Here’s what is helping us cope with stay-at-home orders

All Reserve staff are working from home in accordance with recommendations from the CDC and local and statewide public health and Governor offices. When we’re not working, we’re partaking in all the traditional stay-at-home activities including home workouts, cooking, streaming tv and movies, reading, facetiming, trying to learn a language, checking out home concerts from our favorite musicians, gardening, and more! Here’s a quick list of what is helping us cope and deal with working from home/ stay-at-home orders / self-quarantining. We hope you might find some new and/or useful ideas and that you stay well!

For working

Encourage ergonomic tips and considerations while working from home: Check out this list for some great tips https://boltonco.com/2020/03/18/ergonomic-tips-and-considerations-while-working-from-home/, including changing postures frequently, moving every 30 minutes for 2-3 minutes, sitting up straight with relaxed shoulders, and placing the monitor approximately an arms reach from the body
Chatting with coworkers at the water cooler and at lunch is definitely missed by our staff! We’ve implemented weekly “happy hour” chats where we all gather virtually with our drinks and have totally non-work-related chats.

Fun activities while staying at home

Lunch doodles with Mo Willems – “This is likely not news to the working parents out there who are now holding down full time jobs while simultaneously serving as co-educator, coach, playmate, and recess monitor. My kids and I have very much enjoyed lunchtime doodling with one of our favorite authors, Mo Willems. It’s a wonderful creative break (I admit that I have even been sucked into it and away from my work computer on occasion). We especially enjoyed one episode with guest Dan Santat.” – Jennifer Weiss
Knitting – “I’ve definitely been knitting up a storm, to no one’s surprise. One of my favorite designers, Andrea Mowry, is hosting a sweater “knit-a-long”, so I’ve been working on one of her sweater patterns. It’s a great creative activity, and helps me feel productive while re-watching West Wing for the umpteenth time.” – Sarah Wescott
Socially distanced neighborhood walks keeping 6ft away from anyone else outside – “I’ve also been taking daily walks after work for a change of scenery – staying a safe distance from any passing neighbors on the sidewalk. My neighborhood is full of citrus trees, so an added bonus is that we usually come home with a bunch of lemons, oranges, pomelos, and tangerines that were otherwise going to waste.” – Sarah Wescott

More pics from walks around the neighborhood:

Supporting our favorite businesses with online shopping – a lot of stores, including wineries, have some great deals right now. “My favorite winery – Two Mountain in Zillah, WA – has a great shipping deal. They have a cool Lemberger, which is pretty similar to a pinot noir. And the shipping comes with delivery tracking, so you can watch your case of wine getting closer to your door in real time!” – Holly Davison
Online multiplayer strategy board games – “You can play Catan, Agricola, Terraforming Mars, Ticket to Ride, and many more awesome strategy board games with friends while observing the social distancing stay-at-home orders. Here are some recommendations from Nerdist: https://nerdist.com/article/8-board-games-available-as-apps/ and a list of game apps from Asmodee: https://www.asmodee-digital.com/en/. If anyone out there reading this wants to challenge any member of our staff, just shoot us an email!” – Rhey Lee
Online learning – “This is totally the perfect time to take the courses you’ve been meaning to take if only you had the time! I’m taking a course on copyediting and diving deep into AP style and Chicago Manual of Style. This particular course is in line with my professional development goals, but you can find online classes on pretty much anything – many of them free through Coursera or your local library. Some of my friends are taking advantage of free courses on Coursera like life coaching or other self-exploration topics. I’ll likely be taking one through them next for project management. Oh, and soon, there will be some Virtual Cons that I might attend…so that will be interesting!” – Heather Raven

Mental health tips

CAL Matters: How to get past the coronavirus crisis without losing your mental health – Breathe, meditate, be mindful, keep a schedule, get some exercise, get into some hobbies/projects, connect with friends and family, practice kindness, pick up a new skill, and ask for help if you need it.

