Despite the controversy, the European Union seems determined to continue its mandatory emissions-trading system, which it sees as crucial in tackling climate change. There's little doubt about the urgency of that goal: global carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 45% since 1990, reaching an all-time high of 33 billion tonnes in 2010, according to a report released last week by the European Commission.
This article is reproduced with permission from Nature magazine. It was first published on September 27, 2011.
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32 Comments
Add CommentThe idea of carbon trading was known to be bad economics from the beginning. It creates a vast management structure that is adding no value to the economy, but that has to be paid for by users.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you are worried about additional CO2 warming the world and it becoming worse for humanity, I ask you to identify the source of your concerns.
If your concerns are based on the UN's IPCC AR4, I suggest that you read more on the basis of the concerns identified in that report. Virtually 100% of the concerns are based on the outputs of climate models.
The scientists who wrote the report used climate models to predict that certain areas would get more or less rain as a result of more atmospheric CO2. Today we know that not a single climate model can predict whether there will be more or less rain than there is today in any specific region.
So I ask you who fear global warming...what are you afraid is going to happen and what is the basis of your fear?
Cap and trade worked well for controlling acid rain. it would be nice if we could get such a system to work for carbon dioxide.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy personal experience has shown that where I live has gotten much more rain and stronger tornados so I fear that. Plus, I don't really like the heat and don't want my climate warmer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe carbon tax system or whatever the idiot politicians want to call it, is flawed on its own. There is no possible way this will work. It is yet another methods to force people who earn money to fork it over to those the socialists of the world want to pay off.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about we start a new tax and build water conservation projects in India to offset the water used in the United states? Sounds stupid? Well that is is what the CDM is. India has no limits on its carbon output, it can literally produce carbon to any amount forever. The Industrialized world has the money to by that fantasy pollution right from India, so where exactly is the carbon savings? I do enjoy the fact that this article completely leaves out the carbon tax. The part where schedule A countries have to pay pay pay and the schedule B countries get paid paid paid. There is a minor mention of these so called offset programs and further proof of this foolish plan is why not build the offset programs IN the countries producing the CO2.
Still it does not matter. Unless somehow money is made from carbon and taking money out of the economy is going to reduce any emission, then great. BUT a legitimate program would simply demand all countries reduce emissions and that is all. No offsets, to goofy tax programs to move money around, just simply cut to X level, no exceptions. Now if a country wants to Cut or come up with some method of scrubbing or removing carbon as its produced, well that is up to the country as long as less CO2 is produced.
This CDM nonsense, will not remove one molecule of Carbon from anything. It is like putting penicillin in someone else's body with a topical cream to cure a virus and making someone else pay for it. Wrong cure, wrong body and wrong method of application. The only thing the CDM will do is enrich the progressives around the world on the back of the working people of every schedule A nation.
It was cutting Sulfur from smoke stacks that removed acid rain. If it was only about fines and money, the power companies would simply have paid the fines and kept dumping sulfur unto the atmosphere. Yes there were fines, meant as punishment for not following the law. It was not some sort of cap and trade where some entities had unlimited sulfur pollution rights and sold to power companies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou think it was coincidence that America's "Steel Belt" became the "Rust Belt" during the Cap & Trade on SO2?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreenhouse gas generation is so very disparate and complex there is no panacea. http://goo.gl/yjfHR
How can you tarnish a black pot? Scam on the whole global warming scam!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd it was not Wikileaks that tarnished the Carbon scam. They revealed it. It was the governments of India, et. al. that added to the tarnish on this rip off. For real data on the global warming scam
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswww.iceagenow.com
In Australia, the Prime Minister is passionately debating for the introduction of Carbon Tax legislation, to tax "Australia's biggest polluters".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sad fact is that heavy industry will see this Carbon Tax as an added cost of doing business, and pass on the cost to the customer.
In Australia, power utilities have increased kiloWatt hour charges by 40% to 50% per year, since the Government opted to gradually deregulate this industry. Pensioners are granted a Senior Citizens' discount, yet even that is insufficient for some folks on retirement pensions, who have had to stop buying some vital pharmaceuticals or food, to pay their electricity Bills.
More than 90% of electricity generated in Australia, is from fossil fuel power generating stations, the rest is Hydro-electric, and a much smaller percentage is from wind and solar.
