EcoEquity

Dishonesty about Dangerous Climate Change

In their new report on the business impacts of climate change, Ford Motor Company boldly but dishonestly claims that

“...many scientists, businesses and governmental agencies have concluded that stabilizing the atmospheric CO2 concentration at around 550 parts per million (ppm) (compared with the current 380 ppm and the pre-industrial level of approximately 270 ppm), may help forestall or substantially delay the most disruptive aspects of global climate change.”

As with so many such statements, it’s use of the weasel words “many” and “may” means that it is impossible to falsify. And, frankly, it is tautologically true that stabilization at any level will “forestall or substantially delay the most disruptive aspects.” But that’s only because, no matter how bad it is at 550 ppm, it will only get worse if concentrations get higher. The crucial point is that the likely consequences of 550 ppm stabilization are plenty disruptive enough, and potentially catastrophic.

An honest statement would read more like this:

"Scientists agree that stabilization at 550 ppm CO2, especially considering the likelihood of positive forcing from other GHGs, has a less than 50% chance of keeping global temperature increase less than 3ºC, with a certainty of substantial harms and a signficant risk of climate catastrophes like the melting of the Greenland or West Antartic Ice sheets, or the release of carbon stores in soils and permafrost that may produce substantial positive feedbacks. Furthermore, such a stabilization level has on the order of a 10% possibility of leading to an increase of 5ºC or more, a level almost certain to lead to catastrophic impacts.”

The Ford report makes no mention of any temperature target, even though its staff and consultants (about which more in a moment) must know that, for example, the European Union endorsed a target of not allowing more than a 2ºC increase in global mean temperature (above the pre-industrial level, not the present level of an 0.7ºC increase). Without any mention of temperature, or of the impacts that they count as “the most disruptive,” there is again no way internal to their report to judge their statement about a stabilization target.

One of Ford’s consultants on this report and on its climate-related work more generally is the Union of Concerned Scientists. UCS is a member of CAN (the Climate Action Network), which has endorsed the 2ºC threshold. I am a UCS member, and I have great respect for UCS’s climate advocates. However, everyone at UCS should know that the statement in the Ford report is, frankly, false; yet they signed off on the report.

I understand this as a matter of political “realism.” However, those of us who are not consulting for Ford should be blunt: 550 ppm CO2 is not an acceptable stabilization target. If you take the 2ºC target seriously, and believe (as I do) that one should seek to avoid it with high probability, a more reasonable target is not 450 ppm, CO2, or even 400 ppm CO2, but 400 ppm CO2-equivalent, counting all other greenhouse gases. (Contact me if you want to see the argument.)

The rest of the Ford report is not especially heartening either, but I will leave a further review for another time.

I am also working on a response to the various postings on carbon trading that I hope to finish tomorrow.

Cutting through the smoke on trading

by Paul Baer

As some of you who read this already know, a long-simmering debate over carbon trading has burst into roaring flames on this blog. For those of you who find interest in this matter, and want to see some (sometimes painfully) uncensored opinions, please look at Tom’s posting “Cloud Cuckoo Land”  and the comments thereto.

The long and short of it is that EcoEquity has long been a supporter of (certain types of) carbon trading, in opposition to the views of many non-CAN-affiliated persons and organizations. A recent summary of our position can be found in the article “Where We Stand.” 

Tom’s aforementioned posting listed the so-called “Climate Justice radicals” as one of those groups that was in “cloud cuckoo land,”  focusing (in their case) on their opposition to trading and the “Kyoto process.” For better or worse, of all the people/institutions who got that award (which, for different reasons, also included Andy Revkin of the NYTimes and the Italian environment minister, among others), only Adam Ma’anit of Carbon Trade Watch took us seriously enough to respond. And while the exhange has had a certain amount of unfortunate ad hominem, a lot of the crucial issues have nonetheless been raised.

Although Tom has primarily spoken for us on this issue, I am equally responsible for our position. So I’d like to put forward some of my own thoughts on the issue, and make more explicit some of the questions that I think are at the heart of this debate.

