Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer said today that she would delay until September the markup of a comprehensive global warming bill.

The California Democrat told reporters that many senators are focused this month on health care reform legislation, prompting the delay from her original plan to hold a vote before the August recess.

“We don’t have to rush it through,” Boxer said. “We’ll do it as soon as we get back, and we’ll have it at the desk when Harry wants it, when the leader wants it.”

Boxer was referring to the new Sept. 28 deadline set by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for all six Senate committees to complete work on the climate bill. Senate Democrats are still trying to pass the climate legislation before December, when U.N. climate negotiations continue in Copenhagen. But sponsors face an uphill climb to win over 60 votes, given steady opposition from Republicans and moderate and conservative Democrats.

No question about that.  I’ll post the Senate fence-sitters discussion shortly.

As I’ve always said, this bill is not going to make it to Obama’s desk this year — nor should it.  Right now, it’s not even clear the Senate will pass its version this year, although it probably will.  Boxer notes:

Asked if the change in markup plans threatens prospects for Senate passage this year, Boxer replied, “We’ll be in until Christmas, so I’m not worried about it.”

Boxer also said she would probably wait until September to release her climate legislation, a change from the schedule that her aides said could entail a bill out within the next two weeks.

As for legislative details, Boxer said the Environment and Public Works Committee and the Finance Committee would write provisions detailing distribution of valuable emission allowances.

“At the end of the day, as you know, all the bills will be merged,” Boxer said.

Reid has said he wants to hold a climate debate on the floor by October, though he is also juggling health care and federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

I’m not certain why the debate needs to be held by October.  Probably the most important thing is that Obama announced some sort of China deal first and do some major barnstorming including a prime time speech.

Heavy foot traffic at busy subway stations could soon be widely used to power station lighting and other electrical equipment thanks to technology currently being trialled in Tokyo.

In a small-scale experiment at Tokyo Station, one of the city’s busiest subway stops, so-called hatsudenyuka floors were installed at station gates, hallways and staircases.

The technology features elements capable of generating piezoelectricity, which are embedded in 0.4mm flooring tiles and covered by a mat. The piezo elements convert the pressure and vibration of commuter footsteps into electricity, which is used to power the station’s lights….

The trial, which started in 2006, was put on hold in March to analyse data, and early indications are that the energy harvesting system could be rolled out more widely. East Railway said it now hopes to eventually use the flooring as a clean source of supplementary power for other station technologies such as automatic ticket barriers and display panels.

Piezoelectricity applications have now been trialled at a number of locations around the world, including stations and nightclub dance floors, and while large-scale systems are yet be launched, wider roll out of the technology is being planned.

Research is also underway to use kinetic energy technologies for a number of different applications, such as recharging mobile electronic devices.

Okay, we aren’t talking about anything approaching a half a wedge [see "How the world can (and will) stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm: The full global warming solution].”  But this is the kind of innovative clean energy thinking that we need much, much more of.

Shell says U.S. oil refiners need more CO2 permits

Major oil company Royal Dutch/Shell urged the U.S. Senate on Wednesday to give oil refiners a bigger share of free pollution permits under a cap-and-trade plan to fight global warming than the House of Representatives provided in its climate change legislation.

U.S. oil refineries received only 2 percent of the allowances, or pollution permits, in the House bill passed last month, even though they account for much more of the total carbon dioxide emissions produced by the United States.

The oil sector says it was short-changed compared to other big carbon dioxide emitters, like electric utilities, which were given 30 percent of the permits.

I see that carbon dioxide emissions from petroleum refineries came to about 280 million metric tons in 2002, which is certainly more than 2% of the 7000 million total U.S. GHG emissions (see here for full breakdown of emissions by industry).  Their problem is that most of the petroleum refineries are in states represented by people who are either never going to vote for a climate bill or who are not in the pockets of the refineries.  Now if they only had a  Democratic Senator in a swing state with a lot of refineries, like, say Louisiana….

Glenn Nye applauds climate bill — then his nay vote

Talk about having it both ways. After liberal blogger David Campbell contacted Rep. Glenn Nye’s office, urging the congressman to support climate change legislation, Campbell got a resounding thumbs up from the Virginia Democrat’s office. Which is odd, considering Nye voted against the bill.

“You will be pleased to know H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, passed the House of Representatives on June 26, 2009,” Nye wrote in a form e-mail.

But Campbell later received a second e-mail from Nye’s office denouncing the legislation.

“You will be pleased to know I voted against H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, because we do not need another tax on American families during this time of economic hardship,” this e-mail read.

Reid pushes back deadline for committee action to Sept. 28

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has bumped back the deadline until Sept. 28 for the six committees working on a comprehensive climate change and energy bill.

“This was always going to be a huge undertaking,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley told reporters yesterday following a meeting in the Capitol with the Senate committee leaders and President Obama’s top energy adviser, Carol Browner. “The timeline has shifted slightly, to get them more involved.”

G8 emissions cut target ‘unacceptable’: Medvedev aide

A target set by the G8 for developed countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 is unacceptable for Russia, President Dmitry Medvedev’s top economic aide said Wednesday.

“For us the 80 percent figure is unacceptable and likely unattainable,” Arkady Dvorkovich told reporters.

“We won’t sacrifice economic growth for the sake of emission reduction,” he added.

Dvorkovich declined however to unveil Russia’s precise targets, saying that releasing them would be premature.

Duke to boost rates as part of carbon study

Customers would see agarage increase of 1 percent Duke Energy is planning to finance at least part of the cost to study a proposed carbon dioxide storage project by increasing its customers’ electric rates.

Customers would see an average rate increase of 1 percent spread across the three-year period of the study, beginning in 2010, according to the company. The increase would be a rider added on customer bills and could fluctuate, depending on the company’s needs, said Angeline Protogere, a company spokeswoman. It would not be an increase of the base rate.

Just 96 months to save world, says Prince Charles

Capitalism and consumerism have brought the world to the brink of economic and environmental collapse, the Prince of Wales has warned in a grandstand speech which set out his concerns for the future of the planet.

The heir to the throne told an audience of industrialists and environmentalists at St James’s Palace last night that he had calculated that we have just 96 months left to save the world.

Beyond Carbon Dioxide: Growing Importance Of Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) In Climate Warming

Some of the substances that are helping to avert the destruction of the ozone layer could increasingly contribute to climate warming, according to scientists from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory and their colleagues in a new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The authors took a fresh look at how the global use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) is expected to grow in coming decades. Using updated usage estimates and looking farther ahead than past projections (to the year 2050), they found that HFCs—especially from developing countries—will become an increasingly larger factor in future climate warming.

Ice Volume Of Switzerland’s Glaciers Calculated

Swiss glaciers have lost a lot of ice in recent years due to increased melting. As temperatures climb, so do the fears that the glaciers could one day disappear altogether. Until now it could only be estimated approximately how big the ice volume in the Swiss Alps actually is and how it has changed in recent years.

A team of scientists headed by Martin Funk, ETH-Professor at the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) at ETH Zurich, however, has now developed a novel procedure for determining the ice volume of a glacier. Their results are presented in the current issue of Global and Planetary Change.

Some Particles Cool Climate, Others Add To Global Warming

There is large scientific agreement that human made emissions of CO₂ and other gasses give global warming. But human activity doesn’t just cause gas emissions. Burning of fossil fuels and biomass also causes emissions of the particle black carbon. Other kinds of particles are formed in the atmosphere as a cause of human made emissions.

Particles, also named aerosols, are today one of the main reasons for the uncertainty about how humans affect the global climate. Aerosols like sulfur, nitrate, and organic carbon are formed in the atmosphere and cause global cooling. Thereby they contribute to mask parts of the human induced global warming. On the other hand, black carbon absorbs radiation and thereby has a warming effect on the earth’s climate.

Today’s guest debunking is by Michael Pawlyn, Founder of Exploration Architecture –- a practice that proposes new design solutions to global challenges based on biomimicry.  Pawlyn “was one of five winners in ‘A Car-free London’ – an ideas competition for strategic solutions to the capital’s future transport needs and new possibilities for urban spaces.”

Well I guess Bjorn Lomborg was hardly likely to welcome the news that his main argument has collapsed.   But that was the gist of what I said when I had to oppose him at the BCO conference (one of the major annual construction industry events in the UK) in May.

Nevertheless, it was surprising, and somewhat satisfying, to see how unhappy he was about this, given his calm and unflappable reputation. Unfortunately Lomborg refused to be filmed but you can see my talk here in three parts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, with the full transcript copied below).  This post is a summary of the second half of my presentation -– the first half describes some positive solutions based on applying biomimicry ideas to architecture. Lomborg’s presentation was very close to his set piece so those unfamiliar with his position may want to see his TED talk here.

