We stand at a fork in the road. Conventional oil and gas supplies are limited. We can move down the path of dirtier more carbon-intensive unconventional fossil-fuels, digging up the dirtiest tar sands and tar shales, hydrofracking for gas, continued mountain-top removal and mechanized destructive long-wall coal mining. Or we can choose the alternative path of clean energies and energy efficiency.
The climate science is crystal clear. We cannot go down the path of the dirty fuels without guaranteeing that the climate system passes tipping points, leaving our children and grandchildren a situation out of their control, a situation of our making. Unstable ice sheets will lead to continually rising seas and devastation of coastal cities worldwide. A large fraction of Earth's species will be driven to extinction by the combination of shifting climate zones and other stresses. Summer heat waves, scorching droughts, and intense wildfires will become more frequent and extreme. At other times and places, the warmer water bodies and increased evaporation will power stronger storms, heavier rains, greater floods.
The economics is crystal clear. We are all better off if fossil fuels are made to pay their honest costs to society. We must collect a gradually rising fee from fossil fuel companies at the source, the domestic mine or port of entry, distributing the funds to the public on a per capita basis. This approach will provide the business community and entrepreneurs the incentives to develop clean energy and energy-efficient products, and the public will have the resources to make changes.
This approach is transparent, built on conservative principles. Not one dime to the government.
The alternative is to slake fossil fuel addiction, forcing the public to continue to subsidize fossil fuels. And hammer the public with more pollution. The public must pay the medical costs for all pollution effects. The public will pay costs caused by climate change. Fossil fuel moguls get richer, we get poorer. Our children are screwed. Our well-oiled coal-fired government pretends to not understand.
Joe Nocera was polite, but he does not understand basic economics. If a rising price is placed on carbon, the tar sands will be left in the ground where they belong. And the remarkable life and landscape of the original North American people will be preserved.
Joe Nocera quoted a private comment from a note explaining that I could not promise I would be back in New York to meet him. But he did not mention the contents of the e-mail that I sent him with information about the subject we were to discuss. The entire e-mail is copied below.
Jim Hansen
Joe [Nocera], Here are some relevant words from the draft of a paper that I am working on:
Transition to a post-fossil fuel world of clean energies will not occur as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy. Fossil fuels are cheap only because they are subsidized and do not pay their costs to society. Air and water pollution from fossil fuel extraction and use have high costs in human health, food production, and natural ecosystems, with costs borne by the public. Costs of climate change and ocean acidification also are borne by the public, especially young people and future generations.
Thus the essential underlying policy, albeit not sufficient, is for emissions of CO2 to come with a price that allows these costs to be internalized within the economics of energy use. Because so much energy is used through expensive capital stock, the price should rise in a predictable way to enable people and businesses to efficiently adjust lifestyles and investments to minimize costs.
An economic analysis indicates that a tax beginning at $15/tCO2 and rising $10/tCO2 each year would reduce emissions in the U.S. by 30% within 10 years. Such a reduction is more than 10 times as great as the carbon content of tar sands oil carried by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline (830,000 barrels/day). Reduced oil demand would be nearly six times the pipeline capacity, thus rendering it superfluous.
A rising carbon price is the sine qua non for fossil fuel phase out, but it is not sufficient. Investment is needed in energy RD&D (research, development and demonstration) in new technologies such as low-loss smart electric grids, electrical vehicles interacting effectively with the power grid, and energy storage for intermittent renewable energy. Nuclear power has made major contributions to climate change mitigation and mortality prevention, and advanced nuclear reactor designs can address safety, nuclear waste, and weapons proliferation issues that have limited prior use of nuclear power, but governments need to provide a regulatory environment that supports timely construction of approved designs to limit costs. etc.
Jim Hansen
Showing posts with label fee-and-dividend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fee-and-dividend. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Senators Boxer and Sanders co-sponsor a fee-and-dividend bill to fight climate change
Boxer's push is a twist on carbon tax
by Carolyn Lochhead, The San Francisco Chronicle, February 13, 2013
Sen. Barbara Boxer's plan would impose a fee on carbon emissions at their source, such as coal mines, which would increase the price of fossil fuel energy. But instead of giving the proceeds to the government, three-fifths of the money would be refunded to residents. Photo: Paul Chinn, The SF Chronicle
Washington -- Sen. Barbara Boxer plans Thursday to co-sponsor a radical plan to control carbon dioxide emissions modeled on Alaska's rebates of oil royalties to residents.
The California Democrat is a marquee draw for an otherwise obscure bill by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont liberal and independent. Called "fee and dividend," the legislation is an unusual variant on a carbon tax. It would impose a fee on carbon emissions at their source, such as coal mines, raising the price of fossil fuel energy.
But instead of giving the proceeds to the government, three-fifths of the money would be refunded to U.S. residents.
