Climate Change

The outspoken “NY Times” columnist, Tom Friedman, takes some serious shots here, Dumb as We Wanna Be, at two of the three Presidential candidates for their recommendation on suspending the 18.4¢ a gallon federal excise tax on gasoline during the heavy summer driving season coming up.  “The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: ‘Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.’” Ouch.   

Mr. Friedman has hit it fairly close to right on the button, but he also takes a shot at Congress for not renewing tax credits for renewable energy.  It should be noted that the question of the tax credits for renewables has, for all intents and purposes, been settled now by both houses of Congress  I wrote about this here on April 15 - a good day to be writing about these things.  

Also, to say, as Mr. Friedman does, “We have no energy strategy,” is incorrect. The present Congress has significantly altered course from the recent past by passing the somewhat extraordinary “Energy Security and Independence Act” in December of this past year. It’s not everything - a renewable portfolio standard is missing, for instance - but it’s a dang sight better than we’ve had.  See It’s A Wrap… from December. 

I believe that the next Congress, presumably more heavily loaded with Democrats than the present one, will continue moving on the track toward a low and zero-carbon energy policy.  (I am not being partisan in this, merely noting facts.  The present Congress has been fiercely divided by party on energy, particularly in the Senate.)

It is good, as far as I’m concerned, to note further that any of the three remaining Presidential candidates will, as President, be on board for much of this agenda of increasing efficiency, decreasing reliance on fossil fuels, increasing growth in renewables, and generally fostering progress toward a world vastly better suited to sustainable development and saving our climate system.

I just finished watching a truly terrific Nova special, Car of the Future, with the thoroughly irrepressible Tom and Ray Magliozzi, known to their adoring public as Click and Clack from Car Talk, the NPR supershow.   Along with the laughs, you get a look at lightweight materials to revolutionize car manufacturing – the same materials being used in the new Boeing Dreamliner, hybrids, plug-in electric cars, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles with the hydrogen produced by geothermal and hydropower, and discussion of the policies we need to get us to a post-gasoline society.  See a preview here.  The website for Car of the Future may be better than the show itself.  It’s got the footage, in-depth interviews, and open content so you can take clips for your own movie or other production. 

Then, run out and get ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future, by two veteran writers for “The Economist,” Iain Carson and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran.  I heard Vaitheeswaran speak recently at the “State of the Planet ‘08” conference and he was quite enthusiastic about the possibilities for clean car technology for the future. 

Happy Earth Day!

“No good times, no bad times,
There’s no times at all,
Just The New York Times” 

Here’s some good, recent stuff from the venerable “New York Times.”

The “Business of Green” is a special section from a few weeks ago. (I wrote at some length over a year ago on their special of the same name.) This latest one’s got some great articles, including one on jobs: Millions of Jobs of a Different Collar. Here’s an audio slide show too on a “net zero energy” home. I mentioned an article in this vein, For Carbon Emissions, a Goal of Less Than Zero, by Matt Wald in my review of Earth: The Sequel from last week. 

Wald, in addition to being on the energy and environmental technology beat, has been the aviation industry reporter for years. Here’s A Cleaner, Leaner Jet Age Has Arrived from Wednesday. It’s about new materials, engines, and systems for safer, more fuel-efficient planes. Who could be against that? (I’ve also written about aviation a couple of times, here and here, and I had a great time this past summer writing about sustainability at airports for “Planning,” the magazine of the American Planning Association.) 

As further evidence of the strain that biofuels, among some other causes, are putting on the land, as I’ve reported on recently at Krugman on Food Prices and Biofuels and Are Biofuels A Bummer?, there was a front-page article the other day, As Prices Rise, Farmers Spurn Conservation Program. The long and short of it is that farmers are taking millions of acres out of the hugely successful federal Conservation Reserve Program in order to cash in on profits that haven’t been available to them for years. Who can blame them? However, what’s driving so much of this is a biofuels policy that is, according to more and more food, energy and environmental experts, misguided. See more from the “NY Times” on “The Food Chain,” examining growing demands on, and changes in, the world’s production of food. This is an important series for any number of reasons and the paper is to be commended for being on it. 