As Climate Progress regulars will know, Lomborg has been remarkably successful in persuading people that tackling climate change is a low priority. His Copenhagen Consensus was a study paid for by The Economist and took as its starting point the challenge “If we had $50 billion dollars to spend, how could we achieve the greatest possible global good?” The study concluded that, from a list of thirty priorities, tackling climate change was the lowest. The argument could be summarized as follows:

• We’ve only got a limited amount to spend,
• Climate change is far from urgent and,
• Tackling it will be very expensive while doing little good.

While this argument has convinced thousands, every element of it has now been either discredited by the latest science or exposed as statistical trickery.

The first is based on the classic debating tactic of creating false dichotomies and in this case, arguing that we have to make a moral choice between either saving the environment, or helping people. Nice try Bjorn, but complete hogwash.

If we take the UK as an example, we give around 0.3% of our GNP in foreign aid. Lomborg’s argument is that if we spend money on climate change it means that there will be less available for foreign aid but actually it is how we manage our carbon emissions in the other 99.7% of our GNP that is significant. This carbon management is not necessarily about cutting things - it’s about doing things differently. There are plenty of other reasons why this is a false dichotomy but I will leave it to others who are more conversant with models like Contraction and Convergence to expand on this.

The next part of his argument is that climate change is not an urgent issue and here Lomborg endlessly quotes the IPCC prediction of an 18-59 cm rise, arguing that we can easily cope with such a rise if we all continue to become wealthier. What he conveniently ignores is that the report actually predicted a rise of 18-59 cm plus an unknown extra rise from various other factors. What a difference half a sentence makes! The scientists met in March this year to discuss the latest developments including assessments of what the unknown extra rise should be (primarily from the melting of land-borne ice which was previously subject to considerable uncertainties and consequently, but controversially, excluded from the IPCC’s report). The conclusion of the scientist’s meeting was that the sea level rise is likely to be 1m over the course of this century unless very urgent action is taken. Lomborg’s reaction was to dismiss this data as the work of a few trouble-makers for which he was roundly ridiculed by Stefan Rahmstorf here.

Of course there are many other urgent impacts of climate change, very well covered elsewhere on Climate Progress, including loss of agricultural land, loss of Himalayan glaciers on which roughly 40% of humanity depends for summer melt water and, one that has been underplayed in my opinion, ecosystem collapse resulting from species extinctions.

Lomborg’s cost benefit analysis
Perhaps the part of Lomborg’s argument that has appeared most convincing is his cost benefit analysis. It took some effort to unpick this but it revealed some interesting evidence about his methods.

Bjorn has stated that cutting carbon dioxide costs about $20 per tonne and it only does $2 worth of good. With only a modicum of lateral thinking it is clear that his $20 figure is an absurd simplification. Does it cost $20 per tonne more to run a fuel efficient car than a gas-guzzler? Does it cost $20 per tonne to turn office lights off at night? I don’t think so. Fortunately in 2007 McKinsey and Co followed up this anecdotal evidence with their brilliant and comprehensive ‘Cost curves for greenhouse gas abatement’ showing that the costs vary between around minus 150 Euros and plus 50 Euros per tonne. They concluded that we could stabilise at 450ppm at zero nett cost.

Their findings can be backed up by a lot of recent examples from the construction industry. A UK study into BREEAM ‘Excellent’ (roughly equivalent to LEED ‘Platinum’) office buildings by Cyril Sweet and the BRE Trust concluded that the additional cost of achieving ‘Excellent’ for naturally ventilated schemes was around 3%. A 2009 study by McGraw Hill Construction showed convincingly that green office buildings are more valuable - getting 3% higher rent in 2005 and that gap has widened to 6% after the credit crunch. The biggest difference is to be found in running costs which will be much lower than conventional schemes so it pays back quickly and that places it below the line in the McKinsey cost curve.

The same can be found in residential schemes: ‘One Brighton’ by Bioregional Quintain with Crest Nicholson has recently been completed to zero operational carbon at a completely standard cost. So that also goes below the line. On a wider scale, Woking Borough Council implemented a comprehensive energy efficiency strategy in their region starting with the quick wins and working through to some of the costlier elements on the McKinsey Costs Curves. They achieved a 75% reduction in CO2 emissions and saved £5m in the first ten years – another move that is firmly below the zero line in the Cost Curves. These examples reinforce the message from the McKinsey study that there are lots of ways of cutting carbon and saving money – showing that the figure used by the Copenhagen Consensus is a very crude assumption.

During the research that I carried out with my colleague Anna Maria Orru, by far the most startling discovery was the extent to which Lomborg had distorted the picture about the benefits of cutting carbon. I phoned Lomborg’s main source for the $2 figure, Professor Richard Tol. He told me that “The number 2 ($2) comes about when you ignore all the uncertainties and you just go for a high discount rate, but if you start including the fact that things could go dramatically wrong then you would come up with a much higher number”. Professor Tol’s guess for the right figure is that it should be around $23-25 per tonne and he has assessed the probability of it being much higher. After this phone call I found it hard to concentrate for the next hour. The figure that Lomborg has used was quite simply wrong and not just slightly wrong but by more than an order of magnitude. The figure that he has used to persuade thousands of influential people is a grotesque distortion. Just staggering.

So in every key respect Lomborg’s argument has collapsed. It was based on false dichotomies, highly selective readings of climate science, absurdly crude assumptions on cost and wildly distorted figures on benefits.

If I was the editor of The Economist I would now do two things: I would ask Bjorn Lomborg for my money back and I would apologize to developing nations for having dangerously delayed the effort to tackle climate change.

[The rest of this post is the full transcript of the plenary session]

Greenpoint or Greenwash? The Environment in a Recession

Transcript of Question & Answer Session

Present at Table:

Rab Bennetts – Chair

Bjorn Lomborg – Author of ‘Environmental Skepticist’ and ‘Cool It’

Michael Pawlyn – Director of Exploration Architecture

Rab Bennetts (RB): Now I know what it is like sitting between a landlord and a tenant negotiations

I think at a point like this, it is only fair that the speaker’s work is being questioned, to have a short reply and then Michael can do the same again if that is necessary. So , can you do a couple minutes and then we’ll open the floor, open the debate to the floor, because we’ve still got quite a bit of time left, we are pretty much on time. So do a couple of minutes and see if we can get the debate going in the hall, and I’ll ask you if you want to do the same. If you want to?

I’m going to give Bjorn an opportunity to respond and then I’ll come back to Michael.

Michael Pawlyn (MP): Fine yeah.

Bjorn Lomborg (BL): Michael had a lot of points about why I was wrong. I’d like to engage in just a few of them. He told you how the Himalayas are going to see diminishment of the glaciers and this affects possibly even the water availability for 40% of the world’s population. This is true. But let’s take a look at what Michael might actually propose we should do. We should cut carbon emissions, which essentially means that the woman who lives in the shadow of the glaciers in Nepal will see the diminishment of the glacier outflow in 2051 instead of 2050. Now her kids don’t have education, they probably have malaria – her brother has probably just died from malaria, or typhoid. They have very little food and what are we telling her is: “We want to help you infinitessimally in fifty or a hundred years” when what we should do is give them better infrastructure to deal with that water, yes, and what we should do is deal with those problems that they actually need. I think it’s breath-taking the amount of arrogance that lies in the argument of saying “I want to help these people by spending enormous amounts of money to do virtually no good”.

But let me just, because Michael has made a few very substantive points – err, he said that I didn’t quote some of these people – err, I would like to show you. I actually have it right here. It’s simply wrong. He said I didn’t quote Hansen. I quote Hansen twice – I have two of his books. I don’t quote Terry Emmanuel – I quote him three times. So this is just wrong, but the more important point of course is that this underlines a lot of the argument that Michael says “It’s easy to be a sceptic – now look at this map, you can pick out a few examples’. Actually if you notice what I try to do and what makes it much, much harder to sell my argument than what Michael does, is I actually look at averages. I look at global numbers. I do actually try to make those arguments because those are the only right ones.

Instead Michael very often engages in saying “Look at this example or look at that example”. Now I’ve no doubt that there are good examples out there. I commend you for it. If we can sell it and if it works – great. We will expect to see an increase in CO2 efficiency of 1% each year. We are probably going to have to turn that up even faster. We’ve seen that for the last hundred and fifty years because of smart people like Michael and many others. I congratulate you but that’s not the issue that we are talking about. We are not talking about the free lunch here. If there are free lunches out there people will eat them – great, but that’s not the issue. It’s all the other things that won’t happen unless we make them intelligent and there you have to ask the question “So what are we going to do? What should we actually do?” And Michael loves to cite just some people. Yes I cite the UN climate panel report on sea level rise, and yes there are estimates out there that it could even be 5cm more. But these estimates that he showed, scientists met in Copenhagen this year and said that it was one meter. Lets just remember, those are some of the scientists who are very, very vocal, and I made this criticism also in The Guardian, very, very vocal already back in 2007 saying ‘it should be much higher than what the un climate panel said’. That’s great, there should be debate in science, but we shouldn’t be swayed by the few who argue very, very high numbers. That’s why we have the thousands of scientists to tell us what is the outcome and not just the ones that we pick ourselves. You said that Stern was a radical, and sort of like “Huh that’s ridiculous!” Yes he is an incredible radical. Virtually all climate economists have criticized him very very roundly. Virtually everyone has said that he was wrong. He was asked by the British Government, and we know this because Nature actually said that in their review, they asked two other people to write the report that eventually they asked Stern to do. Both of these people said “No”. Why? Because they were asked by the British government to come out with the result that Stern eventually came out with. It was already a given from the start.

