Climate Change

Hawaii – One aspect of these paradise islands that takes away some of the glimmer is their reliance on fossil fuels, all of which is imported.  The Hawaiians have resolved to not only shift this state of affairs by transitioning to renewables, but they’re going for all the gusto:  They’re shooting for 70% of their energy from renewables by 2030!  See Governor Linda Lingle’s webpage on energy:  Energy for Tomorrow.

With an emphasis, as the “Honolulu Advertiser” reports, on windpower and electric cars, it’s all perfectly feasible.  Here’s another geographically appropriate technology – using cold water from the ocean for air conditioning.  See this article from the “Star Bulletin.”  (See also this from the “Christian Science Monitor” on a very similar system in Toronto.)

If Hawaii can aim for 70% renewables by 2030, then why can’t we have a modest federally mandated Renewable Portfolio Standard of 20% or 25%.  Well, the politics have militated against it.  See this from “US News & World Report” from last December.  I think the next Congress is going to be a lot different.  I think the next Congress is going to take us much farther along the path to clean energy and energy efficiency than some of us would’ve dreamed was possible – at least politically. 

Drill, Baby, Drill 2.0 – Geothermal is what I’m talking about here!  5½ GW by 2015 of potential just on the federal lands being released.  Interior Department to Open 190 Million Acres to Geothermal Power is the headline from DOE’s excellent weekly newsletter “EERE Network News.”  (EERE = Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, an entity that has been doing superb work in spite of the political winds often blowing against their mission.)  I wrote about Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) here recently.  There is nothing but upside.

Solar Thermal – A modest 5 MW plant opening in the California desert is very much a harbinger of more to come.   Ausra Opens its First Concentrating Solar Power Plant in California is another story from EERE.  I wrote about Ausra here last March.  I said then “Ausra’s website has some terrific graphics, well worth seeing, and some fun speculation:  ‘Solar Thermal Power Could Supply Over 90 percent of U.S. Grid Plus Auto Fleet.’”  Talk about bullish on CSP! 

DFC-ERG™ – A fuel cell manufacturer and a Canadian gas distribution company have come up with a good match.  In this Direct Fuel-Cell Energy Recovery Generation™, they are creating a high-efficiency, ultra-clean method for distributed generation of power.  See this for a good look at the technologies involved that can power 1,700 homes in Ontario.  The companies behind this project are Enbridge and FuelCell Energy.  While the first 2.2 MW is going to be sited in Canada, another 18 MW is slated for Connecticut, FuelCell Energy’s home.  These sorts of smart DG projects are changing the world. 

“Flexible” Carbon-To-Liquid Fuel Process – According to researchers at Purdue University, we could be producing “…alternative fuels, hydrogen and electricity from municipal solid wastes, agricultural wastes, forest residues and sewage sludge that could supply up to 20 percent of transportation fuels in the United States annually.”  See this from “CarbonFree” and this from Purdue.

These sorts of pyrolysis or gasification plants have extraordinary potential.  (I envisioned them once in the context of a comprehensive proposal for New York City’s modest 25,000 tons a day of municipal solid waste and called the plan, Urban Gold.  The heart of the strategy is to co-locate a materials recovery facility [MRF] and other waste disposal facilities, such as pyrolysis or gasification plants, with industries that would use the recycled materials as feedstock for their manufacturing.)

The folks at Purdue and many others have a similar rationale:  Why should we have waste?  We can avoid creating many wastes in the first place, we can recycle or reuse many, and we can put a great amount of material that would otherwise be handled as waste to good use as fuelstock for processes like these.  It is, after all, nature’s way, isn’t it?

China – I wrote here in August, and also here in July, about some of China’s extraordinary progress on renewables.  I missed a great article at the time from “Scientific American” – China’s Big Push for Renewable Energy.  We learn, among other things, that “There are 158 wind farms in China, according to the Chinese Wind Energy Association (CWEA), and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)—the government ministry charged with economic development—has called for the installation of 10 gigawatts—up from 6 gigawatts at present—by 2010.”

As I think I may have said before, without China, folks, getting a handle on global warming ain’t going nowhere.  Seems to me like they’re very much in the game.  Check out the article for more good news.  

Here are some great stories from major media that merit a look.  Beyond these stories, these publications have consistently great coverage on climate change and matters directly relevant to our subject.  There’s also a book here for your consideration.