Such rebates could run into hundreds of dollars. The idea is modeled loosely on Alaska's "permanent fund" that distributes royalties from the state's oil and gas industry to every Alaskan resident.
Boxer vows action
"We are going to move legislation through this committee," said Boxer, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, at a committee briefing by climate scientists on Wednesday. "It is going to make making sausage look pretty."
President Obama in his State of the Union address Tuesday urged Congress to pass a "market-based solution to climate change" but threatened to take executive action if Congress does not act.
The GOP-controlled House is very unlikely to even consider a carbon tax. The Boxer-Sanders bill is aimed at breaking ground in the debate and reflects a growing consensus among economists in favor of a carbon tax to tackle climate change, and possibly tax reform at the same time.
"We now all recognize the overwhelming consensus of scientists on climate change," said Adele Morris, policy director of the Climate and Energy Economics Project at the center-left Brookings Institution think tank. "It's time to do the same thing with the consensus of economists on what to do about it."
A carbon tax is simpler and more efficient than cap-and-trade schemes such as California's that put a price on carbon by capping emissions and letting companies trade permits to pollute.
Such a tax also would automatically induce businesses and consumers to limit their emissions without dictating how to do so, in contrast to government mandates that require higher fuel economy in cars or force utilities to buy wind and solar power.
The Sanders-Boxer bill would impose a $20 per ton tax on carbon or methane equivalent, rising 5.6% each year for 10 years, on the nation's largest fossil fuel producers. Imported fossil fuels from countries that do not impose a similar tax would also pay.
$1.2 trillion
The tax would raise an estimated $1.2 trillion over a decade and reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20% from 2005 levels. Three-fifths of the tax would be rebated to "every legal U.S. resident," which might make it more politically feasible than if it went to the government.
The rest of the money would go to incentives for clean energy and research.
A version of the "fee and dividend" idea is a favorite of NASA climate scientist James Hansen and climate activist Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org.
"We are treating the atmosphere like an open sewer because there is no cost on carbon pollution," James McCarthy, professor of biological oceanography at Harvard University, said at the committee briefing.
Morris said Republicans should find a carbon fee preferable to the new regulations Obama threatens to impose under the Clean Air Act.
"The Environmental Protection Agency is poised to go down that path," Morris said. "Those who have an aversion to regulation should take heed. If you want a market-based solution, do it now."
Chronicle staff writer David R. Baker contributed to this report. Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicle's Washington correspondent. E-mail: clochhead@sfchronicle.com
Friday, February 1, 2013
Mike Tidwell: U.S. climate push requires intense grassroots support around ‘cap-and-dividend’ bill
Harvard professor has it right: U.S. climate push requires intense grassroots support around ‘cap-and-dividend’ bill
by Mike Tidwell, Grist, February 1, 2013
In the past three weeks there’s been much debate
My added value in commenting here is that I experienced the run-up to — and aftermath of — the failed Waxman-Markey bill from the field. I’ve been a grassroots climate organizer for 10 years, having founded the organization I still direct: the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. CCAN straddles much of the political landscape of America, organizing in the conservative “South” (Virginia) and the liberal “Northeast” (Maryland), while staying very involved in national climate initiatives in Washington, D.C., the geographic center of our region.
I saw from the church-basement view the rise of Tea Party opposition to Waxman-Markey and the insufficient grassroots organizing response from the major green groups. What efforts were made (Sierra Club stands out as well as the short-lived but respectable field effort of the group 1Sky) fell mostly on deaf ears since average people couldn’t comprehend the complexity of the cap-and-trade bill and could see no immediate and direct benefit in their lives.
Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm has joined many environmental heads in assigning cap-and-trade’s failure in large part to Obama’s lack of leadership for the bill. Plus the economy had tanked. These two factors are important, I agree, but they don’t get to the real heart of the problem.
Skocpol, on the other hand, from my field-based perspective, nails both the key problems and the solutions we need for moving forward. She is absolutely correct to call for a completely different legislative approach for the next big push on climate in Washington. She is correct in arguing that round two should be based on the policy of “cap-and-dividend” instead of cap-and-trade. David Roberts at Grist and others have applauded Skocpol’s criticism of the cap-and-trade campaign. But they are skeptical of her view that the best alternative is a policy that caps carbon emissions through permit auctions and then rebatesthe money directly to all U.S. citizens with a monthly check — cap-and-dividend.
Shutterstock
My organization took the cap-and-dividend concept for a test drive through the grassroots landscape of the liberal-conservative Chesapeake region. What did we discover? The dividend policy has widespread and intense support in the church basements and Rotary Clubs. Why? Because it’s nearly the opposite of cap-and-trade. It’s simple, easy to understand, clearly beneficial to most citizens, and obviously capable of de-carbonizing our economy with necessary speed and transparency.
