We turn to economists and co-authors of “Climate Shock” Gernot Wagner and Martin L. Weitzman for how economics might be able to tackle the immense problem that is climate change. Photo courtesy of the National Park Service/Flickr

Editor’s Note: One hundred and fifty world leaders are in Paris this week for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change. Their goal? To limit global temperatures to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

We turn to economists Gernot Wagner of the Environmental Defense Fund and Martin L. Weitzman of Harvard University for how economics might be able to tackle the immense problem that is climate change. The co-authors of “Climate Shock” last took to Making Sen$e to make their case for insuring ourselves against global warming by pricing carbon dioxide pollution. Below, Wagner and Weitzman discuss the 2 degree Celsius threshold and offer steps world leaders can take to combat climate change.

For more on the topic, tune into tonight’s Making Sen$e on the PBS NewsHour. The following text has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

— Kristen Doerer, Making Sen$e Editor

Everyone is talking about 2 degrees Celsius. Why? What happens if the planet warms by 2 degrees Celsius?

Martin L. Weitzman: Two degrees Celsius has turned into an iconic threshold of sorts, a political target, if you will. And for good reason. Many scientists have looked at so-called tipping points with huge potential changes to the climate system: methane being released from the frozen tundra at rapid rates, the Gulfstream shutting down and freezing over Northern Europe, the Amazon rainforest dying off. The short answer is we just don’t — can’t — know with 100 percent certainty when and how these tipping points will, in fact, occur. But there seems to be a lot of evidence that things can go horribly wrong once the planet crosses that 2 degree threshold.

In “Climate Shock,” you write that we need to insure ourselves against climate change. What do you mean by that?

Gernot Wagner: At the end of the day, climate is a risk management problem. It’s the small risk of a huge catastrophe that ultimately ought to drive the final analysis. Averages are bad enough. But those risks — the “tail risks” — are what puts the “shock” into “Climate Shock.”

Martin L. Weitzman: Coming back to your 2 degree question, it’s also important to note that the world has already warmed by around 0.85 degrees since before we started burning coal en masse. So that 2 degree threshold is getting closer and closer. Much too close for comfort.

What do you see happening in Paris right now? What steps are countries taking to combat climate change?

Gernot Wagner: There’s a lot happening — a lot of positive steps being taken. More than 150 countries, including most major emitters, have come to Paris with their plans of action. President Obama, for example, came with overall emissions reductions targets for the U.S. and more concretely, the Clean Power Plan, our nation’s first ever limit on greenhouse gases from the electricity sector. And earlier this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a nation-wide cap on emissions from energy and key industrial sectors commencing in 2017.

It’s equally clear, of course, that we won’t be solving climate change in Paris. The climate negotiations are all about building the right foundation for countries to act and put the right policies in place like the Chinese cap-and-trade system.

How will reigning in greenhouse gases as much President Obama suggests affect our economy? After all, we’re so reliant on fossil fuels.

Gernot Wagner: That’s what makes this problem such a tough one. There are costs. They are real. In some sense, if there weren’t any, we wouldn’t be talking about climate change to begin with. The problem would solve itself. So yes, the Clean Power Plan overall isn’t a free lunch. But the benefits of acting vastly outweigh the costs. That’s what’s important to keep in mind here. There are trade-offs, as there always are in life. But when the benefits of action vastly outweigh the costs, the answer is simple: act. And that’s precisely what Obama is doing here.

And what steps should the countries in Paris this week take to combat climate change?

Martin L. Weitzman: If it were entirely up to me, I would have a very simple solution: negotiate one uniform price on carbon dioxide applicable to everyone. That doesn’t mean some imaginary world government would be in charge — not at all. Every country — every government — can implement their own policy, keep the revenue and decrease taxes elsewhere. But the price is universal across the world.

Gernot Wagner: Pricing carbon, of course, is indeed the answer. It’s the obvious one or at least it should be. Now, the negotiations themselves, of course, are messy, and there currently is no negotiation around a uniform, globally applicable carbon price. Instead, what’s happening is many large countries — the U.S., the EU, and chief among them China — are putting forward internal policies that will put a price on carbon and other greenhouse gases. That’s also where Paris comes in: putting a framework on all these country actions.

Are you hopeful?

Gernot Wagner: I am. The climate problem is, in fact, a lot worse than many people realize. The climate shock is real. But there are solutions. They work. They are getting better and cheaper by the day. And we are largely moving in the right direction.

Martin L. Weitzman: Climate change is an extremely difficult problem to solve, certainly among the most difficult I have seen in my lifetime. But I’m guardedly optimistic, yes.

Gernot Wagner:  In the end, it’ll take Washington, Wall Street and Silicon Valley to make this right by pricing carbon, deploying clean technologies at scale and investing in research and development that will lead to new, even cleaner technologies we can’t yet even imagine. A lot is happening on all these fronts. A lot more, of course, needs to be done.

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The landscape of the Everglades National Park, home to many endangered and rare plants, is seen from the air on March 16, 2015 in Miami. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — With swampy wetlands and alligators as his backdrop, President Barack Obama will use a visit to Florida’s Everglades to warn of the damage that climate change is already inflicting on the nation’s environmental treasures — and to hammer political opponents he says are doing far too little about it.

Obama’s trip to the Everglades on Wednesday, timed to coincide with Earth Day, marks an attempt to connect the dots between theoretical arguments about carbon emissions and real-life implications. With his climate change agenda under attack in Washington and courthouses across the U.S., Obama has sought this week to force Americans to envision a world in which cherished natural wonders fall victim to pollution.

In Florida, rising sea levels have allowed salt water to seep inland, threatening drinking water for Floridians and the extraordinary native species and plants that call the Everglades home. Christy Goldfuss of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality said without stepped-up action, Joshua Tree National Park could soon be treeless and Glacier National Park devoid of glaciers.

“Regardless of the political debate, there are decisions being made in communities in Florida and across this country to make changes to the way they live as a result of climate change,” Goldfuss said.

Those political overtones were impossible to avoid.

Gov. Rick Scott has attracted national attention over his resistance to acknowledging man-made causes of climate change head-on. “I’m not a scientist,” the Republican famously claimed when asked about climate predictions that show Florida to be one of the states most threatened by rising seas and stronger storms.

Yet it was allegations by some former state employees that Scott’s administration banned them from using the terms “climate change” and “global warming” that drew the strongest protest from the White House. Scott has denied any such policy, and on Tuesday he accused Obama of cutting millions in his budget for repair of an aging dike around Florida’s largest freshwater lake.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said denying the reality of climate change constituted failure of leadership and a grave disservice to future generations. He said Obama’s commitment to the Everglades measures up well compared to a governor who “has outlawed employees in the State of Florida from even uttering the word ‘climate change.'”

“It’s a little rich for someone who has made that declaration that somehow the president has not been sufficiently committed to defending the Everglades from the causes of climate change,” Earnest said.

Ahead of Obama’s visit, Scott sought to put the blame on Washington and Obama in particular for leaving the state on the hook for the Everglades’ repair, even though it’s Congress — not Obama — who controls the federal purse strings.

“Our environment is too important to neglect and it’s time for the federal government to focus on real solutions and live up to their promises,” he said in a statement.

It was unclear whether Scott would be on the tarmac Wednesday to greet the president upon his arrival, although the White House said they had extended the traditional invitation. While in Florida, Obama was to speak at Everglades National Park and to go on a tour — weather permitting.