National Geographic – This old and universally respected magazine has had an increasingly high profile on critical environmental stories over the past several years.  Here is one startling and, frankly, depressing article about the decimation of Borneo’s rainforests in the service of producing palm oil for junk food.  At the NGM page for Borneo’s Moment of Truth, you will find a video, some of the stunning photography, and the article itself.

Borneo seems a microcosm of much of what’s wrong in the world:  our appetite for energy and cheap consumer goods, our disdain for biodiversity and the lives of indigenous peoples, and our indifference to rainforest destruction and how that relates to global warming.  The photographs and video remind me of the havoc wreaked in Appalachia, another breathtakingly wild and diverse environment, by mountaintop removal coal mining.  (See last post below.)

For more on palm oil, see this report from Greenpeace:  Forest destruction, climate change and palm oil expansion in Indonesia.

© Greenpeace / Natalie Behring Chisolm

There’s another compelling story at NGM, on light pollution:  Our Vanishing Night.  The excellent environmental writer, Verlyn Klinkenborg, writes about the surprisingly enormous burden imposed on wildlife by the lights of cities and industrial complexes – even fishing fleets.  As an urban dweller (a small metropolis called New York City), I can attest to the fact that we’ve got too much light.  The article references the work of the International Dark-Sky Association, a nonprofit “dedicated to protecting and preserving the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting.”  See also the Dark Sky Society.

I’ve noted the amazing, now-annual phenomenon of Earth Hour.  Light pollution not only disrupts the natural cycles of wildlife, it also sucks thousands of megawatts of  power, unnecessarily, from our grids, hugely exacerbating global warming.  Simple stuff, it seems to me.

Update:  See this article from the “NY Times” on efforts in the Big Apple to cut down on unnecessary lighting. 

The NY Review of Books – This eminently intelligent and readable periodical has had, like NGM and many others, more and more to say about climate change.  Their go-to environmentalist is the incomparable Bill McKibben.  (See any number of references I’ve made to him and his writing at the blog, including talking about the “Step It Up 2007” campaign.)

In the most recent issue, McKibben reviews Tom Friedman’s new blockbuster Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America.  The review is titled “Green Fantasia.”  McKibben both praises the book for some of its emphases and damns it for an overabundance of conventional thinking.  Indeed, the review opens by saying:  “Thomas Friedman is the prime leading indicator of the conventional wisdom, always positioned just far enough ahead of the curve to give readers the sense that they’re in-the-know, but never far enough to cause deep mental unease.”  Ouch.

An example of praise:  “His basic policy guidelines, and most of his specific suggestions, for managing this crucial transition are sound.”  McKibben here notes another useful insight:  “Friedman knows that innovation in the financial services industry will be almost as important as progress in engineering.”   But McKibben also derides Friedman for, for all intents and purposes, dismissing the important arena of international climate regimes:  What was finalized in Kyoto and what will be, ostensibly, finalized in Copenhagen in December 2009 to replace the existing protocol, are of utmost importance. 

He also gets to the crux of the title of his review here:  “Does it ever occur to him, in the grip of a fantasia like this, that if the sun is shining brightly, or the breeze is blowing steadily, you could dry your clothes on a $14 piece of rope strung off your back deck, or for that matter on a foldable rack in the apartment hallway? And that since most of the world already knows how to do it, we might be smarter moving in their direction instead of insisting that they buy into our entire high-technology suburban dream?”

That’s been one of my thoughts, and occasionally an argument here:  Why don’t we try to get more bang out of the low-tech buck?  Solar-box cookers and, indeed, hanging the laundry out to dry!  I wrote about Galloping Consumption a while back.  I said then, in conclusion:  “Can we reduce our dangerous rates of consumption and maintain and improve our standards of living worldwide?  You bet.  Making Peace with the Planet will also make us happier.  You can take that to the bank.” 

Great review.  Check it on out.

“Der Spiegel” – This venerable German periodical has a most useful section devoted to Climate Change here.  For a particularly good and well-informed look at what’s going on in Germany and Europe, you should check in here from time to time.

DK – Dorling Kindersley has a fabulous series of “Eyewitness” books that illustrate all sorts of important subjects with interesting text and eye-catching, vivid graphics.  When I visited the AMNH exhibit on climate change (see post below from Oct. 20), I picked up their new volume Eyewitness Climate Change.  This is great for kids, particularly, but it’s perfectly great reading for adults too.  It’s quite informative, very good at making some complex ideas accessible.  With a CD-ROM of clip art, and a great poster too, you can’t miss.