Finally, I wrote about the failure of the NY State Assembly to bring New York City’s congestion pricing plan to a vote, let alone pass it. See “This is the way the world ends …” just below. Well, the paper, given the importance of the issue and the worldwide implications, has a special section, including this video from Andy Revkin on New York City and congestion pricing. Where do we go now that the Mayor’s plan has failed? Read the op-eds from Owen Gutfreund and Gene Russianoff.

I revisited congestion pricing in New York City recently.  (See Congestion Pricing Redux from April 1 below.) 

Well, after having been recommended by the NY City Council, with the support of scores of municipal good government, environmental, labor and business groups, it sailed up the Hudson River to Albany - where it died.  (Albany is not the Valhalla of the Norse myths, I can assure you.)  This is the lead story in today’s “NY Times” - $8 Traffic Fee for Manhattan Gets Nowhere.  Whose fault is it?  Many of the state legislators are pointing their fingers at Mayor Bloomberg for some sort of “arrogant elitism,” while others think that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Bloomberg adversary in almost all things, killed it because he could.  (“I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.”)  The “NY Times” editorial board certainly is in the latter camp.  See Mr. Silver Does It Again in which they say of him:  “He failed to put New Yorkers’ needs before his personal agenda. That makes him unworthy of his office.”  Nuff said.

*(“The Hollow Men”- T. S. Eliot)

I wrote about congestion pricing in the Big Apple here and here back in August and July.  London, Stockholm and Singapore each have made it a big hit in their towns, and now they’re trying to bring it to Broadway.  Well, it took another positive step yesterday when the NYC City Council approved a plan that had been negotiated over several months time.  It was a close vote, for this particular legislative body, 30-20, and only the powers of persuasion of the City Council’s Speaker, the formidable Christine Quinn, turned the tide in its favor.  See this from “Newsday” and this release from Hizzoner Mike Bloomberg’s office.

On to the state legislature where the new Governor, David Paterson, and the Senate leader, Joe Bruno, are in favor of the plan, but the Assembly Speaker, Shelly Silver, is keeping us all in suspense.  They’re ironing out the final details of the state budget agreement now, and hopefully, the Big Three of Paterson, Bruno, and Silver will be able to get to the congestion pricing plan before a deadline from the federal Dept. of Transportation expires next Monday.   If we miss the deadline, that’ll be about $350 million down the chute that could be spent to implement the plan, and for other related transportation costs.  We (New Yorkers) would, in a word, be nuts to miss this opportunity to increase business by billions by reducing traffic congestion, reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and get federal support for this all in the bargain. 

UPDATE - April 4 - “Crain’s NY Business” is reporting here that the proposal, although on life support in the NY State Assembly by some reports, may live if it’s created as a pilot program. 

*******************

Noteworthy event for New Yorkers:  See “Carbon Trading Update:  Business Opportunities for Asian Sustainable Infrastructure,” a high-level panel discussion from the Asia Society on April 7. 

I headed up to Columbia University this past week to check out the Earth Institute’s State of the Planet 08 conference.  As usual, I couldn’t devote as much time as I would’ve liked to the conference sessions, but I came away with a few good insights nonetheless.  Thursday, I attended a press briefing with Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the institute and a real force for fostering sustainable development; plus the very worthy Jan Egeland, former UN chief of humanitarian affairs; Carl-Henrik Svanberg, CEO of Ericsson, the cell phone makers; and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, a senior correspondent for “The Economist” and an expert on energy and automotives.

One of Ericsson’s emphases is on bringing mobile telephony to the developing world.  This was characterized as the “singlemost transformative technology in the developing world.”  See Ericsson’s CSR pages for a ton of information on how engaged they are.