The intensity gap
How do we deepen and expand our climate movement in preparation for round two? Skocpol points out that the cap-and-trade bill not only provoked opposition from Republicans but intense opposition from the vocal minority Tea Partiers. That kind of intensity from a few, as we’ve seen, can have an enormous, withering affect. The national enviros had no parallel response. They had lobbyists and pollsters and dedicated core staff, but no real ground game.
Yes, efforts were made. There were online petitions from the national groups and quick sign-on letters from health leaders, green business heads, etc. But it was mostly inch-deep and cookie-cutter. Deep, effective organizing takes years. It’s based on personal relationships that emerge through concrete action and trust over time. There’s no such thing as fly-by-night or parachute organizing.
So as the intense grassroots Tea Party backlash began, the major enviros had no meaningful grassroots response, much less an intenseresponse. Foundation money to major national environmental groups was absorbed mostly by core staff. There was no major green-group push for authentic, hard-won grassroots support in my states of Virginia and Maryland where several Senate and House swing votes existed. Indeed, many state-based grassroots groups like mine were explicitly excluded from support under several national funding initiatives whose goal on paper was to build support in the hinterlands.
Meanwhile, by early 2009, many regional and national leaders of the U.S. climate movement, mostly with outside-the-Beltway roots, could see the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade train wreck coming. These included Bill McKibben of 350.org, key leaders at the campus-focused Energy Action Coalition, Michael Noble of Fresh Energy in the upper Midwest, myself, and many more.
My objections to Waxman-Markey were both moral and practical. Morally, I was influenced by writer/entrepreneur Peter Barnes’ seminal book Who Owns the Sky? The Waxman-Markey bill treated polluting corporations and the government as if they were the rightful owners of the atmosphere. So carbon auction proceeds and privileges would flow mostly to businesses and federal programs. The ethics of that approach are questionable enough. But a bigger problem was the complete impracticality of it all. There just wasn’t enough money in the world to pay off all the carbon polluters — utilities, farmers, refineries, etc. — who felt they owned a piece of the sky, too, and therefore had something coming even under a weak carbon cap. By the end, even Campbell Soup wanted free auction permits because the company uses tin cans and, well, those require energy.
Van Hollen and the cap-and-dividend test drive
Frustrated and fearful of cap-and-trade’s failing prospects, my organization in the fall of 2008 began to promote the alternative: Peter Barnes’ cap-and-dividend idea. We went straight to our grassroots base with email alerts, videos, fact sheets, and community meetings across Virginia and Maryland. The response quickly became one of the most astonishing things I’ve seen in my decade of organizing: Average people, real people, became quickly and intensely supportive. They understood the idea and loved it: Any company introducing coal, oil, or natural gas into the U.S. economy would first need a permit obtained at auction. The auction money would then be directly rebated to all U.S. citizens through monthly, equal-sized checks. These checks — or dividends — would protect all but the richest, most energy-consuming households from harm as the price of dirty energy and related products rose under a carbon cap.
And once dividend checks start flowing, no future Congress or president will be able to stop them. Imagine a president trying to halt Social Security checks today. It ain’t happening.
It’s always easier to get people fired up to oppose something than to support something. In my years as a climate field organizer, I’ve seen intense opposition to many things: offshore oil drilling, fracking, new coal plants, tar sands. But I’ve seen intense support for only two things. One is offshore wind power. In both Maryland and Virginia, the grassroots are really inspired and turned on by the idea of expansive, ocean-based wind farms. The other is cap-and-dividend. Yes, a wonky-sounding policy to cap carbon and rebate the money makes people want to attend rallies, phone Washington, and tell all their friends. I’m not kidding.
In Maryland, CCAN was able to convince influential Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D) to introduce a cap-and-dividend bill. It came out on April 1, 2009, one day after the Waxman-Markey bill, much to the ire of many national environmental groups. Van Hollen is a liberal lawmaker, yes, but at the time he also ranked at the top of the House leadership structure and served as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. With the cap-and-dividend approach, he was ahead of his time in seeing both good policy and good politics.
Getting ready for next time
Perhaps the biggest tragedy of the cap-and-trade failure is that it happened at a moment when Democrats controlled the House and briefly held a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority in the Senate. If only we had had a better policy. If only we had had real grassroots support nationwide. If only 350.org had been as big then as now, bringing a tar-sands type noisiness to pressure Congress and Obama.
And now that moment has passed. The Tea Party controls the House and there’s no 60-vote caucus in the Senate.
But things will not always be this way on Capitol Hill. We will have another chance, probably faster than we think given the obvious and accelerating impacts of climate change worldwide. It is true, as Bill McKibben says, that the physics of our planet will not bend to the expedience of Washington politics. Sooner or later, the politics of Washington will have to bend to the physics of our planet.