A meta-theme of this debate, which I want to raise at the beginning, is the extent to which “ideology” is influencing our perceptions. It’s a truism that one reads evidence on the basis of one's beliefs; the important question is whether one is willing to consider alternative lines of reasoning that include alternative premises at multiple levels, including those that might be called “ideological.” It is worth coming back to this question eventually. But my main goal here is to lay out what I think are the underlying questions.

One key question is, what do we imagine are the “acceptable” emissions pathways? Tom and I are convinced that we need sharp and rapid reductions, about which (in general terms) there is probably very little dispute in this group. But our opinions about the quantitative details may differ, and this may make some difference to strategies.

A second key question is, what broad “storylines” do we believe may deliver the kinds of emissions reductions that we believe are necessary? Put differently, what is our vision of a society that “achieves” climate justice, and the pathway to that society? Some of what we believe is outlined in our book “Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming”; in our recent writings we’ve started referring to a “global new deal.” We have yet to flesh this concept outline in policy detail, but it implies a new North/South compromise that goes beyond the climate regime.

A third question is, what are the political strategies and tactics that we believe promote our medium to long-term goals? Again, to state the obvious, EcoEquity believes that the Kyoto process offers the best hope for the future. Explaining why we believe this will require us to engage in some detail with the points that Adam, Michael and Larry have raised. Tom has (or will) begin to engage those points; I will defer a more detailed responsed until tomorrow at least.

These are just a few of the mains answers to these questions that Tom and I work with (our “working hypotheses”) as it were, and again, it is clear that those answers are different among the readers (and posters) on this list. But what counts as an answer depends on a variety of additional assumptions about how the world does, or can, work, and it may be among these less obvious premises that the disagreement arises.

My hope is that among the people who are already participating in this discussion, and whomever else finds it worth their time, we can make a careful exposition of the full set of premises that underly our choices of strategy and tactics.

I will admit up front that, if I were a betting man, I’d bet that the Kyoto process won’t deliver what we currently believe to be a suitably precautionary trajectory (consistent with 400 ppm CO2-e by the end of the century). At the heart of our embrace of the process, however, is a belief that there is not an alternative strategy that has a better likelihood of doing so. I believe that this is the fundamental disagreement between us and the “climate justice radicals.” But, not having explored the questions of long-term vision, it’s not obvious that the disagreement isn’t about endpoint rather than pathway.

Central to our strategy and tactics is the conclusion that a precautionary climate pathway will depend on Northern money paying for decarbonization in the South. This is a scary thought, as there is little good precedent for such “investment” being anything but destructive. But given the scarcity of the remaining carbon budget, either the North will pay for decarbonization, or it won’t happen - at least, we think it won’t.

I suspect that there is unlikely to be a great deal of change in the short run of anyone’s opinion in this discussion. But I hope we will all take part with the idea that it is possible our opinions could change. None of us are stupid to believe what we do; all of us have formed our opinions out of long years of experience.

There is much more that I would like to say, but this is not my day job, so I’m going to pause with this. I look forward both to commenting more specifically on the postings to date, and to reading additional contributions.

The ducks -- err, documents

Thanks to Scott Paul at the It's Getting Hot In Here Blog, who found the links to the documents.

COP/MOP Decision on Article 3.9 (submissions by parties due by March 15th)

COP Decision on "Enhancing Long Term Cooperation"

I wish everybody safe travels home, a good rest, and happy holidays. We'll have a lot to do in the New Year!

--Paul

Spin me, baby

Or, "What about this document is like a duck?"

By Paul Baer

After lowering the hurdle for success till it was pretty much lying on the ground, the ministers in Montreal managed to waddle across it at 6 in the morning today. And I know it's the job of environmentalists to make this look like progress, but:

"At 6.17 this morning, (Dion) brought down the gavel on a set of agreements that may well save the planet," said Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club of Canada." (as quoted in Reuters)

Sure, there's more than one way to spin a cat, or a duck. But even allowing for the lack of sleep, maybe this is just a bit much?

