Category: Policy

Dumb and Dumber

Not to be outdone by Utah, South Dakota has passed its own climate resolution.

They raise the ante – where Utah cherry-picked twelve years of data, South Dakotans are happy with only 8. Even better, their pattern matching heuristic violates bathtub dynamics:

WHEREAS, the earth has been cooling for the last eight years despite small increases in anthropogenic carbon dioxide

They have taken the skeptic claim, that there’s little warming in the tropical troposphere, and bumped it up a notch:

WHEREAS, there is no evidence of atmospheric warming in the troposphere where the majority of warming would be taking place

Nope, no trend here:

Satellite tropospheric temperature, RSS

Satellite tropospheric temperature (RSS, TLT)

Continue reading “Dumb and Dumber”

Legislating Science

The Utah House has declared that CO2 is harmless. The essence of the argument in HJR 12: temperature’s going down, climategate shows that scientists are nefarious twits, whose only interest is in riding the federal funding gravy train, and emissions controls hurt the poor. While it’s reassuring that global poverty is a big concern of Utah Republicans, the scientific observations are egregiously bad:

29 WHEREAS, global temperatures have been level and declining in some areas over the
30 past 12 years;
31 WHEREAS, the “hockey stick” global warming assertion has been discredited and
32 climate alarmists’ carbon dioxide-related global warming hypothesis is unable to account for
33 the current downturn in global temperatures;
34 WHEREAS, there is a statistically more direct correlation between twentieth century
35 temperature rise and Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere than CO2;
36 WHEREAS, outlawed and largely phased out by 1978, in the year 2000 CFC’s began to
37 decline at approximately the same time as global temperatures began to decline;
…
49 WHEREAS, Earth’s climate is constantly changing with recent warming potentially an
50 indication of a return to more normal temperatures following a prolonged cooling period from
51 1250 to 1860 called the “Little Ice Age”;

The list cherry-picks skeptic arguments that rely on a few papers (if that), nearly all thoroughly discredited. There are so many things wrong here that it’s not worth the electrons to refute them one by one. The quality of their argument calls to mind to the 1897 attempt in Indiana to legislate that pi = 3.2. It’s sad that this resolution’s supporters are too scientifically illiterate to notice, or too dishonest to care. There are real uncertainties about climate; it would be nice to see a legislative body really grapple with the hard questions, rather than chasing red herrings.

Climate bill messaging

Interesting insights from pollster Frank Luntz, via Reuters:

“If you really want to scare Americans it’s not about glaciers that are melting or the struggle of the polar bear,” said the pollster and political adviser Frank Luntz, most known for his work with Republicans.

“What scares Americans is the idea that this great technological industry will be developed in China or India rather than America,” said Luntz, who once advised former President George W. Bush’s administration to emphasize that there was a lack of scientific certainty about climate change.

…

Luntz said polls his company conducted late last year showed that a combined 65 percent of respondents stated that climate change exists and action needs to be taken, or that the science was not settled but people should explore ways to cut emissions and adopt clean energy. “This is true of Republicans and Democrats alike,” he said.

…

Backers of the cap-and-trade bill have emphasized climate science too much, and the potential positive results from a clean-energy bill — domestic jobs, a healthier environment, and potentially less money sent to the Middle East for oil — too little, Luntz said.

Wording is important in drumming up support for the bill, he added. Backers should emphasize it would create “American” jobs rather than “green” jobs, while Americans want “reliable” technology more than “smart” technology, he said.

Poll respondents who were Democrats or Republicans believed the most important environmental and economic goal for the United States should be cutting dependence on foreign fuel and halting pollution of the air and water. Ending climate change came in last of the 10 priorities in that category.

Hat tip to Travis Franck.

Climate bills LITE

Over Christmas, with little fanfare, two new approaches to climate legislation were introduced, perhaps in response to the possibility that Boxer-Kerry’s prospects are dimming. VentureBeat has a summary. The Kerry-Lieberman-Graham approach is just a “framework” and too vague for me to sink my teeth into. The Cantwell-Collins CLEAR act on the other hand is a real bill. Unlike the 1000-page ACES (Waxman-Markey), it’s just about cap & trade,  so it’s refreshingly brief – 39 pages. CLEAR sets targets,

CLEAR targets

Source: EPA & EIA STEO

As in Waxman-Markey and other bills, the target trajectory is  mostly linear. That actually doesn’t make much sense, because it implies a much greater proportional effort late in the game. Emissions reductions finish at >6%/year. If GDP growth is 3%/year, that implies a final intensity reduction rate of >9%/year, which is fairly delusional. Unlike Waxman-Markey, which is strictly linear, the first three years are flat, then there’s a race to the 2020 target. It’s good to harvest the low-hanging fruit quickly, but the 2015-2020 trajectory seems a little sporty.