Now, he is a great guy, I’ve met him several times and he probably believes what he is saying. But it doesn’t mean that he’s not a radical. It is in the 96th percentile what he came out with. So, let me just summarize: Michael says we should “Astonish the gods”. No. What will astonish the gods is that, we are asking and we are arguing to spend so much, to do so little. I’m sure the gods will be very, very astounded by that but I would much rather have us actually work for humanity and spend the money in the best possible way. I’m sorry. Again - this is not a debate about who can sound the nicest. It is a debate at the end of the day about who can actually end up doing the most good for the world.

RB: Do you want to come back for 2 minutes

MP: Sure. Thanks.

Well Bjorn is a great speaker and an accomplished statistician.

I’m no expert or a scientist so I like to keep things simple.

And I confess to having been somewhat confused about climate change until recently - how could there be such wildly different opinions on a subject that ought to be really quite scientific?

So I started reading both sides of the argument. I read Bjorn’s books and I read the scientist’s debunking of them. I read Bjorn’s response to the rebuttals and then I read the rebuttal to the rebutted rebuttal. And after a while I got pretty fed up.

So I decided to just start phoning people up.

I phoned up one of the directors of the World Glacier Monitoring Service and I said “What do you think of Bjorn’s statements about glaciers” and he said, well, the fact of the matter is the data simply does not support his statements. I then phoned one of the authors of the polar bear report who was really pretty fed up actually with the way that Bjorn had, used not only out of date information, but had completely distorted the conclusions of the report. And the more I read, the more I realized that there was this sort of pattern unfolding of distortions and highly selective use of data. And some of these were so outrageous that it actually reminded me of a Mark Twain quotation which is “He uses statistics the way a drunk uses a lamppost – more for support than illumination”

You know, What Bjorn was just saying there – maintaining that cutting carbon emissions is going to be inordinately expensive well once again he is using very out of date information. McKinseys concluded that we can stabilize at 450ppm at zero nett cost. All those examples I was showing there – they’re not unusual. Woking Borough Council – that’s well documented. The BREEAM ‘Excellent’ schemes show what we can achieve as an industry. So Bjorn’s statement that cutting carbon emissions is enormously expensive is simply out of date.

RB: I think that’s a good note on which to open it up to the audience. I think there’s um, there’s a general thread running through all of that about the world, globe and all the rest of it but actually this is an office conference and we might just be talking a little more specifically about the subject we are all interested in. And I just wondered if I could ask a few people in the audience to comment on, or maybe one person could make an observation about whether it is costly to make an office building reasonably low carbon. I’m not talking about nil carbon; I’m not talking about saving the planet in one building. Does anyone have any information out there that they would like to share on this subject, because if it is horrendously expensive we ought to know about it but I suspect we have more information.

Question / comment (abbreviated): Hello. I can just say that we are currently developing our own offices BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ building . . . (and it’s going to) cost 140 pounds per square foot. Very, very challenging to get to those figures . . . but it’s a very economic way to achieve BREEAM ‘Outstanding’. I hope that they do, because I don’t think we can get it any less.

RB: Anyone else got a comment that they would like to chip in or open up another subject for debate? I’m looking for some hands. There is one over there.

Question / comment from audience: I’d like to open up the debate because you can’t actually talk about offices without talking about other uses. I found it very refreshing hearing what Bjorn is saying, because I think, we are, the government is now very much pushing the climate change agenda. And as we heard this morning in the planning session, we have got to a point now where climate change is becoming more important than housing people within the UK and I think that is something that needs to be addressed, and so we’re not even going as far as the Himalayas actually as a problem in the UK. So I do wonder if in fact, to a certain extent, you are both right. What Bjorn was saying, is that the planet isn’t going to explode, we can cope. But I do think we have become very much a throw away economy, and really we need to sort of address that. And what Michael was saying was that there are certain things we can, we probably don’t have to go the whole way, but actually we need to start rethinking the way we do things. It’s not right flying vegetables all across the world, and what I’d actually wanted to say is that, rather than you being in conflict, is there a middle course that we should be hearing about.

RB: I’d like to add my two-penneth to that as well to see what the two speakers think. There was a lot of discussion about choices we face. You can either do reduction of carbon dioxide emissions or you can do renewable energy, or you can do some other programme. Why shouldn’t we do all those things if we possibly can. If we can find a way of reducing carbon dioxide relatively economically we ought to be able to do renewables as well. Is that not the case? Then you get the double wammy, the double benefit.

MP: Do you want to go first?

BL: I’ve gone first all the time.

MP: I think there are some things we have got in common. We’re both positive. We don’t necessarily subscribe to the – I think it was Fraser on Dad’s Army wasn’t it who said “We’re doomed”. But one of the key differences I think between Bjorn’s approach and mine I would suggest is that he says “there are solutions so let’s not worry about it. We can do it in time. There’s plenty of time. Climate change is not urgent”. All the scientific evidence – pretty much all the scientific evidence – disputes that. My approach is “There are solutions so let’s get on with it”.

RB: But don’t you need to do both? You need to reduce the carbon emissions and you need to do the renewables and then you can do something quite significant. Why have this alternative choice – you either do that one or that one?

MP: Yes we need to get things in the right order and that McKinsey cost curve is a really useful tool in that sense because it shows what our priorities should be. We shouldn’t necessarily just go straight for photovoltaics because we can achieve much bigger carbon savings at negative cost by tackling all the things at the left hand end of the cost curve first and, working through that, we can then come on to renewables. But there are situations in which even some of the things at the very expensive end of that cost curve – like photovoltaic panels – can make economic sense. For instance, if you are working on an office scheme and the client says they want it to have polished granite on the façade. Well polished granite costs about £700 per square meter. PV costs about £550 so they’re cheaper. So you could say to your client “OK, you’re a progressive company and we think the right image for your building is for it to be covered in photovoltaic panels”. You could offset all the capital costs as being just about creating the right image for the building and then everything you get from then on is a bonus. So, the economics of this are not as straightforward or as black and white as Bjorn suggests.

RB: Have you tried to find some common ground? Have you found any common ground? (Turning to BL)

BL: Yeah - first of all – I think there some points. I love the example of granite versus PV’s but that’s exactly the point of saying “When does it pay?” then of course we should do. Err, the problem I have and that most economists have with the McKinsey study, and again this is a bit picky, the exact examples you would like because all economists and peer-reviewed economists – and again the McKinsey report has been endlessly quoted but it’s not peer-reviewed – it tells us that there are all these free lunches. And the questions all professional economists ask themselves is “So, why aren’t they being eaten?” We should be done with that. If it is actually in everybody’s interests to do it with the current regulations, it should be done. So, great let’s not talk about it and then of course it won’t happen. The point is that all that hasn’t happened is not happening because it’s actually hard. And that’s the problem. That’s why it actually costs money and I’m sorry you may quote McKinsey endlessly, and you probably will, but the main problem here is that even the EU acknowledges that it’s not old numbers that I come up with. Even the EU acknowledges that, there’s, their data – it’s going to cost a lot of money. That it’s going to cost about 60 billion Euros a year to do virtually nothing.

But let me just, two other points

The solutions – let’s do them – err no, not if they’re not cost effective – let’s develop them till they’re actually cost effective. Imagine the computers back in the 1940’s. Imagine if someone had said “Hey, we’ve got computers. Let’s give everyone a laptop in 1950”. Err, no, let’s develop the computers so that it actually becomes developable, and actually becomes marketable by 1976 – that’s a great idea.

And the last bit – the either or. I love the thing “shouldn’t we do both?” Well shouldn’t we do everything? No, exactly not, because at the end of the day if we are going to spend a billion dollars on research and development which does $16 worth of good that cuts a lot of carbon in the long run, and spend a billion dollars on doing 4 pence worth of good, I would rather much spend both of that billion, both 2 billions, on research and development. Then you would say, well shouldn’t we do 2 billion on r&d, and 2 billion on cutting carbon emissions. No, then we should spend 4 billion on r&d.

The point still remains, it’s not a good argument to say “I have a great idea, I have a bad idea, let’s do both.” Hey, it’s like saying let them eat cake, no let them eat both bread and cake.