Unable to persuade Congress to act on climate, Obama has spent much of his second term pursuing executive actions to cut carbon greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and abroad. Yet even as Obama looks to his legacy, climate issues are shaping up to take on their own role in the burgeoning 2016 presidential campaign, in which two Florida Republicans — Sen. Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush — are either running or actively considering it.

The vast wetlands of the Everglades fuel the region’s tourism economy and drinking water supply. Now roughly 1.4 million acres, the park comprises most of what’s left of a unique ecosystem that once stretched as far north as Orlando.

Yet damage that started early in the 20th century, when people drained swamps to make room for homes and farms, has only grown more alarming as sea levels rise. Researchers fear by the time the water flow is fixed, the Everglades’ native species could be lost to invasive plants and animals.

Florida and the federal government have partnered on a multibillion-dollar fix, but the effort has languished amid legal challenges and congressional inaction.

Meanwhile, South Florida’s local officials say they’re already shouldering the burdens of rising sea levels. One Miami suburb frustrated by the state and federal governments’ inaction on climate has proposed — not entirely as a joke — that South Florida become its own state.

Kay reported from Miami.

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The northern bobwhite quail has seen steep population declines in the last 40 years, leading scientists to favor a large scale approaches to conservation. Photo by Jason Hardin, Texas Parks & Wildlife

At the crack of dawn on an early winter morning, Double G’s restaurant in Paducah, Texas, would typically be bustling with hunters loading up on sausage, eggs and black coffee before they head out into the grasslands with their shotguns and pointing dogs. Some come to hunt deer, turkey and wild hogs. But most of them come to hunt the northern bobwhite quail. Smaller than a game hen, the dappled reddish-brown bird is as integral to the Lone Star State’s culture and economy as rodeos and oil rigs.

These days are far from typical, however. Wally Galyean, owner of Double G’s, the town’s only full-service restaurant, has been serving fewer and fewer hunters — traditionally the bulk of his clientele — in recent years. That’s because of a range-wide die-off that has finally claimed bobwhite in one of their last strongholds, the Rolling Plains of Texas and Oklahoma.

“The only thing growing around here is the cemetery,” Galyean grumbles over the phone from his home near Paducah. He may have to shutter his restaurant within a couple years.

Populations of many species, including those of bobwhites, have always fluctuated — thriving when climate and habitat conditions are ideal, and crashing when something tips the ecological balance. But the amplitude of those gyrations has become much more dramatic, largely due to anthropogenic climate change.

“It’s already clear that climate change impacts will play out mainly through interactions with other existing threats,” says Wendy Foden, a conservation biologist with the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Climate Change Specialists Group in England. For instance, corals have always been subjected to heat waves, Africa’s quiver trees are no strangers to droughts, and lodgepole pine forests have long lived with the threat of bark beetles, she notes. “But it’s the climate change-driven increases in frequency and severity of these events that are causing extinction risk.”

Not a single smoking gun

Precisely what’s taking down the northern bobwhite — named for the male’s distinctive “bob-bob-white” call — remains a mystery. The largest known threats to the bobwhites are habitat loss and fragmentation, energy development, conversion of grassland to cotton and other cash crops, and overgrazing. These species are more susceptible to an acute blow — whether from a parasite, a viral disease or an insecticide — because their populations are already buffeted by a noxious mix of chronic interacting and overlapping stressors.

Read more: Restored wetlands welcome wildlife and protect against future floods in San Francisco Bay Area.

The northern bobwhite is not officially threatened, unlike its grassland cousins, the greater sage grouse and the lesser prairie chicken (which was federally listed earlier this year). But what worries many biologists — to say nothing of quail hunters — about this quail’s future is that after declining steadily for several decades throughout its range except for the Rolling Plains of Texas, Oklahoma and parts of Kansas, in recent years populations in this last stronghold have fallen precipitously. This recent decline coincides with a severe drought. “You’ve got this regular decline, and then you throw in climate change,” says Robert Perez, a wildlife biologist with the Texas Parks & Wildlife. “It’s not just additive, it’s a multiplier. It starts to wreak havoc on the ecology of those birds.”

The National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative’s Biologist Ranking Information indicates the potential for habitat restoration benefiting bobwhites and grassland songbirds. Map by the National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative

Conservation efforts historically have prioritized rare and endangered species. No wonder. Who wants polar bears, jaguars, rhinos and giant Sequoias to vanish from the earth? In the U.S., this approach has also dominated conservation efforts, especially since the Endangered Species Act was signed into law in 1973. But a growing cohort of scientists and conservation organizations are reevaluating conservation priorities, arguing that the decline of common species warrants more attention, largely due to the important role common species play in maintaining a healthy structure of communities and ecosystems. “Quietly declining species tell you much more about the health of an environment than do the ones that are down to a critical number,” says M. Sanjayan, senior scientist and executive vice president at Conservation International.

Kevin Gaston and Richard Fuller, conservation biologists at University of Sheffield in the U.K., argued in a 2007 paper that common species are ecologically important due largely to the fact that they are common. Because these species are typically widespread even small declines can remove enough individuals to have a big impact across large geographical areas, the authors suggest in the paper, titled “Commonness, population depletion and conservation biology,” in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

The American chestnut, the Rocky Mountain grasshopper, the black-tailed prairie dog, the bison and the passenger pigeon — whose last survivor died one century ago — show how historical depletion of common species can have “profound consequences,” according to Gaston and Fuller.

Damage to lodgepole pines from the pine bark beetle. Photo from Flickr user VSmoothe

Similarly, as bobwhites have faded along with disappearing native prairies and savannah, so have the Texas tortoise and Eastern Meadowlark, notes Perez of Texas Parks & Wildlife. Even though other birds will likely fill the bobwhite’s niche if it is removed from an ecosystem system, adds Perez, “the problem is if you remove a whole suite of grassland birds it could have a profound effect.”

Protecting the health of ecosystems

Just as depletion of species can have profound ecological consequences, abundance of biodiversity can help ensure the healthy structure ecosystems. As a result, an increasing number of conservationists are advancing that notion by targeting landscapes rather than — or at least in addition to — individual species. This large-scale approach is gaining traction, largely due to the difficulty of pinpointing the biggest causes of species decline, and to the integral role common species play in ecosystems.

Several landscape-scale strategies are being applied to conserving species as well as biodiversity more broadly. Ten years ago a small group of state biologists launched the National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI), a range-wide strategic plan involving state wildlife agencies, conservation groups and university research centers, aiming to restore native grassland habitats and huntable populations of wild quail. It includes a national online database detailing the feasibility of restoring the habitat of 600 million acres range-wide. In 2011 NBCI introduced a fine-resolution mapping system to help the growing cadre of state wildlife biologists identify and carry out conservation projects in areas that promise to offer the greatest return on investment.

In semi-arid Texas, for instance, Perez and other state biologists are two years into a habitat-restoration project that targets private landowners who have bought ranchland in recent years to run as game-hunting operations. Perez says these types of landowners are more motivated to return swaths of their land to native grasses, such as little blue stem and switchgrass, that favor bobwhites. The landowners also are willing to kill Bermuda grass, which fattens cows but doesn’t provide tasty seeds or cover for quail coveys. While Perez is hopeful that the project will invite more quail to breed in the region, it is too early to know for sure.

