Mountain pine beetle upends the Canadian emissions picture?

The lastest Canadian greenhouse gas emissions data looks very different if Canadian forests are taking into consideration.

There was some rejoicing over the fact that Canada's GHG emissions grew by only 2 Mt CO2e (that includes CO2 plus other GHGs converted to "units" of CO2) or 0.25% from 2009 to 2010, despite the fact that the economy was rebounding from the recession. But if you include land cover, land use change and forestry, GHG emissions grew by 86 Mt from 2009 to 2010.

Why such a large change? According to the Canadian government model, forests went from a net sink of 17 Mt in 2009 to a net source of 72 Mt in 2010 (see Table 7-1 in NIR). If you

break the GHG balance of forests up by region, the driver of this change was the "Montane Cordillera", or #14 on the map to the left. These forests of western BC were a net source of 100 Mt. The only other net sources regions in 2010 were the "Boreal Shield West" (#9 at 22 Mt), the "Pacific Maritime" (#15 at 5.7 Mt) and the "Taiga Shield East" (#4 at 1.7 Mt).

There are large, natural year-to-year variations in forest carbon balance, so it's important not to read too much into the jump from 2009 to 2010. What the 2010 number does reflect, however, is the very large amount of carbon, in the form of dead wood, in BC that is waiting to be respired to the atmosphere (if we don't use sequester it in buildings). For that, we can largely thank the Mountain Pine Beetle, the outbreaks of which have been linked to climate change. From the National Inventory Report:

The upward trend in dead organic matter (DOM) decay since the year 2000 reflects the long-term, growing effect of past disturbances, especially insect epidemics that have left substantial quantities of decaying DOM. Over the last decade, insect epidemics have affected a total of over 56 Mha3 of managed forests, with 72% being located in the Montane Cordillera reporting zone and corresponding to the epidemics of Mountain Pine Beetle. In contrast, much of the interannual variability of the GHG budget of managed forests hinges on the occurrence and severity of fires.

Before you start screaming "cover-up", it is standard UN reporting practice, to not include land use, land cover and forestry in the "total" at the top of the GHG inventory tables. This is done for a number of legitimate reasons, not the least of which being that net emissions from forests must be estimated by models and, as I've said, the results vary from year to year because of climate variability. Nonetheless, it is striking that climate change, via its effects on Canadian forest, might be undoing the reported progress in curbing, or starting to curb is a better term, greenhouse gas emissions from some sectors of the Canadian economy.

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Why I am opposed to Northern Gateway

After a few months of thinking, I came to the conclusion that there is no choice but to oppose the construction of the Northern Gateway pipeline. There are many worthy arguments on either side of this issue, from the economy to First Nations rights, and from the preservation of the BC coastline to the reality of oil consumption here and abroad. My argument, presented in the Mark, is entirely about climate:

If the Harper government were not so consistently obstinate on federal climate policy, people like me (a climate scientist who has long been wary of the NIMBYism of environmental groups) might not become vociferous opponents of projects like Northern Gateway. We are forced to oppose individual carbon-intensive projects because the government refuses to listen to scientific or economic reason on climate change.

My compromise solution is a federal carbon pricing system.

A carbon-pricing system, like those of British Columbia and Australia, would not necessarily prevent pipeline construction. Rather, it could allow the market to decide whether the costs of a new pipeline outweigh the benefits, and ensure that any emissions from such new projects are more than compensated for by cuts elsewhere. This would also help Canada slowly transition towards a 21st-century economy, based on innovation and our plentiful renewable resources, without ignoring extractive industries of our past.

I encourage people to read, consider and comment on this argument. It is not based on concern about the direct effect of an individual pipeline like Northern Gateway on the physics and chemistry of the climate system. The approval of an individual project, and for that matter, the overall expansion of oil extraction in Alberta, would not specifically be  - physically or chemically speaking - "game over" for the climate, as some have claimed. They could, however, lead us down the wrong path. 

Absent a federal effort to manage carbon emissions, there will be a pitched battle over every new pipeline and every new coal-burning power plant. Many of those seeming slam dunks, like Keystone XL, will clang off the rim. We could keep fighting like this forever. Or we could work together on a federal climate policy.

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Why would Canada withdraw from Kyoto before the end of the year?

Timing is everything, they say.