The Government has not clearly defined how the Carbon Tax revenue is going to be applied, or how this money will be spent. There has never been any decisive formal announcement, in which the Australian Government is going to declare a Carbon Free Energy initiative, in which they plan to spend billions of dollars on a Hydrogen energy national infrastructure, through the encouragement of the construction of Titanium Oxide solar panels, that can extract Hydrogen from water. Then burn the Hydrogen on site, to drive steam turbines for generating electricity. If excess Hydrogen is produced, then Hydrogen fueled cars and trucks would revolutionize transportation.
The Australian Government has before introduced the National High Bandwidth Digital Network initiave, so they have some experience in this area.
Since the Australian Government has no plans for such an initiative, the Carbon Tax is just another excuse to impose additional taxation. Other countries beware!
I hit the [Submit Comment] too soon; I left out:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor low income households, the Australian Government will give them a rebate on the Carbon Tax, through the income tax system.
Years ago when the Australian Liberal Government introduced the GST (Goods and Services Tax), they promised there would be a cut on income tax. Surprisingly there was a tax cut; for the average income earner the weekly tax cut amounted to the purchase price for a MacDonalds cheeseburger, small fries and a small Coke.
Your personal experience is not even a drop in the bucket for scientific research. Your personal location is but one point in a very large data base. Your personal preferences should not be the basis for macroeconomic policy. Your personal preferences are a survey of one. Why should your personal preferences rule the world?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs soon as you introduce a carbon trading scheme, people who are good at selling coal to Newcastle are going to want to be involved. Of course there are dodgy things happening - banks love carbon trading.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt least India is smart enough to take advantage of this fraud. What a waste of resources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInsurance companies have calculated that if climate change is not tackled, the cost by 2050 of damage to industry and agriculture will ammount to many trillions of dollars. If the ton of Co2 was taxed at 30$, biomass and hydrocarbon pyrolysis plants could inverse climate change for far less cost.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee www.eprida.com as but one example of pyrolysis.
The article points out the whole process is corrupt and ineffective. But the above poster is still defending it. That's not science - its just religion. No difference at all between creationists and the eco true believers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have seen an uptake in the activity along the so-called ring of fire and are entering Solar Max. If one volcano or worse a super volcano goes off all the carbon cutting we could do would be dwarfed by the release of such an event. If we take a good hit from a solar flare (we had several closes calls in the early 2003-4 years) one of the three grids that feeds this country would have to be compensated by burning of something. As long as we are dependent of HydroCarbon ignition we are stuck with burning carbon instead of using is in one of the many other alternative uses that all create things that work on a lot less energy and in a lot of cases don't require burning at all. But be ready for an event that will dwarf the amount of GHG we generate yearly and also start learning to live without high tech that requires small unhardened chips and GPS to work. You can keep playing these games of carbon tax or you can start working on a plan B for when the real world happens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy place has become cooler and wetter, and I realise that this may not mean the whole world is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever I bet a Quid (Pound) to a knob of Goat shit that if I could report warmer and dryer this would definitely be stated to be confirmation by the Zealots of Global Warming.
Have a cool day.
Some folks rubbish the idea climate change is due to increasing CO2 production, driving global warming by pointing out that some people's experiences of hotter climate are localized anecdotes. Others say their regions are cooler and wetter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think critics forget that the climate of a planet is seeking constant thermal equilibrium. If we perform a thought experiment, and assume that if one region's average temperature trend is increasing over time, then this would introduce an increased thermal imbalance, affecting the regional wind patterns. Chaos theory points out that a small local change in a system can radically affect how the entire system evolves; this theoretical principle translates to the regional changes in wind patterns (a small local change), having a non-linear knock-on effect that affects the shifting of the global wind patterns. This would lead to some areas becoming cooler because Arctic or Antarctic winds may blow over land masses at lower latitudes, mixing with warmer moist air, causing increased rain fall in sub-temperate regions, and in tropical regions, increased instances of violent weather patterns such as hurricanes. Temperate regions would not escape increased incidence of violent localized weather patterns such as tornados or water spouts.
I don't consider myself to be a critic of global warming or a zealot. I try to take the middle ground and consider the scientific principles such as thermodynamics, and theoretical Chaos and Fractal maths principles of natural non-linear systems.