So the sooner we prepare for that moment the better. Theda Skocpol’s study of cap-and-trade has come at a good time. May that tried-and-failed policy rest in peace. I’m optimistic that her remedy — cap-and-dividend — will be embraced in due course from coast to coast, thus changing our climate destiny.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
James Hansen: Storms of My Grandchildren's Opa
I refer not to Sandy, although it too was our storm1 -- and my recent op-ed in The Guardian reminds people of the implications of Sandy for public policies.
I refer rather to a little tempest following an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, which described my remarks at the Commonwealth Club on 4 December. My criticism of ineffectual cap-and-trade-with-offsets was not a condemnation of the total California climate law, and I noted that California has done much better than the U.S. as a whole in limiting emissions. Indeed, my point was that the fate of the planet, and our children's lives, depends on people in places such as California and parts of Europe, people who have an inkling of the climate threat that we are up against, supporting an approach that will actually work.
"Actually work" means an approach with the potential to phase out most fossil fuels fast enough to leave most coal and unconventional fossil fuel (tar sands, tar shale, fracked gas) in the ground.
Background: Unhelpful Prognostications
Prognostications asserting "we are already committed to X °C global warming; if we don't agree on international goals for emission reductions we will soon be committed to Y °C, where Y > X" are not very helpful. They have about as much effect on decision-makers as a fart in a hurricane.
X and Y keep changing, but X °C is already so large that we would pass tipping points sufficient to guarantee an unfolding disastrous path to a different planet, one with a bleak future for young people and other life on the planet. And never mind that an international approach based on caps, goals and promises is worth about as much as the paper the Kyoto Protocol was printed on.
Presented with such a prognostication you might say: Hey, wait a minute, we don't need a complex unworkable cap approach or a carbon tax. We need a simple honest flat across-the-board fee on the carbon content of fossil fuels, collected from fossil fuel companies at the domestic mine or port of entry, the fee gradually rising over time, the funds distributed 100% to the public, equal amounts to all legal residents, not one dime to the government, no enlargement of government. Such a "fee-and-dividend" system would cause fossil fuel CO2 emissions to rapidly decline; most coal and unconventional fossil fuels would be left in the ground. For example, economic modeling for the U.S. shows that a $10/ton CO2 fee, rising $10 each year, would reduce emissions 30% after a decade -- more that a factor of 10 greater than the oil carried by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, rendering that pipeline superfluous.
Business and Jobs
Business leaders, such as Jim Rogers of Duke Power, say that what they need is knowledge of the carbon price and a general sense of how it will change. If we give them that, our captains-of-industry can be a huge part of the solution.
We have tremendous potential for innovation that will be spurred once there is a rising carbon price. New products, more jobs. As the carbon price rises, tipping points will be reached where low-carbon or no-carbon alternatives phase in rapidly, leaving fossil fuels in the ground.
Of course, many other actions are needed. We need energy R&D. We need building standards, we should not produce electronic goods that draw energy even when not in use, etc. Such things will be easier to achieve, and partly self-enforced, by an underlying steadily rising carbon price.
Politics
I gave a talk to international labor leaders. When I noted that fee-and-dividend would let the market place, rather than government bureaucrats, make decisions, one of them said "that's libertarian!" So it is, with a small l.
After I gave a talk at one of Grover Norquist's meetings (on-the-record portion), one participant said "that's income redistribution!" Yes, fee-and-dividend is populist. Low-income people can gain by limiting their emissions. People with multiple houses, or who fly around the world a lot, will pay more in increased prices than they obtain in the dividend -- but they can afford that.
Fee-and-dividend is democratic -- treating everybody equally -- as well as libertarian and populist.
Wait a minute, you say, collecting a fee from fossil fuel companies, making fossil fuels pay their honest cost to society, is not realistic. There are a lot of people making money off fossil fuels or planning to make money off the pipeline. American politicians are well-oiled and coal-fired, we can't get such a plan through the government.
Presidential Leadership
Unrealistic? What if President Obama, when he was first elected and had 70% approval, had chosen to have fireside chats, informing the public that a rising carbon price was needed for national security, energy independence, economic stimulation, and preserving a good life for
young people and our fellow species on the planet? With 60% of the people getting more in their dividends than they pay in increased prices, he would have been a populist President. He could have taken the matter to the public. His party controlled the House and Senate.
President Obama chose not to do that in his first term. He gave minimal support to a cap-and-trade-with-offsets proposition, which would have made little actual reduction in U.S. emissions and was ineffectual globally. Unless he faces up squarely and effectively to the greatest practical
and moral issue of the 21st century, he forfeits his chance to be a great president.
International Implementation
Cap-and-trade-with-offsets is the Kyoto Protocol approach, in which countries are begged to join and set emissions targets. When they fail to meet their target, they withdraw from the Protocol.