Climate Action Reserve Programmatic Response to COVID-19 Outbreak

If a programmatic deadline (e.g., project submittal, verification, monitoring report submission) cannot be met by the original deadline due specifically to reasons directly related to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, projects may receive up to a 6 month deadline extension. This does not include extending the reporting period(s) in question. Projects seeking such an extension must submit a written request via email prior to the original deadline, which must specifically detail the impact of coronavirus on the project’s ability to meet the relevant deadline as well as the length of extension being requested. Any project that is eligible to defer verification or conduct a less-intensive desktop verification is strongly encouraged to use that option. This policy may be modified in the future as conditions warrant. This policy is limited to projects reporting under the Climate Action Reserve’s voluntary offset program. Projects reporting under the California Compliance Offset Program should seek guidance from the California Air Resources Board.

Please email all COVID-19 extension requests to the Reserve main email.

If you have any questions, please contact Robert Lee via email or (213)785-1230.

NACW 2020 is cancelled

Based on the development of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), concerns and reactions from participants, and monitoring advisories from the City of San Francisco and the World Health Organization, we made the decision to cancel NACW 2020.

We appreciate the dedication and leadership shared by everyone in our field of addressing climate change. We will be looking into the possibility of turning a few of the sessions into webinars in the next several months.

Finance must be green as it earns green

by Rob Z. Lee, Program Director, Climate Action Reserve

Climate change is altering long-term economic modeling, driving a reassessment of risk and asset values, and generating climate policies that will impact prices, cost, and demand across the entire economy.

According to the UNFCCC, the world needs an estimated US$90 trillion in sustainable infrastructure investments to reduce climate risk and achieve the global greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals set in the Paris Agreement. In order to attract and grow the financing we need to meaningfully address the climate crisis, the market must have transparent and credible information about investments’ impacts.

Several initiatives and standards exist to bring focus and transparency to the climate impact of investments. The Reserve’s Climate Impact Score program quantifies any discrete project investment’s expected climate impact, including its greenhouse gas reductions, enabling investors, underwriters, and secondary market participants to confidently direct financing toward projects that will have a positive climate impact. The Climate Bonds Initiative developed a standard certification providing science-based, sector-specific eligibility guidelines for the environmental credentials of a bond. And ratings agencies, such as Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch, have developed climate risk assessments to provide market participants with a greater level of visibility and transparency on the implications of policy, legal, technology, and market changes associated with a transition to a lower carbon economy.

At the Climate Action Reserve, we believe that there are three climate lenses through which any investment should be assessed: 1) climate risk, 2) organizational footprint, and 3) climate impact.

1. Climate risk:

Climate risk, the focus of Mr. Fink’s letter, can be described as the threat to existing businesses posed by the impacts of climate change. Responsible risk management requires investors to incorporate the anticipated impacts of climate change into their investment decisions. These impacts vary depending on the underlying investment, ranging from impacts such as sea level rise threatening the value of coastal real estate, potentially trillions of dollars in stranded fossil fuel assets, or diminished labor productivity in heat exposed industries such as construction, manufacturing, and transportation. In order to appropriately assess the risk profile of an investment portfolio, each discrete investment should have an assessment of climate related risks.

2. Organizational Footprint:

An organizational footprint refers to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with a company’s operations (i.e., scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions). Most corporations that report on GHG emissions report solely on scope 1 (direct emissions from owned and controlled sources) and scope 2 (indirect emissions from generation of purchased energy) emissions. However, to get a clear view of the full impacts of a company’s operations on the climate, scope 3 (indirect emissions not included in scope 2 both up and down stream throughout the company’s value chain) must also be considered. Literature suggests that there is a link between superior performance on GHG emissions and companies with inferior performance on GHG emissions within specific sectors. This may suggest that outperformance on GHG emissions is an indicator of strong management, as a lower relative GHG impact in comparison to industry peers could suggest efficient operations. However, caveats to consider are that these findings are biased towards larger firms that have the resources to conduct such reporting, and that this reporting is voluntary.