These conservation efforts often benefit other species as well, including the lesser prairie chicken, the sage grouse, as well as pollinators, says Dailey, who also is assistant director and science coordinator at NBCI. For instance, when farmers take 30 to 90 feet of land out of production at the borders of their corn and soybean fields, wild grasses and other wildlife-friendly plants grow.

In their efforts to conservation specific species, scientists are also looking out for possible unintended consequences these projects can have on non-targeted species. This is the case with the iconic mule deer, whose herds have been declining across the Western U.S. In Colorado severe winters, drought conditions, habitat loss and wildfires have conspired to drag the deer headcount down by 36 percent from 2005 to 2013. To prevent further declines, Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) recently launched a landscape-based conservation initiative that is attempting to improve the health of whole ecosystems so that they can better support species such as mule deer and sage grouse. Some scientists at CPW and Colorado State University are also studying how these efforts to manipulate the habitat for mule deer — such as by thinning forests — are also causing certain song birds, such as mountain chickadees and white breasted nut hatches to leave the area.

A mule deer buck in velvet, near Bailey, Colorado. Photo by David Hannigan, Colorado Division of Wildlife

The landscape-scale effort that most directly targets common species is a nationwide, multi-institutional initiative called the Gap Analysis Program (GAP), coordinated by the U.S. Geological Survey. The program, which launched in the early 1990s, produces GIS maps of land cover, land vertebrate species, and other elements to identify those species and plant communities that are not adequately represented in existing conservation lands. In other words, the program tries to locate the “gaps” between what’s being conserved and what should be conserved.

One outcome of GAP is the recently published State of Birds 2014 report. This assessment of the nation’s birds drew heavily from GAP’s maps that show who has stewardship responsibility of private and public lands (forests, riparian areas, arid lands, etc.) and which species exist there, says Jocelyn Aycrigg, a report co-author and a conservation biologist at the University of Idaho who works with GAP. This knowledge can help inform different agencies and organizations about how they can work together to better conserve species and their habitats, she says.

Conservation biologists are also using GAP’s data to identify and target landscapes that are best suited for conservation efforts as the climate warms.
In 1988 Malcolm Hunter, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Maine, introduced the concept “conserving the stage,” a focus on the “stages,” or arenas, of evolution and biological diversity rather than specific “actors,” or species, that inhabit them. In recent years other scientists — particularly Paul Beier and Brian Brost of Northern Arizona University, and separately Mark Anderson and Charles Ferree of The Nature Conservancy — have picked up and advanced the idea through the filter of climate change. They and others are attempting to identify and set aside diverse landscapes — those with varied geology and elevation — to provide animals and plants with enough choices to buffer themselves against a changing climate.

Abundance as asset

Even though the “conserving the stage” approach does not explicitly stem from a plan to save common species in decline — or any particular species, for that matter — it could have the same effect, according to Beier. “This coarse-filter approach in fact would probably work best for common species, whereas it’s probably worse for highly specialized species that occur only in one place, such as polar bears, pikas or wolverines,” says Beier.

“It’s really about having a lot of options,” adds Anderson, who directs conservation science for The Nature Conservancy’s Eastern United States division. “We don’t know for sure how they’ll work or exactly how things will rearrange themselves. But if you have more options, as a plant or animal, you’re more likely to survive.” That’s not to say that this approach will offer a lifeline for all species. In fact, Anderson cautions, “it doesn’t guarantee, for instance, that the New England cottontail you love will make it through climate change.” In some cases nothing short of a targeted, fine-filter approach will save a particularly threatened species.

The Conservancy recently finished two large projects aimed at identifying places that exemplify the various “stages” and that have features that make them more resilient to climate change. Anderson and his team analyzed nearly 400 million acres of land — stretching from Florida to Maine and adjacent parts of Canada — for resilience. It’s way too soon to measure how the landscape-based approach will translate for individual plant and animal species, including common ones in decline, Anderson acknowledges, but it clearly intends to preserve as much biodiversity as possible in a dynamic world, especially before species start down the path toward extinction.

Nationwide, conservationists and the Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative are trying to preserve most of this bird’s populations before it’s too late. Perez of Texas Parks & Wildlife has been tracking and counting bobwhites for many years, chronicling their long-term decline as closely as anyone. From recent counts this year he is relieved to discover that quail numbers have risen after setting new record lows in recent years, thanks largely to rain that quenched a severe multi-year drought. The uptick makes him all the more willing to take his English setter and his 15-year-old daughter, Lily, out quail hunting in mid-October just before the official season opens, but not hopeful enough to predict a long-term recovery.

“The concern is that the climate is changing or will change in the future, so we won’t get what’ll be needed for birds to have boom years,” says Perez. But even if we can’t control Mother Nature, he adds, we can, for example, restore native grasses so that lands are more resilient for wildlife.

Perez hopes that effective conservation efforts will help ensure that Lily’s generation will be able to teach their kids how to hunt and otherwise appreciate bobwhite quail. “You’re out there in the grasslands with your dog and friends and you fall in love with the bobwhites all over again.”

This story was originally published on Beacon Reader on Sept. 24 as part of the Bracing For Impact reporting project.

Susan Moran is a freelance journalist who co-hosts “How On Earth,” a weekly science show on KGNU community radio in Colorado. She has written for publications such as the New York Times, The Economist, Popular Science, Discover and Nature on science, nature, energy, health and business. She spent 10 months as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.

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Jeffrey Brown has the story.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: There’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other. And that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate.

JEFFREY BROWN: Hours after ordering airstrikes in Syria, President Obama was in New York to address a very different threat: climate change. He headlined a summit with more than 120 world leaders, and he pledged to work with other nations, but said the U.S. won’t work alone.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We recognize our role in creating this problem. We embrace our responsibility to combat it. We will do our part and we will help developing nations do theirs. But we can only succeed in combating climate change if we are joined in this effort by every nation, developed and developing alike. Nobody gets a pass.

JEFFREY BROWN: The summit came a day after findings that carbon pollution increased last year by the most in 20 years, with the U.S., China and India accounting for much of the damage. The leaders of China and India chose not to attend the summit today.

Overall, the gathering was meant to gin up political momentum for negotiating a global agreement by December 2015 to reduce greenhouse gases. U.N. secretary Ban Ki-Moon urged all to do their part.

BAN KI-MOON, Secretary-General, United Nations: We need all public finance institutions to step up to the challenge. And we need to bring private finance from the sidelines. We must begin to capitalize Green Climate Fund.

JEFFREY BROWN: Ban also called for putting a price on carbon, something the United States has rejected. But President Obama did announce he’s ordered federal agencies to consider climate change in international development programs.

And French President Francois Hollande pledged $1 billion over the next few years to help poor nations adapt to the effects of a warming climate.

PRESIDENT FRANCOIS HOLLANDE, France (through interpreter): The French Parliament at this very moment is discussing a law on energy transition. Not only do we need to show by example, but we also need to be capable of making the gestures and doing what is necessary on behalf of France. This is why the Green Fund for us is a new prospect that needs to be well-equipped.

JEFFREY BROWN: The climate summit follows Sunday’s mass march in New York and rallies around the world demanding the U.S. and other developed nations do more. The next phase of negotiations will begin in Lima, Peru, in December, working toward a potential international agreement at a conference in Paris next year.

