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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Is it time to start holding virtual conferences? The case of the International Coral Reef Symposium

The only thing hotter than the U.S. and Canada (east of the Rockies!) in the past week was the discussion on the Coral-List, the NOAA-managed read by pretty much anyone that does research related to coral reefs, about the cost of attending next year’s International Coral Reef Symposium. The ICRS is THE meeting in the world of coral reef research. Thanks to the Olympian once-every-four-years timing, attendance is, I’d argue, as mandatory as it comes in the sciences. Miss an American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting, and you can attend another in six or twelve months. Miss an ICRS, and, well, you’ve got four full years to train for the next one.

The full week registration fee for the meeting has been set at AU$960 - AU$1250, depending on membership in the scientific society and the date of purchase. While registration fees of $1000 or more are not unheard of for scientific meetings in other branches of research, like say medicine, the price is extraordinary for the natural sciences, and especially for a sub-field in which many of the researchers are based in developing countries. Naturally, people from small NGOs in SE Asia to large academic instituions in North America are upset and stating that they will not attend.

Shocking as they be to many, the real story is not the registration fees. The real story is is the travel.

In addition to timing, the ICRS shares a logistical challenge with the Olympics. There is no optimal site for the event. Coral reefs are found throughout the tropics and subtropics, and that is excluding the cold water reefs in places like our own BC coast. Coral reef researchers are even more widespread, with scientists dotting every continent save Antarctica (I think - anyone at McMurdo care to correct me here?). No matter where the ICRS is held, be it Florida (2008), Okinawa (2004) or Bali (2000), a majority of top researchers in the field will have to travel long distances to attend. That means a lot of money – I estimate a weeklong trip to Cairns for the meeting from this part of the world could cost CAN$3500-4000 with registration. Moreover, that means a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. All for a scientific meeting about an ecosystem which many argue is existentially threatened by climate change and ocean acidification.

Hence the question on many people’s minds. Should the ICRS go virtual?

Of any scientific conference, there are certainly strong arguments for making the ICRS virtual: no optimal location for the meeting, cost being a significant barrier for many potential participants, travel restrictions being problematic (e.g. Middle East researchers requiring special visas for places like the U.S. and Australia), and of course the subject of conference being sensitive to atmospheric CO2. A counterargument is that the meeting is held only once every four years, in part for some of these very reasons, so rather than make ICRS virtual, other annual meetings should go virtual and adopt an Olympic schedule for the “live” meetings. A compromise first-step would be a hybrid meeting in which people had to option to participate "live" or online.

Society has adapted quickly to tectonic shifts in the way we communicate. Virtual conferences, which so many disdain for missing that personal connection of a live meeting, will become perfectly normal to us at some point in the future, just as e-mail, web browsing, Google Earth, Facebook, and Twitter have. It's a question of when, not if.

My question is: Which scientific society is willing to be the early adopter?

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Climate impact of different foods

Earlier this week, the Environmental Working Group, a research and lobby group in DC, released a report on the “environment” and "health" impact of different foods. It found that lamb is the worst offender, followed by grain-fed beef, pork, cheese and farmed salmon.

The report was brought to my attention by a writer at the Huffington Post, who subsequently published this story which includes thoughts on the report a number of outside experts on the issue. I commented on the climate impacts of feed production and the logic of farming top-of-the-food chain fish like salmon, both issues that have been discussed frequently here at Maribo.

Here's a more complete list of my thoughts upon examining the short report:

1. “Environmental” impact or “health” impact can be very different than “climate” impact. For example, I’d expect lamb to be much lower on a list based purely on greenhouse gas emissions (i.e. per gram of food produced). I can't comment on "health" impacts as it is not my area of expertise.

2. What I call the “land use cascade” is potentially the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions from food production, but also the hardest to calculate. That’s why GHG emissions from dairy relative to beef cattle tend to be overestimated (more methane from dairy cattle, more land required to grow feed for beef than dairy products). It’s also why any study like this should have large positively skewed error bars.

3. All meat is not created equal in terms of greenhouse gases. Grain-fed beef is far less efficient than pork, which is again far less efficient than poultry.