3. Climate Impact:

As opposed to avoiding investments that have exposure to climate change related risks, investors can take positive steps to invest in companies that provide solutions to the climate crisis. Companies that fall into this category could include renewable energy companies like solar PV or wind turbine manufacturers. Such manufacturers may have significant scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas impacts from their manufacturing operations, which would make them potentially unattractive if viewed through the lens of organizational footprint, but it is clear that these sorts of companies have a critical role to play in the transition to an economy of the future powered by 100% carbon free sources.

Investment strategies need to change in light of the challenges posed by the climate crisis. It remains to be seen how the greater financial sector shifts investment capital in response to climate change, but with seven trillion dollars under its management, BlackRock is in a position to make a very serious difference. Moving capital away from investments that are exposed to climate risk, however, is not enough: we must also encourage investment into climate solutions. Let’s hope that BlackRock’s move is just a first step, and serves as a harbinger of much more aggressive and positive action to come from the wider financial community.

Rob Z. Lee is the Program Director of the Climate Action Reserve. He can be reached at [email protected] and (213) 785-1230.

Updated Grassland Protocol Version 2.1 now available

Climate collaboration, action, and ambition! Check out a video highlighting the importance of US subnational and business leadership at COP25, in our joint delegation with The Climate Registry. Learn more at copdelegation.org

Join our team! We’re hiring for a Program Associate position. The position will remain open until filled. www.climateactionreserve.org/about-us/employment/

Join our team! We’re hiring for a Vice President for Policy position. Applications are due by January 31, 2020.

Notable climate quotes from 2019

As 2019 winds down, we’d like to thank everyone working to advance climate solutions for their outstanding dedication, contributions, and leadership. The drumbeat for a low carbon future continues to increase as thoughtful discussion and powerful insights inform the public on the scale and urgency with which we need to achieve emissions reductions. Here are some notable climate quotes from 2019 that highlight climate commitment, challenge the status quo, and push climate solutions forward.