As I've been arguing in these virtual pages for the last couple of weeks, Montreal is just one act in long play, and one shouldn't confuse the drama of the closing scenes for any real motion in the plot. The US agreed to come to some talks, but they will be represented there by an administration that is out of touch even with its own business leaders, to say nothing of its regular citizens or those of the rest of the world. I don't see a scenario where this actually accomplishes anything. The agreement of ministers to keep talking is better than no agreement, but the real challenges wouldn't have been substantially different.

Let's be clear: if we're going to save the planet, the US is eventually going to have to pay the largest share of the costs. We are the largest economy and the largest polluter -- how can it be otherwise? And if the US administration is coming to talks starting with the premise that they won't agree to anything that costs real money, the talks will be largely a waste of time. The real action is, and will remain, elsewhere.

Having expressed my cycnicism, let me be clear -- I think there are many reasons why the Montreal meeting was important, and I'm proud of the work my NGO and scientist colleagues have done. Every step that builds the "consensus" (I use the term a bit loosely) for the urgency of action is important. Even if it's just a short waddle...

They came to bury

or, Big DOH!

By Paul Baer

So the US played its last card on Thursday night and said that they won’t agree to a ministerial proclamation even to continue informal international talks under the UNFCCC, to which the US is a party. We’re shocked, shocked! US ignores treaty obligations! US gives flying finger to the world!

As the end-game plays out in Montreal, we remind our readers that this is not a change, just a reminder of the obvious. Whether or not the lowest-common-denominator can be lowered to the level of the US in the next 12 or 24 hours, actual progress will only take place when the rest of the world goes about its climate-business with the US administration outside the room.

All of the EcoEquity crew is now back in the US (and indeed some of us never made it to Montreal). We will post a few more times in the next week as we digest the (rather indigestible) results. If you have read and enjoyed this blog, and would like to see it continued, please send us an email at [email protected].

ExxonMobilBush “hitmen” brushed off by European CEOs

Under the somewhat misleading headline “How America Plotted to stop Kyoto Deal,” the Independent Online reports, in a story by Andrew Buncombe, that an American lobbyist proposed a “European Sound Climate Policy Coalition” to argue against the Kyoto protocol’s emissions caps, and tried to market the idea to major European corporations. The article quotes Greenpeace’s Kert Davies, who calls the lobbyist, Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and his unnamed accomplices “hitmen for the Bush administration and for the likes of Exxon.”

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Horner defended his actions as “this is what I do,” pointedly noting the parallels to what Greenpeace does. "I don't know why it's surprising [I have lobbied European companies]," Horner said. "What is surprising to me is why it's not working. “

Perhaps it’s because, unlike Horner and his ExxonMobil-funded cronies such as  Myron Ebell and Marlo Lewis, Greenpeace doesn’t try to sell snake oil to the people they’re talking to. Or perhaps because even in the boardrooms in Europe they know that we have just one planet and we ought not screw it up (too much more, anyway).

In the future, top companies are reducing their CO2

By Paul Baer

OK, it's not really the future, it’s the December 12th edition of Business Week. And their optimistic spin about companies like GE and others reducing their emissions for business reasons is easy to be cynical about. But there’s another way to read the story: businesses have determined that international and domestic regulations will eventually either or both (1) hold them liable for climate damages from their pollution, including across international borders, and (2) put a restriction on the amount of pollution they can emit, giving emissions rights scarcity value. These rules will come into place because of complex interplay of science, public opinion, legislative maneuvering etc, and the market will respond to them. Indeed as the article demosntrates, it is already responding to them, because such regulations are seen as now politically inevitable.

The tragedy of course is  the power that capital (and fossil fuel-related capital in particular) has to influence and delay these rules. Corporate opposition has set back climate regulation by two decades and no doubt will lead to enormous casualties that could have been avoided. That a bunch of politically naive scientists and marginal environmentalists should nevertheless have won the fundamental battle should give us some (small) reason for hope.

