United States youth with EPA administrator Lisa Jackson during the COP15 climate negotiations

(Cross posted from the Cascade Climate Network COP15 blog)
As a final assignment for a climate course that I am in, I had the opportunity to write a memo to President Obama outlining what his climate goal should be and what policies/strategies he would use to reach those goals.

Below is the full text. I think it does a good job of explaining where we are at with the current COP15 negotiations and where we are headed with a climate bill.
_____________________

To: President Barack Obama
From: Mr. Jeremy Blanchard
Date: 7 Dec 2009
Subject: Climate Change Policy Recommendations

As a young person in the United States, I feel an obligation to ensure a healthy, prosperous future for my children and for all future generations. Because of this, I have spent the last year organizing campuses and communities to take action on the largest challenge that our species has ever faced: global climate change. To avoid catastrophic climate change, the United States must take the lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously revitalizing our economy with clean, safe energy. To achieve this goal, the country must pass ambitious climate legislation and negotiate a strong international climate treaty. Mr. President, you must lead the way to ensure that these goals are met. The strategic recommendations outlined here are meant to be ambitious yet still politically realistic.

Climate change is unlike any problem that we have ever faced before. The problem is distributed spatially because one country’s emissions effect the entire world, not just the area from which they originated. It is also distributed temporally because carbon emitted today will remain in the atmosphere, causing continual warming for up to 500 years to come. Another unique and challenging aspect of global climate change is strong dispersion between the causes and the effects. It is impossible to point to a particular drought or hurricane and say that it came directly from the carbon emitted from a particular coal plant. We are even unable to say that the these weather events came directly from climate change—the most we can say is that they were stronger or more frequent than they would have been without any warming. These factors leave us unable to use past challenges as a direct analogy to the challenges we face today.

Since this problem requires action from every country on the planet, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the best outlet to facilitate a global agreement to reduce carbon emissions. The UNFCCC is a protocol to create binding emissions reductions targets while still considering the different responsibilities that developed and developing countries have in relation to this problem.

The goals that you and your cabinet should strive to meet must be in line with what scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change. This means keeping the average temperature rise between 1.5° and 2° Celsius and reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere below 350ppm. To reach those targets, we must reduce our emissions to 20% below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% by 2050. While there may be compromises on how to make such reductions, the targets themselves are not negotiable because they are mandated by the natural laws of physics. Additionally, The United States must also poise itself as a bold leader in the international community. By bringing a sense of urgency to this problem, taking responsibility for our previous emissions, and refusing to delay action for worry of the economic repercussion, we will be an example to the rest of the world and encourage them to take bold action to reduce their emissions as well.

The first element that will bring your administration closer to reaching these goals is the agreement that will come out of this years UNFCCC meeting; COP15. This 15^th meeting of the countries who signed on to the UNFCCC was set to be the place where the successor to the Kyoto protocol was signed. Other heads of state and yourself have already lowered expectations and said that this is not a possibility based on the current situations of the main countries involved in the negotiations. Of course, it is the Senate’s responsibility to ratify any treaty that you sign, so in that sense, it was logical to put off any final treaty negotiations until a climate bill has been passed. While I acknowledge that you have invested your political capital in health care reform and that you have not been in office very long, it is very disappointing to see the hope of negotiating a legally binding treaty be thrown out the window before the negotiations even begin. My disappointment aside, there is still much that can, and must be accomplished at COP15.

First, the negotiations can produce a series of accords that can be acted upon right away. Even though the final, legally binding treaty may not be complete by the end of the two-week-long negotiations, there are many areas where countries can agree. Additionally, countries should be able to begin taking immediate action to reduce emissions based on these accords. Second, the accords that countries produce must be used as a foundation to create a draft treaty which get us 80-90% of the way to a complete treaty. Finally, there must be time line and a framework for turning the “politically binding” draft treaty into a legally binding one. This time line should terminate at COP16 where the final fair, ambitious and binding treaty will be produced.