But some of the challenges in reaching such an agreement were on display even today. Brazil, for example, said it wouldn’t sign a plan to halt deforestation by 2030. And China’s vice premier maintained that his country and others need to be allowed to release more pollution for the time being. 

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The People’s Climate March organized more than 2,000 events in 166 countries last weekend. The central protest took place Sunday in New York City, where thousands gathered to urge international leaders at the United Nations’ summit on climate change to take greater action. Photo courtesy Flickr user Light Brigading

What’s with all these climate protests?

The street demonstration in Manhattan on Sunday was timed to today’s United Nation’s summit on climate change. It was believed to be the single biggest climate protest — ever. More than 300,000 marched in New York that day, including students, monks, actor Mark Ruffalo, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. And, naturally, former Vice President Al Gore.

But that was merely one of 2,800 rallies in some 160 countries calling for action on climate change. In Bordeaux, a child wore a gas mask with a sign reading, “Mommy, can I go play outside?” On a beach in Australia, people “saluted” Prime Minister Tony Abbott by sticking their heads in the sand and their butts in the air.

And in New York on Monday, hundreds of protesters, including one in a polar bear costume and another dressed as Captain Planet, marched through New York City’s financial district dressed in blue to symbolize rising floodwaters and staged a sit-in attempted to “block Wall Street.” Dozens were arrested. Their message to Wall Street, to stop financing the oil industry, reflected a new focus on fossil fuel “divestments.”

Divestments? What does that mean?

Divestment, or divestiture, refers to the process of selling an asset. In this context, it means a push for big companies and individuals to sever ties with investments in oil and coal by selling stocks. What started as a move on university campuses became bigger news on Monday when the Rockefellers, heirs to the oil dynasty that originated with Standard Oil, announced a plan to divest a large holding of fossil fuel stocks, citing concerns about rising emissions due to climate change. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund will join a $50 billion campaign to divest investments linked to fossil fuels. Participants also include businesses, religious groups, even cities like Santa Monica, California, and Seattle.

Gwen Ifill discussed this campaign with Jenna Nicholas of Divest-Invest Philanthropy on last night’s show:

A campaign of “divestments” will be presented at today’s meeting by Al Gore.

But climate change is not a new problem. Why is this happening now?

Today’s meeting is in part preparation for a meeting in December in Lima, Peru, and a bigger conference in December 2015 in Paris. In advance of these conferences, this summit puts pressure on countries at the national level to focus attention on climate change.

“What I take away from this is that Ban Ki-moon and the U.S. are interested in giving the issue high profile in advance and in preparation for the ultimate meeting in Paris in 2015,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor at Princeton University and member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Will any of this really move the ball forward or is it just another rehash of the same debate?

It’s not all old news. President Obama announced today that the U.S. government will offer vulnerable populations abroad new scientific tools to “strengthen their climate resilience.” The government will also be required to factor climate change into money spent overseas to help poorer countries. Watch his speech here:

Also new at this meeting is a deadline to curb greenhouse gas emissions by halting deforestation. The United States, Canada and the European Union are among the 32 countries signing on, the Associated Press Reports. But Brazil, home to huge swaths of rainforest, has said no to endorsing the initiative.

Still, many obstacles to progress remain. Among them, cost, partisan gridlock, the persistence of the problem and “deep divisions between industrialized nations and developing countries,” wrote Robert N. Stavins in an opinion piece in the New York Times. Stavins is an IPCC author and director of the environmental economics program at the Harvard Kennedy School. But market-based solutions to reduce emissions combined with creative leadership could hold promise, he concludes.

If history is any indicator, it’s unlikely that any global treaty will be reached. But smaller-scale negotiations between countries that result in reducing carbon emissions could be an alternative, along with an informal “pledge and review” process that relies on public exposure to pressure countries into progress, Oppenheimer said. “Countries would be shamed in not doing what they said they would do, but they would not be penalized,” he said.

In the meantime, language on the meeting’s website is ambitious, challenging leaders to “bring bold announcements and actions to the summit that will reduce emissions, strengthen climate resilience, and mobilize political will for a meaningful legal agreement in 2015.”

That seems like a lot of PR mumbo jumbo. Remind me, why this is such a big deal?

Simply, it’s part of a push to do more to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Reports out this month showed levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reaching record highs, a reduced ability by oceans and plant life to soak up that carbon, and birds like the cerulean warbler and the bald eagle rapidly losing habitat.

Climate change is occurring, and it’s “extremely likely” that it’s human-caused, according to the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Stavins described it this way:

The world is now on track to more than double current greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere by the end of the century. This would push up average global temperatures by three to eight degrees Celsius and could mean the disappearance of glaciers, droughts in the mid-to-low latitudes, decreased crop productivity, increased sea levels and flooding, vanishing islands and coastal wetlands, greater storm frequency and intensity, the risk of species extinction and a significant spread of infectious disease.”

Who is at the climate summit?

President Obama joins 120 world leaders at the summit, along with celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, who has been crowned a “UN Messenger of Peace” by Ban Ki-moon.

And it’s not just environment leaders. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, for example, who has called climate change “one of the most important challenges of our time” is attending.

But just as important is who’s not there: Chinese president Xi Jinping and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This is notable because China and India, along with the United States, are the world’s top emitters. The countries will be represented by other diplomats, but some have called their absence a snub.

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Smoke stacks from the NRG power plant outside of Jewett, Tx. AP Photo/Nick Simonite

The world pumped an estimated 39.8 billion tons (36.1 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide into the air last year by burning coal, oil and gas. That is 778 million tons (706 metric tons) or 2.3 percent more than the previous year.

Their results were published Sunday in three articles in the peer-reviewed journals Nature Geoscience and Nature Climate Change.

The team projects that emissions of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas from human activity, are increasing by 2.5 percent this year.

The scientists forecast that emissions will continue to increase, adding that the world in about 30 years will warm by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) from now. In 2009, world leaders called that level dangerous and pledged not to reach it.

Chris Field, a Carnegie Institution ecologist who heads a U.N. panel on global warming, called the studies “a stark and sobering picture of the steps we need to take to address the challenge of climate change.”

More than 100 world leaders will meet Tuesday at the U.N. Climate Summit to discuss how to reverse the emissions trend.

The world’s three biggest carbon polluting nations — China, the U.S. and India — all saw their emissions jump. No other country came close in additional emissions.

Indian emissions grew by 5.1 percent, Chinese emissions by 4.2 percent and the U.S. emissions by 2.9 percent, when the extra leap day in 2012 is accounted for.

China, the No. 1 carbon polluter, also had more than half the world’s increases over 2012. China’s increases are slowing because the Chinese economy isn’t growing as fast as it had been, Peters said.

The U.S. had reduced its carbon emissions in four of the five previous years. Peters said it rose last year because of a recovering economy and more coal power.

Only two dozen of the about 200 countries cut their carbon emissions last year, led by mostly European countries. Spain had the biggest decrease.

The world emissions averaged to 6.3 million pounds (2.9 million kilograms) of carbon dioxide put in the air every second.

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The 645-page plan, expected to be finalized next year, is a centerpiece of Obama’s efforts to deal with climate change and seeks to give the United States more leverage to prod other countries to act when negotiations on a new international treaty resume next year. Under the plan, carbon emissions are to be reduced 30 percent by 2030, compared to 2005 levels, in what would amount to one of the most significant U.S. actions on global warming.