4. If your food choices are motivated purely by concern about greenhouse gas emissions, eating less grain-fed beef is more important than eating locally.

5. Historically-speaking, we are just starting to develop industrial-scale farming of fish, as discussed in the recent Time cover story. Farming the ocean is, in a sense, thousands of years behind farming on land. Right now, many of the choices we are making are, as I put bluntly in the Huffington Post story, “stupid”. Cattle are logical choice for farm animals. They eat grass, so they are only one step away from the sun. Salmon are much higher up the food chain. That’s why many of us say farming salmon is like farming wolves or tigers – you need the whole ecosystem to support the one salmon.

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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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Drinking to save the climate

This paper in Food and Nutrition research is nicely timed with the beginning of the academic year, when new students are being warned about the dangers of too much partying and excessive alcohol consumption (by their professors and administrators, people who most likely partied too much and consumed excess amounts of alcohol when they were students).

A group of Swedish scientists calculated the GHG emissions generated from the production of a number of different common beverages and the nutritional benefit of those beverages per unit emissions (left).

The verdict? If you want to minimize emissions, pas up on the wine and go for water, soy drinks and oat drinks (mmm?). Beer and milk are almost a dead heat in terms of emissions, though the authors caution against adding beer to your cereal in the morning [update: er, that's a joke. the paper doesn't venture into breakfast habits!].

If you want to maximize the nutritional value for each unit of climate damage (the "NDCI index"), it is milk all the way. The reason is that beer and wine offer basically zero nutritional value. Soft drinks too. Alas, it's true, there's no nutritional value to high fructose corn syrup!

With UBC being a sustainable university, milk and oat drinks will now certainly be a popular choice at all the undergrad parties and faculty functions.

The exact numbers should vary by city, region and country, based on transportation of the beverages ("drink miles"?) and production practices. I'd guess the general breakdown should be roughly similar in most locations, given that the nutrient densities are more or less constant from place to place and lower limits to the production emissions.

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The Canadian emissions story

Earth Hour dipped electricity use in British Columbia by 1.1%. Again, a nice gimmick to raise awareness about energy use, but far far far from what's needed to tackle greenhouse gas emissions in Canada (right)

The Canadian government published a report earlier this year documenting the trends in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990, the first reporting year, up until 2006. The data reveals a lot of interesting and surprising trends and can answer some of the questions about the contribution of individual Canadian provinces raised by my recent post on change in per capita GHG emissions around the world.

Between 1990 and 2006, Alberta passed Ontario as the largest total emitter of greenhouse gases [top chart]. Alberta is responsible for 33% of emissions, despite housing only 11% of the Canadian population. Alberta alone was responsible for just over half of the total increase in GHG emissions between 1990 and 2006 [second chart].

The #2 province Ontario is responsible for 27% of national emissions but has almost four times the population. Therefore the per capita emissions in Ontario are 15 t CO2-eq / person, hardly a lofty goal, still more than three times that of China, but one quarter that of Alberta.

Saskatchewan is fourth in total emissions at 10% of national emissions, only slightly behind Quebec, despite housing only one-seventh of the population of la belle province. Saskatchewan’s carbon-intensive economy has become even more so over the past two decades. Thanks to a growing uranium and potash industries, expansion of oil production and reliance on coal power, the province of only one million people was responsible almost a quarter of the national increase in GHG emissions from 1990 to 2006.

Quebec, on the other hand is Canada’s pocket of Europe in more ways than one. Thanks to a heavy reliance on hydro power, la belle province’s per capita GHG emissions of 10.7 t CO2-eq/person are more in line with Europe than the rest of North America. Lower heating demands and increased reliance on hydro power helped make Quebec the one Canadian province where GHG emissions decreased (by 1%) between 1990 and 2006. Note the word province; this is not to slight the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, where GHG emissions decreased 17% over the same time period.