Since the purpose of delaying the negotiations until COP16 is to pass a climate bill in Congress, the next element of strategy I would advise is to invest your political capital into passing a strong bill in the Senate. This bill must be passed before the midterm elections in the spring, when the political climate will be less conducive to such legislation. Most importantly, I suggest that you personally push domestically and internationally for a new metric to account for emissions reductions and use this bill as a forum for this shift. Currently, most emissions reduction targets are spoken about in terms of carbon caps. A more complete system should use the metric of “carbon cap equivalents” instead. The value in this new system is that it more fully represents any plan to reduce emissions. While a carbon cap is the most explicit metric, it generally only applies to industries that can be easily monitored. Carbon cap equivalents would allow the United States to account for other elements that will be part of the legislation including energy efficiency improvements, carbon intensity (CO₂ per unit GDP) reductions and highly verifiable offset credits.

Using such a metric internationally allows every country to wholly represent their emissions reduction pans. The World Resources Institute estimates that if the House version of the climate bill were measured in carbon cap equivalents, it could potentially reduce emissions by 23% below 1990 levels by 2020, whereas the direct carbon caps only measure 4% below 1990 levels. Since many developing countries, like China and India, refuse to agree to hard emissions caps and would rather talk about carbon intensity reductions, it would be beneficial to use a new metric that accounts for the progress they intend to make. Historically, the Senate has refused to enter into binding emissions reductions targets until China and India do the same. With this new measurement, it will be clear that China and India are taking action on the issue in a very real way, and the Senate will likely be more supportive of climate legislation.

Another card that you must play to pass a climate bill is to begin regulating carbon through the EPA under the Clean Air Act. Although the Act is very blunt tool for dealing with distributed pollution like greenhouse gases it can be used a political tool to make the cap-and-trade proposal in the senate bill look more favorable. Industry does not like direct regulation because it is not responsive to market forces and it is not as predictable as congressional legislation. Just today, the EPA announced it’s endangerment finding and it’s plan to regulate CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air act. This is a perfectly-timed announcement because it gives us more negotiating power in Copenhagen and, more importantly, it gives industries a chance to see what regulation would like before the climate bill comes to a vote in the Senate. With the option of a market-based cap-and-trade solutions on the table, polluting industries that might otherwise have opposed a climate bill suddenly have an incentive to support it because it is better than the alternative.

After the climate bill has arrived on your desk to be signed, the United States will be able to negotiate, sign and ratify an international treaty that it can live up to. The best place to do this will be at COP16 in Mexico. With specific targets in hand from the climate bill, it will be possible to nail down the remaining elements of the treaty and show the rest of the world that we are finally seriously addressing the issue of climate change. One important element of the treaty will be the time when it goes into effect. The predecessor to this treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, had a 55-55 clause which stated that it didn’t go into effect until 55% of countries had ratified the treaty and 55% of emissions were represented. It took 8 years for Russia to ratify the treaty and bump the total emissions represented over 55%. As our emissions must peak within the next few years, we absolutely cannot wait eight years to begin implementing this treaty.

After COP16, the United States has more work to do to tackle the climate change crisis. We must work hard to implement the climate bill and fulfill its obligations under the treaty that we will have ratified. Most bills are strengthened quite a bit after they are initially passed, so I also urge you to ensure that amendments which do this are proposed and passed during your term in office.

The eyes of the world are on your administration, Mr. President. I don’t want to have to explain to my children about flags being lowered in front of the United Nations building because a small island state no longer exists due to sea level rise from climate change. I want them to grow up in world with safe, clean energy and a stable climate. To have such a future, the United States needs to not only do its share to reduce emissions, but also use our position as a global leader to demand that other countries meet their obligations as well. All of this will take bold, dynamic leadership on your part. I am confident that future generations will praise you for the action that you take now to address the climate crisis.

REFERENCES

Bals, Christoph. Substance or Greenwash Show? The Time for Half Measures is Over. Issue brief. Berlin: Heinrich Boell Foundation, 2009. Print.

Larsen, John, and Robert Heilmayr. Emissions Reductions Under the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. Tech. The World Resouces Institute, 19 May 2009. Web. 5 Dec. 2009. <http://pdf.wri.org/usclimatetargets_2009-05-19.pdf>.

Light, Andrew, Nina Hachigian, and Julian L. Wong. “Counting the Real Progress on Climate Action.” Web log post. Center for American Progress. 27 May 2009. Web. 6 Dec. 2009. <http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/counting_progress.html>.

