Why EPA, not Coal Burners, Should Be In Charge on Climate Change

By Daphne Wysham, Institute for Policy Studies. Posted July 28, 2009.

The new energy bill would strip EPA of its power and let polluters take the reins with a market-based system.

On February 17, Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did something audacious that sent shockwaves throughout the coal industry: Lisa Jackson, the agency’s administrator, announced that it would take a fresh look at a Bush administration memo preventing the regulation of CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants and other sources.

Simply stating she was going to reconsider former EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson’s December 18, 2008, memorandum was enough to put at least 17 coal-fired power plants currently in the pipeline on hold. These power plants, had they been approved, would have produced roughly 12,000 megawatts of power — enough to provide the needs of 3.6 million homes — and released about 84 million tons of CO2 per year.

What does this mean? Let’s put it in context: 84 million tons of CO2 is roughly equivalent to 2 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and about 4 percent of all emissions from electricity the United States produced in 2007. In other words, the mere threat of regulation meant a previously expected 2 percent increase in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions was suddenly much less certain.

This promising signal was just one of several from the Obama administration’s earliest days. Sadly, the word now from the White House is that President Barack Obama wants Congress to send him a “market-based cap” on greenhouse gas emissions. Ironically, it’s that market-based approach — and all that goes with it — that may actually rob the administration of its most powerful tool in this battle for climate stability: EPA regulation.

Now, Obama is getting what he asked for: In June, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, otherwise known as the Waxman-Markey bill. This legislation pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 2 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 — if all goes well. But there’s a lot that could go wrong.

As a tradeoff to gain support from industry for this bill, lawmakers have agreed to strip the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from all power plants, including coal burners, under the Clean Air Act. In place of regulatory oversight, the bill allows for a free market in pollution allowances between industries. Put simply, coal-fired power plants and other large burners of energy would have a “right to pollute,” which they could buy and sell with other large consumers of energy. And because these pollution rights have a cash value and would be given away for free over the next several decades, polluters will make a handsome profit from their pollution.

EPA’s weakened authority is just the first of several bonuses for polluters. Under the Waxman-Markey bill, polluters could purchase carbon “offsets” — 2 billion tons of them each year — should they not be able to meet their cap in greenhouse gas emissions via reductions or carbon trades.

Regulated carbon reductions at power plants are the optimal-value approach: straightforward, uncomplicated, easy to quantify. Next down the value chain would be carbon trades, where Polluter A, who has exceeded his pollution target, trades with Polluter B, who has reduced his pollution by more than is required by law. Polluter A might find it too expensive to reduce his pollution according to strict regulations, so pays Polluter B for the right to claim Polluter B’s share of pollution reductions.

Further down the value chain would come carbon offsets, a sort of “subprime” carbon trade. If Polluter A finds trading with Polluter B to be too challenging, Polluter A can instead claim carbon credits by buying carbon offsets.. A carbon offset is “subprime” because, unlike an emissions reduction, it is hard to prove it would not have taken place anyway. For example, some carbon offsets are claimed from methane that is captured and burned at a waste dump, transforming it into carbon dioxide, a less potent global warming agent. Other carbon offset sellers claim they are sequestering CO2 in fast-growing eucalyptus plantations — and claim that this CO2, which would otherwise be emitted in the air, is now being stored in trees. But local regulations often require waste dumps to burn their methane. And trees grow (and die) without intervention from humans.

Daphne Wysham is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C., where she is the director of the Sustainable Energy & Economy Network.

If the climate bill passes in its current form, this “subprime carbon” market would explode, while the optimal regulatory approach would wither. The Waxman-Markey bill would allow polluters to “offset” their emissions via these questionable commodities, and even to bank their pollution allowances — meaning, if they “underpollute” one year, they are free to “overpollute” the next, so long as the difference between the two approximates their annual target. This banking of emissions credits, coupled with so many carbon offsets, invites market speculators (those who bet on the future price of a commodity) and derivatives traders to turn our planet’s carbon cycling capacity into a lucrative investment opportunity.

To make matters worse, in a bid to win passage of the bill, on June 23 the House Agriculture Committee succeeded in ensuring that the Department of Agriculture would wield oversight over carbon offsets generated by the agricultural industry, rather than the EPA. In the offsets world, agricultural offsets are akin to “junk carbon.” Why?

First, because CO2 in this industry doesn’t come out of a smokestack or a tailpipe. It comes from soil, application of certain fertilizers, and animals’ front and back ends. Handing oversight of this amorphous market in flatulence and other gases to the USDA, which is notoriously cozy with corporate farming interests, all but assures we’ll be minting yet more money for agribusiness, which already reaps billions of dollars every year in farm subsidies. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Energy Information Administration estimated that the market for agricultural offsets could total up to $24 billion annually. That sum would dwarf all other U.S. farm subsidies combined.

Second, because about 1,000 additional workers would need to be hired just to oversee these offsets, it would create an untenable bureaucracy.