The real emissions trajectory is unknown, because there’s a safety valve price ceiling and floor, initially set at 7 to 21 $/tonCO2eq, and rising at the real interest rate, plus and minus 0.5%, respectively. The resulting prices neatly bracket EPA’s expectations for Waxman-Markey without international offsets (Scn07 on graph):

CLEAR price corridor

Source: EPA W-M analysis.

CLEAR is upstream, covering fuels at the minemouth, wellhead, import terminal, etc. This strikes me as a big advantage administratively and improves coverage as well. Offsets, funded by a set-aside from auction revenues, play a much smaller role, which is OK, because with better coverage there won’t be as big a market. International offsets are also assumed to play a much smaller role (a few % of reductions, vs. roughly half of W-M reductions). That makes the true target trajectory much more aggressive, and raises expected permit prices a lot. Whether this is good or bad is ambiguous; one drawback is that there’s potentially less “carrot” for developing countries, and less funding for forestry.

Unlike Waxman-Markey, CLEAR allocates most (75%) permits to citizens as “shares”. That’s bad news for coal-fired electric utilities, but possibly good news for low income residents of coal-intensive areas. My guess is that the totally flat distribution of revenue would more than compensate for regional inequities for the bottom quintile, who would come out ahead. The remaining permits go to a “CERT” fund for worker, business, and community transitions, stranded assets, targeted relief for energy-intensive industries exporting to countries without emissions controls, R&D, offsets and other usual suspects. There’s room for a lot of good here, but also a lot of pork. I think it would make sense to partially phase out the fund in the future, as its revenues would likely rise beyond the need.

Like W-M, CLEAR includes a border adjustment (effectively a tariff on the embodied carbon content of imports). This, plus the potential trade measures in CERT, should make labor happy and infuriate WTO partners like China.

Strategically, CLEAR seems to leave more of the detailed design of the market and related mechanisms to the executive branch. I think that’s a good thing. It’s impossible to have a sensible debate about a piece of legislation the size of the Oxford dictionary. Add in the fact that this proposal is much closer to economic ideals for a cap & trade (upstream coverage, flat rebates, safety valves) and I’m liking this a lot better than ACES.

Climate Panic?

Grist muses over the possibility that abrupt climate change in the not-too-distant future might trigger a chaotic response.

One morning in the not too distant future, you might wake up and walk to your mailbox. The newspaper is in there and it’s covered with shocking headlines: Coal Plants Shut Down! Airline Travel Down 50 Percent! New Federal Carbon Restrictions in Place! Governor Kicked Out of Office for Climate Indolence!

…

It is exactly these economic impacts that the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs fear we’ll impose on ourselves through restrictive government regulation of energy and carbon emissions. Ironically, a “no action” approach today actually makes a climate panic much more likely over time. What we’re describing would be popularly driven, not fueled by governments or policy wonks. It would be the direct result of free will, democracy, autonomy and the information superhighway. All these forces would accelerate, not mitigate, the greatest “Aha!” moment in the history of the human species. Imagine the sub-prime mortgage bubble pop multiplied a hundred fold.

I hesitate to argue for rationality (certainly our current climate and energy policies aren’t), but I think the physics of climate and human nature do not favor this outcome. The pain of economic dislocation is immediate. At the point of abrupt climate change, on the other hand, it would be evident that we’re stuck with it for decades, because there’s no quick way to reverse the accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere. Even lowering emissions to zero overnight would have only a gradual climatic effect. Since that would be evident to everyone, especially those with GHG-intensive assets, it seems unlikely that rapid controls would emerge, and likely that they would be reversed when their pain was felt too keenly. I suppose macroeconomic feedbacks might make the damage irreversible, or countries might start launching cruise missiles at each others’ coal-fired power plants, but those seem like long odds.

More likely, I suspect, is that panic would yield enormous pressure to pursue geoengineering options – the only real prospect for a quick reversal of radiative imbalance. If, at that point, we’ve triggered abrupt climate changes without warning, it seems likely that our understanding of geoengineering side-effects would still be half-baked. The nasty side effects that might emerge from efforts under such circumstances strikes me as the greater threat of climate panic.