Posted in Climate Policy, Copenhagen 2009, United Nations, United States, Youth Leaders

The first draft of the American Clean Energy and Energy Security Act of 2009 (ACES) was released yesterday (full text here, summary here).  Now, I haven’t had the time to read through the full 648 pages of the draft bill, but I’d like to draw your attention to a few crucial aspects of this bill.

First, it is more than just a climate bill.  This bill has four main parts: Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency, Reducing Global Warming Pollution, and Transitioning to a Clean Energy Economy.  If we can pass most of what is in the first two sections (with the carbon capture and sequestration not among that “most”), these policies will be massive steps in the right direction.  The most crucial step we can take to transition to a nationwide clean energy economy is the first one.  I don’t say that to be cliche, I honestly mean this.  These are great first steps, and many more will be needed.

This bill is far from perfect.  Beyond the massive investment in carbon capture and storage, the weak emissions reductions targets, the reliance on offsets and industry giveaways for emissions credits, and lack of clarity on how the revenue from an emissions cap would be spent, ACES will likely be watered down through negotiation, committee markups and amendments on the House floor.  It starts of from a place of compromise and will almost certainly be transformed through further pressure from the fossil fuel industries and the politicians they have in their pockets.

However, ACES includes a remarkable amount of attention towards the transition, including adaptation to the effects of climate change, formally working with developing countries to share low-carbon technologies and insulating American industries from shocks during this transition.  While the Green Jobs section is rather wimpy, the final section begins to address the path forward beyond calling for reductions limits.

So, what do this bill mean?  It is a start, and a decent one.  Above all, this bill will create jobs.  Lots of them.  It will help to jumpstart the economy with domestic production and implementation of clean energy technologies.  But we need to be clear with our members of Congress that this is simply a start in the right direction – it needs to hold onto the truly transformative components and eliminate the loopholes and industry giveaways.  Make sure that the industry lobbyists aren’t the only voices our members of Congress are hearing on this issue.  Meet with them next week in your district, organize a calling party to flood their offices with comments, overwhelm them with letters.  Show them that you are not going away and are watching their moves on this and other pieces of sustainability legislation.

Full text of the summary below:

TITLE I – CLEAN ENERGY
Renewable Energy. The draft promotes renewable energy by requiring retail electricity suppliers to meet a certain percentage of their load with electricity generated from renewable resources, like wind, biomass, solar, and geothermal. The renewable electricity requirement begins at 6% in 2012 and gradually rises to 25% in 2025. The governor of any state may choose to meet one fifth of this requirement with energy efficiency measures.
Carbon Capture and Sequestration. The draft promotes development of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies to ensure a continuing place for coal in our nation’s energy future. CCS is a method of reducing global warming pollution by capturing and injecting underground the carbon dioxide emitted from electricity generation plants that use fossil fuels. The draft includes a CCS early demonstration program, incentives for the wide-scale commercial deployment of CCS, and performance standards for new coal-fired power plants.
Clean Fuels and Vehicles. The draft establishes a new low-carbon transportation fuel standard to promote advanced biofuels and other clean transportation fuels. It authorizes financial support in the form of grants or loan guarantees to cities, states, or private companies for large-scale demonstrations of electric vehicles. A related provision authorizes financial support to car companies to retool their plants to build electric vehicles.
Smart Grid and Electricity Transmission. The draft contains provisions to facilitate the deployment of a smart grid, including measures to reduce utility peak loads through smart grid and demand response applications and to help promote smart grid capabilities in new home appliances. It also directs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reform the regional planning process to modernize the electric grid and provide for new transmission lines to carry electricity generated from renewable sources.
Partnering with the States. The draft creates a program to allow each state energy office to establish a State Energy and Environment Development (SEED) Fund, which will serve as a common repository for federal financial assistance for clean energy and energy efficiency projects.
Federal Purchases of Renewable Electricity. The draft authorizes federal agencies to enter into long-term contracts to purchase renewable electricity.