Per capita emissions [third chart] were relatively steady across much of the country between 1990 and 2006: there was a 12% decrease in Ontario, a 10% decrease in Quebec, and a 7% increase across the Maritimes. The big discrepancy is between Alberta and Saskatchewan. Alberta’s population growth kept pace with the growth in emissions – people came from other provinces to work in the oil sands operations. Saskatchewan, on the other hand, has seen a 67% increase in per capita emissions due to a declining population (this trend began to reverse in the past few years).

The carbon-intense nature of the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan is best illustrated by a chart of the GHG emissions intensity: the GHG emissions per $ of GDP. This is shown in the final chart to the right (2006 only). In 2006, creating one dollar of GDP in Alberta required over five times the GHG emissions as in Ontario, over six times the GHG emissions as in Quebec. The high emissions intensity of Saskatchewan and Alberta leads to the interesting results that the emissions intensity appears to decrease with population.
There’s likely some economic logic to that pattern: for example, areas of higher populations and large cities are more “efficient” overall, and resource extractive industries tend to be located in areas of lower population.

These are just some of the broad patterns in the GHG data. There is much much more to analyse and discuss.

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China's CO2 emissions

USA Today reports that a trio of new studies all conclude that China has become the number one industrial emitter of CO2, ahead of the United States.

The article - and all the other news coverage I've seen - fails to mention the salient point that there are, at last count, 1.323 billion people in China and 304 million people in the US. Per capita, US CO2 emissions remain four times that of China.

Even with the new results, if you ranked countries by their per capita greenhouse gas emissions emissions, China would rank somewhere around 75th, close to the French Guiana and American Samoa. And a substantial fraction of China's emissions are generated while producing stuff for North Americans.

China's greenhouse gas emissions are a serious matter for the climate and for international climate policy. But can we stop pretending that the average person in China is living like the average North American?

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A good tool for calculating your emissions

If you're looking for a carbon calculator, try this one put together by the Berkeley Institute for the Environment (thanks to Atmoz for the tip). Unlike most of the calculators out there, it does more than multiply the # of miles your drive and fly by some factors and spit out in answer. It considers several forms of transport, home heating and electricity, the food you eat and even how you spend the rest of your money, then compares your results to the American and world average.

My estimated personal emissions in the past year were nothing to be proud of, thanks almost entirely to twice flying halfway around the planet and back. Coming back always gets you. I take little solace in the fact that my emissions total was still less than the average American, even in the transport category. Instead, I take two lessons: a) studying the effect of climate change on the environment often contributes to the problem, no surprise there, and b) transportation is so stunningly inefficient in this country that someone can circle the planet twice and still produce less greenhouse gas emissions than the average American.

As for the calculator, my only beef is the, er, beef. Emissions from consuming red meat and consuming dairy are similar (per $ spent), so a lacto-ovo vegetarian may end up with similar or higher food-related emissions than a regular at Mel's Char Palace. From all the research we've done, dairy is much more efficient, in terms of the grams of feed required to create a gram of food, for the simple reason that milking doesn't kill a cow. This point that seems to be missed a lot; the source of greenhouse gas emissions from meat is not the animal itself, but all the energy that went into growing the crops that are then fed to the animal.

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China, the G8 and emissions intensity

Earlier, this week China announced a vague climate change policy that includes no GHG emissions targets. While hardly a surprise, the refusal to consider any emissions targets, or even any aspirational emissions goals pretty much destroyed whatever little chance there was that UK, Germany, Japan and the G8 countries would oppose the US effort to block the use of hard emissions targets.

China may be one place where the intensity-based metrics make some sense. With low per capita emissions and a smaller historical contribution to emissions, forcing China to drastically restrict economic development would hardly be a globally equitable solution to climate change.

As I discussed a couple weeks ago, China’s GHG emissions intensity rose in the past decade. China is at the stage of development where “carbon” generation is outpacing economic development. In terms of carbon efficiency, you can imagine China being around where the West was back in 1920s, before the global peak in emissions intensity (see the global intensity graph)

So at least new Chinese policy calls for a 20% decrease in energy intensity, the energy consumption per $ of GDP. Whether that policy has any teeth, or whether the emissions data is trustworthy, who knows? But it is a start.