If the timing of this rumoured decision by the Canadian government to officially withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol near the end of December - rather than to remain a part of Kyoto and just continue ignoring the provisions - strikes you as curious, I strongly recommend reading Andrew Leach's post on the subject. He points out Article 27 of the Kyoto Protocol (bold is mine).

1. At any time after three years from the date on which this Protocol has entered into force for a Party, that Party may withdraw from this Protocol by giving written notification to the Depositary.
2. Any such withdrawal shall take effect upon expiry of one year from the date of receipt by the Depositary of the notification of withdrawal, or on such later date as may be specified in the notification of withdrawal.

It's been suggested that Canada will withdraw to avoid "non-compliance". The 2008 - 2012 Kyoto compliance period officially ends on December 31, 2012. After that, the math will be done to determine whether each country met their emissions targets.

If Canada withdraws before December 31, 2011 then Canada's withdrawal will be official before the compliance period ends, and Canada will, to be a scientist and use a double negative, not be considered in non-compliance. In other words, the Canadian government just a few weeks to play its get out of jail free card.

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Stunning new carbon emissions data

The headline from the Associated Press "Biggest Jump Ever in Global Warming Gases" tells part of the story. The preliminary estimates of fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions for 2010 from Oak Ridge National Laboratory reveal what appears to be a quick rebound from the global financial crisis. Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production increased 6% from 2009 to 2010, driven in large by by China. This was the largest one-year (and total) increase in carbion dioxide emissions in the Oak Ridge data. 

If you drill into the numbers, which can be found here, you discover how economic turmoil, international development and, yes, maybe even a push to low-carbon economy in some countries, is changing the world. In the 2010 data (top right), China is by far the top emitter, ahead of the U.S., and India is now in the third spot. Of course, this ranking does not take population into account; the per capita emissions in China, and especially India, are far lower that that in the U.S. and Canada.

What is even more striking is the change over the past three years. I've plotted the percent change from 2008 to 2010 for the same "top twenty" countries (bottomr right). Here you can see that fossil carbon emissions increased rapdily in the major developing economies - China, India, Indonesia, etc, emissions from all of the major emitting countries in the developed world decreased. The industrialized nations that ratified the Kyoto might actually come close to reaching the emissions reductions targets set back in 1997 (we need to wait a couple more years to know for sure). Emissions growth in the developing world, however, is outpacing predictions, so total global emissions continue to increase. This will undoubtedly trigger further arguments about the value of the developed world actions without commitments from the developing world, and counterarguments about equity and sustainable development.

A final note: There are two very important things to keep in mind when looking at these charts. First, this is only carbon dioxide. Despite the use of the plural gases in AP headline, the data is just carbon dioxide. The country-by-country breakdown might be a bit different if the metric were carbon dioxide "equivalent", the catch-all term in which the radiative effect of methane, nitrous oxide and the other greenhouse gases is convered into units of carbon dioxide. Second, this is only from fossil fuel and cement. Again, the numbers would be different if greenhouse gas emissions from land use change were included. For one, Indonesia, might vault up the list, at least to sixth spot, probably even higher.

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The reality of Canada's new regulations on carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants

On Friday, the Canadian Minister of the Environment announced new emissions rules for coal plants which supposed encourage a shift to effective capture and storage of carbon. And, yes, you may be right to be suspicious about any new regulations announced on a Friday afternoon in the middle of August, when the vast majority of Canadians are planning for the weekend and ignoring the news. According to Minister Peter Kent:

These proposed regulations take into account the fact that many electricity facilities across Canada are old and need to be replaced soon. We're acting now to ensure that power companies understand today, the rules that will affect the new investments they have to make tomorrow. It allows for an orderly process - the bedrock of certainty.

The scant news coverage pointed out that the new standards only apply to plants built after July 1, 2015, thus exempted some proposed new coal plants.

That includes Calgary-based Maxim Power Corp.'s contentious proposal for a 500-megawatt expansion at its HR Milner facility, which received final approval from the Alberta Utilities Commission earlier this month and must be built by July 31, 2015 - a condition of the go-ahead (Calgary Herald)

The actual regulations may prove to be even more controversial. I encourage interesting followers of Maribo to read the text of the regulations (pdf from Environment Canada) and provide their interpretation in the comments.