One Pie Serves All

(or, the Wednesday Metaphor Massacre)

By Paul Baer

Ms. Dobriansky, like her bosses, is blinded by inappropriate, or at least insufficient,  metaphors.

“One size does not fit all,” she noted. The problem is that climate change is not a question of what we wear; it’s a question of what we eat. And now we all know that there’s just one pie, and the pieces available are much smaller than what the we (the US) -- or, frankly, Europe and much of the rest of the world -- has gotten used to. And we (the US) can’t just say, “we need a quarter of the pie, ‘cause we’re really fat.” If we need more than our share while we slim down, well we ought to be damn sure paying extra, more than anyone else.

Having said that, we (EcoEquity) couldn’t agree more with Ms. Dobriansky on matters of style and taste. Different countries will need different workout and diet plans as they work towards their long term fitness goals; and will probably like different toppings on their slice of the pie. But the fact remains - we have to agree with everyone else to a fair share of the pie, and the US is shamelessly overeating.

The pie metaphor, of course, also is horribly insufficient. For we could have all the pie we want if the pie-making process wasn’t poisoning us. Or worse, poisoning the people who were eating the least pie, or who will be born after the pie is all gone. So dieting is a matter of life-and-death, and not necessarily for the over-eaters. However, evidence seems to be that Dobriansky and her bosses either don’t know or don’t care that their dietary choices have have fatal consequences.

Cloud Cuckoo Land

By Tom Athanasiou

Back on December 1st -- ancient history to one who has been walking the sterile halls of the Montreal Climate Conference -- Britain's Environment Secretary Margaret Becket declared that "We never had the idea that this meeting was going to sign up to a whole new lot of compulsory targets. The people who think that are living in cloud cuckoo land.”

She’s right, of course. The hope for this meeting is not “a whole new lot of compulsory targets,” but rather a process, a strong, well-founded process, for moving forward from the first, rich-world-only phase of the Kyoto Protocol to a second global phase. 

Still, the term has become a bit of a touchstone, and it’s not hard to understand why; the debate on the way forward is as thick with illusion and wishful thinking as any we’ve recently seen. So I’d like to thank the good Secretary for putting the term into circulation, and for drawing attention to the vast and contradictory land occupied by those who think there’s a real alternative to a globally negotiated regime anchored in multi-lateral diplomacy. 

In this sense,  Cloud Cuckoo Land seems to be a pretty crowded place. Here, in more or less random order, are some of its citizens:

•    Andrew Revkin, the once widely respected New York Times science correspondent who, back on December 5th, wrote a piece called On Climate Change, a Change of Thinking, in which he essentially channeled former Reagan Administration ozone negotiator Richard A. Benedick to the effect that “from here on, progress on climate is less likely to come from megaconferences like the one in Montreal and more likely from focused initiatives by clusters of countries with common interests.”

•    Ron Bailey, who, writing in Reason Online, told his readers that “If the Kyoto Protocol is "cloud cuckoo land," what will 10,000 delegates be talking about in Montreal? They would be well-advised to start looking at the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate as a model for the future of international climate change cooperation.  (For my comments on the partnership, see here).

•    Italy’s Director General of Ministry of Environment, who yesterday stated that technological advances in fossil fuels, emissions intensity and nuclear, as well as investments in “gap” technologies like carbon capture and storage, were the key to climate stabilization, and then going on to assert that the so-called Gleneagles Plan, adopted at the recent G8 summit, should replace the UN climate talks as the reference point for setting new commitments for developed and developing countries.

•    The “Climate Justice” radicals who, gathered at a convergence center far from here, can’t seem to stop conflating the UN climate process with “carbon trading,” and casting the Kyoto Protocol’s “flexibility mechanisms” as emblems of an evil enterprise.  As in “These negotiations are all about making money off the climate crisis, not about bringing about a change in the current system of heavy subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.”