Recent studies suggest these 2 billion tons of offsets — rather than having “integrity,” as Waxman and Markey had pledged — will instead become the “counterfeit” carbon so many climate activists feared would overload the system.

As the bill proceeds through the Senate for markup, EPA authority should be restored. Remember, the mere threat of regulation from the EPA didn’t require offsets, markets in carbon futures, or SEC bureaucracy to deliver a staggering result: A 2 percent increase in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions stalled.

Furthermore, if “junk” agricultural offsets are allowed, the EPA — not the USDA — should oversee these trades to avoid the inevitable pressure from agribusiness to turn offsets into yet another subsidy for business as usual.

But Obama should go one step further than simply restoring EPA authority to its rightful place. He should make the case for an even stronger EPA, one that could cut U.S. coal-fired power plant emissions by over 50 percent by simply requiring that all coal burners be retrofitted to burn natural gas. A stronger EPA could weigh in with a louder voice and ensure that no more of our taxpayer dollars subsidize climate change via our development banks and export credit agencies. A stronger EPA could be empowered to better implement the many international treaties we are already signatory to — such as the UN Convention on Biological Diversity or the UN Convention to Combat Desertification — treaties that could help us take bold action on climate change internationally, even in the absence of a strong outcome at the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December.

If we took a regulatory approach, instead of a “market-based” one, or, at the very least, if we didn’t scrap our strongest regulatory tools and removed the “subprime” and “junk” carbon from the mix, we might actually get this problem solved. Now there’s something truly audacious.

Source: http://www.alternet.org/environment/141612/why_epa%2C_not_coal_burners%2C_should_be_in_charge_on_climate_change/

Is Vancouver About to Become the Greenest City in the World?

By Allan Hunt Badiner, AlterNet. Posted July 30, 2009.

The city has made a rapid transition: It draws 90% of its energy from renewables, has a booming bicycle culture and a very popular progressive mayor.

Just as American television chokes with scare ads attacking Canada’s health care system, it was time to check if Vancouver, British Columbia, once ranked by The Economist as first in quality of living, was still pointing the way to the future.

From the airport all along Granville Street, Vancouver’s longest artery, my eyes kept searching for urban blight, some garbage or a little graffiti — but there was none. Moving through the ethnically diverse neighborhoods, no litter could be spotted on the streets and sidewalks.

Suddenly, the sunlit skyline of downtown Vancouver revealed itself at the horizon. With gleaming glass towers, snow-capped mountains, huge parks, and wide beaches, the city appears like a Manhattan reborn in a New Age.

This is not to say it’s a city without problems, or that it doesn’t have its own share of the poor and homeless. But Vancouver’s dynamic young and idealistic mayor, Gregor Robertson, won election in December promising to solve these problems and ultimately make Vancouver the greenest city in the world.

These aspirations may be what makes Vancouver the most futuristic, particularly in light of the intensifying climate crisis. The normally private and interview-averse scientist James Lovelock, who gave us the Gaia Hypothesis (earth as a living organism), is now declaring the game basically over when it comes to escaping the worst scenarios of climate change.

And NASA climate scientist James Hansen just got himself arrested with young activists of Rainforest Action Network to protest coal mining.

The realization that many of the ways we produce our lifestyle are not just injurious to the earth, but literally suicidal, grows apace. All issues, all questions, all policies and all actions may soon be viewed through the lens of this looming crisis.

Given the grim publicity pointing to the unexpected direness of the issue, it makes sense that cities of the future will anticipate pending changes and at the very least put the brakes on needless damage without delay.

Long arguing for the inevitable decentralization of political power, B.C. professor Warren Magnusson has promoted the idea of “radical municipalism,” that global cities will open the political space for new forms of social and political life.

Reading that as an opening to a new ecological space, it may well be one of the strategies that give us a fighting chance when larger political entities, provinces, states and nations, are too slow to act decisively.

With growing economic ties to Asia, Vancouver is already developing its own foreign relations with other nations and major cities. Birthplace of Greenpeace, and a leader in hydroelectrics, Vancouver draws 90 percent of its power from renewable sources and is now preparing to use wind, solar, wave and tidal energy to significantly reduce fossil-fuel use.

The mayor wants Vancouver to be the North American hub for green jobs, for sustainable industry and to “capitalize on what is now globally a seismic shift toward a green economy.” Robertson envisions the city attracting new green businesses that will “thrive as they roll out their goods and services to other cities who are playing catch-up.”

Other cities in North America racing to be the world’s greenest include Toronto; San Francisco; Portland, Ore.; Santa Monica, Calif; Austin, Texas; and Chicago. According to the Vancouver Sun, Vancouver is catching up fast to Toronto and San Francisco but is still well behind Reykjavik, Iceland; Copenhagen, Denmark; Stockholm, Sweden; and Amsterdam, Netherlands when it comes to its shade of green. London; Sydney, Australia; Barcelona, Spain; and Bogota, Colombia are also in the competition.