The discussion came to climate change, not surprisingly, and Sachs emphasized the importance of an integrated approach that would create an “incentive” system (cap-and-trade) along with technology policy.  Egeland said that mitigation is important, but that adaptation is critical at this point.  There are extremely vulnerable populations that need to be buffered from the increasingly intense effects of storms and other climate-induced disasters.  Drought, of course, is another looming specter.  Vaitheeswaran, a compellingly intelligent speaker, has written a new book, ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future, and he said we’re looking at a billion cars on the planet soon, with two billion not so far in the future.  That’s the bad news for global warming.  The good news is that the renewable energy revolution could well be driven (pun intended) by a new generation of cars.  (Sadly, I missed Vaitheeswaran moderating a formal debate – “Proposition:  “The United States will solve the climate change problem.”  It was, by all reports, lively and smart.  You and I can see it here though.) 

Well, at the press briefing, I was going to ask about biofuels but before I was called on, Sachs read my mind.  (As you may recall, I’ve been writing about this a fair bit, including this post from last month:  Are Biofuels A Bummer?)  Responding to a question about energy, Sachs quickly segued into a blistering critique of present biofuels policy.  He called US and EU policy in this area “misguided.”  He said that biofuel production is driving up food prices worldwide.  In his talk to the conference on Friday, he outlined a ten-point plan for the next President on sustainability and eliminating biofuel subsidies was one of the points.  Sachs also has a new book:  Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. 

I am forced to say that a talk given on Friday left me a little breathless.  Lady Barbara Thomas Judge, an American it turns out, is the Chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.  She gave a talk on the virtues of Nukes.  She trotted out a number of the same canards I’ve been hearing, on and off, for over thirty years:  Three Mile Island and Chernobyl weren’t so bad.  People want nuclear power plants in their communities.  You can’t rely on renewables because the power is intermittent and we haven’t learned how to store it.  A new take on the theme of the acceptable risk of nuclear power was the somewhat blithe statement:  “Life is about risk.” 

Another assertion was that 90% of nuclear waste comes from weapons production, not power production.  Sorry, Lady Judge, but that dog don’t hunt.  Here’s just one quote from the US DOE website:  “As of December 2005, the United States accumulated about 53,440 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors. In addition, there will be about 22,000 canisters of solid defense-related radioactive waste for future disposal in a repository.” 

You can see Lady Judge’s talk here.  I had the opportunity to talk with her a little later.  I ventured that her pooh-poohing of the role of renewables was not correct.  I mentioned the recent analysis from Daniel Yergin’s Cambridge Energy Associates that there was $7 trillion in business looming just over the horizon.  (See my post here.)  She said that she very much supported renewables but that you needed nuclear power as well.  I said that societies needed to choose and any emphasis on nuclear power would necessarily take a tremendous amount of wind out of the sails, or turbines, as ‘twere, of the renewables industry.  I pointed out that not a watt of electricity would be generated from nuclear power in this country were it not for the Price-Anderson Act that, for all intents and purposes, insulates the industry from liability.  The private insurance industry wouldn’t touch nuclear power with a ten-foot control rod.  Lady Judge was poised and gracious and I thanked her for entertaining my point of view.

The idea that nuclear power is something of a silver bullet for climate change certainly seems to be gaining traction, at least in the UK and in France.  I think that the Earth Institute’s embrace is more-than-a-little off from their prevailing theme of sustainability.  Part of the problem lies in the continuing overemphasis, in my opinion, on the central power generating paradigm.  I think that the world will profit, in every way, from a shift not only to renewables but to the distributed generation model that renewables can empower.

I had time to catch a bit of the panel on “Identifying Energy Solutions for Sustainable Development.”  Paula DiPerna of the Chicago Climate Exchange gave a lucid and illuminating talk on carbon finance.  (I’ve written about that a number of times under Carbon Markets.  This, of course, is a critical part of solving the climate change problem.)

The Earth Institute and many of the participants at this conference are doing groundbreaking work in sustainable development.  It’s exciting to hear so many of these initiatives discussed.  Check out the conference videos to catch some of the excitement.