RB: Ok, this isn’t a revolution fortunately. Um, let’s leave the statistics for the bar, and have some more points in, from the audience. There must be loads. I’m sure you’re gagging to have a go at this. There is one over there.

Question / comment: Just a way of bringing this into line with the things we were speaking about earlier on, and the launch of the new BCO guide. Um, in terms of what we can do in the office building sector, in the guides section about these issues or about the reuse of existing buildings, and 15% of a carbon footprint of a building in its life cycle is in its construction. 90 % of the buildings we use are over 10 years old, and we are redeveloping buildings at the rate of 1% per year at the moment. So things that we are doing in new buildings are benefiting 1% of the buildings we are using to work in and things that we can do to improve the situation for existing buildings, by reusing, potentially have a much much greater effect in the long term.

RB: That is a point that I’m sure most of us agree on. But let’s keep going, we’ve got 2 or 3 minutes left and then we are at 5:30 and we will stop. Any more?

Question / comment (abbreviated): The issue of deaths I thought was very interesting, and Bjorn, quoted a statistic, in which there was 1.4 million fewer deaths in a warmer world than currently, is the number on a global basis. I don’t think we should look at deaths on a global basis, some people are able to look after themselves in our world, and some aren’t , I think we should focus on those who relatively aren’t. For the sake of the argument today, Africa and the Himalayan area, which seem to be people in general who are less able then Europe and the US for example. My understanding is that Africa is seriously going to suffer more deaths over its life for the next 50 years as a result of global warming. And I would be interested in your comments on that. Um, the other issue, in terms of our offices. We are unable to forecast the future price of energy. All the forecasts I see show that energy is going to rise considerably faster than construction costs in the next 20-50 years. On that basis, does it not radically change the equation of how we should be considering the capital cost of our buildings in terms of driving energy efficiency?

RB: Ok, I’m going to take another question, but this is probably the last one. And then try to get you guys to answer. There was another question over here.

Question / comment (abbreviated): Glenn Blake Thomas from AET. I’ve heard somebody else speak a little while ago about the principles when BCO was presenting best practice guide and so on. The sustainability issues were simply to use less stuff, and it seems to me that there isn’t anywhere near enough of that thinking going on around the world.

RB: I think innovation in the recession might sort out a few new ideas. Could you both summarize the last couple points that have been made, and then we will call it a day because it’s already 5:32.

MWP: OK, Well I agree with you about using less stuff and I think that one of the problems with the carbon age is that it’s just been so easy to burn fossil fuels, and to use resources for whatever we need, and we have kind of lost the ability to be really ingenious. And I think, one of the really exciting things about the age we are entering is that we are going to see a really massive re-awakening of ingenuity, that’s going to be much more highly valued.

Then the point about energy forecast which I guess touches on the whole subject of peak oil. Well actually, I agree, I think that is a really significant issue and the US department of energy wrote a report quite a while ago now, concluding that failure to plan at least 10 years in advance for peak oil could lead to social and economic problems that would be unprecedented. So, the quicker we get onto this, and really tackle our addiction to fossil fuel and move towards a low carbon economy, the better. There is no time for delay.

RB: Good, nice positive point.

BL: With respect to the more people, ah it’s perhaps important to realize that 97% of the world does not actually get more populated. Everybody moves to cities, so you are absolutely right. More people are going to be living in the cities because everybody loves to do so. But it’s not that we are running out of space, or indeed running out of building materials in that sense. And I would argue that, we also have to remember, that for most people it’s an incredible increase in life quality that we’ve actually doubled or more the square footage that we have per person in most of the western world, and probably most of the developed worlds, although we don’t have the numbers. So again, I would say, we have to be careful, a little bit like the lady pointed out before, that we don’t focus so much on this one problem that we forget presumably it’s about making better life quality for people and actually making a better world.

Ah, with respect to the Africa question. As I very briefly mentioned, it is actually true that Africa will see more heat deaths versus cold deaths, its 250,000 deaths versus 200,000 so it’s not very much, but if you include China, if you include Latin America, ah that is all the developing world, you actually have the same pattern. You still have that we have more avoided cold deaths, sorry um, more extra heat, no, fewer extra heat, sorry, no, fewer extra heat deaths versus more cold deaths. But, it’s bad, I can’t, I’m sorry, I can’t figure that number out. But the main point of course still remains, even if it wasn’t so, the question is what could you do for the average African? Would you really want to help that person through cutting carbon emissions, or through those incredibly simple things that could be done right now that would probably help them a lot more?

So, at the end of the day, we probably also disagree on (gestures toward MP) peak oil, but I think that we can agree that we should do an enormous amount of stuff that’s smart, we should do all the smart stuff, but we shouldn’t do fashionable stuff just simply because it makes us feel good. And we have to remember, carbon dioxide and global warming is not our only challenge to make this a better world.

RB: Ok, time to conclude. I think it’s very obvious that this is a complex debate, the only point I would say to conclude in a way is that of course, what we do in our UK property market, is no longer just a matter for the UK because we are affecting something global. The climate is changing globally partly because of what we are doing, so we can’t just pretend we are in our own little box, and work on our own solutions.

Okay, I replaced the words “Health Care” with “Climate Change” in the headline borrowed from the second lead story of the Washington Post today.  But the sausage-making-ain’t-pretty message of that story is déjà vu all over again:

The Obama administration, hoping to boost its health-care reform effort with financial concessions from the hospital and pharmaceutical industries, is instead confronting deep dissension on several fronts within Democratic ranks and possible defections among key constituencies….

No single development appeared likely to kill Obama’s signature domestic agenda item, but the relentless barrage of challenges that seemed to hit hourly served to demonstrate why no president since Lyndon B. Johnson has been able to enact large-scale health legislation.

From the outset, Obama has declined to dictate the details of a health-care bill to Congress, but he and his most trusted advisers have worked aggressively to shape its parameters and build political support. At the core of their strategy has been a series of side agreements aimed at extracting revenue, neutralizing potential adversaries and signaling to lawmakers that when the difficult votes come, they will have the political cover of industry support.

Sound familiar?

Passing transformational legislation of any kind is very hard nowadays.  No president has ever been able to pass large-scale climate legislation.  Indeed, no president has been able to pass large-scale environmental legislation of any kind for two decades, since the GOP became the party of anti-conservation.  As I wrote last month (see “The political surprise of the year: Health care reform is tougher than climate action“):

Yes, I know that many progressives are rightfully unhappy with the compromises that have been made in the Waxman-Markey climate and clean energy bill.  But all I can say is, wait until you see the compromises that will be made to pass a deficit-neutral health care bill.  Such is life inside the Washington DC beltway when one entire political party is not just dead set against all efforts to solve the nation’s major problems, but demagogues against the most important strategies.  That sharply narrows the political space in which action can take place.

I expect there will be a lot more unhappiness among progressives and enviros as the Waxman-Markey climate and clean energy House bill morphs into something that can beat a Senate filibuster.  Still, it is quite remarkable to see Waxman himself reject parts of Obama’s healthcare dealmaking:

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), lead House architect of the landmark health legislation, warned yesterday that he is not obligated to abide by deals struck recently by the White House, Senate Finance Committee, industry executives and interest groups such as AARP.

“The White House is not bound. They tell us they’re not bound by that agreement,” Waxman, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said at a National Journal breakfast. “We’re certainly not bound by that agreement. The White House was involved, and we were not.”

Waxman’s comments came amid several other warning signs for the administration, including a slipping timetable in the Senate, internal division in the hospital industry and mounting tensions between AARP and the pharmaceutical industry that threaten a temporary detente between the two negotiated last month by the White House.

I would give Obama a B- so far for his efforts on behalf of moving climate legislation forward — see Tom Friedman: Obama “is going to have to mobilize the whole country to pressure the Senate — by educating Americans, with speech after speech, about the opportunities and necessities of a serious climate/energy bill….” But what health care reform makes clear is that even when he is aggressively engaged and barnstorming on an issue, that is no guarantee of a vastly superior outcome.

Part 1 examined how conservatives vow to purge all members who support clean energy or science-based policy. This is how the GOP shrinks itself.

Here, I’ll look at how, by abandoning clean energy, the GOP is taking the side of the Luddites and leaving this hugely popular issue entirely to the Democrats.  As Mark Mellman, a leading pollster for progressives since 1982, explains in a must-read op-ed in The Hill, “In attacking the clean-energy legislation just passed by the House, Republicans make three critical errors for which they may well pay a political price.”

Mellman is a shrewd analyst — see Mellman on climate messaging: “A strong public consensus has emerged on the reality and severity of global warming, as well as on the need for federal action” — ecoAmerica “could hardly be more wrong.”  His new piece is worth reading in its entirety:

First, they confirm the potent role of the Flat Earth Society in their party. For years, many GOPers have embraced a contemporary version of the know-nothing philosophy, thereby alienating the party’s former base among better-educated, upper-income voters. In a country where 78 percent believe global warming is either happening now or foresee it in the future and where 69 percent believe global warming already constitutes a serious threat, allying themselves with the deniers only cements Republicans’ “know-nothing” image.