In my reading of the reults, I found what I think, but I could be mistaken, are very large loopholes which could prevent any real reduction in carbon emissions from coal-electricity generation until at least 2025.

First, here's the actual emissions limit, and I'll leave the intrepretation of the number to the readers:

3. (1) A responsible person for a new unit or an old unit must not, on average, emit with

an intensity of more than 375 tonnes CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels in the

unit for each GWh of electricity produced by the unit during a calendar year.

Then it gets complicated:

(b) a declaration that includes the following statements:

(i) that, based on the economic feasibility study referred to in paragraph (c), the unit,

when operating with an integrated carbon capture and storage system is, to the best of

the responsible person’s knowledge and belief, economically viable, and

(ii) that, based on the technical feasibility study referred to in paragraph (d) and the

implementation plan referred to in paragraph (f), the responsible person expects to

satisfy the requirements referred to in section 9 and, as a result, to be in compliance with

subsection 3(1) by January 1, 2025;

So, again, if I am reading this right, you can gain an exemption from the regulations if you are able to conduct a study showing that the CCS system will be capable of meeting the new emissions regulation by 2025.

Putting this all together: 

1. Any coal plants built before July, 2015 which have not reached the end of their useful life [ed - see comment #1] are exempt. Given the expected shift towards natural gas in the next few years, it is entirely possible that the regulations will not end up applying to any coal-burning plants unless they are old units, as all the other coal-burning plants will be "grandfathered" in. [ed - fair?]

2. Any coal plants built after July, 2015 are exempt until 2025 so long as it is technologically possible to install a CCS system by 2025. Therefore, CCS systems are unlikely to be operating at any large scale coal plants in Canada for another 15 years. This delay may reflect the technological challenge of CCS or the values of the current government, or both.

Hopefully, I'm wrong.

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Canada's sham of a federal climate policy

In yesterday's Globe and Mail, Marc Jaccard wisely pointed out the gaping flaws in the Canadian pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17% by 2020. The pivot point is a proposed new coal-burning power plant in B.C.Alberta:

Stephen Harper can’t allow new coal-fired electricity plants to be built, such as the one Maxim Power is proposing in Alberta, and achieve his promise to reduce Canadian greenhouse-gas emissions 17 per cent by 2020. As a researcher of energy-economy systems, I say this with virtual certainty. I also know that any scholar in my field would agree with me, and that the Prime Minister’s expert advisers would tell him the same thing.

There are two stories here. The first is that Canada has made many emissions pledges but repeatedly failed to enact any plan to meet those pledges. This is not a partisan issue. It happened under majority and minority Liberal governments, and it is happening under minority and now majority Conservative governments:

In 2007, Mr. Harper committed Canada to a 2020 target for greenhouse-gas reduction but hasn’t implemented policies that would achieve it. Like Mr. Chrétien, Mr. Harper must know his scant policies will fail. Recently released internal government documents show he’s receiving information from civil servants telling him his current policies are not transforming the energy-economy system in the direction he’s promised.

The second story is that climate policy is ineffective and meaningless without short-term and long-term goals. With no short-term emissions target, we end up delaying shifts in the energy infrastructure, and in the case of the coal-burning power plant, committing to future emissions which make meeting the long-term goal more difficult if not impossible. Jaccard praises the approach taken by the Campbell government in B.C.:

In 2007, then-B.C. premier Gordon Campbell also committed to a 2020 emissions reduction target. But to convince people of his sincerity – especially after two decades of climate policy failure by all Canadian governments at all levels – Mr. Campbell acted very differently. First, he got an independent body to set interim targets for 2012 and 2016, so people would know within a political time frame if he were on track to keep his promise. Second, he asked his advisers what investments needed to happen in 2007, and every year thereafter, to meet the 2020 target. On that basis, he immediately implemented a zero-emission electricity policy, which caused the cancellation of two proposed coal-fired electricity plants that had signed preliminary supply deals with BC Hydro.

Granted this approach is certainly easier, and more politically palatable, in a jurisdication where hydro-power is abundant. Nevertheless, it is a good model to follow.

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The complexity of climate change policy

Buried in a couple recent news stories, which themselves were buried by the news of the debt standoff in the U.S.,  were a couple fascinating nuggets that reveal a lot about how climate change mitigation policy does, and does not happen.