Sorry, dear readers, about not being on the blogwaves in the past few days.  I plead the press of work and beg your kind indulgence.  Here are a couple of quick hitters for now.  I do hope to have some heftier posts for you soon.

Biofuels and Food – Here’s a leader (Britspeak for editorial) from yesterday’s “Financial Times” that is hard-hitting and unequivocal:  In the face of world food shortages and rapidly escalating prices, “…producers should stop wasting food by subsidising biofuels…”  See Biofuels will not feed the hungry.  See also my post below, Are Biofuels A Bummer?, from February 15.

Tech Miracles? – See these two items for fun, and perhaps profit:  a compressed-air-powered car and nanotechnology that can provide personal hydrogen electrolyzers for all your needs.  First, Tata Motors looks at air-powered vehicle “that would use air as fuel and emit no pollutants in city driving.”  Works for me.  How about this then from “EETimes”?  Nanoparticles could make hydrogen cheaper than gasoline.  QuantumSphere’s “nanoparticle coatings could make hydrogen easy to produce at home from distilled water, and ultimately bring the cost of hydrogen fuel cells in line with that of fossil fuels.”  See their succinct, convincing video.

Less Than Meets the Eye – This “Time/CNN” article, U.S. Remains Cool to Warming Pact, sums up the much-ballyhooed announcement the other day by a White House official that:  “The U.S. is prepared to enter into binding international obligations to reduce greenhouse gases as part of a global agreement in which all major economies similarly undertake binding international obligations.”  But as UNFCC executive secretary, Yvo de Boer, explains here (courtesy of AP), “If it’s a quid pro quo, then it’s a nonstarter.”  Let’s also wait to see what the present administration says or does further on the cap-and-trade legislation that is wending its way through Congress. 

A story from the “NY Times” – Plan on Airline Emissions Hints at U.S.-Europe Rift – is a window onto an interesting bigger story:  how global warming is impacted by aviation.  I’ve written on one aspect of this recently in a story I did for “Planning” on Sustainability at the Airports.  I also blogged on Green Flying in July, with a great video included from the EU. 

Here’s a sense of the overall contribution of aviation on carbon dioxide emissions, as of 2002.

The EU came out with a draft policy about a year ago to regulate emissions from aircraft flying into or out of their countries’ airports.  You can refer to this memo for an explanation of the ins and outs of the policy.  Included here is also the answer to the essential question:  “How do aircraft affect the global climate?”  EU Environment Ministers meeting in Brussels last week agreed to the policy of including aircraft in the overall European emissions trading scheme, but with some softening of the draft plan.

The US doesn’t like the idea of requiring limits as the “NY Times” article referenced above indicates.  They don’t like it in anything as we know from the Bush Administration’s continuing opposition to national or international caps on GHG emissions.  (For the latest evidence of this, witness the EPA’s refusal to grant California and other states the right to regulate GHG emissions from cars.  See this from Environment News Service, this from AFP, and this from Time/CNN, an interview with the Governator and the Chair of the California Air Resources Board.)

Some of the environmental community in Europe think that the EU environment ministers have fatally dumbed down the policy.  The European Federation for Transport and Environment (T&E) issued this release:  Aviation emissions plan could derail international climate targets.  T&E have this informative briefing on the subject. 

The U.S. government seems to be making a truly constructive move on climate change for a change.  The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced an agreement today between the U.S. and the E.U. proposing “…eliminating tariff and non-tariff barriers to environmental goods and services, particularly clean energy technologies.”  Trade Representative Susan Schwab will go to Bali to the Trade Ministers meeting there to recommend that the WTO incorporate this proposal.  According to “…data on environmental indicators available from the World Bank and World Resources Institute, countries that trade more environmental goods either have less pollution or consume energy more efficiently, or both.”

The proposal builds on the work of a new report from the World Bank:  International Trade and Climate Change: Economic, Legal, and Institutional Perspectives.  The report finds that “…a multilateral liberalization of renewable energy sources or an agreement to remove fossil fuel subsidies would equally serve climate change objectives.”