•    The “Contraction and Convergence” folks, who’ve been coming to the climate talks for years, with the determined purpose of telling us that the Gordian Knot of climate crisis, climate equity, and political realism could be cut by a simple system in which per-capita emissions allocations are somehow agreed to even by the hard-nosed, professionally self-interested negotiators who populate these conferences. And that, having been thus agreed, it could then actually work.

•    J. Bradford DeLong, a Clinton Administration alumni who just told us in the (web) pages of the “progressive” news portal TomPaine.com, that the Kyoto Protocol was doubly a failure. Not only was it “not an effective long-run safeguard against the dangers of global warming,” but it was “too little, to fast,” and had failed even to “get the ball rolling.”

•    And, finally, all the people -- and European diplomats in particular -- who think they can negotiate with the Bush Administration, which is represented here by a poisonous lot of flacks that, in the last few days, have wasted the time and lives of innumerable negotiators, activists, and just plain human beings by refusing, just as it said that it would, to accept a draft text by the conference president because it called for the establishment of a “process” that establishes a “dialog” on future commitments.

Only dialogue, ladies and gentlemen.  Dialogue.  And once we get around the Bush gang and start to deal, finally and in a focused way, with the problem of designing a global regime that is strong enough, and fair enough, to actually have a hope in hell of avoiding a climate catastrophe, well, we’re going to need plenty of it. 

Article II and the pace of the race

By Paul Baer

In all the discussions about setting up the post-2012 negotiations, no attention seems to have been given to the question of how any “commitments” or “actions” relate to long-term objectives.

While I’m somewhat sympthetic to continuing negotiations under two tracks (a KP track and a Convention track), the importance of the issue of long-term objectives to meaningful discussion of KP second-round commitments makes it unfortunate that formally such a matter will necessarily be discussed under the Convention, where the objections of both the US and (probably) several important developing countries are likely to stymie any honest appraisal.

In the EU’s Wednesday Press Conference (video here, if you know of a transcript please let me know), EU delegate Artur Runge-Metzger noted (in reference to US Science Adviser James Connaughton’s recent comments that ‘climate change policy is a marathon, not a sprint’), that, in a marathon, “You can’t start walking; you need to start running. You need to keep your pace.” The problem, of course, is that if you don’t have any idea how far away the finish line is or how long you have to get there, you don’t know what pace is fast enough.

Perhaps a more appropriate metaphor is that we’re in a relay race, where we’re going to hand the baton to future generations. It wouldn’t be very fair of us to take a chance that the next runner will have to run an impossible three-minute mile (the current world record is 3:46. For metric users, a mile is 1580 meters; the world record in the 1500 m is 3:27. Thanks again, Google!) Frankly it wouldn’t even be fair for us to make them run a four minute mile, which is at least possible, if we had jogged an eight-minute mile.

Outside the UNFCCC itself, there is a growing consensus that 2ºC is a maximum threshold for acceptable (not by any means “safe”) climate change. And recent scientific research (including by yours truly) has shown that this means, to have a high probability of staying below that level at equilibrium, stabilizing GHGs at the equivalent of 400 ppm CO2 - counting all other GHGs. This means that CO2 alone almost certainly will need to be reduced below today’s levels in this century. And this task, while it is physically still possible, becomes more difficult with every year that emissions rise. The best graphic I know of comes from Malte Meinshausen (click the image to enlarge), which shows how the steepness of the CO2 reductions required increases with every five years of delay in the peak of emissions.

A variety of experts have cautioned against formal negotiations on a long-term target (see for example Jonathan Pershing and Fernando Tudela's 2003 piece for the Pew Center on Climate Change). Given that the US is firmly in the grip of those who deny that we can have any idea what would be dangerous climate change, this is, in the short run, certainly good advice. But unless we've given up on preventing climate catastrophe, some part of the "next steps" dialogue will have to include a serious engagement with the question "How far, how fast?"