One is an agreement to raise fuel efficiency standards in the U.S., which will presumably also become the rule in Canada. The... greement to that vehicles sold will average 54.5 mpg by 2025, although with loopholes related to measurement of efficiency, the actual average will be more like 43 mpg.

Why did it happen? (NY Times):

It is an extraordinary shift in the relationship between the companies and Washington. But a lot has happened in the last four years, notably the $80 billion federal bailout of General Motors, Chrysler and scores of their suppliers, which removed any itch for a politically charged battle from the carmakers...

The new mind-set in Detroit has been helped by some give and take on the government’s side. G.M., Ford and Chrysler pressed for less onerous mileage goals for their profitable pickup trucks and got them. And the administration agreed to revisit the new requirements halfway through their course, with the possibility of adjusting them. In the end, though, Detroit was faced with an undeniable political reality: there was no graceful way to say no to an administration that just two years ago came to its aid financially.

The auto bailout as climate policy: investing in the companies provided some leverage in the battle to reduce emissions from passenger vehicles. Was the Obama administration prescient here, knowing that there were little odds of carbon tax on fuel? More likely, the U.S. government was merely taking advantage of an opportunity to use some leverage to push an emissions reduction effort. Of course, the idea of "nationalizing" companies in hopes of enforcing a climate change policy would cause the "Tea Party" to self-combust.

The other example is the Alberta government's approval of a carbon capture and storage project (Globe and Mail):


Calgary-based Swan Hills Synfuels LP aims to use an unproven method, coal gasification, to reach 1.4-kilometre-deep coal deposits in central Alberta, convert them to gas underground, capture the emissions before they ever see daylight and use the gaseous coal to run a power plant. The new plant would serve a whopping 300,000 homes while producing one-third the emissions of a similarly sized regular coal plant – or about the same carbon output as a natural-gas plant. Because the project will divert 1.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – providing the cost certainty of coal and environmental performance of natural gas – Alberta coughed up $285-million for the $1.5-billion development.

Now, investment in a CCS project in Alberta is not a huge surprise, especially considering the particular plant can aide in oil recovery. But then there't this nugget:

Industry members, politicians and academics said provincial funding is necessary because there’s little incentive to reduce emissions. CCS is “viable, but it comes at a cost,” said Don Lawton, a University of Calgary geophysicist who studies CCS. “But until there’s a price on carbon, it’s an expense that has to be borne by somebody.” Mr. Lambert said the project would die without provincial money. “I don’t think I could deliver the returns investors would need to put their money up,” he said.

So the CCS projects go ahead, but solwly, and at great expense to the province of Alberta because of the lack of a federal carbon price, which was strongly opposed by politicans from Alberta. Unlike the automobile case above, pricing carbon is critical to making CCS work.

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Canada upsets other countries at climate negotiations

Though news of Canada's selective emissions reporting drew little attention here at home, other countries took notice. From Post Media News:

OTTAWA — Foreign diplomats bombarded Canadian climate change negotiators with questions Thursday in Bonn, Germany, as they challenged the Harper government's transparency and policies to fight global warming.


In the wake of media coverage highlighting missing and conflicting information in an Environment Canada submission to the United Nations, officials from Australia, China, Lebanon, the United Kingdom and the Philippines questioned government policies regarding fossil fuel subsidies and the Alberta "tarsands," a lack of investment in clean energy and the scientific evidence used to determine its greenhouse gas emissions target...


Representatives from other countries pounced on Canada after Michael Keenan, an assistant deputy minister at Environment Canada, delivered a presentation suggesting that the government was showing "significant ambition" in its proposal to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions.


But his presentation appeared to generate more questions than answers.


"I was also struck that the colleague from Canada didn't refer to the tarsands issue or at least only once in passing," said Peter Betts, the lead European Union negotiator and a director at the United Kingdom's Department of Energy and Climate Change, during the session. "This has been an issue featured much in the press, and I know there have been allegations from the press that the emissions from that sector have not been included in Canada's inventory (report submission to the UN)."


His remarks were followed by a delegate from Australia — traditionally a Canadian ally at climate negotiations — who questioned how Canada could increase its "level of ambition" when it was turning away from engaging international markets. Lebanon also jumped in, questioning the pace of a commitment to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels, including the "tarsands," and raising doubts about Canada's intention to harmonize its policies with the U.S. without matching its partner's proportion of investments in clean energy.