China will not accept a cap on their emissions. Why should they? The U.S. is responsible for 27% of the fossil fuel CO2 in the air today. China's responsibility is just approaching 10%. However, their population is more than three times that of the U.S., so they have used only 10% of a fair cap. By the time they reach that cap, we will all be doomed.
Why would China put a fee on carbon? Lots of reasons. They do not want to develop the addiction that plagues the U.S. They have heavy air and water pollution from fossil fuels, which is very costly and has the public upset. They are among the most vulnerable nations to climate change, including sea level rise. China has a long history and is capable of taking a long view. The fact that the worst climate impacts will be visited on future generations will not likely cause China to "discount" future climate effects and heap consequences on the young.
Only a few nations need agree on a carbon fee. They will place a border duty on products from countries that do not have an equivalent carbon fee. They can also rebate to their manufacturers the carbon fee covering the fraction of their production that is exported to nations without the carbon fee. This approach provides a tremendous incentive for other nations to adopt a similar domestic carbon fee, so they can collect it themselves rather than lose it as a border duty.
Border tariff adjustments are not unique to fee-and-dividend. However, the flat cross-the-board fee on carbon, a reasonably well-defined number, makes international implementation simpler, as revealed via objective comparison's in Shi-Ling Hsu's book "The Case for a Carbon Tax."
Criticisms of Fee-and-Dividend
A common criticism is that low income people will waste the dividend, e.g., buying powerball tickets. I come from a low income family, my father a tenant farmer educated to 8th grade, with seven children. We would not have wasted the money. Nor would most low income families.
Of course a minority of people will waste the money. You can't legislate against foolishness. But note that even in such cases the money will soon be back in the economy.
The second criticism of fee-and-dividend is that it is better to tax fossil fuels and let the government invest the money in clean energies. Uh, you mean the government can make the best decisions about winning technologies? That should be an easy call.
We already have a situation in which even advanced nuclear power development is being financed privately, e.g., by Bill Gates. Quietly, despite the failure of our government to require fossil fuels to have an honest price, very exciting advances are being made in many technologies, even, believe it or not, carbon capture. These technologies, including energy efficiency, will spread like wildfire once a rising carbon fee begins to be collected and distributed, so that fossil fuels begin to pay their true costs and the public has the funds at their disposal.
Government has a role in R&D (e.g., the excellent ARPA-E program) and assuring that new technologies are safe, but those departments already exist, funded by existing taxes.
Nor should the fee be used to pay down the national debt. The public is not stupid. If the money is thrown into government coffers, regardless of how its use is described, the public will know it is being used to support big government. The only way the public will allow a continually rising price on carbon is if the money goes to them, so that they can deal with increasing fossil fuel prices. The rallying cry should be "100 percent or fight!"
Governors and Mayors
I am sorry if my remarks at the Commonwealth Club (reported out of
context) were interpreted as criticism of people who have worked hard to reduce fossil fuel emissions. My remarks were not intended that way, nor were they interpreted as such by the Governor. I acknowledged the success of California in limiting their emissions relative to that of other states, and I made it clear that my remarks were about ineffectual policies, not people.
In addition to several governors, a number of mayors, perhaps most notably Republican Mayor Bloomberg in New York City, have been vocal about climate change and effective in reducing emissions. Helped by a flagging national economy, this has reduced United States emissions a few percent, which is a significant improvement compared with continued emissions growth.
However, the science has made crystal clear that these efforts and policies are not enough. We must pursue policies that can lead to global emissions reductions and a phase-out of reliance on fossil fuels, such that most remaining coal and unconventional fossil fuels are left in the ground.
Cap-and-Trade vs. Carbon Fee
A crucial point is that we need policies that reduce emissions as rapidly as practical. Cap-and-trade, even if it were applied across-the-board on all fossil fuels at the source (it is not) and even if applied across the nation (it will not be; can you imagine the Texas Governor's response if the California Governor called and asked him to follow suit?), would provide no prospect of the rapid reduction of global emissions needed to cause most fossil fuels to be left in the ground.
Why not? Cap-and-trade, to the extent it reduces emissions some places, reduces demand for fossil fuels, lowers their global price, thus encouraging their use elsewhere. At best, this slightly slows the burning of fossil fuels, which is little help. Fossil fuel CO2 emissions stay in the ocean-atmosphere system for millennia. Most fossil fuel carbon must be left in the ground.
In contrast, a carbon fee can more readily be made universal [cf. discussion above and Hsu's "Case for a Carbon Tax"]. If the funds are distributed 100% to the public, the public will allow the fee to rise to high levels, in contrast to the relatively ineffectual carbon price characterizing cap-and-trade or a pure carbon tax. Resulting reduction in fossil fuel use under a rising carbon fee causes demand to drop, and the net price that producers receive falls (because the fee portion goes to the public). This causes rapid loss of market for costly fuels (tar sands, tar shale). Most coal, as the carbon fee rises, also will be left in the ground or used only with carbon capture.