Here are some items that I think are worthy of your attention.  As always, there is a lot happening, so I can only hope I’m looking at some of the more interesting and salient issues.  Don’t forget to visit some of the sites at the Blogroll at right for all sorts of great stories and various compelling angles on recent developments.

Nukes – I want to flag two recent articles by the venerable Matthew Wald at the “NY Times” on the state of nuclear power in the US.  A Cautious Approach to Nuclear Power from September and Nuclear Power May Be in Early Stages of a Revival.   As I think I’ve made clear here, I’m a longtime nuclear power antagonist and I’ve seen little over the past 35 years to make me change my view.  Even the specter of catastrophic climate change impacts can’t get me there.  What strikes me in these two articles is the reiteration of the concerns regarding the extraordinary capital costs involved, the persistent lack of real technical and political progress on the safe storage of waste, and the recognition of the looming opposition to new individual nuclear power plants.  The Union of Concerned Scientists, with whom I did a little work on opposing a plant in Wisconsin back in the mid-1970’s, is quoted in the second of Wald’s articles.   “…David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer, said it was too soon to say that opposition was weaker now than during construction of the older plants, when grandmothers tried to block bulldozers.  ‘We’ve got the grandmothers; we just don’t have the bulldozers.  There’s not the Kodak moment that a lot of these protests need.’”

See also this argument at RenewableEnergyWorld.com, Nuclear Denial, from an experienced energy hand on the facts in the case on our dearth of answers on the critical question of storage.   

The Impacts of Coal Mining – While we’re worrying, and entirely rightly so, about the massive GHG burden from coal-fired power plants, we may tend to forget the environmental and public health nightmare that coal mining is in many communities, particularly in Appalachia.  I wrote about The Crime of Mountaintop Removal Mining last May.  Now the Bush Administration is rushing a regulatory change that will further enable the destruction of countless more hundreds of square miles of wilderness and the endangerment of public health.  See Now or never from “The Daily Independent” of Ashland, Kentucky, this from the “Wall St. Journal” and this editorial, More Sadness for Appalachia from the “NY Times.” 

Get with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition for more information and a hard-hitting approach to battling this continuing travesty. 

Two GHGs On the Increase – This story from the AP, courtesy of the “Star Tribune” of Minneapolis-St. Paul, warns that two potent greenhouse gases, methane and nitrogen trifluoride, are a growing concern.  My post on Nitrogen from early September – and more specifically the comment there – touched on nitrogen trifluoride, a critical component in the manufacture of High-Def TVs.  Two researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have done groundbreaking work on the prevalence of this potent GHG.  See this release from Scripps.  Given the growing use of this chemical and its potential for serious damage, it will need to be included in the list of greenhouse gases that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change regulates.

We’ve looked at methane several times, most recently in Permafrost (Or Not).  The AP story says:  “After almost eight years of stability, atmospheric methane levels — measured every 40 minutes by monitors near remote coastal cliffs — suddenly started rising in 2006. The amount of methane in the air has jumped by nearly 28 million tons from June 2006 to October 2007. There is now more than 5.6 billion tons of methane in the air.” 

Green Schools – I’ll leave you with one upbeat story.  (My ratio of bad news to good news is usually higher than in this post.)  “The U.S. Conference of Mayors has formed the ‘Mayors’ Alliance for Green Schools,’ which will work with the U.S. Green Building Council…” according to this article at “GreenerBuildings.”  The international movement to increase the energy efficiency and to maximize the use of clean energy in our built environment is critical, and I’ve reported on it any number of times here.  Schools are a logical place to walk the walk on the environment and energy and enable students to both live and learn the important lessons of how to create a sustainable world.  See also the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. 

If you haven’t made up your mind and want to see how McCain and Obama are on climate change and the environment, some of this material might help you.  If you have made up your mind, this stuff might give you an idea of how President Obama or President McCain might pursue matters of the environment and energy. 