I accept that past climate model computer models didn't get everything right because the natural non-linear dynamics of the Earth's climate are so interdependent, and we have recently began research into non-linear mathematics including Chaos Theory and Fractals because non-linear equations are very difficult to find analytical solutions for (it's only been since approximately the late 1970's when computers started becoming more powerful that solutions to non-linear equations could be researched through numerical analysis), however in recent decades substantial progress has been made due to the construction of increasingly powerful supercomputers capable of trillions of floating point operations per second, where weather prediction has become more accurate, even when the weather is most unstable during Chaotic transition from either Winter to Spring or Summer to Autumn, they for the most part have correctly predicted rain, although they do at times underestimate or overestimate the severity.
Climate change models have for the most part been correct about the consequences, and have underestimated or overestimated the severity of the changes, or similar to shorter range weekly weather forecasts, got the timing wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInstead of critics focusing on minor issues such as the rise in sea levels not as bad as predicted, or the increase in the incidence of violent weather events not having happened in the first decade of this century (although they have happened at the beginning of our current decade), should do their own research, expand their vision to a global perspective and accept what the accumulating evidence is saying.
One rule I use to gage a critic's comment for scientific validity, is to take note of two tactical points: 1. Do they focus on semantics; 2. Do they brand people or ideas with labels such as zealots, localized or anecdotal. Using either of these tactics places the comment in the "politics" rather than "scientific" category.
In the past many witness statements were dismissed, even by the wise men of their time as anecdotal. When peasants used to see rocks falling out of the sky, their anecdotal or regional stories were dismissed and ridiculed as nonsense. These days we call rocks falling out of the sky "meteorites".
A regional anecdote on climate change is an opportunity for further research, through the accumulation of a statistically significant number of regional anecdotes, the scientific investigation may be focused by examining weather records on those regions over each year, for several years, then compare the measured weather data (wind speed, wind direction, temperature, Relative Humidity, rainfall amount, storm severity if any, for river regions the height of the river, for coastal regions high tide and low tide levels) with both the weekly weather forecasts and climate change models, for the predicted parameters.
This way the theoretical climate change models are changed to find a better fit, and make annual predictions to minimize the future projection errors.
The human race needs to avoid the "frog in the heated water" approach to global problems. Even if the sea level rise is occurring more gradually than initially predicted, we need to start acting now because changes occur in nature exponentially, they start slowly and imperceptibly at first, then the changes occurs faster and faster, a snow avalanche is a good example of this non-linear change that Chaotically is triggered by the pressure of something seemingly insignificant as sound wave pressure.
eco-steve
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour comment about insurance companies talking about avoiding damage due to climate change tends to make no sense when you look at the science.
If you accept the concept that higher CO2 will lead to more severe weather (which is by no means settled science)humanity will still have to deal with higher atmospheric CO2 in 2050. It stays in the atmosphere for many years and there is simply no way that it will not continue to rise for several decades to come.
Potential harms (if any are real) can be dealt with by construction of the normal things neededby society--good infrastructure. This is not an additional cost as we build infrastructure in any case
Neilruid
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou make a thoughtful comment. IMO, humanity also needs to avoid changing the basic framework of its economy and damaging people's lives based upon incomplete and incorect science.
The more you study the details of the science, the more you find that the basis of the IPCC conclusions were deeply flawed. I do not argue that the basic concept that more CO2 will have some impact on the atmospheric temperature. I do however strongly disagree with both the conclusions of the rate of change and the statements that a warmer world is necessarily worse for humanity over the long term.
If you get into the details of the science, you will find that science does not really understand either of these issues to a extent necessary to implement other than what are called NO REGRETS policies. These are actions that make sense regardless.
Carbon trading is made for fraud. I first heard about at a conference about 15 years ago. I got up and said “If I was a financial adviser to the Mafia, I would recommend that they get into carbon trading."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhich is exactly what has happened.
Apart from the problems already discussed, there is the fundamental problem is that if the auditor fraudulently exaggerates the quantity of carbon being traded–which is easy to do as it cannot be measured accurately–both parties benefit. And, for sure, they pay a bonus to the auditor. So the whole process is ready-made for massive corruption and fraud and that is exactly what has happened.
How is it that normally intelligent people cannot see this?
Sisko
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of the reasons I would like to see the end of burning fossil fuels for energy, is selfish. For the past decade I have been struck with asthma, which became worse when I used to live in a city with polluted air; I had to use my Ventolin inhaler at least twice a day. I started visiting a city with wind patterns that swept the pollution out to sea year round, and I always breathed much easier.