The Canadian government proposal that G8 countries adopt intensity-based targets is ridiculous for Western nations. Europe, Japan, Australia and North America passed their peaks in emissions intensity, or lows in carbon efficiency, decades ago. For those countries, targets have to be based on the actual emissions.

For China and other rapidly developing nations, however, setting initial targets based initially on the “carbon” efficiency or intensity of the economy may be the only sensible solution to the global policy stalemate. Perhaps the only global plan that is equitable is one in which: i) the U.S., Europe, Canada and other Annex 1 nations accept hard caps on their own emissions, and ii) China and other developing nations use intensity-based targets until the per-capita emissions reach some threshold, beyond which hard emissions caps should be applied.

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The danger of a one year drop in US emissions

The Washington Post reports that US carbon dioxide emissions dropped by 1.3% in 2006.

A good sign? Perhaps. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration is attributing the change to "effectively confronting the important challenge of global climate change through regulations, public-private partnerships, incentives, and strong economic investment."

Oy. Just as we can't look at one warm year and declare global warming has happened, we can't look at a one year drop and claim an emissions policy is working. CO2 emissions vary year-to-year because of the weather (reduced heating required during the warm winter), changes in the economy (higher gas prices, less fuel use), etc. There's no evidence any Bush administration initiatives, it's not even clear what policies or investments that statement could possibly be referring to, are having any measurable effect on emissions.

The danger, here, is that the one-year drop may convince some people the US is on the right track. Cover your ears as that 1.3% is tossed about by opponents to federal emissions controls during the impending debate over climate legislation in the US Congress.

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A climate policy lesson, courtesy of Monty Python

Every once in a while, a story or news item reminds me of the classic Monty Python skit “Four Yorkshiremen” in which Eric Idle et al one-upped each other with increasingly absurd tales of their tough upbringings.

“House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of falling. “

Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in the corridor!

Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us!“

Usually, it takes an exaggerated tales of climatic hardship, the old I-remember-when, to conjure up memories of John Cleese intoning “Well, when I say it was a house it was only a hole in the ground covered by a tarpaulin, but it was a house to us”.

You know those conversations. Ah, kids today have it easy. When I was young, we battled – 30 C temperatures and mountains of snow every day on the walk to school (granted, my parents grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, it is entirely possibly some of those stories are true).

Last week, however, it was Presidential Candidate Bill Richardson’s climate and energy plan that reminded me of Cleese and the gang. Richardson’s plan is easily the most aggressive of all the candidates, thus far. Following a cue from Al Gore, he calls for a 90% reduction in GHG emissions by the year 2050 (and 80% by 2040).

Not 50% below 1990 levels, as may be proposed, er, and rejected by guess who, at the G8 summit. Not 60%, like the British plan. Not even 80%, a la those nutty West Coasters California and British Columbia.

Ninety percent.

I applaud the effort. I applaud the recognition that we must aggressively reduce GHG emissions to avoid the dangerous long-term implications of climate change. What follows is not a criticism of Richardson, persay, but of the current, er, climate of climate policy in the US. As I wrote last year, I fear that in an effort to attract the green, and I mean the environment AND the almighty dollar, vote, politics is descending into Python-dom. What’s next? “As a show of dedication to the cause, I pledge not to exhale CO2 during this campaign”?

First off, the specific 90% pledge, well-intentioned or not, is I suspect a bit of showmanship. The baseline for most emissions projections, for international policy, is usually 1990. The older 50-60% reduction targets, and often the 80% targets, are based on the 1990 baseline. The 90%? The baseline, presumably, is today. In that case, the total emissions reduction (for the US) is similar to an 80% reduction from 1990 levels.

Regardless, the candidates engaged in a bout of climatic chest-bumping would be wise to learn a lesson from Canada. Yes, we need national targets. But as Canada’s haphazard Kyoto promise has clearly demonstrated, a target is not enough, nor is an implementation plan full of lofty goals. Former PM Chretien pledged to a 6% reduction target under Kyoto, rather than the 0-3% agreed to with the provinces, purely to match the US (and, yes, to use a British-ism, Canada was snookered). Not only was no serious plan for meeting that, or the lesser target, the one-up-man-ship alienated the provinces and seeded the ongoing discord.