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Honesty in Canadian emissions reporting

For five years, Canadian government represnetatives have claimed they are meeting all the obligations under the Kyoto Protocol... except the emissions target. In other words, Canada has met the reporting deadlines but achieved little else. The claim has been subject of much ridicule, here and elsewhere. [it is, incidentally, a classic and well-documented problem with international policy; governments viewing success as filling out the paperwork, not achieving the goals of the actual policy]

It turns out, we are now aren't even filling out the paperwork properly:

OTTAWA — The federal government has acknowledged that it deliberately excluded data indicating a 20 per cent increase in annual pollution from Canada’s oilsands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations...

The numbers, uncovered by Postmedia News, were left out of the report, a national inventory on Canada’s greenhouse gas pollution. It revealed a six per cent drop in annual emissions for the entire economy from 2008 to 2009, but does not directly show the extent of pollution from the oilsands production, which is greater than the greenhouse gas emissions of all the cars driven on Canadian roads.

... Environment Canada provided the oilsands numbers in response to questions from Postmedia News about why it had omitted the information from its report after publishing more detailed data in previous years. A department spokesman explained that “some” of the information was still available in the latest report, which still meets Canada’s reporting obligations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
“The information is presented in this way to be consistent with UNFCCC reporting requirements, which are divided into broad, international sectors,” wrote Mark Johnson in an email.
He was not immediately able to answer questions about who made the decision in government to exclude the numbers from the oilsands or provide a detailed explanation about changes in emissions.

To be fair, maybe this is a common problem this past year, and the reporting by other UNFCCC signatories  was also limited or delayed.
 
Although the report was due in April, during the last election campaign, Canada was the last country to file its submission. Environment Canada even filed its submission after earthquake-stricken Japan, and was unable to explain in detail why its report was late.

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An argument for a gas tax

Last Thursday I gave a talk at the annual American Association of Geographers meeting in Seattle. The AAG attracts throngs and throngs of academic geographers from around the world. Frankly, the meeting is so big you need to be a geographer to navigate your way to a chosen talk, the subject of which may very well be a Marxist analysis of neoliberal influence on the map of the conference centre (“the orientation places the economic geography presentation rooms at the top”).

Seattle is just close enough to Vancouver that someone who is busy, or who possesses an unrealistic and slightly delusional sense of what is possible in a fixed amount of time, or, in my case, both, could convince himself to go there and back in a day. I chose to take the bus, rather than drive, because doing so is more energy efficient and would give me the chance to do some work.

The return bus fare was $48 (that’s Canadian $ for those of you scoring at home). It was, I later discovered, a bit of a deal – return fares can run up to $72 or so. That morning, the price of gas at the station near our house was $1.33 per litre (L). At that price, in order for a single-occupant vehicle trip to be cheaper than the bus fare, the car would need to average less than 7.88 L per 100 km (or 30 mpg) on the 458 km return trip from our house to the conference centre*.

You are unlikely to get that fuel efficiency with anything other than a small vehicle or hybrid car, especially given the traffic you can expect to encounter. And that’s not including the cost of parking. If you add in $20 for parking, the car would have needed to average 4.6 km/100 L, or 51 mpg, which is probably only possible, if at all, with a carefully-driven Toyota Prius, a Chevy Volt, one of the older two-door Honda Insights, or maybe Nissan Leaf if you asked the polar bear in the backseat to hold a bunch of extra batteries on his or her lap. Even at the premium, book-at-the-last-minute bus fare of $72, a car would still need to average at least 11.8 L/100 km (~20 mpg) excluding parking costs, or 8.5 L/100 km (27 mpg) including parking costs, in order to best the bus costs. In other words, at today’s price, there is a clear and immediate financial benefit to leaving the car in the driveway and taking the bus**.

At low prices, gasoline is inelastic. The price won’t significantly influence our behaviour. But as prices move well upwards of $1 per L (towards $4 per gallon), the story may change. The last time gas prices reached beyond today’s level there was an increased demand for high-efficiency vehicles and public transit.

The problem, to remove my scientist hat and channel Thomas Friedman, is that the price signal is coming from the wrong place. Right now, gas is expensive because of the price of oil. The proceeds are going to the oil industry – some of that money stays here in Canada, but much of it goes overseas – and inspiring more exploration, which could conceivably lower prices, or maybe to things like CEO bonuses. If the price of gas were high because of a tax, especially one for which the revenue was invested in things like transit, improved automotive fuel efficiency, battery technology and charging stations, wouldn’t we all be better off? I’d guess that the only thing people hate more than paying a premium at the pump is paying that premium to oil companies.