TITLE II – ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Building Energy Efficiency. The draft promotes energy efficiency in new buildings by providing federal training and funding assistance to states that adopt advanced building efficiency codes. It authorizes funding for retrofitting existing commercial and residential buildings to improve their energy efficiency. And it directs the Environmental Protection Agency to develop procedures for rating building energy efficiency.
Manufactured Homes. The draft provides rebates to low-income families residing in pre-1976 manufactured homes that can be applied toward purchases of new Energy Star-rated manufactured homes.
Appliance Energy Efficiency. The draft codifies four negotiated agreements on efficiency standards for lighting and four additional agreements for other appliances. It makes numerous improvements to the current Department of Energy process for setting energy-efficiency standards, strengthening the cost-effectiveness test to establish minimum standards and requiring improved disclosure. In addition, it creates a program to provide financial incentives to retailers who sell high volumes of “Best-in-Class” appliances.
Transportation Efficiency. The draft directs the President to work with the relevant agencies and California to harmonize, to the maximum extent possible, the federal fuel economy standards, any emission standards promulgated by EPA, and the California standards for light-duty vehicles. The goal of this provision is to preserve the environmental benefits that could be achieved by the three standards, but do so in a way that simplifies compliance by the auto companies. The draft also directs EPA to set emissions standards for other mobile sources of pollution such as locomotives, marine vessels, and nonroad sources. The draft requires states to establish goals for reducing global warming pollution from the transportation sector and requires large metropolitan planning organizations to submit transportation plans to meet those goals. The draft authorizes EPA to carry out the SmartWay Transportation Efficiency Program to increase the efficiency of highway trucking.
Utilities Energy Efficiency. The draft establishes a new energy efficiency resource standard to enlist electricity and natural gas distribution companies in the effort to make the nation more energy efficient. Under this program, each distribution company must demonstrate that its customers have achieved a required level of cumulative electricity or natural gas savings relative to business-as-usual projections. The efficiency standard starts with a 1% electricity savings and 0.75% natural gas savings in 2012 and gradually increases to a 15% cumulative electricity savings and a 10% cumulative natural gas savings by 2020.
Industrial Energy Efficiency. The draft requires the Secretary of Energy to establish standards for industrial energy efficiency and to seek recognition of the result by the American National Standards Institute. The draft also creates an award program for innovation in increasing efficiency of thermal electric generation process.
Public and Federal Energy Efficiency. The draft amends the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 to include nonprofit hospitals and public health facilities among public institutions eligible for grants and loans for energy efficiency. It also requires competition before task orders are awarded by federal agencies under energy savings performance contracts.