	People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you! For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you’re doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight. — Greta Thunberg, United Nations Climate Action Summit, September 23, 2019 — https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/read-greta-thunberg-s-full-speech-united-nations-climate-action-n1057861
	If we love our children more than we love ourselves, we have only one option: communal action. I understand that in preparation for World War II, the U.S. auto industry pivoted in only six months from making cars and trucks to manufacturing tanks and jeeps. Communal action is how we ended the horrendous mistake of the Vietnam War. Global warming, climate change, ecocide, call it what you will; it all boils down to this, last year global carbon dioxide emissions rose 2.7 percent. We are speeding toward the precipice of irrevocable climate chaos. If we want to stop the brutal future we have set in motion we must decrease global carbon emissions by 50 percent per decade beginning now. –– Chip Fletcher, associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, March 2019 — https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2019/03/15/fletcher-climate-chaos-column /
	The goal of 2045, 2050 for a low-carbon, no-net-carbon economy is critical. Let’s get everybody moving in that same direction, agreed that we have to reach that goal urgently—almost treating it like war, literally. Because if we don’t get on a war footing in order to do what we have to do … we’re not going to make it. But something extraordinary is happening in America, which is that states have passed renewable-portfolio laws, and so you’ve got [37] states in our country that are locked in already to moving towards Paris, no matter what the president does. You also have the mayor of every major city in America signed on to the mayor’s commitment to try to live by the Paris Agreement. So you have this dichotomy in America, where the president of the United States has said I’m out, but, frankly, the majority of the American people are still saying, We’re in. — John Kerry, Former United States Secretary of State on launching new climate coalition World War Zero, December 2019 — https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/12/john-kerry-interview-climate-catastrophic-world-war-zero/602833/
	It’s too late for us not to have some impacts. And so there’s gonna have to be some adaptation that’s going to take place. The oceans will be rising and that is going to displace people. And so we’re going to anticipate and care for some of the consequences of that, including large-scale migration and disruptions that are going to be very costly. But there is a big difference between the ocean rising three feet and rising six feet. — Former President Barack Obama speaking at a Kuala Lumpur conference hosted by the Obama Foundation, December 2019 — https://www.courant.com/sns-bc-as–malaysia-us-obama-20191213-story.html
	This year saw atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases hit the highest level ever recorded in human history. While our window of opportunity to do something is quickly closing, fossil fuel companies are frantically expanding new drilling, mining, fracking and exporting. This is the last possible moment in history when changing course can mean saving lives and species on an unimaginable scale. I beg people to think about how they can ratchet up their activism on climate. Not as an individual but in concert with others, in ways that will awaken more people to the urgency and with a focus on changing policy, shifting power, electing brave people who aren’t scared of bold actions in the face of this crisis. — Jane Fonda, Capital climate protests, December 2019 — https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2019/12/17/jane-fonda-begs-people-join-her-climate-activism-save-lives/2679428001/
	Every report shows we do not have time to waste when it comes to confronting climate change. In the absence of federal leadership, subnationals are taking bold action toward creating a carbon neutral future. Our collective effort will not only lead to a more resilient United States, it will also signal to the rest of the world that we are committed to meeting this challenge and our determination is still strong. — Bob Wieckowski Senator, California State Senate, at COP25 in Madrid, December 2019 — https://www.theclimateregistry.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/TCR-CAR-press-release-US-states-at-COP25.pdf
	If the threat we were facing with #ClimateChange was coming from another country, we would not blink twice at trillions of dollars for a military response that uses violence, bloodshed, and displacement as a solution. We must be honest with ourselves about these realities. #ClimateChange is real, massive, and deserves a kind of peaceful mobilization on par with one that we would mount against an offending nation. — Mark Ruffalo, Twitter, August 2019 — https://twitter.com/MarkRuffalo/status/1164665410702204928
	.@EPAAWheeler California is working diligently to fight #airpollution & #globalwarming. Please do your job – or step aside & and let the states lead the way! — Mary Nichols, Twitter, regarding EPA revoking California’s waiver on vehicle emissions standards, October 2019 — https://twitter.com/MaryNicholsCA/status/1182061245425274881
	We know all too well states cannot rely on the federal government right now to act responsibly and take the bold action scientists have made clear is needed to prevent calamitous climate change fallout in our lifetimes. It’s up to us. — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, signing an executive order committing New Mexico to essential climate change action, January 2019 — https://www.governor.state.nm.us/2019/01/29/gov-lujan-grisham-signs-executive-order-committing-new-mexico-to-essential-climate-change-action/
	My goal for the next few months is to present proposed modifications to the legislation that still achieves the state’s greenhouse gas reduction goals at the least possible cost while continuing to grow our economy. Let me be very, very clear — I am not backing down. — Gov Kate Brown, after cap-and-trade fails to pass in the Oregon legislature, July 2019 — https://www.registerguard.com/news/20190702/brown-puts-cap-and-trade-back-on-table-may-use-executive-powers
	Had the CPP gone into effect, the EPA’s 2015 analysis showed that by 2030 power plant CO2 emissions would have fallen by 32 percent below 2005 levels and the pollutants that cause life-threatening smog and soot would have been reduced significantly. The CPP pollution cuts would have saved thousands of lives and prevented tens of thousands of pollution-related illnesses. In sharp contrast, the Trump administration’s ACE will achieve virtually no reductions in CO2 emissions and next to no cuts in soot and smog pollution. It will prevent next to none of the premature deaths, cardiac problems, lung damage or asthma attacks suffered by the most vulnerable among us—our kids, seniors and poor families—that the CPP would have prevented. — Gina McCarthy, Janet McCabe, and Joseph Goffman, op-ed, June 2019 — https://www.newsweek.com/we-helped-write-clean-power-plan-trumps-do-nothing-replacement-outrage-opinion-1446086
	Let me be clear: The Trump administration cannot stop the states on about 80 percent of what we are trying to do around climate change. And the other 20 percent we address through litigation. The federal government is not able to stop the states from taking action. Fighting climate change and protecting our children and grandchildren from its ravages is a monumental task. But it is not insurmountable. Leadership may be lacking in the U.S. federal government, but when the world thinks of the U.S. on climate action, they should think of the states. — Gov Jay Inslee, op-ed, December 2019 — https://prospect.org/greennewdeal/how-states-are-leading-on-climate-action/
	I’m here for one reason and one reason only. And it’s not to weep about all my precious rules being rolled back. Though I admit that the constant roll-back is beginning to tick me off a bit. I’m here to remind the political leadership at the EPA that what they do matters, and it’s time for them to step up and do their jobs. Just do your jobs. Right now this administration is trying to systemically undo health protections by running roughshod over the law. — Gina McCarthy, appearing before Congress, June 2019 — https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/447912-former-obama-epa-head-tells-trumps-epa-just-do-your-jobs
	Get the term “global warming” out of your head. What’s actually happening is better described as “global weirding.” The warming of the atmosphere makes the weather weird. First, the hots get hotter. This then leads to greater evaporation, which means there’s more water vapor in clouds for precipitation. So the wets get wetter and the floods get wider. But the droughts in dry areas also get drier. Some of the colds can even get colder, as when a weakened polar vortex, which normally keeps cold air trapped in the Arctic, allows more frigid polar air to push southward into the U.S. At the same time, the hurricanes that are fueled by warmer ocean temperatures get more violent. That’s why you’re seeing weird weather extremes in all directions. — Thomas Friedman, op-ed, June 2019 — https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/opinion/trump-climate-change.html
	Urgent action at an unprecedented scale is necessary to arrest and reverse this situation, thereby protecting human and environmental health and maintaining the current and future integrity of global ecosystems. Key actions include reducing land degradation, biodiversity loss, and air, land and water pollution; improving water management and resource management; climate change mitigation and adaptation; resource efficiency; addressing decarbonization, decoupling and detoxification; and the prevention and management of risk and disasters. Those all require more ambitious and effective policies, including sustainable consumption and production, greater resource efficiency and improved resource management, integrated ecosystem management, and integrated waste management and prevention. — UN, Global Environment Outlook report, March 2019 — https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/27652/GEO6SPM_EN.pdf
	It is extremely important that in order to be successful with our environmental crusade and to fight global climate change and to fight all of the pollution we have worldwide, we all have to work together. And the more people we bring into the crusade the better it is. The world leaders alone have not been able to solve the problem and they won’t. Whether it is the Indian movement or the women’s suffrage movement, or anti apartheid movement or the civil rights movement in America — none of those were solved in the capitals, always by people. So people power is essential. — Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, January 2019 — https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/26/sport/skiing-kitzbuhel-arnold-schwarzenegger-climate-change-spt-intl/index.html
	Our air and our water are far cleaner today because policy makers in the 1970s set wildly unrealistic, ambitious, expensive goals. They did so because the public demanded action and those public demands led to widespread bipartisan support for an “environmental moon shot.” And so, despite my skepticism that the Green New Deal is feasible, or politically possible, or technologically sound, I am cheering Representative Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey on, at the top of my lungs, hoping that their wild ambition can change hearts and minds about the biggest environmental problem we have ever faced. — UCLA Professor Ann Carlson, blog, February 2019 — https://legal-planet.org/2019/02/11/is-the-green-new-deals-ambition-smart-policy/

The Reserve is developing a Soil Enrichment Project Protocol (SEPP) to incentivize agricultural practices that enhance carbon storage in soils.