*L per 100 km? What foreign tongue is this you ask? Canada and the metric world measures fuel efficiency as the gasoline required to go a distance, whereas the US and some other nations use the distance you can cover on some fixed quantity of gas. That difference is in itself rather fascinating, and probably the subject of someone’s cultural geography thesis.

** A full accounting would include the wear and tear on your car – with that, the bus wins hands down over any car on the market. I’ve ignored that here because I’m interested in what will most likely factor into the choice of bus vs. car. My sense is that people don’t consider the daily dribbling costs of wear and tear when making decisions. We moan when the mechanic says you need a new fan belt, but don’t think about the prorated cost when going on a subsequent trip. So we’re unlikely to make a decision based on the per km wear and tear. This is just a hunch; I could be wrong.

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Julie Bishop and Australian Opposition parties need to do better research about climate policy

The Australian Prime Minister, who heads a minority coalition in Parliament, has proposed carbon pricing scheme that will begin in 2012. The opposition parties are lobbying hard against the scheme, or any scheme that puts a price on carbon. In her regular blog for the Sydney Morning Herald, Deputy Leader of the Opposition Julie Bishop uses an argument that will sound familiar to argues that will sound familiar to Canadians and Americans: in essence, why should "we" take action if China is not?

One of the principal arguments of the Julia Gillard - Bob Brown government to justify imposing a carbon tax on Australia is that the international effort on climate change will leave us behind and that even China is taking dramatic action to reduce its carbon emissions.

This is deeply misleading. What the government doesn't tell you is that even if the Chinese government met its stated targets of cutting carbon emissions "per unit of GDP", there will in fact be a massive increase in emissions from China for the foreseeable future.
 
And here is the evidence:

University of British Columbia Professor in Geography Simon Donner calculates in an article titled "China's emissions pledge depends entirely on economic growth" that the Chinese emissions "intensity" targets would still result in substantial emissions increases.He says: "If China keeps up the planned 8 per cent/year growth, emissions in 2020 will be 74-90 per cent higher than 2005 levels".

When I heard about this "citation" yesterday, I was puzzled. What article is she talking about? I'm fairly certainly I'd remember if I'd published an article about Chinese climate policy. It turns out she is referring to a brief Maribo post from two years ago in which I pointed out that the China's new emissions target is based on emissions intensity, and thus represents less of a decrease than it might sound. This brings up all sorts of interesting questions about appeals to authority, blog posts vs. published research, etc., which I'd be happy to discuss.

Now had the Deputy Leader or her staff or whomever writes the posts in her name contacted me or, say, done more than typed "china's emissions pledge" into Google (the post comes up #3, at least from here), she may have learned that many international policy experts think it is reasonable to allow nations with developing economies to set targets based on emissions intensity. I've written numerous posts arguing just that. In fact, that point was touched on in the previous paragraph in the post though only fully fleshed out in other posts:

It is, however, a reasonably fair way to bring a reluctant developing nation like China into an international emissions control framework.

The moral here is not what I wrote. The moral here is that Australians should be just horrified that by the lack of research and analysis being done by the opposition parties on the carbon tax proposal. They should not be citing a two-year old blog post written by a Canadian university professor for which the data is now out of date. I'd guess it took me about 20 minutes to do the analysis and write that post. Certainly that's not too much time to spend working on your position on a critical policy proposal.

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Investing in technology vs. pricing carbon

This quote from a story about a recent report on the challenge of integrating "green" cars into the marketplace contains an important policy lesson:

“While considerable interest exists among governments, media and environmentalists in promoting HEVs and BEVs, consumers will ultimately decide whether these vehicles are commercially successful or not,” said John Humphrey, senior vice president of automotive operations at J.D. Power. “Based on our research of consumer attitudes toward these technologies - and barring significant changes to public policy, including tax incentives and higher fuel economy standards - we don’t anticipate a mass migration to green vehicles in the coming decade.”

In the wake of the failed U.S. Climate Bill, the proponents of increasing government investment in research and development like the Breakthrough Institute have been out in force. One example is the report "Post Partisan Power" released by the Breakthrough Institute and Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute.