The excellent “Nature Reports – Climate Change” had a news feature last month, US elections: the candidates on climate.  The campaigns responded to a number of very good questions such as “In order to reach a global climate change agreement in Copenhagen in 2009, do you believe that the United States should take the lead on signing up to international binding emissions targets? And how should the United States proceed if China and India do not initially agree to such a mandate?”  The good folks at “Nature” also know very well how dependent any solutions in the US are on how Congress grapples with the complex and politically thorny issues at hand.  I’ve written here a great deal about Congress and climate change, energy, and the environment, most recently about the draft cap-and-trade proposal in the House and the wild ride that the tax credits for renewables had.  See US elections: Challenges in Congress from “Nature.”  See also this thoughtful editorial from their Olive Heffernan. 

There’s also this very good summary of the Presidential candidates’ positions from the “NY Times” and Andy Revkin, as well as this head-to-head look at key facets of the important questions on climate change.

The museum has been a cornerstone of natural history research and public education since it first opened its doors in 1871.  Most people who’ve grown up in the NY metropolitan area have spent many happy hours there learning and being amazed and tourists come from all over the world. 

AMNH has a brand-new exhibit on climate change.  I went to the press opening last week, toured the exhibit then and have been back once since, and have surfed the website a bit.  In museum parlance, this is a blockbuster show.

The museum’s president, Ellen Futter, described the exhibit as an attempt to demystify the subject.  It also offers, in her words, a “mosaic of solutions” to global warming.  Michael Novacek, Provost of Science, said the science on climate change has become much more clear and compelling.  In the exhibit hall, I spoke with Edmond Mathez, co-curator of the exhibit.  I asked him if there wasn’t rather more information than could be digested in the exhibit.  He said there was indeed a lot of information on display, but that he expected people to come more than once.  He told me you couldn’t properly just put up the “headlines” but that the exhibit has layers of information into which people can delve.  It has both a textual and graphic density that will appeal to the student of environmental and energy issues. 

I also talked to Michael Oppenheimer, an old acquaintance from when I was doing activist work with the Sierra Club on acid rain and he was Senior Scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund.  Michael is at Princeton and is involved in several programs there.  He was also one of the lead authors of last year’s critical series of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  He has been, throughout his career, both a top-level scientist and an activist.  He long ago realized the importance of having environmental science understood by the public and policy makers and having the serious message of environmental protection embraced by them.  He is co-curating the exhibit.  You can listen to an informative interview with Michael here talking about the exhibit from NPR, and you can see him here in a 15-minute interview with Charlie Rose talking about the IPCC report.

Get to the AMNH for this exhibit if you can, and take in some of the extensive public programming as well.  It is running through August 16.

Electric Cars – There’s more good coverage on the promising trend to ZEV surface transportation.  See Any colour as long as it is green* from the “FT” yesterday.  Mitsubishi is getting out in front of GM and Renault-Nissan on electric cars.  The car is small but it’s got range and it’s ten times cheaper to run than a gasoline-powered car.  See also the website here for the “i MiEV” – Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle. 

*If the allusion escapes you, it’s a paraphrase of Henry Ford’s famous quote about his Model T:  “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.”

IT – The computer folks know that computers are energy hogs as are the vast array of server farms and all the other very high tech that supports the industry.  They’re on a mission to get things much more efficient, saving power, money and GHG emissions.  (I mentioned this here a while back.)  McKinsey has come out with a new report further identifying the incredible bang for the buck in creating efficiencies in the communications and information technology sphere.  See this article.  (Registration is required, but it’s free, quick and easy.)

There’s an excellent resource too in “GreenerComputing” which “… focuses on the environmental concerns of information technology professionals, covering such topics as energy efficiency, hazardous materials reduction, and disposal and end-of-life issues.”

Jobs, Baby, Jobs – In Colorado, Governor Bill Ritter says that his administration’s renewable energy initiatives have created 90,000 green jobs.  See this from the “Rocky Mountain News.”  Ritter was addressing the state’s “New Energy Economy” conference.  See also the Governor’s Energy Office.

Species Loss – The bad news is that the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has issued its “Red List” for 2008 and there are many species endangered and threatened.  That there are environmental threats to thousands of species is not news, certainly, but global warming is exacerbating the problem.  This in itself is also not news, unfortunately, but the IUCN is documenting the dangers.  In this article from ENN, we note:  “Thirty-five percent of the world’s birds, 52 percent of amphibians and 71 percent of warm-water reef-building corals are likely to be particularly susceptible to climate change…”

See also this article from “Time” - How Climate Change Will Impact Animals.  This article quotes the president of Conservation International, Russell Mittermeier:  “Global warming is something that all conservationists are worried about.”  You can also get audio of an interview with Mittermeier.