The proposal sets off a complex regulatory process, steeped in politics, in which the 50 states will each determine how to meet customized targets set by the Environmental Protection Agency, then submit those plans for approval.

“This is not just about disappearing polar bears or melting ice caps,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “This is about protecting our health and our homes. This is about protecting local economies and jobs.”

Some states will be allowed to emit more pollutants and others less, leading to an overall, nationwide reduction of 30 percent.

Many states that rely heavily on coal will be spared from cutting a full 30 percent. West Virginia, for example, must cut 19 percent by 2030 compared to what the state was emitting in 2012. Ohio’s target is 28 percent, while Kentucky and Wyoming will have to find ways to make 18 percent and 19 percent cuts.

On the other extreme, New York has a 44 percent target, EPA figures show. But New York already has joined with other Northeast states to curb carbon dioxide from power plants, reducing the baseline figure from which cuts must be made. States like New York can get credit for actions they’ve already taken, lest they be punished for taking early action.

Initially, Obama wanted each state to submit its plan by June 2016. But the draft proposal shows states could have until 2017 — and 2018, if they join with other states.

That means even if the rules survive legal and other challenges, the dust won’t likely settle on this transformation until well into the next administration, raising the possibility that political dynamics in either Congress or the White House could alter the rule’s course.

Although Obama doesn’t need a vote in Congress to approve his plans, lawmakers in both the House and Senate have already vowed to try to block them — including Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall, who faces a difficult re-election this year in coal-dependent West Virginia. Scuttling the rules could be easier if Republicans take the Senate in November and then the White House in 2016.

Another potential flash point: The plan relies heavily on governors agreeing to develop plans to meet the federal standard. If Republican governors refuse to go along, as was the case with Obama’s expansion of Medicaid, the EPA can create its own plan for a state. But the specifics of how EPA could force a state to comply with that plan remain murky.

S. William Becker, who heads the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said it was good that the rule will give states more time to develop strategies and will grant credit for previous steps to cut emissions.

“Still, the regulatory and resource challenges that lie ahead are daunting,” Becker said.

Power plants are the largest U.S. source of greenhouse gases, accounting for about a third of the annual emissions. EPA data show power plants have already reduced carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 13 percent since 2005, meaning they are about halfway to meeting the administration’s goal.

The EPA projected that carrying out the plan will cost up to $8.8 billion annually in 2030, but the actual costs will depend heavily on how states choose to reach their targets. The administration argued that any costs to comply are far outweighed by savings in health expenses that the U.S. will realize thanks to reductions in other pollutants such as soot and smog that will accompany a shift away from dirtier fuels.

Environmental groups hailed the proposal, praising both the climate effects and the public health benefits they said would follow. Former Vice President Al Gore, a prominent environmental advocate, called it “the most important step taken to combat the climate crisis in our country’s history.”

But energy advocates sounded alarms, warning of economic drag. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the proposal “a dagger in the heart of the American middle class.”

“If these rules are allowed to go into effect, the administration for all intents and purposes is creating America’s next energy crisis,” said Mike Duncan of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which represents the coal industry.

Options for states to meet the targets include making power plants more efficient, reducing the frequency at which coal-fired power plants supply power to the grid, and investing in more renewable, low-carbon sources of energy. States could also enhance programs aimed at reducing demand by making households and businesses more energy-efficient. Each of those categories will have a separate target.

Coal once supplied about half the nation’s electricity, but has dropped to 40 percent amid a boom in natural gas and renewable sources such as wind and solar. Although the new emissions cuts will further diminish coal’s role, the EPA predicted that it would remain a leading source of electricity in the U.S., providing more than 30 percent of the projected supply.

Obama has already tackled the emissions from the nation’s cars and trucks, announcing rules to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by doubling fuel economy. That standard will reduce carbon dioxide by more than 2 billion tons over the lives of vehicles made in model years 2012-25.

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Eventually, scientists say, it will lead to rising sea levels. The study finds that a series of glaciers in the Amundsen Sea have — quote — “passed the point of no return” and are draining into the water, with faster-melting levels shown in red. One is shown here in time-lapse footage. And some of these glaciers have been retreating more than a mile a year between 1996 and 2011.

The collapse of the ice sheet will take more than a century to play out, but the new estimates captured international attention today.

NASA’s Tom Wagner is one of the lead members of the team. And he joins us right now.

Tom Wagner, welcome to the program.

THOMAS WAGNER, NASA: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, remind us, why do you pay attention? Why should one pay attention to what’s going on in Antarctica, this ice sheet?

THOMAS WAGNER: Because it’s one of the most important places on Earth for understanding sea level rise.

And right now around the world, sea level is rising by three millimeters a year.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But it’s been expected that there was going to be melting, there was going to be sea level rise. What’s different about what you have reported today?

THOMAS WAGNER: What is different is this.

We kind of almost think of the ice as going into the ocean in a steady-state way. But now what we have is evidence of kind of a jump. And what is happening literally is that we’re seeing the ice retreat off the points that it was grounded on into a deeper interior that can allow it to really speed up.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And do you know why this is happening?

THOMAS WAGNER: We know why, in that we know that it’s warm water that is coming from deep parts of Antarctica and getting blown up on to the continental shelf and under this ice and causing it to melt.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what’s causing that water to be warm and causing it to move in the direction it is?

THOMAS WAGNER: So, around Antarctica, the circum-Antarctic deep water is actually warmer than the surface water, which is very cold.

And the general idea is that probably winds that have changed their patterns because of global warming, coupled also with the ozone hole over Antarctica, have led stronger wind patterns around Antarctica.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And how confident are scientists that that’s the cause, that that’s behind it?

THOMAS WAGNER: Pretty confident, in that — and one thing you have to understand is this release today — and there were actually two studies that came out — this idea has been talked about since the 1970s.

And the whole scientific community has been working on this for a long time, not just these studies with satellites, but ships that have gone to the area and actually measured the water temperatures have actually even gone out and made a hole along with the National Science Foundation in one of the ice shelves.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, you said you found out that certain things have happened and they are happening at a faster rate. Give us sort of a tangible example about it. Help us understand what exactly is going on there.

THOMAS WAGNER: Sure.

If you went to Antarctica and pulled the ice off, in the region of West Antarctica that we just looked at, you actually wouldn’t see land under there. What you would see is ocean and a few islands popped up. And that’s what makes this ice so at risk for rapid loss.

But the ice so thick that it displaces all the water and kind of sits down on the bedrock. But what’s happened is that it’s retreated away from its coastal area. And as it retreats and thins, it is supposed to float on that water, and that allows it to speed up and flow more rapidly into the ocean.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, looking at consequences, what do you project? What do you see?

THOMAS WAGNER: So the modeling study that came out today in “Science” actually says that we could, within the next century, jump up from, say, a quarter of a millimeter a year out of this one glacier to over a millimeter a year. That’s one of five glaciers that are just in this area, and this is just one small area of Antarctica.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, that sounds like not very much, from a quarter of a millimeter to a millimeter.

THOMAS WAGNER: Right.

But when you run out some of the models, right, say, like in 100 years from now, in the New York alone in the last 100 years, we have seen over a foot of sea level rise, OK? And that sea level rise is already damaging things all up and down the East Coast.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.