Eventually I moved to the city with the cleaner air quality, and I have rarely used the inhaler, maybe six times a year at the most.
Every time I return to the 'old' city to visit relatives and friends, I always need to use the inhaler much more often, and takes several days to a week after I return to the 'new' city for my lungs to fully recover.
Another selfish reason, is that oil is becoming more difficult and 'energy expensive' to extract from the ground as oil companies are forced to drill ever deeper to get it out of the ground. Oil is not just used for burning as gasoline or diesel, it is also used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, industrial solvents, plastics, synthetic fibers, paints, coatings, caulking compounds, electronic components, coolants, lubricants for vehicles and industrial machines. If humanity keeps burning fossil fuels at an increasing pace, as the economies of China and India evolve and more people in these countries buy cars and want homes with modern conveniences, oil will become scarcer and the global economy will experience gradually worsening GFCs.
Using Titanium Dioxide solar panels in which water is pumped, to extract Hydrogen from water using sunlight as the only energy source, I humbly submit would vastly increase the amount of Hydrogen available as a fuel for power generation, industry and transportation.
Switching to Hydrogen as a fuel would help significantly in conserving oil. There would be no need to damage the economy, if the switch is done gradually by the oil companies. Governments from each country should provide the leadership to encourage the oil companies, to use their established fuel distribution networks to transport Hydrogen to Gasoline/petrol pumping stations, to eventually become Hydrogen pumping stations.
A warmer world may not necessarily be a good thing for the human race because of a possible increase in the incidence of food crop diseases, as the tropical belt expands both North and South of the Earth's equator into the temperate zones.
I found a google book:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://books.google.com.au/books?id=wjLdXPCyqSMC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=what+concentration+of+atmospheric+CO2+results+in+reduction+of+food+crop+yield?&source=bl&ots=6JAAia9vq_&sig=5VL0Fkbb5-y3Ejp9lkoOBTGR26A&hl=en&ei=pfOETrzyGqmaiQe_kNWzDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false
on the IPCC studies, and they do state that measurements show *prolonged* exposure to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration, reduces the rate of photosynthesis in plants.
For tropical regions, the impact on food production will be negative, due to the increase in ambient temperature resulting in lower crop yields.
Other negative impacts of increased global warming mentioned in this book include "there is more certainty of increases in extreme climate events such as droughts, floods, hot days and high intensity rainfall events." By more certainty the author compares it with the climate change certainty of impacts on hurricane events.
For the food crop analyses, the book cites there have been literally thousands of studies to evaluate the response of crops to the elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations expected this century.
Taking a middle ground I doubt that with thousands of such crop studies there is any reasonable justification for 'incomplete or incorrect science'. A warmer world would be worse for humanity for the longer term because *prolonged* (i.e. longer term) exposure to elevated CO2 atmospheric concentration have been *measured* to reduce the rate of photosynthesis in food crops, meaning food crop yields will decrease over the longer term.
KiwiBuzz
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps because those in power use their intelligence to increase their earning potential, always at the cost of those not in power?
I live in Michigan. Have you ever been here?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSend some global warming ... soon.
Hurry.
.
I am thinking that those who oppose a carbon-credits scheme, which is intrinsic to a cap-and-trade system, will find themselves in agreement with Jim Hansen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find that a little funny, but the point is that a flaw with a scheme to deal with a problem does not mean that there is no problem.
Sisko,
In response to your #20, there is no upper bound to the effects of CO2; so, what would you consider to be an unsafe level? Or, a level where the costs of mitigation become less than the costs of adaptation?
There have been anoxic ocean events in the past associated warming periods. What would your estimate be for adapting to one of those?
Chris G
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not get the Jim Hansen reference?
I will not oppose a Carbon Credits trading scheme or tax as long as it is not subject to political expediency, or assists the rich to get richer.
A carbon trading scheme or tax that I would support must have clearly defined long term environmental goals, and that the money will be used to wholly finance Green energy projects both in poor and wealthy countries, in particular the development of solar energy powered Titanium Dioxide solar panels, to extract Hydrogen from water. Establish companies to construct Hydrogen fuel production facilities near ocean regions (the facility may also produce Potassium and Sodium chloride table salt, as is done by traditional means in Finnland, some of the produced Hydrogen may be burned on-site to drive a steam turbine generator, to power the desalination plant, and any excess electrical energy added to the grid, the water vapour may be then be cooled to add to the fresh water supply, or pumped to the titanium dioxide panels' water supply).
