Fresh Air Brief news round-up for July 16th

The news clips below are except from our weekly blogger intelligence briefing, the Fresh Air Brief.
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US responds to extreme summer weather with largest natural disaster declaration in US history
As this summer’s difficult weather continues in the US, government agency NOAA is calling the last 12 months the country’s hottest on record. In addition to drought and heat-related hospitalizations and deaths, temperatures were high enough to literally melt an airplane into the runway at a Washington DC airport. The US Federal government responded with the largest declaration of a national disaster in US history; declaring a natural disaster across counties in 26 states, which is hoped to speed relief to about a third of the country’s farmers and ranchers who are suffering. The Guardian has more.

Extreme weather affecting millions around the world
The US, of course, isn’t the only place struggling with extreme weather linked to climate change. Droughts in Africa’s Sahel region and parts of Europe are driving up food prices and endangering millions livelihoods. Floods in the Krasnodar region of Russia killed more than 150 people. Flooding and landslides in Southeast China have killed at least 11 people and damaged homes of 980,000 residents. 22 people are dead and240,000 people from about 85,000 households in Kyushu, Japan were told to evacuate as storms continue to dump more rain on the region. Absent significant government action, scientists are telling us we better get used to this kind of extreme weather. Images of recent impacts from flooding around the world beg the question of whether getting used to it is something we should accept.

New OECD study advances understanding of climate impacts
The Organization of Economic Coorperation and Development (OECD) is giving us reasons to push for effective and speedy climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts with the release of a study tracking the value of assets at risk from climate change in 130 port cities around the world. They found that approximately $3 trillion in assets are at risk from severe storm-surge flooding, damage from high storm winds, rising and warming global seas and local land subsidence today. The tally is on track to reach $35 trillion by 2070. Climate Central and Bloomberg have more on the story.

Global survey ranks most energy efficient countries
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s released its first-ever global survey ranking countries on energy efficiency. The United Kingdom came in first place, thanks to efficient industrial and transportation sectors. Germany came in second for strong national leadership on efficiency across its entire economy. The next three spots were held by Japan, Italy and France. The European Union, Australia and China had a three-way tie for sixth place, followed by the United States. Brazil took tenth place, followed by Canada and Russia. Read more on Inside Climate News.

Proposed E.U. auto efficiency standards would have big impacts on CO2 emissions
Speaking of efficiency, new cars and vans in the E.U. will produce a third less carbon dioxide within eight years, under proposed new rules for auto efficiency set out on Wednesday in Brussels. If the new rules are adopted, by 2020, emissions from new cars will have to be an average of no more than 95g of carbon dioxide per kilometre driven; a cut of more than 40g from today’s levels and of 35gCO2/km compared with the 2015 target. The Guardian has more.

Fracking industry responds to criticism with new film
One of the more catalytic warnings about the risks of the natural gas extraction technique called fracking came from a film by Josh Fox called “Gasland.” Now the natural gas drilling industry has responded to Fox with a film of their own. “Truthland” — a 34-minute film produced by the Independent Petroleum Association of America and Energy In Depth — primarily was crafted in response to Mr. Fox’s 2010 anti-drilling documentary. The film is due out in US theaters in late July. Read more here.

Reporting from the first UNFCCC workshop on long-term climate finance
RTCC has great coverage from the UNFCCC-hosted workshop on long-term climate finance, which took place last week in Bonn Germany.  Countries have agreed to secure at least $100bn of annual climate finance flowing into projects to slash emissions in developing countries and to protect the most vulnerable nations from the effects of climate change by 2020. RTCC’s John Parnell colored in the numbers by describing what the funds on that scale would mean: ”renewable power projects on land and sea, mega-city scale energy efficiency roll-outs, biblical flood prevention systems, intelligent agriculture, solar powered desalination, restoring degraded lands and protecting biodiversity; our natural toolkit”. Last week’s Bonn meeting included 140 diplomats, business leaders and civil society representatives working to take the next necessary steps towards achieving that vision.  Eyes now turn to Qatar, where the Climate Action Network is calling for $10-15bn in climate finance pledges for 2012-2015; and additional work on standing up the UNFCCC’s Green Climate Fund are expected to take place. Check out RTCC’s climate finance workshop coverage here.

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