I would suggest the former idea is feasible, not the latter.  I don’t mean to suggest that we are entering the realm of political fantasy, at least as far as the United States goes, but if the WTO nations can’t find agreement on removing $300 billion in annual supports to the U.S., E.U., and Japan’s farmers – in order to free up a trillion dollars worth of agricultural output by the developing world – then how can anyone expect to close up the candy shop at the U.S. Treasury that the oil, gas and coal folks have been shopping from for many long years?  Witness the brouhaha that removing $16 billion in tax breaks the oil and gas industry are getting now – while oil’s selling at nearly $100 a barrel – then consider how easy it would be to knock even more of the subsidies they enjoy out of the picture.  (See “Denial Of Oil And Gas Tax Benefits” at the House of Representatives’ tax portion of the proposed congressional energy bill.  This good bit of legislation is under heavy fire, though, from the industry and the White House, so the Congressional leadership may jettison it.)

But more power to the U.S. and E.U. trade mandarins if they can, as the World Bank suggests, increase trade in climate and clean energy technologies an additional 7-14 percent annually by removing tariffs and non-tariff barriers.

Meanwhile, in what might be construed as a hopeful (but not necessarily realistic) headline, the “Environmental News Service” claims Fossil Fuels’ Free Ride Is Over.  The ENS reports that at the American Council On Renewable Energy’s fourth annual conference, participants all agreed that “the day of reckoning is long overdue” for a carbon price.  Conferees included a representative from British Petroleum, their Group VP for Alternative Energy.  She’s got a reasonable argument, but …. you can judge.  Go here for a number of the conferees’ presentations, including the one from the BP rep.

Dems Reach Deal on Energy Bill is the headline from A.P. this morning.  What’s in?  A 40% boost in the CAFE standards for the automakers and a 15% renewable portfolio standard for the utilities.  What’s out?  It appears that the rescission of the $16 billion tax breaks presently being enjoyed by the oil and gas industry is out.  Other provisions, as noted over the past several months here, include a big boost on energy efficiency, a closer look at “smart grids,” expansion of biofuels, and some other good provisions.  (See Quick Update on Energy Bills, And the Winner Is …, and Federal Energy Legislation, among other posts going back to June.) 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement late last night after the negotiations were successfully concluded.  “CAFE will serve as the cornerstone of the energy legislation that will be on the House floor next week,” said Pelosi.  Energy and Commerce Committee Chair, John Dingell, referring to the CAFE standards, said in his statement:  “… I  believe the agreement reached today prescribes standards that are both aggressive and attainable.”

With agreement by the key Democrats in both houses of Congress, the A.P. article notes that “…the legislation, while criticized by most Republicans, is expected to have smooth sailing.”  The deal breaker for the White House would have been pulling back the $16 billion tax break for Big Oil and Gas, so the Congressional leadership opted not to have the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Frustrating perhaps to many of us, but probably wise in the end. 

I want to celebrate this victory, but I also want to fully note that this country could do so much better if certain special interests didn’t have undue clout on the Hill.  Back in June when the tax rescission was defeated in the Senate version of the legislation, the Energy Committee Chair, Jeff Bingaman said:  “Oil companies earned $111 billion in profits last year and at that rate stand to earn $1 trillion over the 10 years covered by the tax package” rejecting suggestions that “‘this is an undue burden’ on oil companies.”  An A.P. story around the same time quoted Majority Leader Harry Reid:  “‘Big Oil seems to do pretty well here on Capitol Hill,’ Reid told reporters, making no effort to hide his sarcasm.” 

Meanwhile, in Scotland, as just one example where others have much higher aspirations than we do because they are not being held back by special interests, “Ministers want 31% of Scotland’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2011.  And they have set a target of 50% of all electricity from renewables by 2020,” according to the “Press Association” here.  Scotland 50%, the U.S. 15%.  Notice any disparity? 

There are miles to go before we sleep, or at least before we get to a zero carbon world.