Second, industrialized countries must develop a smarter strategy for engaging emerging markets. Clean development mechanism credit purchasers—notably the E.U. and Japan—need to lobby the mechanism’s executive board for comprehensive reform. Their lobbying will be more effective if they also restrict access to their home markets to credits from the clean development mechanism that have firmly established baselines and entail bona fide reductions. As the U.S. plans a climate policy, it should set its own tighter rules regarding such credits.
Seriously engaging developing countries will require complex packages of policy reforms that are tailored to each country’s situation. Most of the needed policies will occur within countries, but some cooperative international efforts will be essential as well, such as new schemes to share technology or fund transitions to less carbon-intensive fuels. The dozen or so largest emitters should convene a forum outside the Kyoto process to devise the needed strategies. Once started, success in this process would also enliven the broader Kyoto process.
Third, governments must accept that real leverage on emissions will require a combination of market-based climate policies (such as carbon taxes and smarter trading schemes) and a set of measures to support indirect, but effective and economical pressure to cut carbon and adopt new technologies. Encouraging more efficient use of energy requires, for example, not only higher energy prices but also equipment standards and mandates because many energy users (especially residential users) are insufficiently responsive to price signals alone.
Finally, governments must adopt active strategies to invent and apply new technologies. Formulating such plans must confront what we call the “price paradox.” If today’s European carbon prices were applied to the U.S., most utilities would not automatically install new power generation technologies, according to a study by the Electric Power Research Institute. In much of America, conventional coal-fired power plants would still be cheaper than nuclear power, wind farms or turbines fired with natural gas. Raising carbon prices to perhaps $40 per ton of CO2 or higher would encourage greater adoption of new technology, but that option seems politically unlikely. Ultimately, the belief that prices alone will solve the climate problem is rooted in the fiction that investors in large-scale and long-lived energy infrastructures sit on a fence waiting for higher carbon prices to tip their decisions. In fact, many factors stifle the implementation of novel low-carbon policies.
Energy R&D Investment
It is sobering to note that true solutions to the carbon problem will require massive deployment of new energy systems that emit little or no carbon and yet are reasonably competitive with current methods [see “A Plan to Keep Carbon in Check,” by Robert H. Socolow and Stephen W. Pacala; Scientific American; September 2006]. Getting those new technologies on line will require more than price signals because no company on its own will invest in the necessary speculative and costly research and development concepts. To address this predicament, the federal government will have to fund the required research and engineering projects at corporate, university and federal laboratories. Such public-led investments have historically delivered huge, but hard-to-quantify returns to society. Other useful schemes include research tax credits and special mechanisms to reduce risks from uncertain and changing regulations.
Unfortunately, current U.S. government investment in energy research lags. Federal support of energy R&D peaked in the early 1980s at around $8 billion a year (in 2002 dollars). Since then, it has declined sharply and reached a plateau around $3 billion to $4 billion a year—a tiny fraction of the roughly $100 billion of total public research and development funding in the U.S. Public support for energy research is now inching up, but the effort falls short of that needed to tackle the climate challenge. Private energy R&D support is also rising a bit—witness Silicon Valley’s investment in emerging “clean-tech” companies. Investors, however, tend to focus on technologies that are nearing commercial application and potential profit. In the past, the federal R&D tax credits have encouraged firms to spend more on new technology, but Congress has failed to renew the necessary legislation.
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Add CommentThis type of system will just make undeveloped countries more competitive, now if the credits are only within a country or group it might be OK. In addition positive action to reduce our impact on the environment and to mitigate the effects are required. These credits do nothing in these areas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuestion: To mesh a carbon tax with cap-and-trade, should the government not put a MINIMUM price on carbon, not a ceiling, as the article asserts? (Ref. 3rd para. under 'A Four-Step Plan.')
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisE.D.
Ottawa
Canada
Clicking on the links to the Figures brings one to a slide show on endangered birds!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDeleted and replaced with revised version
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Edited by Duane Pendergast at 12/21/2007 10:36 AM
This is an excellent discussion and review of carbon trading concepts and initiatives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is, however, no discussion of market possibilities to encourage removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Perhaps this is a consequence of the common assumption that it is better to capture emissions at source rather than try to deal with them after release.
The sidebar on "The Carbon Trade" focuses on cap and trade and so-called "offset exchange" in connection with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). I find the use of "offset" in that context somewhat of a misnomer as the carbon emissions discussed may not be offset in the usual sense. In the example discussed, it is implied that emissions from the developed countries will be compensated by reductions in emissions in developing countries. I suspect the reality in practice will be that increasing emissions from the developed countries will support projects in developing countries which will have somewhat lower emissions than might have occurred without CDM. The total net result will be increased carbon dioxide emissions.
