Climate change is a subject that has become impossible to ignore, because it is playing out close to home — everyone’s home. Devastating floods stunned Europeans watching the destruction in Germany and Belgium in July, and even countries inured to such disasters have seen them scour the planet with greater regularity.
Domestically, it’s the single biggest driver for investment in the “Build Back Better” bill in Congress. National leaders have not been able to avert their gaze from either the eastern states, which endured repeated storms in 2021, or from the wildfires that ravaged the west.
And here in Hawaii, with shorelines eroding and sea level rising, the reality of climate change has been indisputable for many years. The trickle-down effects — the damage to coral reefs and, thus, to fisheries — are everywhere.
Now the impact of global warming on this island state, both its coping challenges and its achievements in fighting back, are being heard in Glasgow, Scotland, during the ongoing COP26 international conference.
Gov. David Ige is heading the Hawaii contingent, relating the history of this state being the first to make a significant commitment to reducing its reliance on the fossil fuels that are the principal factor behind climate change.
There is an encouraging update to add to that tale. Hawaiian Electric, the state’s largest utility that already has been the principal actor in the conversion to green energy, has announced an acceleration in pace.
The Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, dating to 2008, is a regulatory framework launched as a partnership between the state and the U.S. Department of Energy, with a goal of 100% clean energy by 2045, both through reducing energy use and transitioning to renewable sources.
It has evolved with further actions since then, but Hawaiian Electric’s new “climate change action plan” is one more important step. The aim is to cut carbon emissions from power generation by 70% by 2030, as compared with 2005 levels.
In an op-ed published in today’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser (Page E3), utility top executives Scott Seu and Shelee Kimura characterized it as a “down payment” on Hawaii’s efforts to counter carbon emissions.
They added that other sectors of the Hawaii economy making their own emission reductions of 40%, in conjunction with the commitments of other states, would propel the U.S. toward the imperative of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. That is the threshold beyond which the most devastating climate effects are all but unavoidable.
Hitting Hawaiian Electric’s 2030 target will be “a stretch,” they say — true, to say the least. Even the near-term commitment to retire its last coal plant by September 2022 is challenging the utility to have enough backup capacity from legacy oil-burning plants in case the new solar-farm-plus-battery facilities are insufficient.
For its part, the state Public Utilities Commission has done a good job keeping Hawaiian Electric on course in this effort and needs to keep its hand on the steering wheel.
These solar farms are a welcome addition to the still-growing inventory of photovoltaic panels on island rooftops statewide, aided by the advent of better battery-storage technology. Solar power has been the low-hanging fruit fueling the Hawaii clean-energy conversion.
BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH, and progress in bridging the gap has been halting. The development of land-based wind farms, which offer significant energy yield, has been difficult, running up against community opposition.
An alternative strategy — offshore floating wind turbines — offers some promise, at least in theory. A recent federal study suggested that wind energy from such facilities can be produced economically.
In reality, there is so much infrastructure work required, to relay the energy to shore and then to people’s homes, that this solution surely lies a long way off. Studies should continue, however, in recognition that technology could provide the answer, as it has every step of the way in Hawaii’s clean-energy journey.
Congress is currently weighing the “Build Back Better” bill that includes funding to develop domestic supply chains and new solar and battery technologies. The legislation also includes funding enabling communities to strengthen their resilience to extreme weather. Such investments will be critical in creating a future world that can withstand inevitable climate events.
Discussions at COP26 need to take this long view. For example, Ige was scheduled today to join a panel on “net zero emissions,” the concept of offsetting continuing carbon emissions with a reduction elsewhere. Most national and international climate goals are to reach net zero by 2030 or 2050.
These goals are seen as aspirational, but it’s in aspiration that change is born. There can be no more powerful motivation than to act on behalf of the planet that is our home. Even if the action is on a small, local scale, that is where the real work happens.