Of course, investing in R&D is a fine idea. Unlike others, I'd hesitate to call the proposed R&D policies, particularly those in the Post-Partisan report, a climate policy (try searching the document with the phrases "climate change" or "global warming"). The Breakthrough crowd's central thesis of R&D investment rather than emissions controls has always struck me as a bit of dodge. Spending on R&D is presented as an alternative to carbon pricing, as if the two policies could not or should not or would not act in concert, when in fact, most pricing schemes assume some of the proceed with go to R&D. By presenting R&D investment as an either/or question, the Breakthrough folks make it seems as though proponents of carbon pricing are opponents of R&D. In reality, we find that the R&D may not have the desired effect without some policy instruments to aide the technology transition.

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Senate candidate in Wisconsin questioning climate change

Of all the elected and hoping-to-be-elected politicians openly questioning the evidence for climate change, I have personally found it most depressing to learn about the Republican Senate candidate in Wisconsin.

The state's flagship university in the capitol of Madison has a terrific Department of Atmosphere and Ocean Sciences, a place I was fortunate enough to do my PhD. There are many experts about the climate system walking to halls and the many stairs of the AOS Building.

There are reasonable arguments to make against federal climate policy.  I may disagree with those arguments. That is a personal judgment - I'd like to think an informed from years of thinking and working on the issue - but a personal judgment nonetheless. It is another to use flip analogies to argue against overwhelming scientific evidence. Especially when there are qualified people just around the corner that can help. That's 1225 West Dayton St.; at 15 stories with a big orb on the roof, quite easy to spot. I'd guess about a nice 20 minute stroll from the Capitol Square, not counting a stop at the Buraka food cart on Library Mall.

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Obama and Chu on piecemeal climate policy

This is from US President Obama's interview in Rolling Stone:

When I ask him [Stephen Chu] how we are going to solve this problem internationally, what he'll tell you is that we can get about a third of this done through efficiencies and existing technologies, we can get an additional chunk through some sort of pricing in carbon, but ultimately we're going to need some technological breakthroughs

It is an interesting and rather pragmatic characterization of the solution. The pricing could, of course, drive efficiencies, use of efficient technologies and the development of new breakthrough technologies. But we're seeing how a comprehensive pricing scheme is a practical and political nightmare. Implementing a national or international pricing scheme that touches on a limited set of carbon-generating activities, let one alone taxes carbon across the board, has been hard enough (in the case of Waxman-Markey, you end up with a complicated bill that alienates even the supporters of action). 

Maybe people are finally coming to the realization that a piecemeal solution might actually work the best.   If we can use adopt "wedges" thinking, rather than one grand solution, to reducing emissions, why not do the same for the policy that encourages the emissions reductions?

In Obama's words:

We may end up having to do it in chunks, as opposed to some sort of comprehensive omnibus legislation. But we're going to stay on this because it is good for our economy, it's good for our national security, and, ultimately, it's good for our environment.


 

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Climate change and human rights

I had a nice long interview about different aspects of climate change with human rights expert Darren Thorne as part of a new podcast series Human Rights and Wrongs, hosted by the Mark. As always, feedback and comments are welcome.

[Update] On the podcast, we discuss the pitfalls of Canada relying on the US to determine climate policy. One of the problems is that it may be a long wait. From the Globe and Mail:

Environment Minister Jim Prentice is signalling further delays in imposing greenhouse gas emission standards on the oil sector and other industries, saying Ottawa does not want to lose jobs and investment by driving activity out of the country.


The Conservative government is waiting for the United States to decide how it will impose climate-change regulations before acting here. And the U.S. Congress could take up to two years to pass legislation that sets caps on greenhouse gas emissions, Mr. Prentice told a Senate committee Thursday.

Add the delay to the fact that the whatever US legislation is produced will be tailored to the US economy (i.e. provide loopholes for industries that are more prominent in the US than in Canada), and there's even more reason to pursue a national strategy.

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Climate policy on campus: UBC sets aggressive greenhouse gas targets

This is an example of how a climate policy framework can inspire the motivated.

The University of British Columbia (my institution) just adopted very aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets including a 33% reduction (below 2007 levels) by 2015.

Why? To set an example, for one. The other reason?