Bali Action Plan – For the wonks amongst us, you can find a new report from UNDP, “The Bali Action Plan:  Key Issues In The Climate Negotiations - Summary For Policy Makers” here. 

These are some juicy items I’ve been saving up.  They probably should be savored by you and me more fully, “But at my back, I always hear, time’s winged chariot hurrying near.”

PV Paint – This is very beautiful, as an old rugby clubmate of mine might’ve said:  Solar Paint on Steel Could Generate Renewable Energy Soon from the excellent RenewableEnergyWorld.com. 

Bad News on Emissions – Here’s a depressing but not overly surprising story from the AP:  Global warming pollution increases 3 percent.  One positive outcome of the world recession into which we’re heading – or into which we’ve already headed – may be the slowing down of our GHG emissions.  It’s certainly not how we want this to happen.  Let’s just hope that we can keep moving forward, if more slowly economically, and continue to transition to a low or zero-carbon world.

Nukes ≠≠ Renewables – This item from the “Palm Beach Post” says that the Florida PSC staff has recommended against including nuclear power in the state’s portfolio of renewables.  This has national implications.

Coal Plants Diminished Role? – Here’s an eyecatcher from “USA Today” that also has national implications:  Utilities shrink the role of coal on global-warming worries.  I wrote about some of the hits that old King Coal’s been taking at Coal Takes Some Lumps back in February.  These are new, very interesting developments being reported.

The Physical Science Basis – Here’s an excellent update on the science of global warming from the venerable “Scientific American.”  If you’ve not been following every development – who can? – this is a great place to dig in.  See also the IPCC’s definitive Working Group I report from 2007.

I went to an interesting confabulation yesterday up at the Earth Institute.  Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute, and Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UNFCC, kicked around the relative merits of the financial architecture of the Kyoto Protocol.  In a nutshell, Sachs thought the way we’ve been doing business in terms of creating a carbon market based on the regulatory regime of the Kyoto Protocol is insufficient to meet the Herculean task of confronting global warming.  He said that a carbon tax would be much more effective.  Mr. de Boer maintained that building out the regulatory scheme in an agreement that will, hopefully, be finalized in Copenhagen next year, will enable further gains than those we’ve already realized from the Kyoto financial mechanisms.  The discussion got worldwide press.  See this, for instance, from Reuters.  (I’ve highlighted some aspects of this debate before, here for one example.)

One of the points that de Boer made regarding the usefulness of the cap-and-trade system is that it generates interest.  It certainly has caught the interest of the financial industry.  A market-based approach was also endorsed in Bali, de Boer reminded the audience.  He also made it clear that the market mechanisms are not the only ones.  He did see a role for taxes, subsidies etc.  For a distillation of the UNFCCC’s views on this, see Carbon market, international offset mechanisms critical in meeting climate change challenge from their latest newsletter.

Sachs articulated a number of faults with the present system.  The existence of two types of participants in the Kyoto Protocol – those subject to regulation and those developing countries who are not – is a big flaw.  In a word, the US won’t sign the Copenhagen agreement if China and India, not to mention South Africa and Brazil, among others, aren’t required to make firm GHG-reduction commitments.  The 1997 Byrd-Hagel resolution in the US Senate is all the proof anyone needs of that.  Another problem is the amount of money available from an international regime.  It won’t be enough, Sachs said.  He also cited the incredible complexity of the regulatory scheme in this.  It would be much simpler to tax the “upstream” sources of the GHGs:  the coal mines and pits or the oil and gas wells.

One of the more salient points made was by one of the commentators, Columbia engineering professor Klaus Lackner, albeit unintentionally.  He is deeply invested in developing CCS technology.  He said that we can choose between CCS and phasing out fossil fuels.  Unfortunately, neither Lackner, nor any of the principals in yesterday’s discussion, nor most other policy makers for that matter, consider the latter a real option.  Witness for instance the emphasis on CCS in Dingell and Boucher’s discussion draft (see the last post below).  From my vantage point, we are wasting precious time and money on CCS and, for that matter, nuclear power.  (See my close encounter with a major proponent of nukes from the last time I attended an Earth Institute event.)  We have the resources to more than meet the transition to a zero-carbon society and we ought to get on with it.