Summary
An honest, gradually rising, price on carbon, making fossil fuels pay their costs to society, including externalities, makes economic sense and is needed for rapid phase-down of fossil fuels. Other things are needed, but the base requirement is an across-the-board universal carbon fee.
Scientists should not accept fossil fuel scenarios foisted on us by compliant government agencies. Instead, we should help define carbon emission scenarios that avoid growing regional climate extremes and climate tipping points that can cause disintegration of ice sheets and large-scale extermination of species. Those government agencies, virtual arms of the fossil fuel industry, have a bad record in projecting energy requirements. Even in the U.S., with little effort to control energy use growth during the past few decades, reality forces energy agencies to continually revise downward their projections (cf. Fig. 3 in "Storms of My Grandchildren").
We must stanch a pervasive defeatism that is about. Humanity is not a bunch of lemmings marching unstoppably toward a cliff. There is such a thing as free will. It seems that many people have slipped into an unhelpful resignation, ultimately leading to a way of thinking that accepts fossil fuel industry propaganda.
People please wake up! For the sake of young people, future generations, and other life on our planet, don't settle for what some "experts" say is the best we can do. In fact, we can move on to clean energies and energy efficiency, but only if we are wise enough to put an honest rising price on carbon emissions. It is equally clear, I submit, that the public will only allow an adequate rising price on carbon if the system is simple and transparent with the proceeds distributed to the public. That will provide the public with the resources required to make the needed changes as we move to cleaner energies and a bright future that preserves the planet and life that we know.
James Hansen, December 13, 2012
_______________
1It was a bit eerie. When the power went out (not restored for almost a week) we were in pitch dark except for candles and a battery powered lantern. Soon we heard thunderous noise as the railings around our second floor flat roof (deck) were blown off and crashed to the ground. The next morning we found four large trees blown over, one of them leaning against the house -- their root systems pulled out of ground that was too soggy to hold them. Similarly, because of the soft rain-soaked ground, large sections of the stockade fence separating our property from the road were blown down, as were sections of the fence around the horse pasture. Windows in the barn were blown out, but the solar panels were unharmed. Storm power and damage supposedly vary with the cube of wind speed, so amping up of the winds by the unusually warm coastal waters probably had a big effect. We live in eastern Pennsylvania and are thus buffered from Atlantic storms by New Jersey, but this was a marginal hurricane imbedded in a frontal storm that can affect a huge area. These kind of storms, as described in Storms of My Grandchildren, will become far stronger if we allow Greenland to begin to melt fast enough to cool the North Atlantic Ocean.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
I refer rather to a little tempest following an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, which described my remarks at the Commonwealth Club on 4 December. My criticism of ineffectual cap-and-trade-with-offsets was not a condemnation of the total California climate law, and I noted that California has done much better than the U.S. as a whole in limiting emissions. Indeed, my point was that the fate of the planet, and our children's lives, depends on people in places such as California and parts of Europe, people who have an inkling of the climate threat that we are up against, supporting an approach that will actually work.
"Actually work" means an approach with the potential to phase out most fossil fuels fast enough to leave most coal and unconventional fossil fuel (tar sands, tar shale, fracked gas) in the ground.
Background: Unhelpful Prognostications
Prognostications asserting "we are already committed to X °C global warming; if we don't agree on international goals for emission reductions we will soon be committed to Y °C, where Y > X" are not very helpful. They have about as much effect on decision-makers as a fart in a hurricane.
X and Y keep changing, but X °C is already so large that we would pass tipping points sufficient to guarantee an unfolding disastrous path to a different planet, one with a bleak future for young people and other life on the planet. And never mind that an international approach based on caps, goals and promises is worth about as much as the paper the Kyoto Protocol was printed on.
Presented with such a prognostication you might say: Hey, wait a minute, we don't need a complex unworkable cap approach or a carbon tax. We need a simple honest flat across-the-board fee on the carbon content of fossil fuels, collected from fossil fuel companies at the domestic mine or port of entry, the fee gradually rising over time, the funds distributed 100% to the public, equal amounts to all legal residents, not one dime to the government, no enlargement of government. Such a "fee-and-dividend" system would cause fossil fuel CO2 emissions to rapidly decline; most coal and unconventional fossil fuels would be left in the ground. For example, economic modeling for the U.S. shows that a $10/ton CO2 fee, rising $10 each year, would reduce emissions 30% after a decade -- more that a factor of 10 greater than the oil carried by the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, rendering that pipeline superfluous.
Business and Jobs
Business leaders, such as Jim Rogers of Duke Power, say that what they need is knowledge of the carbon price and a general sense of how it will change. If we give them that, our captains-of-industry can be a huge part of the solution.
