for Clean Air
• Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC)
• Defenders of Wildlife
• Environment California
• Environmental Defense
• Global Green USA
• Green Coast Foundation
• Heal the Bay
• North East Trees (NET)
• Sierra Club