Another thread from yesterday was that taxes are politically unpalatable.  Sachs said Americans are “neurotic” about taxes.  I would say that’s a kind way of putting it.  Another commentator, Henry Derwent, head of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), recounted how he’d been briefing a top British official recently and ticked off a number of the very positive aspects of a carbon tax but that the worthy high panjandrum said he’d never be reelected if he supported such a thing.  (Actually, there has been a fair degree of good discussion in the UK on this.  See “Oh, to be in England …”)

What I don’t think does get mentioned in these sorts of high-level policy discussions – on most subjects, in my experience – is the pervasive influence of special interests.  In short, King Coal, the oil and gas majors, and most utilities don’t want a carbon tax.  The cap-and-trade approach gives them not only time and space, but the opportunity to get free allowances, and an ample ability to make money on selling allowances.  The financial industry has many reasons as well to support the market-based approach.  A carbon tax would bring us much faster and surer to a zero-carbon world than these folks might find to their advantage.

Finally, while I’m up on my horse, I have to say that although Sachs and the others talked about the primary importance of carbon financing and technology policy, little was said about lifestyle changes.  The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, has begged us to eat less meat.  We can make enormous progress with an ever-greater awareness of energy conservation and mass transit, recycling and teleconferencing.  We can look at low-tech alternatives in housing and energy.  And we can do away with bottled water, as I recommend the Earth Institute and Columbia University do for their events.

By the way, you can see the webcast of this event here.  Check out the many extraordinary programs of the Earth Institute and, if you’re around New York City, get on their events list.  And for more on the Carbon Tax, go to the Carbon Tax Center.  They’ve got an impressive line-up of economists endorsing their program.

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Speaking of events, you might find this program on “Securing Asia’s Energy Future” next week at the Asia Society in NYC of some interest.

It’s not as catchy as “Drill, Baby, Drill” but it’s actually where we’re going in the developed world.  There have been a number of important developments recently entirely worthy of note.  (See observations I’ve made previously in this area under Carbon Markets.)

Energy and Commerce – The US House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee has issued a discussion draft to its members and the public on climate change legislation.  See this from Bloomberg News and this from Gristmill.

As I noted here in July, this powerful committee seems the likely bet as the principal venue in which cap-and-trade legislation is going to be substantially shaped.  The Senate and the new President will, of course, have their say.  The next President, as you know, be he either of the two candidates, will be considerably more favorable to a substantive climate change package than the present occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  The new President will also very possibly go to the table in Copenhagen in December of 2009 armed with a new US law.  This will be a critical element in getting nations emitting even more dangerous amounts of GHG than the US and Europe, namely China and India, to come under an international regulatory umbrella. 

Rich Boucher, chairman of the subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, and John Dingell, chairman of the full committee, have issued a memo to their members describing the discussion draft.  (For all the relevant Energy and Commerce documents, including the excellent series of white papers they’ve issued, you can go here.)

Let me note what I regard as some salient points from the memo.  It says, for instance:  “Politically, scientifically, legally, and morally, the question has been settled:  regulation of greenhouse gases in the United States is coming.”  There is a repeated emphasis on the importance of energy efficiency and clean energy technology.  There is also a considerable emphasis on the development and deployment of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology.  This appears integral to the program that the draft legislation will create.  Boucher and Dingell note that they “…expect to quickly pass the bipartisan ‘Carbon Capture and Storage Early Deployment Act’” in the next Congress.  The memo also calls for “strict oversight of the carbon market to ensure its efficient operation without market manipulation.”  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would be the designated executive agency for this oversight.  (Enhanced regulation of financial markets will be, I daresay, a recurring theme in the next Congress.)  Another noteworthy point is that the draft makes international reforestation and afforestation projects eligible for offsets.  This is going to be a key element in the Copenhagen treaty. 

The memo further notes that some of the groundwork for this initiative has already been done with the passage of the energy bill in December of 2007.  I would note that the energy provisions of the recent “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008” also move us further down the road to a comprehensive federal climate change policy. 

Europe – I mentioned in my previous post that the EU Environment Committee was gearing up for some critical votes.  Well, they came through a little better than might have been expected yesterday.  See Europe backs carbon capture with €10bn in today’s “FT.”  The money to finance CCS projects will come from the auction of permits in an expanded European Trading Scheme (ETS).  In this release from the European Parliament, some of the details of the proposed expanded ETS are laid out.  This release talks about the CCS plan.  It says “The Environment Committee wants all larger power stations built from 2015 onwards to be equipped with the new carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) …”  

I’ve noted my skepticism about CCS a number of times, the last time here.  I am entirely willing, however, to be proven wrong.  Certainly, the most promising approach in this regard is the gasification of coal and then using the gas for combustion.  Gas can be much more easily “cleaned” of the carbon dioxide and other pollutants.  Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) could prove the way forward.  See this from GE, for example, this from Siemens or this from DOE.