A pledge to aggressively reduce greenhouse gases should not be made lightly, in the heat of a campaign. And a pledge to aggressively reduce greenhouse gases cannot be one of a hundred campaign promises. It goes to the root of energy, of transportation, of agriculture, of industry. If it is to work, if it is to happen, it must be a central organizing theme of the government, it must underlie all policies and programs.

The actual target is important -- I’ve been hammering the Canadian government on this point for three years. We Canucks like to gripe about how Canada is ignored by the US. This is one time that Americans could really learn from Canada - Canada's mistake. If one hopes to actually reach, or even approach, an aggressive target, be it a 60% reduction, or a 90% reduction, that target can’t be a part of the policy package, it can't start only as a way to win votes. The target has to lead off off every speech, every policy declaration, every conversation the candidates have.

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The IPCC on emissions intensity

The IPCC Working Group III report – the one on mitigation and adaptation – contains some more interesting data on emissions intensity. Once again, emissions intensity is a handy concept for comparing economic efficiency, but a pointless metric for climate and emissions policy.

The report summary explains that world GHG emissions increased by 70% from 1970 to 2004, a statement widely referenced by the press. The next line of the report, not as widely referenced, explains that despite this GHG emissions increase, there was a 33% decrease in energy intensity (energy supply per $GDP) and 40% decrease in emissions intensity (emissions per $ GDP) over the same time period. As I’ve been arguing for weeks, both here and over at Worldchanging, it is important to read the IPCC summary reports yourself.

So I’ll say it again. Emissions intensity naturally decreases over time, even as total emissions increase. Setting an intensity-based target is a foolish way to reduce total emissions. And, yes, I intend to keep hammering away at this point until emissions intensity is removed from North American policy.

The above figure from the IPCC report shows that the more economically developed countries tend to have lower emissions intensity (on the y-axis). In other words, as the economy develops, it tends to become more greenhouse gas efficient. The graph also shows that emissions intensity is much higher in the US and Canada than in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the EU. You could argue that reducing emissions should be “easier” for the US and Canada because we are less greenhouse gas efficient than other countries at a similar stage of economic development. While there is some truth to that argument, it ignores the large differences in sources of emissions in North America (e.g., large energy production) than in Europe.

What about China? Bucking the global trend, the emissions intensity in China has increased in the past decade. As the IPCC reports, the economic boom has been fueled by dramatic increases in coal and other carbon-based fuels. This is not surprising – it is just what happened in the west during the Industrial Revolution (see here). Emissions and emissions intensity rose until the early 1900s. Economic growth and emissions then began to decouple – emissions continued to soar, but the economy grew even faster.

If anything, the fact that China is bucking the global trend demonstrates the tremendous lack of leadership from western nations on this issue. Rather than learn from our experience, China is reliving it.

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Let the wrangling begin

US President Bush has announced that he will push lawmakers to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, as was more or less required by a recent Supreme Court decision.

This should be a momentous day. Unfortunately, with the track record of the Bush Administration on this issue, it is hard to know what this announcement will actually mean.

In the coming days and weeks, there will be much debate about the merit of market-based strategies vs. actual standards and regulations. There will also be, at least there should be, much consternation about the long-term consequences of 'mitigation-light' (ie. weak emission reductions legislation that falsely convinces that public and lawmakers that climate change is being 'solved').

It is too soon to predict. Hopefully, with all that has come to pass in North America over the past several years, and with the public pasting that the Canadian government has taken on climate policy, the Bush Administration and Congress will at least have the sense not to use intensity-based emissions targets this time.

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Emissions intensity: read the fine print

The coverage of the new Canadian GHG emissions regulations (technically, it's not a policy) generally opens with a sentence like this:

The plan, entitled Turning the Corner, calls on Canada to reduce its current amount of greenhouse gas emissions by 150 million tonnes by 2020 and will require most industries in Canada to reduce greenhouse gases by 18 per cent by 2010. (CBC-News)

It is wrong.