Because voters feel global warming poses a clear and present danger, they are demanding action. Our polling for the Pew Environment Group found a 77 percent supermajority wants the U.S. to reduce its carbon emissions. What’s more, support for action is intense, as 58 percent not only favor action, but do so “strongly.” Republicans stand with the mere 15 percent who oppose action. In this respect, GOP leaders betray their own partisans, 62 percent of whom want action to reduce carbon emissions.

Second, by opposing clean-energy legislation, Republicans reveal themselves to be anti-jobs. The economy and jobs are voters’ greatest concern and our surveys reveal that Americans believe efforts to curb global warming will be an engine driving job growth. A majority believes “efforts to reduce global warming will create new American jobs,” while just 21 percent side with Republican leaders who claim these efforts will cost jobs. Here again, in refusing to recognize the job-creating potential of a move to clean energy, Republicans are a party without a base — there is no segment of the population where a majority agrees with them.

Indeed, voters believe these efforts will create not only new jobs, but whole new industries — the kind of new enterprises we need as our old industries appear to fade. Refusing to recognize the job-creating potential that unfolds from technological innovation is a grievous sin, especially in this economy.

Finally, in railing against making polluters pay, Republicans reinforce their image as defenders of corporate greed at the expense of the national interest. Some energy prices may increase slightly in response to this legislation, and while GOPers want to call that a tax, voters reject that label — instead calling it corporate greed by a nearly 20-point margin.

In fact, when the tax argument made by Republicans on the floor last week is matched against a counterpoint making it clear that it is polluters, not taxpayers, who pay and that consumers will receive part of the money polluters pay as an energy tax credit, voters side with proponents of the legislation by a 42-point margin. In an environment where voters are 12 to 20 points more likely to trust Democrats than Republicans on taxes, the GOP is unlikely to get very far with baseless accusations.

You can see the ads now — Republicans repeating tired and discredited claims about Democratic energy taxes that no one will see, while Democrats argue that Republicans are trying to thwart efforts to create clean-energy jobs, increasing our dependence on foreign oil, refusing to make polluters pay and opposing an energy tax credit for American families. There is little doubt in my mind — or in the data — which side will get the better of that debate.

Voters want clean-energy legislation because they believe it will create jobs, reduce our dependence on oil and reduce the carbon pollution that causes global warming. By positioning themselves as consistent opponents of the majority’s will, Republicans risk deepening their isolation from America’s mainstream.

Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982. Current clients include the majority leaders of both the House and Senate.

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne makes a similar point in his op-ed explaining the “yes” vote of  Colorado’s Betsy Markey:

But another factor is changing the political calculus: the rise of a substantial alternative-energy business that encompasses wind and solar. For the first time, the political meaning of the word “energy” is not confined to oil and gas, even if old energy is still far more connected politically.

Among the employers in Markey’s district are Vestas, a leading supplier of wind power, and Abound Solar, a spinoff of research at Colorado State University that manufactures photovoltaic panels.

Markey adds that a large swath of her district is one of the most promising parts of the country for producing wind energy, and “this bill really helps our eastern plains.”

Underscoring the dawn of a new energy politics were the eight Republican votes cast in favor of the bill, notably those of Mark Kirk of Illinois and Mike Castle of Delaware. Both are considering campaigns for the U.S. Senate next year, and they may see a future that others in their party don’t.

The GOP thinks that destroying a livable climate and ceding leadership on clean energy to China, Japan, and Europe is a winning issue for them.  I think that’s science fiction.

Related Post:

• Americans support greenhouse gas regulation even if it could “substantially” raise energy prices

Solar cells could be produced from materials other than silicon under a breakthrough that scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, say could dramatically reduce the price of solar technologies.

Solar companies have been searching for some time for materials that are more efficient, cheaper to produce and use fewer raw materials than silicon. But tests of copper, indium, gallium, selenide (CIGS) or related materials have failed so far to produce a winner.

“People have already demonstrated efficiency levels of up to 20 percent, but the current processing method is costly,” said William Hou, an engineering graduate student at UCLA, in a statement. “Ultimately the cost of fabricating the product makes it difficult to be competitive with current grid prices.”

Hou and his colleagues report in this week’s Thin Solid Films the development of a low-cost processing method for solar cells made from copper, indium and diselenide. Those cells, they say, will have the potential to be produced on a large scale for a number of applications, including placement on backpacks or clothing.

“With the solution process that we recently developed, we can inherently reach the same [20 percent] efficiency levels and bring the cost of manufacturing down quite significantly,” Hou said.

Major Emitters Fail to Agree on Plan to Fight Climate Change

The world’s major industrial nations and newly emerging powers failed to agree Wednesday on specific cuts in heat-trapping gases by 2050, undercutting an effort to build a global consensus to fight climate change, according to people following the talks.

As President Obama arrived for three days of meetings, negotiators for the world’s 17 leading polluters dropped a proposal to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by midcentury, and emissions from the most advancedeconomies by 80 percent. But both the G-8 and the developing countries agreed to set a goal of stopping world temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels.

The discussion of climate change was among the top priorities of world leaders as they gathered here for the annual summit meeting of the Group of 8 powers. Mr. Obama invited counterparts from China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and others to join the G-8 here on Thursday for a parallel “Major Economies Forum” representing the producers of 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. But since President Hu Jintao of China abruptly left Italy to deal with unrest at home, the chances of making further progress seemed to evaporate….

The failure to establish specific targets on climate change underscored the difficulty in bridging longstanding divisions between the most developed countries like the United States and developing nations like China and India. In the end, people close to the talks said, the emerging powers refused to agree to the specific emissions limits because they wanted industrial countries to commit to midterm goals in 2020, and to follow through on promises of financial and technological help….

American officials said they still had made an important breakthrough because the G-8 countries within the negotiations agreed to adopt the 2050 reduction goals, even though the developing countries would not.

And they said a final agreement with developing countries, including China and India, to be sealed on Thursday would include important conceptual commitments by the emerging powers to begin reducing emissions and to set a target date. Now negotiators will have to try to quantifying those commitments in coming months.

While the nations mapped out a general agreement to limit global temperature change, there remained differences between the level of commitment from developed and developing nations. The G-8 draft statement would have the major industrial powers “recognize that global emissions should peak by 2020 and then be substantially reduced to limit the average increase in global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.” The statement by the developing countries would be less definitive, however, saying that scientific consensus supports such a goal.

Defining ‘Sustainable Agriculture’

Conventional farmers, organic farmers, giant agribusiness companies, environmentalists — all have varying views on what “sustainable agriculture” really means.

Perhaps not for long.

The Leonardo Academy, an environmental think tank in Madison, Wis., is busy refereeing a debate over a new “National Sustainable Agriculture Standard,” under the guidelines of the American National Standards Institute.

One outcome of this effort could be a new “sustainable agriculture” label stamped on food — similar to the way some food is now marketed as organic. It could also create a system that rewards farmers for doing things like reducing the amount of nitrogen fertilizer they use.

Rust Belt Democrats say Obama was ‘wrong’ to criticize trade provisions

A pair of Midwestern Senate Democrats took issue today with President Obama’s call to strip language out of the House-passed global warming bill that punishes developing countries with trade sanctions if they don’t do enough to curb their greenhouse gas emissions.

“My thoughts are that he’s wrong,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. “We’ll continue the conversation with the White House.”

“We only agree with the president 98 percent of the time,” added Michigan’s Carl Levin. “Not on this one.”

Duh (see “Krugman vs. Obama on border adjustments in the climate bill“).

Senate panel boosts spending for hydrogen, fossil-fuel programs

The Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee today passed a $27.4 billion appropriations bill for energy and security programs that boosts funding for hydrogen, environmental cleanups and fossil-fuel programs.

Overall the subcommittee bill is $1.1 billion below the White House 2010 budget request as scored by the Congressional Budget Office, whose calculations include a $1.5 billion subsidy appropriation to cover DOE’s loan guarantee authority.

Sad — see Hydrogen fuel cell cars are a dead end from a technological, practical, and climate perspective — Chu & Obama are right to kill the program, Part 1

The measure breaks with the administration on several fronts, including the provision of $190 million for continuing the hydrogen research and development program that the administration had terminated and boosting funding to the fossil-fuel programs, weapons activities and environmental cleanup programs.

“Most of what we do is not spending … it’s investing in the future,” Dorgan said. Vehicles that run on hydrogen fuel cells will be important in the future and “abandoning” DOE’s 189 hydrogen projects “does not serve our interest well,” he said. The House committee bill also reinstated funding for the hydrogen program.

But in the immediate future, the nation will continue to use fossil fuels for energy, which is why the bill includes $700.2 million for fossil-energy projects — $83 million above the president’s request, Dorgan said. More than 60 percent of those funds “will be directed at carbon capture and storage, efficiency and emission reduction programs,” he said.