We have tremendous potential for innovation that will be spurred once there is a rising carbon price. New products, more jobs. As the carbon price rises, tipping points will be reached where low-carbon or no-carbon alternatives phase in rapidly, leaving fossil fuels in the ground.
Of course, many other actions are needed. We need energy R&D. We need building standards, we should not produce electronic goods that draw energy even when not in use, etc. Such things will be easier to achieve, and partly self-enforced, by an underlying steadily rising carbon price.
Politics
I gave a talk to international labor leaders. When I noted that fee-and-dividend would let the market place, rather than government bureaucrats, make decisions, one of them said "that's libertarian!" So it is, with a small l.
After I gave a talk at one of Grover Norquist's meetings (on-the-record portion), one participant said "that's income redistribution!" Yes, fee-and-dividend is populist. Low-income people can gain by limiting their emissions. People with multiple houses, or who fly around the world a lot, will pay more in increased prices than they obtain in the dividend -- but they can afford that.
Fee-and-dividend is democratic -- treating everybody equally -- as well as libertarian and populist.
Wait a minute, you say, collecting a fee from fossil fuel companies, making fossil fuels pay their honest cost to society, is not realistic. There are a lot of people making money off fossil fuels or planning to make money off the pipeline. American politicians are well-oiled and coal-fired, we can't get such a plan through the government.
Presidential Leadership
Unrealistic? What if President Obama, when he was first elected and had 70% approval, had chosen to have fireside chats, informing the public that a rising carbon price was needed for national security, energy independence, economic stimulation, and preserving a good life for
young people and our fellow species on the planet? With 60% of the people getting more in their dividends than they pay in increased prices, he would have been a populist President. He could have taken the matter to the public. His party controlled the House and Senate.
President Obama chose not to do that in his first term. He gave minimal support to a cap-and-trade-with-offsets proposition, which would have made little actual reduction in U.S. emissions and was ineffectual globally. Unless he faces up squarely and effectively to the greatest practical
and moral issue of the 21st century, he forfeits his chance to be a great president.
International Implementation
Cap-and-trade-with-offsets is the Kyoto Protocol approach, in which countries are begged to join and set emissions targets. When they fail to meet their target, they withdraw from the Protocol.
China will not accept a cap on their emissions. Why should they? The U.S. is responsible for 27% of the fossil fuel CO2 in the air today. China's responsibility is just approaching 10%. However, their population is more than three times that of the U.S., so they have used only 10% of a fair cap. By the time they reach that cap, we will all be doomed.
Why would China put a fee on carbon? Lots of reasons. They do not want to develop the addiction that plagues the U.S. They have heavy air and water pollution from fossil fuels, which is very costly and has the public upset. They are among the most vulnerable nations to climate change, including sea level rise. China has a long history and is capable of taking a long view. The fact that the worst climate impacts will be visited on future generations will not likely cause China to "discount" future climate effects and heap consequences on the young.
Only a few nations need agree on a carbon fee. They will place a border duty on products from countries that do not have an equivalent carbon fee. They can also rebate to their manufacturers the carbon fee covering the fraction of their production that is exported to nations without the carbon fee. This approach provides a tremendous incentive for other nations to adopt a similar domestic carbon fee, so they can collect it themselves rather than lose it as a border duty.
Border tariff adjustments are not unique to fee-and-dividend. However, the flat cross-the-board fee on carbon, a reasonably well-defined number, makes international implementation simpler, as revealed via objective comparison's in Shi-Ling Hsu's book "The Case for a Carbon Tax."
Criticisms of Fee-and-Dividend
A common criticism is that low income people will waste the dividend, e.g., buying powerball tickets. I come from a low income family, my father a tenant farmer educated to 8th grade, with seven children. We would not have wasted the money. Nor would most low income families.
Of course a minority of people will waste the money. You can't legislate against foolishness. But note that even in such cases the money will soon be back in the economy.
The second criticism of fee-and-dividend is that it is better to tax fossil fuels and let the government invest the money in clean energies. Uh, you mean the government can make the best decisions about winning technologies? That should be an easy call.
We already have a situation in which even advanced nuclear power development is being financed privately, e.g., by Bill Gates. Quietly, despite the failure of our government to require fossil fuels to have an honest price, very exciting advances are being made in many technologies, even, believe it or not, carbon capture. These technologies, including energy efficiency, will spread like wildfire once a rising carbon fee begins to be collected and distributed, so that fossil fuels begin to pay their true costs and the public has the funds at their disposal.
Government has a role in R&D (e.g., the excellent ARPA-E program) and assuring that new technologies are safe, but those departments already exist, funded by existing taxes.
Nor should the fee be used to pay down the national debt. The public is not stupid. If the money is thrown into government coffers, regardless of how its use is described, the public will know it is being used to support big government. The only way the public will allow a continually rising price on carbon is if the money goes to them, so that they can deal with increasing fossil fuel prices. The rallying cry should be "100 percent or fight!"