The plan - read it here - calls for an 18% reduction in emissions intensity by 2010. That, once again (and again, apologies to regular readers, I harp on this point only because it is important), is not the total emissions but the emissions per unit of GDP, or in this case, production by the company.

The plan is, right down to the numbers, eerily similar to the American policy I lampooned, as a warning to Canadians, in the Toronto Star almost a year ago. I'd like to claim some brilliance in debunking the US and, at the time potential, Canadian plans. The truth is, as I wrote then "A couple minutes with a calculator, or a morning of Economics 101, will reveal a hole in the intensity plan so big you can drive a Hummer through it".

A target of 18% reduction in emissions intensity by 2010? Reads like the "ambitious national goal" set by the Bush Administration in 2002. Canadian companies are being given less time, but that's merely catch-up for the lack of policy until now.

After 2010, the new plan calls for a 2% per year improvement in emissions intensity. If your production, measured in terms of dollars, tracks with the economy (at roughly 3% per year), guess what? The actual emissions could increase by roughly 1% per year.

Yes, the emissions would be lower in comparison to a business-as-usual growth scenario, but they would still be rising over all. That's one reason the environmental organizations and the opposition parties are attacking this policy with a fervour. Or why they should be. If industries are not required to reduce their actual emissions, the odds of reaching any long-term reduction goal, even the inadequate goal announced yesterday (20% below 2006 levels by 2020), are extremely low.

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Banning the bulb

I considered writing what might have been a rather deflating post, about either the news that China is set to bypass the US as the world’s largest source of greenhouse gases next year (not 2025, not 2010, next year, in time for Olympics); the unfortunate twisting of an interesting new paper on wind shear, hurricanes and climate change by Gabe Vecchi at nearby GFDL; or the leaked and already battered new Canadian emissions policy.

But there is some very good news: following on recent pronouncements by Australia, California and the province of Ontario, the Government of Canada has decided to ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs by the year 2012.

I’ll dig into the rest of the new Canadian emissions policy later; frankly, I’m sick of analyzing the Canadian federal policies since they never seem to last more than a month or two. The bulb ban, however, is one thing that will stick, regardless of policy and government. The Ontario decision had already created a buzz; the federal ban will only increase the chatter and excitement (examples here, here).

Hopefully, it will also serve as an example. The country, every country, needs an overarching climate and emissions policy, complete with hard GHG emissions targets, plans for a carbon market or tax, etc. It also needs some actual direct actions that will guarantee GHG emissions reductions. Sure, the bulb ban is a drop in the bucket, accounting for at most 2% of the Canada's emissions. But at least the bucket is not entirely empty.

I’m no politician – too much compromise, too much tie-wearing for me – but my experience says this type of policy is a real political winner. It is simple, direct, something that impacts life at home. If the Conservative government is smart, they would follow this announcement with “win-win” interventions that will reduce emissions, things like banning the sale of inefficient appliances, setting building codes, etc. If not, you can be sure the Liberals and other opposition parties will.

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The truth on greenhouse gases and meat consumption

Last week, Washington Post George Will wrote a sadly uniformed column attacking the public campaigns to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It drew the usual array of responses and partisan blustering (left, right, ridiculous).

At heart was Time Magazine’s “Global Warming Survival Guide” which featured advice like 51 Tips on Saving the Environment, never mind that global warming is not merely an environmental problem, and that many of the tips have nothing to do with the environment, rather with improving human health.

Tip #22 -- Skip the Steak – claims that livestock is responsible for around 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. That’s not a mistake. The number comes from a prominent UN report released last year.

What Time, what George Will and what the vast majority of commentators on this subject get wrong is why livestock is responsible for such a large proportion of the world’s GHG emissions.

Columnists and pundits love to joke about cow farts and manure – producing methane and nitrous oxide, respectively – like they’re in bad Adam Sandler movie. That is an important source of GHG. But, in reality, the majority of the emissions attributable to livestock are not coming out the back end, but coming from all the energy used to grow the grain that is fed to livestock.

The United States alone grows almost half of the world’s corn and soybeans. And more than two-thirds of that production is used to manufacture animal feed. It requires an enormous volume of oil, to produce fertilizer and run farm machinery, and an enormous area of land. In turn, it is responsible in part for a number of ecological problems, like the “Dead Zone” in the Gulf of Mexico.