THOMAS WAGNER: The next century, we’re looking at maybe three-feet-plus. When we include these kinds of factors, we might have to revise that estimate upwards, maybe four, maybe five, maybe more, and that’s kind of the cutting edge of the research right now.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what — can you say what populations, what cities, what parts of the world we’re talking about? Who is affected by this?

THOMAS WAGNER: In Bangladesh, a foot-and-a-half of sea level rise displaces 11 million people. OK? It’s that serious.

All around the world, most of our cities are built on ports. The ports are right at sea level. And the thing is, you don’t just think about it like, oh, my beach — my house is four feet above sea level.

Well, the problem is during a storm surge or something else, you get additional problems. So small amounts are really impactful.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And when the report says this is irreversible, what does that mean?

THOMAS WAGNER: OK.

This was the fascinating part of this research. Because that part of Antarctica — typically, we think of a continent, you think of like the United States. The ocean is here and the continent goes up like this. In Antarctica, the continent is down below sea level, and the ice is really thick on it.

What happens is that, as the ice retreats in, it begins to float, because there’s no continent for it to pull up on. OK? And that’s what makes this so risky and why it can flow into the ocean and collapse so rapidly.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But does that literally mean there’s nothing that humans can do to slow this down at this point?

THOMAS WAGNER: Tough call.

And, again, that does kind of get to the cutting edge. What we know is this. Based on the basic physics and the geometry, the shape of the bed in that area, this should continue to retreat, unless there is some wildly different thing, such as there is no warm water entering this part of Antarctica.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Why do you say that’s a wild thing?

THOMAS WAGNER: Well, you would have to really fundamentally change ocean circulation and atmospheric circulation.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And that’s not something that you’re saying most any — that humans are capable of doing right now?

THOMAS WAGNER: No.

And, listen, I’m not saying you should run screaming from the beach right this moment because of the wave of water is coming. What I’m saying is, we’re actually doing pretty well at kind of closing the sea level budget, and getting to a point where we can really project into the future about how things are going to change.

And I feel like, sometimes, when people hear about climate change and sea level rise, they think it’s all based on these computer models that probably have these big uncertainties. One of the key studies that came out today, this is based on observations, right, actually looking at how these glaciers are changing and speeding up.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, it’s not some projection, some mathematical model?

THOMAS WAGNER: No, with a lot of uncertainty.

This is, like, aircraft have gone and flown over and put radar signals down that measured the rock under the ice and where it is.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, Tom Wagner, you have left us all unsettled.

(LAUGHTER)

JUDY WOODRUFF: Thank you very much.

THOMAS WAGNER: Thank you for having me.

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GWEN IFILL: The U.S. government released today its most comprehensive report on climate change yet, and the forecast is far from sunny.

GWEN IFILL: The Obama administration sought to show today that global warming is no longer an issue for the distant future, but instead the here and now.

Gary Yohe is lead author of the government’s new National Climate Assessment.

GARY YOHE: That lack of recognition and the inability of this community and decision-makers to communicate those risks to individuals unnecessarily puts economic assets at risk, unnecessarily puts human lives at risk, unnecessarily puts ecosystems at risk.

GWEN IFILL: The U.N. has already issued dire warnings about the negative effects worldwide of failing to reduce carbon emissions.

The new assessment zeroes in on damage within the United States. The report describes how results will be felt in eight regions across the country, from stronger storms in the Northeast, to wildfires and drought in the Southwest, to rising dangers from more powerful hurricanes in the Southeast.

The assessment also finds heavy rainfall has increased across the Eastern United States in the last half-century, and by 70 percent just in the Northeast.

Kathryn Sullivan, who runs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said there’s an urgent need to act.

KATHRYN SULLIVAN, Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: We can, as we must, bring this assessment to life, really make sure it gets off the page, out of the ether, and into the policies, the plans and the practices that are adopted across our nation.

GWEN IFILL: The energy industry and some Republican senators today branded the report alarmist. But the administration is expected to cite the warnings when it lays out new regulations this summer to limit emissions from coal-fired power plants.

John Holdren is the president’s science adviser. I spoke to him a short time ago from the White House Briefing Room.

John Holdren, thank you for joining us.

Your report today talks about to residential rains torrential rains and rising sea levels, and yet you also say about a 2-degree increase in Fahrenheit in global warming. It doesn’t seem that sounds so minor would have such an outsized effect.

JOHN HOLDREN, Director, White House Office of Sciences and Technology Policy: Well, the thing one needs to understand about the global average temperature, it’s a little bit like the temperature of the body.

It’s really an index of the state of the whole climate system, and if your body temperature went up by two degrees Celsius, 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, you would know it was telling you something is seriously amiss in your body’s system. And, similarly, when that index, the average temperature of the Earth goes up by a couple of degrees, it is a really big deal.

It is indicating changes in circulation patterns, in patterns of rain and snow, in winds, ocean currents, and extremes of weather that are things that people really notice.

GWEN IFILL: One of the things that’s interesting in your report is how you target exactly which areas of the United States will be affected how by what you say is the effect of the — of this global warming. Let’s walk through these regions one by one.

Let’s think about the Southeast, where — which is home to 80 million people in the United States.

JOHN HOLDREN: Sure.

Well, again, the thing that’s really new about this report is the way it breaks down the impacts of climate change, what’s happening and what’s projected to happen into different regions in the United States. In the Southeast, one of the big problems is that more and more of the precipitation is falling in extreme events. We understand why this is true scientifically, but it’s now being observed.

Like the 22 inches of rain that fell in 24 hours in the Florida Panhandle a few days ago, this is going to be a continuing problem in the Southeast, more moisture in the atmosphere, more of it falling in deluges. Another problem for much of the Southeast, the coastal regions, is rising sea level.

Sea level has been rising. It is continuing to rise, and it will do so for a long time to come, the total extent depending on the extent to which we succeed in reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases that are driving global climate change.

GWEN IFILL: How about in the Great Plains, which is our great national breadbasket in many ways?

JOHN HOLDREN: In the Great Plains, one of the things we are seeing, of course, is summer begins sooner and lasts longer. That longer growing vaccines would be an advantage, but it is offset by more extremes, again, more extreme deluges, more extreme heat waves. And that is going to be a continuing challenge in the Great Plains.

GWEN IFILL: You talk about the Southwest. We think of the Southwest as mountains and desert anyway, but does climate change have an outsized effect there?

JOHN HOLDREN: It does.

In the mountains, what happens is, first of all, more of the precipitation falls as rain, rather than as snow. Rain runs off more rapidly. That means, in the summer, when you are depending on snowmelt to continue to feed the rivers and, of course, the agriculture fields, there’s less snow to do that.

You also, because of the increased temperatures, have greater losses to evaporation, more water evaporating out of the soil and drying the soil out sooner. There are a variety of other factors that influence drought in the Southwest and in California. Both places are experiencing serious droughts at this point. And, again, that’s a pattern that we would expect to see more of under continuing climate change.

GWEN IFILL: You cite lots of examples of change, including the proliferation of mountain pine beetles killing trees, or coral bleaching, which is killing coral.

What I found interesting also, especially at this time of year, is the extension of the pollen production season that you’re saying is due to this as well.

JOHN HOLDREN: Yes, exactly. The longer growing seasons means a longer season for pollens. More people are experiencing allergies earlier and longer. So, there are some direct impacts on health, as well as the impacts of other dimensions of our environment.

GWEN IFILL: As you know, there has always been a debate about whether human activity is responsible for the majority of this kind of warming. In this report, have you reached that conclusion?