In the USA, the revenue obtained from the carbon trading scheme or tax must be monitored by a corporate and politically independent Government organisation, perhaps the GAO. This organisation should include direct links with the Federal Attorney-General's office, and the Federal court. Any politician or corporation caught attempting to subvert any funds, must be fined the amount subverted with interest, taken from their salaries. If they allege they can't afford the fine, these people should be sued, and a garnish placed on all of their earnings until the fine is paid, with compound interest applied.
To finance Green projects in any country, there must be a set of criteria established:
1. No private sector organisations must be involved in financing the projects;
2. The selection of contractors must be done according to Public Service contractor selection procedures, and not be politically influenced;
3. If the management of the Green energy facility is to be handed over to the private sector, the price charged for the water, energy, fuel and marketable by-products, must be under strict Government regulations because Corporate organisations can never be trusted to comply with reasonable imposition of charges. It's like the lamb asking the wolf for protection.
In _Storms of My Grandchildren_, Dr Hansen talks about how cap-and-trade can not meet the objective of reducing CO2 emissions effectively. He favors a tax-and-dividend because it can be implemented incrementally, thereby reducing impacts, has low overhead costs, and effectively charges those producing more CO2 more money, while returning the tax to the general population. In contrast, a cap-and-trade scheme takes money in general, and puts it in the hands of the carbon credit brokers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.carbontax.org/
In its simplest form, it increases the cost of fossil fuels (returning the cost increases to the general populace) and lets the market sort out which alternatives to use.
Instead of 'offsetting' CO2, we should be eliminating it. This geoengineering technique is now being applied. See www.eprida.com or look at 'International Biochar Initiative' to see how this is being implemented worldwide.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs CO2 prices rise, Biochar will become very attractive as a geoengineering solution to climate change.
Thank you for the feed back.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem with the cap-and-trade scheme is leaving the carbon trading in the hands of commodity traders, where this may be used by the rich as another investment revenue stream. The rich may then lobby the government to be given tax credits in exchange for investing in a carbon trading scheme because there is no one else with the funds to float the cap-and-trade scheme in the first place.
The rich get the tax credits to reduce their investment risk to zero, and they gain extra profits through their investing in a carbon trading scheme, in a similar way they invest in cotton, wheat or gold. The losses are paid for by the average workers' income tax, and the increased prices on utility bills and gasoline prices.
Implementing a tax-and-dividend would not work in practice because once the revenue is collected by the government, history shows that eventually the tax dollars are diverted to plug government spending holes. If the governments around the world were really serious about gradually reducing carbon emissions, they'd start to invest in providing gradual infrastructure for Titanium Oxide solar panels for photocatalyzing Hydrogen from water, and as suggested by eco-steve to provide infrastructure for an International Biochar initiative.
I am suspicious of where the money's going should any government impose additional taxation as a carbon tax. This imposed tax may also provide incentive for a government not to reduce carbon emissions to zero; no carbon emissions = zero tax, and the rich may usurp these additional tax payer funds to lobby the government to help finance a carbon trading scheme, possibly by artificially raising the fear threshhold by claiming the carbon tax is not helping in reducing carbon emissions "fast enough".
The rich can hold the government hostage by delaying the introduction of Hydrogen fuel and geothermal power technologies, whilst increasing gasoline prices and thus using electorate pressure as a tool to force the government to capitulate to a carbon trading scheme.
I am cynical because of the many stupid decisions governments have made in the past, concerning other issues, in the interests of political expediency, or to help the rich who finance their election campaigns to get richer. One example was the misguided economic policy of the former US President Ronald Reagan, in an attempt to make Japanese cars more expensive to buy; the end result was at the cost of the USA auto workers' jobs, and turning the US economy from world's biggest creditor to biggest debtor.
To eliminate the acid rain problem, the European Community used the principle of 'Polluter Payer' with considerable success. The carbon credit system should be replaced by carbon tax, the accrued moneys being used to give grant aid for clean technology investments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe consider it normal to pay for sewerage treatment. It should be just as evident to people that CO2 pollution be treated similarly.