Will seems to mistakenly stumble upon this point, in the midst of some sarcasm, but :

Ben & Jerry's ice cream might be even more sinister [than a steak]: A gallon of it requires electricity-guzzling refrigeration and four gallons of milk produced by cows that simultaneously produce eight gallons of manure and flatulence with eight gallons of methane. The cows do this while consuming lots of grain and hay, which are cultivated by using tractor fuel, chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides, and transported by fuel-consuming trains and trucks.

The concept is right, the comparison is flat wrong. Producing a gram of dairy protein requires only a fraction of the energy of producing a gram of meat protein, especially beef (for the simple reason you don’t kill the cow every time you milk it).Of the feed produced in the United States, only 12% is devoted to dairy cattle (see here). The rest goes to beef cattle, poultry and pork production. That’s why you often hear claims that we should all eat less meat, but not less dairy.

In essence, this problem is not about meat consumption. It is about devoting a significant proportion of our energy and our land to produce meat. One of the biggest obstacles to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the future will be diet. We may or may not be exporting democracy to the world, but we certainly are exporting our meat-rich diets. As meat consumption rises in China and other parts of the developing world, the challenge of reducing oil consumption and reducing greenhouse gas emissions will grow. More on that later.

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Court says U.S. EPA should regulate greenhouse gases

In case you hadn't heard yet...

WASHINGTON, April 2 — In one of its most important environmental decisions in years, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases in automobile emissions. The court further ruled that the agency could not sidestep its authority to regulate the greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change unless it could provide a scientific basis for its refusal. (NY Times)

The ruling has as much to do with US law as science. It essentially means that federal action on greenhouse gas emissions must not depend on the US Congress agreeing to legislation. The EPA has the power and the authority to do so under the Clean Air Act. The President could simply tell the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases.

Today's news is that the current holder of that title, despite the court decision and despite pressure from Congress and the Senate, still won't regulate greenhouse gases.

So it is possible that the real impact of the momentous Supreme Court decision may not be felt until January 20, 2009.

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More on purchasing carbon offsets

The people at Clean Air - Cool Planet have put compiled a nice guide (pdf) to the many companies selling carbon offsets.

If you are thinking about donating money to go carbon neutral - which was named 2006 word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary, quite an accomplishment given the tough competition (surge anyone?) and the small matter of being, er, two words - spend five or ten minutes reading through the guide first.

There's a lot of money in carbon guilt these days. Companies have rushed into the game with bold promises to gobble up your carbon emissions but without any oversight.

The Retail Offsets Guide has kind words for three North American based companies -- Climate Trust, NativeEnergy and Sustainable Travel (a subsidiary of the Swiss company Myclimate).

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Going carbon neutral

It’s hip, it’s trendy… and it’s wildly unregulated.

Everyone is going "carbon neutral". The latest to join the craze is US Presidential candidate John Edwards. He has pledged to run a carbon-neutral campaign by “conserving” energy and purchasing carbon offsets. The other candidates are bound to ante up.

Is this even possible? Offsetting the emissions from the campaigns of every US Presidential candidate may require reforesting the entire country. A truly efficient solution would be shortening the campaign by, say, a year or so.

It raises an important question. Which carbon offset-ers can you trust? The proliferation of companies offering to sell carbon offsets is a more than a bit suspicious. Many cannot, and are not required to, confirm that your money will result in a reduction in GHG emissions. The same problem is happening at the macro-scale, with EU countries investing in many questionable offset schemes in China through the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism.

I can recommend a few relatively trustworthy operations (check here, bottom of page). In many cases, the exact reductions cannot be confirmed, but an effort is at least being made.

If you know of more, let me know. And maybe John Edwards, Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton and whomever else declares in the next few months.

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Distribution of greenhouse gas emissions

For an alternative way to view the distribution of greenhouse gas emissions discussed below, the site Worldmapper, which features "a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest", recently posted some great new maps.

The map of toy imports is also a rather disturbing comment on the world.

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