TITLE III – REDUCING GLOBAL WARMING POLLUTION
The global warming provisions in the discussion draft are modeled closely on the recommendations of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of electric utilities, oil companies, chemical companies, automobile manufacturers, other manufacturers and energy companies, and environmental organizations.
Global Warming Pollution Reduction Program. The draft establishes a market-based program for reducing global warming pollution from electric utilities, oil companies, large industrial sources, and other covered entities that collectively are responsible for 85% of U.S. global warming emissions. Under this program, covered entities must have tradable federal permits, called “allowances,” for each ton of pollution emitted into the atmosphere. Entities that emit less than 25,000 tons per year of CO2 equivalent are not covered by this program. The program reduces the number of available allowances issued each year to ensure that aggregate emissions from the covered entities are reduced by 3% below 2005 levels in 2012, 20% below 2005 levels in 2020, 42% below 2005 levels in 2030, and 83% below 2005 levels in 2050.
Supplemental Pollution Reductions. The draft directs EPA to achieve additional reductions in global warming pollution by entering into agreements to prevent international deforestation. By 2020, these supplemental reductions will achieve reductions equivalent to 10% of U.S. emissions in 2005. These are low-cost reductions in global warming pollution that can be secured by devoting approximately 5% of the allowance value to the program.
Offsets. The draft allows covered entities to increase their emissions above their allowances if they can obtain “offsetting” reductions at lower cost from other sources. The total quantity of offsets allowed in any year cannot exceed 2 billion tons, split evenly between domestic and international offsets. Covered entities using offsets must submit five tons of offset credits for every four tons of emissions being offset.
Banking and Borrowing. To provide additional flexibility without compromising environmental goals, the draft permits unlimited banking of allowances for use during future compliance years. The draft also establishes a rolling two-year compliance period, effectively allowing covered entities to borrow from one year ahead without penalty. Allowances from two to five years in the future can be borrowed under limited circumstances.
Strategic Reserve. The draft directs EPA to create a “strategic reserve” of about 2.5 billion allowances by setting aside a small number of allowances authorized to be issued each year thereby creating a cushion in case prices rise faster than expected. The draft directs EPA to make allowances from the reserve available through an auction when allowance prices rise to unexpectedly high levels. The proceeds of the auction will be used to purchase additional offsets that will replenish the strategic reserve.
Carbon Market Assurance and Oversight. The draft provides for strict oversight and regulation of the new markets for carbon allowances and offsets. It ensures market transparency and liquidity and establishes strict penalties for fraud and manipulation. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is charged with regulating the cash market in emission allowances and offsets. The President is directed to delegate regulatory responsibility for the derivatives market to an appropriate agency (or agencies), based on the advice of an interagency working group.
Additional Greenhouse Gas Standards. The draft directs EPA to set emission standards on sources that are not covered by the allowance system. In addition, it creates special programs to reduce emissions of two pollutants that contribute to global warming: hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and black carbon. HFCs are chemical products that are used in refrigeration, air conditioning, and insulation, among other things. The draft adds HFCs to the list of similar substances that EPA currently regulates because they deplete the ozone layer. Under this regulatory program, EPA will be directed to phase down the production of HFCs. Black carbon, or soot, is the product of incomplete combustion of fossil fuels or biomass. It is a major contributor to warming in the Arctic. EPA is directed in the draft to use its existing authority under the Clean Air Act to reduce emissions of black carbon domestically and study opportunities for reductions internationally.
Clean Air Act Exemptions. The draft provides that CO2 and other greenhouse gases may not be regulated as criteria pollutants or hazardous air pollutants on the basis of their effect on global warming. The draft also provides that new source review does not apply to these global warming pollutants.

TITLE IV – TRANSITIONING TO A CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMY
Ensuring Domestic Competitiveness. To ensure that U.S. manufacturers are not put at a disadvantage relative to overseas competitors, the draft authorizes companies in certain industrial sectors to receive “rebates” to compensate for additional costs incurred under the program. Sectors that use large amounts of energy, and produce commodities that are traded globally, would be eligible for the rebates. If the President finds that the rebate provisions do not sufficiently correct competitive imbalances, the President is directed to establish a “border adjustment” program. Under that program, foreign manufacturers and importers would be required to pay for and hold special allowances to “cover” the carbon contained in U.S.-bound products.
Green Jobs and Worker Transition. The draft includes several provisions to promote green jobs. One section authorizes the Secretary of Education to award grants to universities and colleges to develop curriculum and training programs that prepare students for careers in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other forms of climate change mitigation. Under another section, the Secretary of Labor is authorized to carry out such training programs. The discussion draft also notes that a worker transition section remains to be provided.
Consumer Assistance. The discussion draft notes that a consumer assistance section remains to be provided.
Exporting Clean Technology. The discussion draft includes provisions to provide U.S. assistance to encourage widespread deployment of clean technologies to developing countries. The draft specifies that only developing countries that have ratified an international treaty and undertaken nationally appropriate mitigation activities that achieve substantial greenhouse gas reductions are eligible for funding.
Adapting to Global Warming. The draft establishes an interagency council to ensure an integrated federal response to the effects of global warming. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is directed to conduct vulnerability assessments and establish a National Climate Service. Each federal agency is directed to prepare an adaptation plan, review climate impacts on matters within its jurisdiction, and develop plans for addressing those impacts. The draft establishes a climate change adaptation fund to provide federal support for state, local, and tribal adaptation projects and a natural resources climate change adaptation panel to coordinate interagency actions on natural resources adaptation. The draft also requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to promulgate a national strategy for adapting to the public health effects of climate change.
To address international adaptation issues, the draft creates an International Climate Change Adaptation Program within USAID to provide U.S. assistance to the most vulnerable developing countries for adaptation to climate change.

Posted in Carbon Trading, Climate Policy, Economics, Efficiency, global warming, Government, green building, green jobs, Jobs, Offsets, Politics, United States