Under the province of British Columbia's system, all public institutions have to be carbon-neutral by the end of this year. That's virtually impossible for most institutions so UBC and other public institutions will be paying into a provincial offsets fund.

I do trust that independent of the BC climate policy, UBC is motivated to take action of greenhouse gas emissions. The policy gave the university the necessary nudge. That's the crux of my federal "opt-in" proposal. Nudge the willing.

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The opt-in climate policy for Canada: Some details

Since people are asking, here's a little bit of background on my climate policy proposal in the Mark.

I trust that to many an "optional" climate policy smells fishy, like setting voluntary targets that companies or jurisdictions will then volunteer to ignore. There are three critical distinctions.

First, this policy is designed to mobilize willing participants.

The graph at right shows the provincial greenhouse gas targets that I discuss in the article. The majority of Canada has stated a willingness to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; several provinces, including Ontario, Quebec and Ontario, are seriously pursuing those goals.

Second, the provinces in the program will each have set binding, not voluntary, targets. The participation is voluntary, but once a province opts in, it is bound to the target.

Third, a point echoed nicely by Barry Saxifrage, the provincially revenue-neutral carbon tax means that participating provinces, though bound to the federal system, would otherwise have some freedom (financially) in achieving the target.

The current government is quietly awaiting a decision from the U.S. Negotiations are ongoing in the US Senate. There is no guarantee that any of the Senate bills will a) pass given current disagreements, b) be any more acceptable to the provinces with carbon-intensive industries like Alberta than any previous federal or international proposals, or c) gel with current plans in the more active provinces. And many of the programs in the existing Senate bills would not take effect for several years. Why not set a Canadian policy, one that mobilizes the very real and current enthusiasm for action in much of the country, now? If the US does eventually pass a Bill that is in the best interests of Canada and the climate, we can adapt our program to be compatible with that of the US.

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One reason the US climate bill will pass

Today the US EPA announced its intention to pursue regulations on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Don't overlook this development. The only thing that carbon-intensive industries and senators from carbon-intensive states hate more than the US climate bill would be the EPA regulating carbon dioxide.

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Huge disparity in emissions targets within Canada

If Canadians want an illustration of the disagreement on climate policy within the provinces, or foreigners want to know why Canada has become an obstacle to an international or even continental climate accord, look no further than this graph. Plotted is each the 2020 greenhouse gas emissions targets set in the individual climate policy of each promise, all translated to % change from 1990 levels. Kudos to the Globe and Mail for presenting the data this morning with the same base year.

Basically, the hydro-based and manufacturing-based provinces (the east and BC) are willing to be aggressive in reducing emissions and the more resource-intensive provinces are either reticent (Saskatchewan) or downright hostile (Alberta).

The objective of this post is not to dump on Alberta or the oil industry, rather to point out just how large the disagreement is within Canada. The huge disparity between the Alberta policy and that of all the other provinces does raise the question about what it is realistic for Canada. If, say, Alberta refuses to budge on its oil expansion and emissions plan, could neighbouring BC even come close to its reduction target? Keep in mind, a substantial quantity of the planned oil extraction may end up being piped across and refined in BC in order to be shipped to Asia.

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China's emissions pledge depends entirely on economic growth

Last week, China announced that it will reduce carbon "intensity" by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by the year 2020. The emissions intensity (emissions/$GDP) approach taken by the Canada and the US in the past has been much maligned here as a dishonest dodge.

First, it looks like a reduction in actual emissions until you realize that the denominator (GDP) generally increases over time. Second, it tends to naturally decrease over time as countries switch to more efficient energy production [and overall economic production].

It is, however, a reasonably fair way to bring a reluctant developing nation like China into an international emissions control framework. The problem of course is that actual emissions target depends entirely on how much the Chinese economy grows by 2020. So 40-45% sounds impressive, but won't amount to an actual reduction in emissions.

The graph above shows a spectrum of possibilities. Unless the growth rate is less than ~4%/year - highly unlikely - Chinese carbon emissions will be higher in 2020 than 2005. If China keeps up the planned 8%/year growth, emissions in 2020 will be 74-90% higher than 2005 levels.

And, just like in the US and Canada cases, Chinese emissions intensity will naturally decrease over time without any policy intervention. It decreased 10% from 2000 to 2005, and well over 40% from 1990 to 2005.

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