The funding also includes $20 million for an unconventional fossil-fuel research-and-development program and $15 million — split among the budgets of the offices of fossil fuel, science and the National Nuclear Security Administration — for a “fossil and computer simulation program,” said ranking member Bob Bennett (R-Utah).

The bill also provides an additional $30 million to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s funding to continue the design of a storage site in Richton, Miss., according to the committee.

The energy efficiency and renewable energy programs would receive $2.23 billion under the bill, which is $85 million below the administration’s request but $304 million above this year’s level. Besides the hydrogen funding boost, the subcommittee bill includes a $10 million increase for wind technology and an additional $30 million to expand marine and hydrokinetic research. The House 2010 committee bill provides $2.5 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Despite Shift on Climate by U.S., Europe Is Wary

The United States, long a laggard in international efforts to reduce global warming pollution, will arrive at the meeting of the world’s major powers in Italy this week carrying a newly assertive message on the dangers of climate change and the steps needed to address it.

The European hosts of the Group of 8 summit meeting welcome the shift. But the new stance also worries them, in part because they fear that the United States is working toward an independent deal with China outside the global negotiating framework.

Iceland Debates the Limits of Geothermal

The tiny nation of Iceland is often cited as a model for the world in its use of renewable energy. Virtually all of its electricity comes from dams or geothermal power plants. Drive around the countryside, as I did last month, and you will see billows of steam coming from some hillsides, a sure sign of a geothermal operation with the occasional hot springs attached.

Some Icelanders are questioning just how long the renewable power can last. At the core of the debate are the country’s efforts to build up a power-intensive aluminum industry — itself an effort to diversify the economy away from fishing. Already some 80 percent of Iceland’s electricity goes to heavy industry, mainly the country’s three big aluminum plants, according to Iceland’s new environment minister, Svandís Svavarsdóttir.

Enzyme Maker Poised to Profit in CO2 Battle

With a $200 million plant due to open next year in Omaha, and American and European renewable fuel standards on the way, the Danish enzyme giant Novozymes A/S sees itself as well-positioned in the market for second-generation biofuels.

“With the climate drive, we find ourselves in a very sweet spot,” Lars Hansen, president of Novozymes North America, told Green Inc. on Monday from the company’s American headquarters and R.& D. center in North Carolina.

The $1.5 billion-a-year company, which traces its roots to a 1925 insulin lab, received a high-profile plug two weeks ago from the Gigaton Throwdown Initiative, a clean-energy brainstorming network linking investors, entrepreneurs, business leaders and policy makers and established by Spring Ventures founder Sunil Paul, a clean-tech venture capitalist. The group pointed to enzymes as a promising climate mitigation technology with the potential for scalable growth.

Rural Cooperatives Add Wind, Cautiously

Rural electric cooperatives across the country are adding more wind power, but it is not always easy.

“These rural electric utilities sit on top of a gold mine — some of the best wind resources in the country,” said Jeff Anthony, the manager of utility programs at the American Wind Energy Association, in an e-mail message.

Brian Hobbs, an official with the Western Farmers Electric Cooperative in Oklahoma, said that wind now accounts for 11 to 12 percent of his generation mix (coal is another 45 to 47 percent, and natural gas about a third). But since the cooperative began adding wind power in 2003, prices have more than doubled.

Conversion from fossil fuels will save energy, cut CO2 — study

Using electricity instead of fossil fuels to power residential and commercial technologies could lead to massive energy savings and significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new analysis released today.

The Electric Power Research Institute study found that using electricity for heating, cooling, clothes drying and other activities could save 71.7 quadrillion British thermal units of energy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 4.4 billion metric tons by 2030.

Immobilized Microbes Can Break Down Potentially Harmful Phthalates

Immobilized microbes can break down potentially harmful phthalates, according to researchers in China, writing in the International Journal of Environment and Pollution. The microbes might be used to treat industrial waste water and so prevent these materials from entering the environment.

Phthalic Acid Esters (PAEs), commonly known as phthalates, are widely used as additives in polymer manufacture as plasticizers. They do not readily degrade in the environment and so have become widely distributed in natural water, wastewater, soils, and sediment.

Making a Cash Cow Out of Manure Isn’t Easy

…Carbon traders scoping out the methane digesters for voluntary emissions reductions are saying it’s a hard sell financially. That remains true even as Congress moves forward on a bill that would create a huge market for compliance offsets — greenhouse gas reduction projects in lieu of reductions at facilities covered by the bill.

Environmentalists Sue Over Energy Transmission Across Federal Lands

A coalition of environmental groups is suing federal agencies in an effort to change the location of corridors to transmit energy across Western lands.

The environmental groups — including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Wilderness Society, as well as several Western environmental groups — say that the corridors, which were designated in January by the Bush Administration, are convenient for moving electricity generated by coal plants and other fossil fuels, but do little to facilitate the production of renewable energy on public lands.

Massive Imbalances Found In Global Fertilizer Use, Resulting In Malnourishment In Some Areas And Serious Pollution Problems In Others

Synthetic fertilizers have dramatically increased food production worldwide. But the unintended costs to the environment and human health have been substantial. Nitrogen runoff from farms has contaminated surface and groundwater and helped create massive “dead zones” in coastal areas, such as the Gulf of Mexico. And ammonia from fertilized cropland has become a major source of air pollution, while emissions of nitrous oxide form a potent greenhouse gas.

How Can The World’s Fisheries Be Sustainable?

According to the most recent report on the status of the world’s fisheries by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, fisheries supply at least 15% of the animal protein consumed by humans, provide direct and indirect employment for nearly 200 million people worldwide and generate $US85 billion annually. This same report indicates that 28% of the world’s fisheries stocks are currently being overexploited or have collapsed and 52% are fully exploited.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a strong opponent of climate legislation even though the vast majority of the major businesses on the Chamber’s board who have a publicly stated their position on climate legislation support strong action (see here).

Now Tom Donohue, President and CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is echoing the House GOP in pushing a petroleum industry falsehood designed to scare the public into opposing even modest climate and clean energy legislation (see “House GOP repeat in unison the petroleum industry falsehood that CBO finds the Waxman-Markey bill would raise gasoline prices 77 cents a gallon“).  In a column for the Chamber’s online magazine, Donohue writes:

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cost impact could be as much as $0.77 per gallon for gasoline, $0.83 per gallon for jet fuel, and $0.88 per gallon for diesel fuel–all ultimately borne by the consumer.

That scary charge is, as I’ve shown, a complete falsehood.  It comes from the American Petroleum Institute, (see here) which decided to ignore the actual CBO analysis and offer its own instead, claiming it is what CBO found.  The API is a strong opponent of the bill and has been pushing disinformation on global warming for more than a decade.

Let me set the record straight once again.

As a study by 5 national laboratories noted in1998, “$50 per tonne of carbon [$14 a tonne of carbon dioxide] corresponds to 12.5 cents per gallon of gasoline.”

To cause a $.77 increase in gasoline prices, the climate bill would have to result in greenhouse gas allowance prices of some $85 a ton of CO2. Now you can go to Table 3 of the CBO analysis yourself, and you’ll see that CBO estimates the allowance price will hit $26 a ton in 2019 – and that is in actual (not inflation-adjusted) dollars.  In 2008 dollars, that would be closer to $21 to $22.  So in fact the CBO estimates that gasoline prices in 2019 would be about 20 cents a gallon higher than today (in constant dollars). And that’s a lot lower than the price will rise if we don’t take strong action to jumpstart the transition to a cleaner, more efficient energy system.

In fact, CBO found, “Waxman-Markey cuts U.S. GHGs sharply but costs only a postage stamp a day — without counting the efficiency savings.”

Finally, as I’ve argued, I think the CBO estimate is on the high side.  I doubt the allowance price will significantly exceed $15 a ton in 2020 (in constant dollars) — see Game changer, Part 2: Why unconventional natural gas makes the 2020 Waxman-Markey target so damn easy and cheap to meet. So the gasoline price rise will be even lower and more than offset by the myriad energy efficiency measures in the bill and in other Obama administration policies.

Perhaps it’s too much to ask the Chamber to actually promote sustainable commerce, as key members of its board do, rather than trying to convince the public that jump-starting the transition to a clean energy economy would be horrific.  Ironically, it is in fact the impact of unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions that would unleash incalculable horrors on future generations.

Major car companies are starting to vote on their choice for the “car and fuel of the future” with big bets on manufacturing capacity.  The winner, no surprise, is going to be highly efficient plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and pure electric vehicles (see, for instance, “Everything you could want to know about plug-in and EV announcements at Detroit auto show“).