In any event, the deepening of GHG-emission reductions in Europe and the institution of a federal regulatory regime in the US will certainly drive these technological innovations.

RGGI – Ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states have decided not to wait for a federal law.  The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative has a more modest framework, certainly, than the federal scheme that is coming or the ETS.  Nevertheless, it will require a cap on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.  See this from the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (my old employer) for a look at how the program will be managed.  The RGGI has just had its first auction of allowances and realized $38,575,783 for the six states participating this time around.  The press release quotes NYSDEC Commissioner Pete Grannis:  “The first RGGI auction has successfully used market forces to set a price on carbon, and this will send a clear market signal to support the investment in clean energy technologies.”  There was a better-than-expected demand for the allowances according to this article from the “FT.”  For more on the RGGI, go to their website and this recent “NY Times” article.

Not to be outdone, the Western Climate Initiative, a compact of seven Western states and four Canadian provinces, is well along in creating its own robust regulatory regime. 

There doesn’t appear to be any turning back from cap-and-trade.  ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished I might add.

All the positive things I’ve described here at the blog regarding business practices, technological breakthroughs, and political developments are very much in train.  They signal, in my mind, real hope for the future.  I don’t, however, want to live with rose-colored glasses obscuring my vision. 

We’re heading into a tempest now.  The world economic crisis that threatens to swamp hundreds of millions of people is going to slow down progress on confronting climate change.  The eloquent and insightful “Charlemagne,” writing in “The Economist,” notes the difficulties that Europe has had in meeting its ambitious renewable energy and GHG reduction goals.  In my fourth post, from over a year and half ago, I wrote about the EU Summit Agreement.  I wrote that “The European Union Summit meeting produced a truly historic agreement on greenhouse gas reduction, renewable energy, and energy efficiency, among other things.”  Well, the times were good and the Europeans were energized.  There was a Homeric flavor to the Summit’s pronouncements, particularly in the light of the daunting specter of global warming.  In A changed climate, Charlemagne notes “The heroic mood is gone now. In March 2007 Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and chairman of the summit, was a green champion. Today she sounds like a lobbyist for German business, listing the industries that must be shielded from the full costs of her package. In truth, almost every country has found reasons why the climate-change promises may be impossible to meet in their current form.  Britain is gloomy about its renewable-energy targets.”

There will be critical votes tomorrow in the EU’s Environment Committee.  They will show the depth of the commitment in Europe to realizing the EU’s goals.  See Brussels readies for ‘Super Tuesday’ climate vote from the “EurActiv” news service.  “But the vote comes amidst a worsening economic crisis, with several member states indicating that they want to put the brakes on any rapid adoption of the measures.”

I believe, though, that one of the most powerful mechanisms for stabilizing world economies and providing jobs, is staring us right in the face.  Scores of analysts – and American Presidential candidates – talk about clean coal technology, nuclear power, more fossil fuel extraction, and more pipelines.  Charlemagne recommends, among other things, “…planning more terminals for liquefied natural gas imports, supporting pipeline projects that bypass Russia …”  But the opportunity to go beyond fossil fuels and nukes is right there for us.  It will be economically empowering, as report after report has said.  (See my last post below, among many others here.)

Yes, the world economic waters are storm-tossed.  We have to focus on the critically important task of stabilizing banks and other financial institutions.  That, not incidentally, is a task for all the world’s economies, working together, as so manifestly didn’t happen in the 1930s.  But we should also use this time as an opportunity to reconfigure our infrastructure, indeed our way of living, to create the conditions for long-term sustainability – and always remember that means economically and environmentally.

Update – Apparently my thinking is entirely in tune with that of Lord Stern of Brentford, world-class economist and lead author of the Stern Review on the economics of climate change.  See Now is the time to tackle global warming from “The Guardian” today in which he says “We’re going to have to grow out of this … and this is an area which looks as though it could well grow strongly and with the right support could be one of the major engines of growth.”  Lord Stern is the chair of the just-opened Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics.