ENERGY WATER SUMMIT

Voter guide: Clinton and Trump on global warming, energy and the California drought

Sammy Roth
The Desert Sun
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump disagree on just about everything. But the gap between the presidential candidates might be widest on an issue getting relatively little attention: the environment.

Clinton has promised to fight climate change by promoting renewable energy, including solar and wind; Trump has repeatedly called climate change a "hoax," which is false, and promised to increase production of coal, oil and gas, the fossil fuels primarily responsible for heating the planet. Clinton has outlined several proposals to boost water supplies in the West, while Trump has incorrectly suggested "there is no drought" in California and blamed government regulations for water shortages afflicting farmers. He has also indicated he'd abolish the Environmental Protection Agency.

Wind turbines spin and generate electricity just west of Desert Hot Springs on Oct. 6, 2016.

The next president will take office at a critical moment. Climate change is already bringing record temperatures, rising seas and more extreme droughts, floods and wildfires. The United States is rapidly transitioning from coal to cleaner sources of energy. Much of the West continues to suffer from drought — including California, the country's breadbasket and most populous state.

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Scientists and climate advocates have praised Clinton's platform as an ambitious starting point for fighting climate change, although they acknowledge it's just a starting point. And while politically conservative environmentalists wish Clinton would focus on market-based solutions rather than government regulations, many of them prefer her proposals to Trump's fact-defying climate denial.

"There's very little to like in his environmental platform, as far as I’m concerned," said former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican who ran the EPA for two years under President George W. Bush. "To say you want to do away with the agency ... You can say it's overreached at times, sure. But to say you're going to try to get rid of the agency, I think, is counter to all the things the American people want," like clean air and clean water.

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Trump has called global warming a "hoax" and "bulls***," even though nearly all publishing climate scientists say humans are heating the planet. He once tweeted that global warming "was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive," although he later said he was joking. Earlier this year, he said he's "not a big believer in man-made climate change."

RELATED: How global warming is harming human health, the economy and national security

Climate scientists hardly know how to respond. They point to the many ways global warming is already taking a toll on humanity, from the intensification of large fires in the West, to regular flooding in South Florida and other low-lying areas, to the spread of diseases like dengue fever outside their old geographic comfort zones. July marked the 15th straight month of record global temperatures.

"We have known since the 1850s that our fossil fuel use is putting heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, wrapping an extra blanket around our planet that is causing it to heat up," said Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. "The time for the debate over whether this is real, or whether humans are responsible, was literally 200 years ago."

Fossil fuel infrastructure near Vernal, Utah, including the 500-megawatt, coal-fired power Bonanza Power Plant in the distance.

Trump has promised to "cancel" the international climate deal struck in Paris last year, when 195 countries agreed to limit the average global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, long seen as a dangerous tipping point. Trump would also eliminate Obama's Clean Power Plan, a regulation designed to shift electricity generation from coal to cleaner energy sources.

Michael Gerrard, who leads Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said it wouldn't be difficult for Trump to accomplish those goals.

While it would take several years to replace the Clean Power Plan with a less stringent regulation, Trump could simply direct the Environmental Protection Agency not to enforce it, Gerrard said. The Paris climate deal meanwhile, is largely non-binding. So if Trump decides the United States won't live up to its commitments, there's little the rest of the world could do to force America to comply.

"As it stands today, the odds are not great that we will stay under 2 degrees. If Trump becomes president and carries through on his promises, all hope is pretty much lost," Gerrard said.

LOSING SNOW: What global warming means for water supplies

Protesters with the "keep it in the ground" movement attend a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease auction in Salt Lake City on Feb. 16, 2016.

If the United States reneges on its Paris commitments, experts say, the global climate deal could fall apart, with major polluters like China and India deciding they shouldn't have to live up to their promises if America's going to keep burning fossil fuels indiscriminately. That would extinguish any hope of keeping climate change to manageable levels, locking in a future of dangerous warming.

The possibility is so alarming to some scientists that 375 members of the National Academy of Sciences published an open letter last month slamming Trump for his statements on climate. Those scientists — including renowned physicist Stephen Hawking — warned of "severe and long-lasting" consequences, for the United States and the world, if Trump backs out of the Paris agreement.

"It would severely damage our credibility in the international arena, and that would also handicap future attempts to deal with the problem," said Kerry Emanuel, an atmospheric scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who helped organize the letter. "It would send a message to the rest of the world that the U.S. can turn its back on its agreements at any time."

Asked to consider the consequences of a Trump presidency, water and climate researcher Peter Gleick — who co-founded the Pacific Institute think tank — said he "can't bear to think of it."

"Trump’s few statements on climate indicate he poses a dangerous and potentially catastrophic risk of plunging the world into deep climate chaos," Gleick said in an email.

Trump has shifted many of his policy positions over the course of the campaign. But he's been steadfast in his aggressive support for fossil fuels, the main cause of climate change.

During an energy speech in Pittsburgh last month, Trump said the United States is "sitting on a treasure trove of untapped energy — some $50 trillion dollars in shale energy, oil reserves and natural gas on federal lands, in addition to hundreds of years of coal energy reserves." He promised to "lift the restrictions on American energy, and allow this wealth to pour into our communities."

"It’s all upside: more jobs, more revenues, more wealth, higher wages and lower energy prices," he said.

Oil wells on public land near Vernal, Utah.

Experts say Trump's promises reflect a poor understanding of the market forces that shape energy development, and of government's power to shape those forces. For instance, Trump has pledged to revive the shrinking coal-mining industry while simultaneously increasing natural gas production. That would be impossible, energy experts say, because coal and natural gas are direct competitors in the electricity market. The sudden availability of cheap natural gas, fueled by the U.S. fracking boom, has arguably been the biggest cause of coal's struggles over the last few years.

During an energy speech in North Dakota earlier this year, Trump said opening more federal land to fossil fuel production would increase economic activity by $20 trillion over the next four decades and boost wages by more than $30 billion annually over the next seven years. But those numbers — which come from a study released by the Institute for Energy Research, a think tank funded in part by the fossil fuel industry — are far from realistic, according to Kelly Sanders, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in energy and water.

The institute's study assumes high prices for oil and natural gas: $5.64 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas $100 per barrel of oil, even though though the most current data shows natural gas at less than $3 and oil at about $50. If Trump opens more land to fossil fuel development, as he's promised to do, those prices would likely go down rather than up, Sanders said.

"Trump will say anything that will sound good to the people that he's talking to, but typically these assertions can't be backed up," she said.

Trump's public comments on solar and wind power have been mostly negative.

During his first debate against Clinton last month, Trump criticized the federal government for giving a $535 guaranteed loan to Solyndra, a California solar-panel manufacturer that subsequently went bankrupt. He used that example to characterize the government's foray into solar energy a "disaster." The federal Department of Energy, however, expects the clean-energy loan program that funded Solyndra to turn a profit for taxpayers, because most companies that got money have succeeded and are paying off their loans with interest.

Trump has also bashed wind turbines, describing them as ugly, eagle-killing machines that don't produce reliable energy. He's had especially harsh words for the wind farm in the San Gorgonio Pass outside Palm Springs, tweeting that the city "has been destroyed — absolutely destroyed — by the world's ugliest wind farm at the Gateway on Interstate 10. Very very sad!"

Wind turbines generate electricity near Whitewater, just outside Palm Springs, on Oct. 6, 2016. These turbines are not on federal land.

As president, experts say, Trump could only do so much to slow the growth of renewable energy, which is getting cheaper all the time. Wind is already cost-competitive with fossil fuels in some regions, and solar is getting closer, thanks in part to cost reductions spurred by government investment. But Trump could limit clean energy development on public lands and waters, while opening vast new areas to coal mining and oil and gas drilling. He could also roll back planned increases to federal fuel-efficiency standards for cars, making it more difficult for America to wean itself off oil.

"On the transportation side, he could do a lot of damage," said Ann Carlson, co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Clinton has put renewable energy at the center of her environmental platform. She's called for a tenfold increase in clean energy production on public lands and waters by 2027, and a $60 billion incentive program to encourage states and local governments to shift to clean energy. She'd like to see half a billion solar panels installed across the country by the end of her first term, and she's set a goal of cutting U.S. climate pollution 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. Currently, annual emissions are just 9 percent below 2005 levels, according to the most recent EPA data.

Clinton has also taken a harder line against fossil fuels this year, prompted by Sen. Bernie Sanders' Democratic primary challenge. As secretary of state, Clinton said the Obama administration was "inclined" to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline, before opposing Keystone as a candidate. She also plans to "begin phasing down fossil fuel production on federal lands," a campaign spokesperson told The Desert Sun earlier this year, when asked for her position on the growing "keep it in the ground" movement. Clinton has set a goal of reducing American oil consumption by a third by 2027.

Gerrard, the Columbia University climate law expert, described Clinton's goals as "bold but achievable" — a position echoed by several energy and climate experts interviewed for this article. The big question is whether she'll able to achieve those goals, with Republicans expected to control the House of Representatives for the foreseeable future.

Clinton could follow in Obama's footsteps by using her executive authority to support clean energy, experts say. In addition to permitting more solar and wind projects on public land, she could ratchet up vehicle fuel-efficiency standards and possibly use the Clean Air Act to implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program, a proposal that would surely spark lawsuits. Clinton has also pledged to continue Obama's Clean Power Plan — assuming it withstands an ongoing legal challenge, expected to reach the Supreme Court.

"She is working with trends that are already occurring in the electricity sector, and that helps. And the price of solar panels has dropped dramatically," said Carlson, the UCLA climate law expert. "So she can do some of this. But one of the really hard things to do is get us on a pathway to 80 percent reductions by 2050, as opposed to more moderate reductions over the next 10 or 15 years."

Clinton's 80-percent goal is roughly in line with what the U.S. would need to do to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. But scientists caution the 2-degree target is somewhat arbitrary. People are already suffering from just 1 degree of warming, and the problems will get worse as more heat-trapping carbon dioxide makes its way into the atmosphere.

"The best analogy for me is to look at smoking. The more cigarettes we smoke, the higher our risk," said Hayhoe, the Texas Tech climatologist. "The sooner we quit smoking, the better off we'll be."

With that reality in mind, some environmental activists have slammed Clinton's proposals as inadequate, criticizing her for not supporting a tax on climate pollution and a full ban on fossil fuel drilling on federal land. Those critics have also pointed to her history of support for natural gas and fracking, the controversial technology that's fueled a sharp increase in American oil and gas production. As secretary of state, Clinton aggressively promoted fracking overseas, urging governments to allow U.S. firms to drill for natural gas, even in the face of intense public opposition in some countries.

Natural gas produces less climate pollution when burned than coal and oil do. But it's still a fossil fuel, and studies have increasingly shown that too much gas is incompatible with global climate goals. Clinton has described gas as a "bridge" that could help the U.S. transition from coal to solar and wind, although she said earlier this year we need to cross the bridge "quickly."

"We really don’t have a lot of room for gas," said Sanders, the USC energy and water specialist. "There are a lot of scientists who basically say we need to stop emitting carbon dioxide yesterday."

READ MORE: The new climate rallying cry: keep it in the ground

Some climate advocates have criticized Clinton for not being more supportive of nuclear power, which is controversial among environmentalists but still a zero-carbon energy source. In a carefully worded statement earlier this year, Clinton said she supports "safe and responsible" nuclear energy and opposes efforts to "rapidly shut down our nation's nuclear power fleet."

"If you forget about the politics for a minute and look at what’s technically necessary to solve this problem, nuclear has to be part of the mix," said Emanuel, the MIT atmospheric scientist who helped organize the open letter criticizing Trump. "It doesn't add up mathematically to suggest we can do it all with renewables."

The 150-megawatt Tenaska Imperial Solar Energy Center West generates electricity just outside El Centro in California's Imperial Valley, near the Mexican border.

Neither Clinton nor Trump has made water a campaign focus, even as drought has gripped the West. But to the extent they have talked about water, their approaches couldn't be more different.

Clinton's conservation platform calls water "the lifeblood of the West," noting the Colorado River Basin has endured 16 straight years of drought. To help state and local governments ensure sustainable water supplies for the future, Clinton says she would direct more federal funding to programs and technologies that lower consumption or create new water sources, including wastewater recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater recharge and infrastructure modernization. She says she'd triple spending on the Bureau of Reclamation's main water conservation grant program.

Clinton would also work to establish a national Water Innovation Lab, which her platform says would "bring urban water managers, farmers and tribes together with engineers, entrepreneurs, conservationists and other stakeholders," in an effort to develop innovative technologies and strategies for limiting water use, creating new supplies and restoring natural ecosystems.

Gleick, the water scientist who co-founded the Oakland-based Pacific Institute, said Clinton's proposals are "far more than lip service."

"They reflect thoughtful assessment of both water problems and the most effective solutions," he said in an email. "They point to the most important approaches that offer cost-effective ways of both expanding supplies (wastewater treatment and reuse and capturing more stormwater) and reducing wasteful demands (through improvements in efficiency)."

RELATED: Climate change raises risk of megadroughts in the Southwest

Trump, on the other hand, has expressed support for the Central Valley farmers who are furious state and federal officials won't let them take more water from California's rivers and streams.

It's one of California's fiercest political battles: Wildlife authorities are required by law to leave enough water in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems to protect endangered fish like Chinook salmon and the Delta smelt. Between prolonged drought and continued fish declines, less water has been flowing to farmers, who have compensated by pumping groundwater at unsustainable rates.

Boaters explore the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the heart of California's highly engineered water system, on Sept. 22, 2016.

Environmentalists have criticized wildlife officials for not leaving more water in the rivers, saying they're not doing enough to keep certain species from going extinct. The agriculture industry, though, has railed against what it sees as ineffective regulations that needlessly allow water to flow out to sea. After meeting with farmers in Northern California earlier this year, Trump took their side.

"If I win, believe me, we're going to start opening up the water, so that you can have your farmers survive, so that your job market will get better," he said during a speech in Fresno. He added that farmers had told him "there is no drought," even though the U.S. Drought Monitor categorized 86 percent of the state as experiencing drought conditions at the time.

Gleick called Trump's drought comments a "dog whistle" to his Fresno audience, meant to communicate that "the water shortages you’re experiencing are not natural but due to the forces against us: Democrats, city-dwellers, environmentalists, bureaucrats in Washington and Sacramento."

For Paul Wenger, president of the California Farm Bureau Federation, Trump's promise to "start opening up the water" was a sign the Republican nominee "seems to understand the inflexibility of some of the regulations we’re dealing with." But Wenger was as confused as anyone by Trump's suggestion that "there is no drought." And he criticized the candidate for a lack of specific proposals.

That doesn't mean Clinton is better, Wenger added. He said the Democratic nominee's plans to boost water recycling make sense, but "you can only recycle water that you have."

"On our issues, I don't see a lot of difference between either one of them," Wenger said. "We're just hoping that whoever gets elected, they'll work with us."

Sammy Roth writes about energy and the environment for The Desert Sun. He can be reached at sammy.roth@desertsun.com, (760) 778-4622 and @Sammy_Roth.

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The level of Lake Mead, which stores Colorado River water for use by California and other states, has declined precipitously during a 16-year drought in the Colorado River Basin.