There is developing recognition of a concept that would actually remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it to durable char or charcoal, which could then be used to sequester carbon in soil. Some researchers believe the sequestered carbon will play an additional role by significantly improving soil fertility. Interested readers can find information on this concept by searching for "terra preta" on the WWW.
Perhaps policy makers should relax their dogged focus on reducing CO2 emissions and consider the possibility they may constitute an opportunity to enhance the environment for life on earth.
Duane Pendergast
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Edited by Duane Pendergast at 12/21/2007 10:29 AM
Sorry for double post
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Edited by erichj at 12/22/2007 10:28 AM
I thought this ubiquitous carbon sink might interest you. Here's the current news and links on Terra Preta (TP)soils and closed-loop pyrolysis of Biomass, this integrated virtuous cycle could sequester 100s of Billions of tons of carbon to the soils.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTerra Preta Soils Technology To Master the Carbon Cycle
This technology represents the most comprehensive, low cost, and productive approach to long term stewardship and sustainability.Terra Preta Soils a process for Carbon Negative Bio fuels, massive Carbon sequestration, 1/3 Lower CH4 & N2O soil emissions, and 3X Fertility Too.
UN Climate Change Conference: Biochar present at the Bali Conference
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/steinerbalinov2107
SCIAM Article May 15 07;
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=5670236C-E7F2-99DF-3E2163B9FB144E40
After many years of reviewing solutions to anthropogenic global warming (AGW) I believe this technology can manage Carbon for the greatest collective benefit at the lowest economic price, on vast scales. It just needs to be seen by ethical globally minded companies.
Could you please consider looking for a champion for this orphaned Terra Preta Carbon Soil Technology.
The main hurtle now is to change the current perspective held by the IPCC that the soil carbon cycle is a wash, to one in which soil can be used as a massive and ubiquitous Carbon sink via Charcoal. Below are the first concrete steps in that direction;
S.1884 The Salazar Harvesting Energy Act of 2007
A Summary of Biochar Provisions in S.1884:
Carbon-Negative Biomass Energy and Soil Quality Initiative
for the 2007 Farm Bill
http://www.biochar-international.org/newinformationevents/newlegislation.html
If you have any other questions please feel free to call me or visit the TP web site I've been drafted to co-administer. http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=node
It has been immensely gratifying to see all the major players join the mail list , Cornell folks, T. Beer of Kings Ford Charcoal (Clorox), Novozyne the M-Roots guys(fungus), chemical engineers, Dr. Danny Day of EPRIDA , Dr. Antal of U. of H., Virginia Tech folks and probably many others who's back round I don't know have joined.
If pre-Columbian Kayopo Indians could produce these soils up to 6 feet deep over 15% of the Amazon basin using "Slash & CHAR" verses "Slash & Burn", it seems that our energy and agricultural industries could also product them at scale.
Harnessing the work of this vast number of microbes and fungi changes the whole equation of energy return over energy input (EROEI) for food and Bio fuels. I see this as the only sustainable agricultural strategy if we no longer have cheap fossil fuels for fertilizer.
We need this super community of wee beasties to work in concert with us by populating them into their proper Soil horizon Carbon Condos.
Erich J. Knight
Shenandoah Gardens
1047 Dave Berry Rd.
McGaheysville, VA. 22840
(540) 289-9750
shengar@aol.com
who can deny the politics behind the science of climate ,and how some thinktanks with funding support from north influence policies .is the finding of IPCC on glcier melts the tip of the iceberg of the science hoodo act to serve the interests of the developed world. why not the north show the lead in changing life styles and social systems to suit the ethics and economics of sustainable resource use and development.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisno one can deny the economic advantage to the west in carbon trade while continuing to pollute.the advantage to the less developed is inflated and projected while the cost benefit in real terms favours the more developed .the developing world is increasingly being depicted as more responsible for future pollution. the science behind the future scenarios are highly dubious and influenced by vested intersts through funding support and peer pressure.
china and india are being shown as villains through data manipulation and GCM computer dta are being used for this jugglery. the world bodies are being hijacked partly for this ,and pachauri is suitably awarded. the very architects of the carbon trading have finally backed out of the protocol so that their interests are best served both ways,and scuttling that of competitors and potential growth centers.the credits are loaded in favour of the west through science and technology fixes . the world bodies are toeing the line for funds. what is needed is not more of the same but a drastic relook at the western model of growth and development through resource exploitation and depletion ,and focus on economics at the cost of ecology ,in real terms ,while making it appear as if the south is more obsessed with growth than environment through a game of data manipulation and jugglery of all sorts.it is high time that the politics of climate is called off through more transparent science. the developing world needs to be equipped and oriented towards this through support structures and a process of relearning
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