Governors and Mayors
I am sorry if my remarks at the Commonwealth Club (reported out of
context) were interpreted as criticism of people who have worked hard to reduce fossil fuel emissions. My remarks were not intended that way, nor were they interpreted as such by the Governor. I acknowledged the success of California in limiting their emissions relative to that of other states, and I made it clear that my remarks were about ineffectual policies, not people.
In addition to several governors, a number of mayors, perhaps most notably Republican Mayor Bloomberg in New York City, have been vocal about climate change and effective in reducing emissions. Helped by a flagging national economy, this has reduced United States emissions a few percent, which is a significant improvement compared with continued emissions growth.
However, the science has made crystal clear that these efforts and policies are not enough. We must pursue policies that can lead to global emissions reductions and a phase-out of reliance on fossil fuels, such that most remaining coal and unconventional fossil fuels are left in the ground.
Cap-and-Trade vs. Carbon Fee
A crucial point is that we need policies that reduce emissions as rapidly as practical. Cap-and-trade, even if it were applied across-the-board on all fossil fuels at the source (it is not) and even if applied across the nation (it will not be; can you imagine the Texas Governor's response if the California Governor called and asked him to follow suit?), would provide no prospect of the rapid reduction of global emissions needed to cause most fossil fuels to be left in the ground.
Why not? Cap-and-trade, to the extent it reduces emissions some places, reduces demand for fossil fuels, lowers their global price, thus encouraging their use elsewhere. At best, this slightly slows the burning of fossil fuels, which is little help. Fossil fuel CO2 emissions stay in the ocean-atmosphere system for millennia. Most fossil fuel carbon must be left in the ground.
In contrast, a carbon fee can more readily be made universal [cf. discussion above and Hsu's "Case for a Carbon Tax"]. If the funds are distributed 100% to the public, the public will allow the fee to rise to high levels, in contrast to the relatively ineffectual carbon price characterizing cap-and-trade or a pure carbon tax. Resulting reduction in fossil fuel use under a rising carbon fee causes demand to drop, and the net price that producers receive falls (because the fee portion goes to the public). This causes rapid loss of market for costly fuels (tar sands, tar shale). Most coal, as the carbon fee rises, also will be left in the ground or used only with carbon capture.
Summary
An honest, gradually rising, price on carbon, making fossil fuels pay their costs to society, including externalities, makes economic sense and is needed for rapid phase-down of fossil fuels. Other things are needed, but the base requirement is an across-the-board universal carbon fee.
Scientists should not accept fossil fuel scenarios foisted on us by compliant government agencies. Instead, we should help define carbon emission scenarios that avoid growing regional climate extremes and climate tipping points that can cause disintegration of ice sheets and large-scale extermination of species. Those government agencies, virtual arms of the fossil fuel industry, have a bad record in projecting energy requirements. Even in the U.S., with little effort to control energy use growth during the past few decades, reality forces energy agencies to continually revise downward their projections (cf. Fig. 3 in "Storms of My Grandchildren").
We must stanch a pervasive defeatism that is about. Humanity is not a bunch of lemmings marching unstoppably toward a cliff. There is such a thing as free will. It seems that many people have slipped into an unhelpful resignation, ultimately leading to a way of thinking that accepts fossil fuel industry propaganda.
People please wake up! For the sake of young people, future generations, and other life on our planet, don't settle for what some "experts" say is the best we can do. In fact, we can move on to clean energies and energy efficiency, but only if we are wise enough to put an honest rising price on carbon emissions. It is equally clear, I submit, that the public will only allow an adequate rising price on carbon if the system is simple and transparent with the proceeds distributed to the public. That will provide the public with the resources required to make the needed changes as we move to cleaner energies and a bright future that preserves the planet and life that we know.
James Hansen, December 13, 2012
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1It was a bit eerie. When the power went out (not restored for almost a week) we were in pitch dark except for candles and a battery powered lantern. Soon we heard thunderous noise as the railings around our second floor flat roof (deck) were blown off and crashed to the ground. The next morning we found four large trees blown over, one of them leaning against the house -- their root systems pulled out of ground that was too soggy to hold them. Similarly, because of the soft rain-soaked ground, large sections of the stockade fence separating our property from the road were blown down, as were sections of the fence around the horse pasture. Windows in the barn were blown out, but the solar panels were unharmed. Storm power and damage supposedly vary with the cube of wind speed, so amping up of the winds by the unusually warm coastal waters probably had a big effect. We live in eastern Pennsylvania and are thus buffered from Atlantic storms by New Jersey, but this was a marginal hurricane imbedded in a frontal storm that can affect a huge area. These kind of storms, as described in Storms of My Grandchildren, will become far stronger if we allow Greenland to begin to melt fast enough to cool the North Atlantic Ocean.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
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