Setting climate aside, another panic scenario that should concern fossil-fired asset owners is a major oil supply disruption. That could de facto shut down emissions and use through high prices, no political will power required.

COP15 Insights & Observations

A few random insights that I scribbled down during the process:

  1. Blame the system, not the people. A lot of people worked incredibly hard towards something positive. There were some screwups (late injection of the Danish text?), but on the whole, things didn’t come together because the structure wasn’t in place for them to do so.
  2. The US came to the table with nothing to offer – a tentative commitment, but no money and no headroom for bigger commitments.
  3. There’s little trust between parties. The developed world needs to demonstrate something concrete (significant emissions cuts or big $) before the developing world will budge.
  4. You can’t fix historic emissions inequity with future emissions – unless you don’t care about anything remotely like a 2C target.
  5. It’s not just about climate – development, resource management, and many other problems are intertwined.
  6. When major unstated values or mental models are in conflict, the COP process reverts to niggling over unimportant administrative details.
  7. It’s a good idea not to register more participants than you can handle.
  8. Analysis and decision support are probably not the key constraint at this time (maybe later). Negotiators need more scope from their home constituencies to be able to reach agreement.
  9. Emissions and welfare are not the same thing.
  10. Deep cuts for the world imply ~100% cuts (or more) in the developed world.
  11. It’s tough to reach 100% cuts due to fixed process emissions and activities for which it is difficult to substitute for hydrocarbon fuels.
  12. A number of industries are planning on more than their share of the remaining x% of emissions – how will it really add up?

COP15 Sound Bites

I’ve been looking over the final COP15 decision (here, for now). So far it all looks nonbinding. I was curious how some of the players are reacting.

EDF

“Today’s agreement leaves the U.S. in control of its own destiny. … As President Obama said today, strong action on climate change is in America’s national interest.” — EDF’s Fred Krupp, Dec. 18, 2009

Sierra Club

“The world’s nations have come together and concluded a historic–if incomplete–agreement to begin tackling global warming.  Tonight’s announcement is but a first step and much work remains to be done in the days and months ahead in order to seal a final international climate deal that is fair, binding, and ambitious.  It is imperative that negotiations resume as soon as possible.

…

“The agreement reached here has all the ingredients necessary to construct a final treaty–a mitigation target of 2 degrees Celsius, nationally appropriate action plans, a mechanism for international climate finance, and transparency with regard to national commitments.  President Obama has made much progress in past 11 months and it now appears that the U.S.–and the world–is ready to do the hard work necessary to finish what was started here in Copenhagen.

Greenpeace

Copenhagen a cop-out
Two years have passed since world leaders promised all of us a deal to stop climate change. After two weeks of UN negotiations, politicians breezed in, had dinner with the Queen, a three hour lunch, took some photos, and then delivered what could only be described as the 24-hour Head of State tourist brochure of Copenhagen instead of a climate treaty.

League of Conservation Voters (via email)

I’m in Copenhagen and President Obama has just wrapped up a press conference here announcing that a meaningful climate deal has been reached. While there is still much work to be done, the deal reached is a breakthrough for international climate cooperation and provides a path forward towards a binding global treaty in 2010.

Significantly, the United States and China will – for the first time – both be at the table, working to tackle the historic challenge of global climate change. Additionally, the deal allows for more transparency, as developed and developing countries have now agreed to list their national actions and commitments regarding greenhouse gas reductions.

API

“We agree with President Obama on the importance of addressing global climate change. However, Congress’s leading proposals could destroy millions of jobs, drive up fuel prices, and, by shifting much of our refining capacity abroad (along with refinery greenhouse gas emissions), substantially increase our reliance on foreign supplies of gasoline, diesel and other petroleum fuels. Worse, the president’s own EPA is poised to issue an expansive regimen of climate regulations that could cripple business growth and job creation, dimming employment hopes for 15 million now out-of-work Americans.

…

“Public support for government climate change proposals has waned. It’s time for all stakeholders to come together to craft a fair, efficient, market-based climate change strategy that minimizes the burden on consumers and jobs.”

Can’t find a final reaction yet: USCAP, WWF, ECF, and many others. Seems like the press releases haven’t all hit yet.

Update 12/22: a nice summary at Roger Peilke’s blog.