By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s
administration will announce on Wednesday the formation of seven
“climate hubs” to help farmers and rural communities adapt to
extreme weather conditions and other effects of climate change,
a White House official said.
The hubs will act as information centers and aim to help
farmers and ranchers handle risks, including fires, pests,
floods and droughts, that are exacerbated by global warming.
The hubs will be located in Ames, Iowa; Durham, New
Hampshire; Raleigh, North Carolina; Fort Collins, Colorado; El
Reno, Oklahoma; Corvallis, Oregon; and Las Cruces, New Mexico,
the official said.
Additional “sub hubs” will be set up in Rio Piedras, Puerto
Rico; Davis, California; and Houghton, Michigan.
The hubs are an example of executive actions Obama has
promised to take to fight climate change.
The president has made the issue a top priority for 2014 and
has the authority to take many measures that address it without
congressional approval.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will make the
announcement of the “Regional Hubs for Risk Adaptation and
Mitigation to Climate Change” at a White House briefing, the
official said.
“For generations, America’s farmers, ranchers and forest
landowners have innovated and adapted to challenges,” Vilsack
said in a statement.
“Today, they face a new and more complex threat in the form
of a changing and shifting climate, which impacts both our
nation’s forests and our farmers’ bottom lines,” he said.
Environmentalists want big economies such as the United
States and China to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for heating the
planet, but they have urged policy makers around the world to
take action as well to help communities adapt to rising
temperatures now.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the effects of
climate change have led to a longer crop growing season in the
Midwest, a fire season that is 60 days longer than it was three
decades ago, and droughts that cost the United States $50
billion from 2011-2013.
The Obama administration is expected to announce new rules
later this year limiting carbon emissions from existing U.S.
power plants, a major polluter. The president is also under
pressure from environmentalists to reject the Keystone XL
pipeline, which would transport crude oil from Canadian oil
sands in Alberta to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Climate activists argue the project would exacerbate global
warming because of the carbon emissions involved in extracting
the oil. Proponents say the project would create jobs and boost
U.S. energy security. A State Department report released last
week played down the project’s impact on climate change.
(Editing by Ken Wills)