Plug-ins and EVs are a core climate solution, since electric drives are more efficient, easily powered by carbon-free energy, and far cheaper to operate per mile than gasoline or any alternative fuel, especially hydrogen, even when running on renewable power. And they are the key alt-fuel strategy needed to deal with the energy/economic security threat of rising dependence on imported oil and the inevitably grim impacts of peak oil (see “Why electricity is the only alternative fuel that can lead to energy independence“).

No surprise, then, that Toyota is planning on a major rollout of its plug in:

Toyota Motor Corp plans to start mass producing plug-in hybrid vehicles in 2012, with a projected first-year output of about 20,000 to 30,000 units, the Nikkei business daily reported on Saturday.

We also have some details on the cost and all-electric range of the Toyota plug in:

Toyota wants to price its plug-in hybrids at a comparable price to Mitsubishi Motors Corp’s all-electric car, which debuts this month to fleet customers in Japan at 4.59 million yen ($47,800) before government subsidies, the Nikkei said, without citing sources….

Toyota’s plug-ins will be able to run 20-30 km (12.4-18.6 miles) on battery power alone at full charge, the paper said.

It always bears repeating that after the battery charge is exhausted, the car will revert to being a highly fuel-efficient “conventional” hybrid that runs on gasoline.

Toyota appears to be making a shrewder decision on the all-electric range the GM, which says it is giving the Chevy Volt a too-large 40-mile capacity (see “Has GM overdesigned the Volt: Is a 40-mile all electric range too much?” and “CMU study suggests GM has wildly oversized the batteries in the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid“).

Ford had made clear in its restructuring plan last year last year that the future fuel is electrons (see “Whose bailout plan is best: Ford drops hydrogen while GM remains confused about ethanol“):

The next major step in Ford’s plan is to increase over time the volume of electrified vehicles, as battery costs improve and as the transition from Hybrids to Plug-in Hybrids to Battery Electric Vehicles occurs.

Now Reuters reports:

Ford plans to introduce a battery-powered commercial van in 2010, a battery-powered small car the following year and a plug-in hybrid to challenge General Motors Corp’s highly touted Volt starting in 2012.

Those plans put utilities and battery companies “at the center of the universe” for automakers, [Ford CEO Alan] Mulally said.

Ford, the first of the U.S. automakers to roll out a hybrid, has made a renewed commitment to the technology a centerpiece of its turnaround plans….

Within a decade, automakers and utility companies expect to make commonplace two-way communication between vehicles and an interactive utility power grid that will solidify their cooperation.

Utilities are expected to install millions of “smart meters” at homes that would signal the car’s computer when the power grid is strained, and power expensive, so charging can be suspended.

For now, the goal is simply to convince motorists to plug in, said Nancy Gioia, Ford’s director of hybrid vehicle programs.

Gioia projects that “from 10 to 25 percent” of Ford’s production by 2020 will be some type of electrified vehicle.

General Motors, of course, has long been touting its efforts to electrified vehicles:

GM, now operating under a federally funded bankruptcy, has also pledged to have more plug-in hybrids and even pure electric vehicles for city driving in the future….

Britta Gross, GM’s director of global energy systems and infrastructure commercialization, would not offer a percentage for plug-ins and other types of electric cars, but said GM would “do the heavy lifting” trying to meet the moonshot-like goal set by President Barack Obama to have 1 million plug-in hybrids on U.S. roads by 2015.

Finally, we can move beyond the rhetorical hype about what low-carbon alternative fuel vehicles American consumers might be driving in the foreseeable future to the manufacturing and practical reality of plug-ins and EVs.

Related Posts:

• One more reason you’ll be driving electric vehicles and plugs in soon — not hydrogen fuel cell cars
• “The car of the perpetual future” — The Economist agrees with Climate Progress on hydrogen“
• This just in: Hydrogen fuel cell cars are still dead
• BMW Hammers One More Nail in Hydrogen Coffin
• VW: “Fuel cell cars won’t save the world”
• Dream of hydrogen car goes down in flames
• Iacocca: Plug-in hybrids, not hydrogen “the wave of the future”

Australia is the canary-in-the-coal-mine koala-in-the-bushfire for climate change, since it is the most arid habited continent (see “Australia today offers horrific glimpse of U.S. Southwest, much of planet, post-2040” and “Global Boiling: Australia’s hellish black Saturday of extreme fire“).  Prime Minister Rudd has been “moving forward with an imperfect but positive climate policy agenda that includes a cap-and-trade program” as explained in this reprinted post by Erwin Jackson, Director of Policy and Research at the Climate Institute (Australia’s leading independent policy think tank on climate change), and Andrew Light Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress where he coordinates CAP’s work on international climate change policy.

Are our closest allies—namely, Australia—who are ahead of us on addressing global warming in fact reversing their course and having second thoughts?  That’s the impression conveyed last week in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal by Kimberly Strassel. This argument is as false as the claim that China is doing nothing.

Strassel claims that Australia’s legislation on climate change, now making its way through their Senate, “is set to founder as the Australian parliament breaks for winter,” and she compiles a hodgepodge of half truths to make the case that this turn is at the front of a rising tide against the veracity of climate science. Her advice to American lawmakers is to reengage with the science because “you won’t be alone.”

Stassel, who also wrote last weekend on the supposed censorship of EPA economist Alan Carlin’s discredited report debunking climate science, is fixated on reviving climate skepticism. She has many admirers, such as U.S. Senator John Barasso (R-WY), who used her column in today’s hearings on climate legislation in the Senate as the basis of a demand to investigate the matter. James Inhofe (R-OK) then had her column inserted in the official record for the hearings. But at best there is a wisp of smoke here being called a wildfire.

She claims that a “growing number of Australian politicians, scientists, and citizens” are doubting “the science of human-caused global warming.” Such reports are largely based, however, on the views of one Australian senator, Steve Fielding, and one Australian geologist, Ian Pilmer. Pilmer does receive generous coverage in some sections of Australia’s media, but such contrarians do not represent the views of the majority, who remain concerned about climate change and are frustrated at political wrangling that is delaying further action.

So what is really going on in Australia? For the nearly 20-year history of the climate debate, Australia’s domestic and international policy has been monopolized by unfounded fears that concerted domestic action to reduce emissions would have devastating impacts on the country’s export coal and energy-intensive industries. Sound familiar?

Recently this has slowly but surely begun to change.

The last federal Australian election in late 2007 attracted international attention as one of the world’s first climate change elections. Exit polls showed climate change was a top-tier issue, seen as second only to industrial economic policy as a key difference among critical swing voters who embraced Kevin Rudd’s Labor government in response to his championing of the issues.

What’s more, climate change’s effects weren’t framed only as hypothetical models of problems that may occur in the future but more as immediate observable impacts at home. Australians overwhelming endorsed climate action, driven by ongoing drought across much of the country and a future-looking electorate intent on addressing this problem. In response the new prime minister ratified the Kyoto Protocol in his first official act after taking office. When Rudd journeyed to the annual U.N. meeting on climate change in Bali, Indonesia, shortly thereafter he was greeted by the assembled delegate with thunderous applause. By moving so quickly to carry out his campaign promise Rudd had not only responded to the Australian people’s will but announced in one swift move that his country was back among the ranks of those determined to do be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

Recent polls show climate concern remains strong among over 70 percent of Australians despite rainfall in northern Australia and the global financial crisis. And numerous polls show large Australian majorities back the passage of the cap-and-trade bill and Australian action ahead of other countries, including the United States and China.

Within Australian policy circles a new definition of national interest has also recently emerged. The current government has accepted a review commissioned by all of Australia’s state and territorial governments in 2007 by Professor Ross Garnaut, “to examine the impacts of climate change on Australia and to recommend policy frameworks to improve the prospects of sustainable prosperity.” In particular the government has embraced Garnaut’s principle conclusion that it would be in Australia’s interests to stabilize global greenhouse gas concentrations and equivalents at 450 ppm or lower. This acceptance was driven by a recognition that Australia is the advanced economy most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Australian national security agencies have also been considering the implications of major climate change events and impacts on Australia’s close neighbors. The government’s recent Defense White Paper identified climate change as a new security threat and suggested that the best defense against such developments will “need to be undertaken through coordinated international climate change mitigation and economic assistance strategies.” The paper goes on to suggest that should these policies fail “the government would possibly have to use the [Australia Defense Force] as an instrument to deal with any threats inimical to our interests.”

The new government, driven by these considerations and its election mandate, has been moving forward with an imperfect but positive policy agenda that includes a cap-and-trade program, called the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, or CPRS; a more constructive multilateral climate diplomacy strategy; an expanded Renewable Energy Target to ensure 20 percent electricity comes from clean-energy sources by 2020; a national energy efficiency strategy and the investment of around AUD14 billion (U.S. $11.5 billion) over eight years in programs aimed at energy efficiency; and research, development, and deployment in large-scale solar and carbon capture and storage with a major international CCS research facility in development in Canberra. This legislation is not without its problems, but it includes a national target to reduce emissions by up to 25 percent from 2000 levels by 2020—conditional on comparable global efforts. As with ACESA, the CPRS passed the Australian House of Representatives in June.