JOHN HOLDREN: Well, that conclusion has already been reached by many other bodies. It’s reaffirmed in this report.

Studies by the National Academy of Sciences, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, many other groups, have clearly established that the great bulk of the climate change we’re experiencing now is due to human activities, above all, burning fossil fuels and land use change, including deforestation.

Of course, we all know the climate has been changing for natural reasons for millions of years, but what we’re seeing now is, superimposed on gradual, natural climate change, we’re seeing more rapid human-imposed climate change dominating the situation and producing these impacts that this report spells out in such detail.

GWEN IFILL: As the Obama administration prepares to make decisions about carbon fuel emissions from power plants or about the XL Keystone pipeline, do you — how do you balance, how do you make the argument to balance economic loss vs. climate change action? How do you measure inaction vs. action in that context?

JOHN HOLDREN: Well, first of all, I would say that the Obama administration is not only prepared to make decisions, but has been making decisions.

The president almost a year ago, in June of 2013, rolled out a climate action plan based on his executive authorities, because it didn’t seem that the Congress was willing to take action. That climate action plan includes an element of reducing U.S. contributions to the emissions that are driving the problem.

It includes improving preparedness and resilience across communities all around the United States to better deal with climate change, reduce the vulnerabilities, and includes leadership in the international sphere to get the rest of the world cooperating with us to reduce the drivers of climate change and to better prepare for changes we can’t avoid.

That was already happening before this report. What this report helps us to do is to communicate to the American people just how climate change is influencing their lives where they live and work. That’s going to increase public support for taking action to reduce the pace and magnitude of climate change, and it’s also going to help the people make the decisions they need to make to reduce their vulnerability.

When it comes to balancing the economic factors in the situation, the key point I would make is that addressing climate change with sensible, cost-effective measures will be a lot less expensive than trying to deal with the impacts of climate change unmitigated.

GWEN IFILL: But how do you speak to the public opinion issue? You have seen the numbers I have seen. Many Americans don’t think it’s worth doing anything about right now. They’re not that worried.

JOHN HOLDREN: Well, you know, the way I read the polls, typically, 70 percent or more of Americans believe climate change is real, happening, doing harm, and the government should do more about it.

The problem is, when you ask them to rank the problems that worry them the most, climate change comes in rather low on the list. It’s behind jobs, the economy, immigration, crime, and many other things. I think one of the things this report will do, together with what people are observing all around them and seeing on their TV screens, is, it’s going to increase the salience of the climate change issue on the public’s priority list.

And I think we will see more public support in a vocal way for the government taking additional actions to reduce this problem, and indeed to do more in partnership with the private sector, all levels of government, state, local, nonprofit organizations, who are really trying to do this in an approach the president calls all hands on deck.

The federal government can’t do it alone. Business is going to play a big role. Universities are going to play a big role, but together we think we can get it done.

GWEN IFILL: John Holdren, White House science adviser, thank you so much for joining us.

JOHN HOLDREN: Thank you. It’s been my pleasure.

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It also lays out numerous scenarios of what could be done. But those options come with different costs, and in the U.S., there’s been opposition in Congress and often reluctance among much of the public to some big changes.

We look at the economic and political challenges with Robert Stavins. He’s a lead co-author of the report. He’s an environmental economist at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. And Maura Cowley, she’s the executive director of the Energy Action Coalition, which includes 30 youth-led groups.

And we thank you both for being with us.

Robert Stavins, let me start with you.

This report stresses the urgency of doing something now, implementing new policies. Give us an example of a policy that the United States needs to implement in the near term.

ROBERT STAVINS, Harvard Kennedy School of Government: Well, Judy, what’s become clear is that, for this country, for the United States, the only approach that conceivably would achieve meaningful emissions reductions, such as those that are talked about in the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, would be an economy-wide carbon pricing system.

That might be a cap-and-trade system, as has been denigrated, and obviously passed the House, but not the Senate, or it could perhaps a revenue-neutral carbon tax, but something that would be pervasive throughout the economy and send the right price signals.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And is this something you think, in today’s political environment, lawmakers could embrace?

ROBERT STAVINS: Well, in today’s political environment, what is feasible is what is happening in the United States, and that is that the administration is taking some action under existing regulations and through executive orders.

It’s hard to do much more than that. However, it’s possible they will actually be proposing a cap-and-trade system, a tradable permit system, under one of the regulatory initiatives — initiatives for power plants.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let me just pick up with that with Maura Cowley, because the last few decades, you look at whenever Congress has been asked or seriously considered action to try to get polluters to pay for their pollution, for carbon emission, it’s failed. And lawmakers who voted for it often went on to lose at the polls in November.

How do you surmount that kind of opposition, that kind of problem?

MAURA COWLEY, Energy Action Coalition: Well, I think you surmount that by taking action on climate change and reaching out to young voters.

Right now, young voters are the largest voting bloc in the country, soon to outnumber the baby boomers at the polls. And over 73 percent of young people say they will vote against an elected official who doesn’t take action on climate change. So if you want young people to vote for you, taking action on climate change is the right way to go.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But are you saying, in most states, in most congressional districts right now, young people hold the preponderance of votes?  Because I still hear lawmakers saying young people aren’t turning out. MAURA COWLEY: Well, young people elected Barack Obama in 2008 and turned out again in record numbers in 2012. So I think young people, the millennial generation is here to stay when it comes to voting.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Robert Stavins, there are also a number of politicians, I think in particular Republicans, who question the science, even, question whether carbon emissions contribute to pollution. How do you address that kind of opposition or doubt?

ROBERT STAVINS: Well, Judy, in my view, the climate skepticism that you’re referring to that exists among some people in the Republican Party, particularly the more conservative parts of the Republican Party, really doesn’t have to do with climate change itself. It really has to do with political polarization that’s been taking place, as the Republican Party has moved gradually to the right for a whole set of structural reasons.

And so what we have now is an ideological divide. So, tragically, the debates in the United States, the political debates on climate change, are more akin to the debates on an issue like abortion than they are on debates which are fundamentally about the science and thinking about what’s wise and best for the country and best for the planet.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, continuing in that — in that line of thinking, Maura Cowley, you know, you’re — as we said, you’re the head of this grassroots group representing different — different organizations of young people, but the polls right now in this country, we looked at them, show, while a majority of Americans say, yes, we think climate change is real, but doing something about it ranks near the bottom.

They’re more concerned about the jobs, about the economic, about — in some cases, about health care than they are — climate always seems to come up dragging up the rear.

MAURA COWLEY: Yes, but I think right now what we’re seeing across the country in terms of extreme weather is really starting to change attitudes about climate change, from superstorm Sandy, to Hurricane Katrina, the droughts in California, the wildfires in Colorado.

People are waking up to the realities of climate change and they’re demanding that their leaders take action. We have had hundreds of people getting arrested over the Keystone XL pipeline. Right now, students at Washington University…

JUDY WOODRUFF: You mean part of your coalition?

MAURA COWLEY: Yes.

And we have students at universities, Washington, Saint Louis — Washington University in Saint Louis right on a multiday sit-in, demanding that their university sever ties with Peabody Energy, or Peabody Coal, one of the largest polluters in the world.

And so there’s a rising, swelling momentum right now against the fossil fuel industries and to demand that our leaders take action on climate change.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Robert Stavins, how much of the responsibility lies with the United States and other developed countries and how much with the developing countries, which are now increasing their use of fossil fuels as they expand their economies?