There are critical differences, however, between the shape of the Australian and U.S. legislative debate from here on as both country’s bills hit their respective senates. Importantly, the emission targets in CPRS, if not the legislation, are supported by the conservative opposition party. And because the Labor government does not control the Australian senate, it will need robust bipartisan support from the conservative Liberal party or members of the Greens party plus two additional independent senators to get the cap and trade legislation through.

One of these additional votes would come from Senator Fielding, featured in Strassel’s WSJ editorial, who is the lone representative of the Family First Party in either Australian legislative house. Fielding does not vote with the larger party blocks, so calling his newfound worries about climate change science a turning of the tide in the Australian senate is a stretch, to put it mildly—unless he is a tide of one vote. His climate skepticism is not shared by the main body politic of the Australian Parliament.

So what are the actual prospects for the Australian legislation once we strip away such exaggerated descriptions? Admittedly its fate is still uncertain though prospects are very good. While the Rudd government has not ruled out negotiating the bill through with the Greens and independents it is more likely to do so with the conservative Liberal party.

As the Liberals support the government’s emission targets the main focus of the debate in the senate will be how to treat trade-exposed industries, electricity generators, and the agricultural sector within the cap-and-trade scheme. Or, to put it another way, exactly the same issues that will dominate the debate in the U.S. Senate. Contra Strassel the question of climate science’s veracity will not influence the outcome of the Senate deliberations.

But at the end of the day it is highly likely that Australian mainstream business groups will exert significant pressure on the Liberals to pass the legislation. Media reports suggest that the CEOs of Australia’s largest companies are telling the Liberals to eventually pass the bill. This will be driven by real concerns that investment in Australia will be damaged if uncertainty over climate policy continues. This same argument in the United States has successfully driven many CEOs to push for passage of ACESA.

So the political shoals of the Australian senate will still require some negotiation. But it is more likely than not that come December and the U.N. climate change talks in Copenhagen, Australia will have legislated a cap-and-trade system and be ready to play its full and fair part in global action to avoid dangerous climate change. When the United States follows suit, we will join our ally in taking up both the most important problem of our time and moving forward down the most viable economic path before us.

Related Posts:

• How hot is Australia? Only the koala know for sure.
• “Australia faces collapse as climate change kicks in”:
• I just learned two shocking things
• Drought land “will be abandoned”
• Drought in southern Australia declared ‘worst on record’
• Dry me a River: Climate change and drought
• Australia today = U.S. southwest by 2050
• Australia faces the “permanent dry” — as do we

• The GOP has made the fateful — and fatal — decision to cast its lot with dirty energy and anti-scientific denial (see “Hill conservatives reject all 3 climate strategies and embrace Rush Limbaugh“).
• The overwhelming majority of Democrats are, like Tom Perriello (D-VA), willing to do the right thing even if it has little or no short-term political benefit and possibly a real political cost for them (see Perriello: “The Republicans may win some seats because of this vote, but they can’t regain their souls for demagoguing the issue.”)

Readers have asked for a discussion of the key swing senators.  I will begin a multipart series on that by examining a fascinating statistical analysis of who “Who Voted for the Climate Bill [in the House]? (And Why?)” by the stat master Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com.  Silver “built a logistic regression model that attempted to predict the likelihood of a particular congressman voting for the cap-and-trade bill as the result of a variety of factors.”

Ultimately, he found a “pretty useful” set of variables that “explains about three-quarters (R-squared = .74) of a particular Congressman’s vote on the climate bill. The model predicted 401 of 431 votes correctly.” Here are the factors affecting votes “listed roughly in declining order of significance”:

Ideology. The overall liberal-conservative bent of a Representative, as determined by DW-NOMINATE scores, which run from -1 for very liberal to +1 for very conservative. In this instance, I use the “common space” version of DW-NOMINATE scores, which are slightly less robust overall but place Representatives and Senators on a level playing field, which will come in handy later when we try and predict (as we will in a subsequent post) how the Senate will vote on the bill. Scores are as of the 110th Congress; for freshman Congressmen, they are extrapolated from Progressive Punch scores.

District Partisan Lean. The PVI (Partisan Voting Index) in a district was a highly significant variable; Congressman in Democratic-leaning districts were more likely to vote for Waxman-Market and those in Republican ones more likely to vote against it, all else being equal.

Lobbying Money. As in the case of health care, funds raised from certain types of PACs are a significant predictor of a representative’s vote, although the money in this case cuts both ways. Whereas receiving contributions from coal industry PACs decreased the likelihood of a vote for Waxman-Markey, contributions from nuclear and alternative energy providers significantly increased it. I also looked at contributions from oil and gas industry PACs, public utility PACs, and agribusiness PACs, but these had no statistically significant effects. All data is taken from the Center for Responsive Politics and covers the 2004 cycle forward; contributions are divided by the number of cycles a Representative has participated in as a Congressman or as a candidate.

Carbon Emissions. I use county-by-county data on the amount of carbon emissions per capita in a particular area, as determined by Project Vulcan. This requires us to map the county data onto congressional districts by dividing the population of a county evenly among all congressional districts that occupy a part of its geography. Estimates are in metric tons of carbon consumed annually per capita. The carbony-ist district is the At-Large one in Wyoming, which produces 36.3 metric tons of carbon per capita; the least carbon-intensive are the 10th and 11th Congressional Districts of New York, which are both located in Brooklyn and are responsible for 1.1 metric tons of carbon per capita.

Poverty Rate. Although the Waxman-Markey bill contains provisions to refund a portion of increased energy costs to lower-income consumers, it was nevertheless more likely to receive support in districts where the poverty rate is low. Alternate measures of economic welfare like per-capita income work almost as well in the model and could serve as reasonable substitutes for the poverty rate.

Employment in Carbon-Intensive Industries. Lastly, the fraction of a district’s jobs that are in manufacturing, mining or agriculture was a good predictor of voting on Waxman-Markey (although this variable was significant only at the 90 percent level and not at the 95 percent level).

Yes, Silver is a smart guy with a lot of time on his hands!  Further evidence of that fact is that he is in Vegas for the World Series of Poker — and yes, I am jealous!  But I digress.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this analysis is the Members “the model thinks were most likely to vote for Waxman-Markey but in fact didn’t,” the Members with a high Probability of a Yes Vote — Pr(Y) — who voted “nay”:

Silver notes:

The first three names on this list — Pete Stark, Dennis Kucinch, and Peter DeFazio, apparently all cast nay votes on the bill because they they thought it was too conservative. One imagines that they might have voted for the bill nevertheless if their votes were necessary to secure passage — but as it actually went down, they didn’t.

I am not a big fan of these “no” voters.  This was not the time for symbolic protest votes. It was the time for running up a sizable victory to send a message to the Senate.  Indeed, I’m sure that Pelosi and the House whips let a number of vulnerable members vote no because they weren’t needed.  While understandable tactically, I think that was strategically unwise.

You can also check out Silver’s list of those who voted yes, even though their Pr(Y) were well below 50% — McHugh (R-NY), Hill (D-IN), Space (D-OH), Teague (D-NM), Reichert (R-WA), Lance (R-NJ), Peterson (D-MN!), Castle (R-DE), Skelton (D-MO), and Bono Mack (R-CA).  Some people, especially moderate Republicans, are willing to break with their ideologically rigid party leadership and do the right thing.  Big kudos to all these Members.

Silver’s “general takeaways”:

• People on the whole were pretty rational in trying to balance “selfish” traits (their own ideology; lobbying influences) against “unselfish” ones (the economic and political characteristics of their districts).
• Nevertheless, the playing field is fairly broad, as there are quite a few representatives for whom these traits balance out in ambiguous ways. Some 95 representatives — about 20 percent of the House — were deemed to have between a 10 percent and a 90 percent chance of voting for the bill and can reasonably be described as swing votes.
• Cap-and-trade differs from health care in that there are particular private sector groups that would appear to benefit from its passage: nuclear power and renewable energy providers. Although the nuclear energy lobby is small, and the alternative energy industry lobby is very small, they nevertheless appear to have had some influence; nuclear is a big, untold part of this story. On the other hand, the effects of the agricultural lobby appear to have been mostly neutralized, perhaps because of concessions made in the bill to farm-state Democrats.
• This bill faces long, but not impossible, odds in the Senate

I’m not certain how “nuclear is a big, untold part of this story,” since the bill doesn’t have any direct goodies for the industry, although obviously any carbon price helps low carbon energy sources.  I do expect that nuclear will be a big, well-told part of the story in the Senate.

I’m not certain the bill faces “long” odds in the Senate.  I’d put it at better than 50-50, actually — it is entirely in the hands of President Obama, I think.  But it won’t be the same bill.

Silver has applied his analysis to the Senate side, which I will discuss in part 2.