ROBERT STAVINS: Well, that’s a very important issue.

And let’s not denigrate the American population and assume that they’re foolish because of their unwillingness to take on action and to take on costs. We have to recognize, first of all, we’re asking a current generation of people in the United States to take on costs — or in all countries — to take on costs to benefit future generations, because the worst impacts of climate change are going to be off in the future, not this year or next year.

And then, in addition, what you brought up is the global distribution issue, and that is, you know, the United States has now been surpassed by China as the world’s largest emitter. In terms of the cumulative greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the United States is still in first place, but at current rates of economic growth, China is going to surpass us even in the stock in the atmosphere within a decade or two, depending on various factors.

If we look overall at developed compared to developing countries, the OECD countries, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, essentially the industrialized world, emissions in these countries are flat to declining. The rapid growth is in the large, rapidly growing, emerging countries, China, India, Brazil, Korea, South Africa, Mexico, and Indonesia.

They need to be involved. If they don’t get on the climate policy train, it’s not leaving the station. A different question, though, is whether or not they have to pay for their tickets.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, and it’s a much bigger subject than we can deal with right now.

But, Maura Cowley, in talking to the American people, how important is it that they understand that this is a shared responsibility with other countries?

MAURA COWLEY: Yes, I think it’s critical that they understand that the United States needs to help lead the international community to take action on climate change.

And right now, we’re seeing people across the country really demanding President Obama take — step up and enact strong regulations to regulate carbon right here in the United States. And doing that would send a major signal all across the globe that we are serious about climate change, that we are ready to take action. And it would help ease the path forward, so that all of those other countries would join us.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, we are going to leave it there.

Maura Cowley, we thank you very much.

Robert Stavins, thank you very much.

ROBERT STAVINS: Thank you.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: In northern New England researchers are increasingly worried about what’s happening to one of the region’s iconic animals, the moose. Their numbers are significantly declining, and investigators are trying to find out whether warmer winters in recent years may be a big part of the problem.

And a warning: The story contains some graphic images.

MAN: Well, we get to the tower, we got to check on those two calves we’re getting funny signals on.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Scientists are bundling up and prowling the forest in pursuit of the wildest large animal in New Hampshire, the moose. Their into-the-woods exploration by both foot and air is part of a massive research effort to understand why America’s iconic wild moose are dying at alarming rates.

The first weeks after a long winner are a critical time for moose. And here in New Hampshire, wildlife biologists from the state fish and game department want to find out why, in the last three years, moose populations are down as much as 40 percent in some regions.

Kristine Rines of the moose project with New Hampshire Game and Fish Department.

KRISTINE RINES, New Hampshire Fish and Game Department: April is the month of death, when most of these animals seem to just — they are completely depleted and they just start dying.

HARI SREENIVASAN: According to Eric Orff, New Hampshire field biologist for the National Wildlife Federation, the deaths have been dramatic all along North America’s southern moose range.

ERIC ORFF, National Wildlife Federation: When you look at a precipitous decline in the last decade, you know, the needle is headed in the wrong direction, you know, all across the southern edge of the range, from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Minnesota, Michigan, all across the southern fringe of their range, moose numbers are in a significant decline.

HARI SREENIVASAN: To better understand what’s behind the decline, New Hampshire and Maine have hired capture teams, whose job it is to track down the moose and collar them with a radio transmitter.

MAN: Well, we need the radio frequency.

MAN: Yes, it’s 153.73.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Pete Pekins, professor of wildlife ecology at the University of New Hampshire, is overseeing the project.

PETER PEKINS, University of New Hampshire: The helicopter basically finds these animals, zooms down on that animal. A net is shot over the gun. We call that net gunning. And the animal trips up in the net. And what are called muggers jump out of the helicopter at low height. And they wrestle the moose to the ground. And the people actually, many of them have been professional rodeo cowboys.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The goal is to collar and release 200 moose between this winter and next.

PETER PEKINS: These people know how to handle big animals. Most importantly, though, is how to humanely handle an animal.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Professor Pekins’ team tracks the collared animals from a fire tower in northern New Hampshire. Each day, devices are checked for signs of life.

PETER PEKINS: Of the 40 moose out there, how many have we successfully monitored here today?

MAN: So, we picked up 37 of the 40. From this morning, there is one, 314, if you want to check that one, Nick.

HARI SREENIVASAN: When monitors signal a moose death, researchers are quick to get to the animal before vital information is diluted by weather and time.

KRISTINE RINES: What we’re going try and do is get to them much sooner, so that we have better information on exactly why they’re dying.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The main theory New Hampshire researchers are pursuing is that the massive moose die-off is caused primarily by a devastating parasite, the winter tick.

On the day we visited, biologists retrieved a dead calf that was completely covered with winter ticks.

PETER PEKINS: Literally, this is the walking dead. The animal is totally emaciated. And there is no way it can survive.

These are the engorged adult ticks.

HARI SREENIVASAN: It is suspected the ticks latch on in fall and live off the animal’s blood for months.

PETER PEKINS: They are literally being sucked dry of blood. So, they can’t consume protein to replace the blood loss. Their only choice is to catabolize their own tissues. And that is going to be their muscles. The hind legs on a moose are some the most powerful legs in North America. And that animal doesn’t have any. And it’s because it has chewed up its own body to survive as long as it can.

And you can see that that is quite a bit of blood.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The winter tick parasite is not new, but its explosive population growth is. Reaching an animal like this calf soon after death allows scientists to document just how many ticks there were before they drop off in pursuit of a live host.

Scientists suspect that warmer winter temperatures are leading to the increased number of parasites.

PETER PEKINS: Shorter winters, both on the spring and fall end, play to the advantage of the tick.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The National Wildlife Federation’s Eric Orff is not affiliated with the state’s research team. While this winter was cold, he worries the longer-term warming trend and the rise in tick populations are part of a larger problem: climate change.

ERIC ORFF: In New Hampshire, our winters have warmed some four degrees since 1970. So, the warming of the winter means less snow, means more ticks, means fewer moose.

HARI SREENIVASAN: When you don’t have snow in April, you don’t have snow in November, that means they breed.

ERIC ORFF: The population explodes.

HARI SREENIVASAN: It’s easy to see why the moose is so important in New England. Viewing moose has become an $11 million tourist industry here.

PETER PEKINS: If you came to New Hampshire this summer, the most common question would be, where I can see a moose? And literally every tourist wants to see a moose. And New Hampshire has a great reputation for that. The aesthetic value of this animal to the state is — it just can’t be measured.

ERIC ORFF: As we know, our moose numbers are down some 40 percent.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Eric Orff is take the question of New Hampshire’s warming winters to the political arena, asking businesses and New Hampshire’s outdoor industry to sign a letter in support of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to reduce carbon emissions, emissions he believes play a role in climate change.

ERIC ORFF: In my lifetime, as a wildlife biologist, I witnessed the disappearance of winter here in New Hampshire. So we really need to curb carbon, get off the carbs world, and we need to put this earth on a diet of carbs, carbon, and bring back winter.

HARI SREENIVASAN: For their part, state researchers are not yet pointing the finger solely at climate change. Instead, they say the die-off is complex. Their plan is to keep their focus squarely on the biology of the moose and the best ways to sustain a healthy population.

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