Robertson recently enjoyed a sweet victory with the addition of a bike-and-pedestrian lane to a major city bridge. While most of the media, business groups and politicians denounced the plan — predicting it would pave the way for his defeat in the next election — the new lanes, once opened, did not disrupt traffic, and the public responded enthusiastically. Three out of four residents in a recent poll support redirecting money from road expansion projects toward better public-transit systems and alternative transportation.

Vancouver voters also seem to favor the mayor’s compassionate, yet urgent, approach to homelessness and his goal to eliminate it on city streets by 2015. Within weeks of his election, he coordinated with the province to create 200 temporary shelter beds and organized the Homeless Emergency Action Team made up of city, provincial, nonprofit and private sectors representatives tasked with finding immediate solutions for homelessness.

After three months, five emergency shelters were providing beds and a warm place to stay for more than 400 homeless people. And while new high-rise shelters are in the works, problems persist, and some residents who live near shelters are upset by drug activity, fights and their flower beds used for defecation. For the most part, the city’s efforts are seen as a success, and there are dramatically fewer people are sleeping on the streets.

Meanwhile, at a greater cost than anticipated, the deep greening of Vancouver continues unabated. Host to the Olympic Winter Games in 2010, the city has constructed a nine-block green Olympic Village, where 10,000 athletes will stay and which will become green condos after the games.

The U.S. Green Building Council has awarded the Olympic Village a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold certification for its green initiatives. Half of the buildings will have green roofs, meaning they will have plants growing on them, providing insulation and reducing the energy needed to heat or cool them.

Environmentalist David Suzuki, who warns that climate warming could eliminate ice skating, cross-country skiing and low-elevation downhill skiing by 2050, has partnered with Vancouver to reduce the size of the 2010 Games’ carbon footprint. With careful management of the environmental impacts, Suzuki estimates carbon offsets will neutralize 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide produced at the 2010 Winter Games.

Examples include the Olympic Oval (speed-skating venue), featuring a roof from salvaged pine-beetle-infested wood; heat for the Athlete’s Village provided by a municipal waste-water treatment system; and a Buy Smart program that weighs sustainability and aboriginal participation in procurement (the Squamish First Nation will create 138 handmade drums as athlete prizes).

For one- and two-family dwellings, Vancouver already has the greenest building code in North America. New homeowners now stand to save up to 30 percent on their energy bills, use less water and have healthier places to live.

Grants and incentives are available to residents planning the renovation of an older home, and rebates and financing options are provided for home improvements involving the addition of weather-stripping, efficient water heaters, windows and doors.

Moving closer to being a bike- and electric-vehicle-friendly city, free parking is provided for all electric cars and scooters, all new single-family homes and off-street bicycle storage rooms are required to have dedicated electric plug-in outlets, and electric vehicle plug-ins will be provided in at least 20 percent of the parking stalls in new condo/apartment buildings.

Vancouver has incentivized an increase in hybrid and energy-efficient vehicles in taxi fleets, and along with BC Hydro, the city signed on with Mitsubishi for tests of the world’s first production-ready, highway-capable electric car. A public bike-sharing program and more bike lanes will soon be unveiled as cycling has increased 180 per cent in the last 10 years.

Other green initiatives in Vancouver include installing LED lights in all 670 traffic signals; new rapid-transit service and Sky Trains connecting the city to the airport and surrounding areas; and the construction of a model sustainable community in a formerly industrial area called Southeast False Creek. Even part of the City Hall lawn has been converted into a community garden to grow local food to be donated to providers in Vancouver’s inner-city neighborhoods.

Robertson’s efforts, while still relatively tame, are only a prelude for his plans to completely and radically revamp the energy and consumption patterns of the city. But bike lanes, green roofs and electric outlets are significant building blocks to creating the necessary culture of sustainability so that more profound changes find sufficiently wide support.

He is also seeking funding partners, including other governments, private donors and businesses to invest in the city’s eco-transformation.

Roberston points to the old polluting power plant that lights up Vancouver at night and vows it will soon give way to a renewable-energy facility. The mayor convincingly walks his talk — his other car is a bicycle, and he likes to spend weekends with his wife and teenage kids in an off-the-grid cabin without a driveable road on nearby Cortes Island.

In contrast, even the city’s newest luxury hotel, the Loden, is working on a host of environmental initatives and energy-efficiency measures for its 14-story hotel, featuring a curved glass facade designed as an allusion to the nearby ocean waves. The elegantly shaped contemporary green building makes abundant use of glass, natural stone, wood and copper.

So what about health care in Canada? Despite U.S. GOP rhetoric to the contrary, none of the Democratic plans now on the table call for a Canadian-like government-run health care system. But even that would be an improvement over the heath care debacle in the U.S.

Polls suggest Canadians love their health system — they spend about 55 percent of what Americans spend on comparable health care, and they have longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality rates.

Life in Vancouver looks bright — for human and planetary health — and it’s getting brighter all the time.

Allan Hunt Badiner is a writer, activist and editor of three books: Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology; Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics; and Mindfulness in the Marketplace: Compassionate Responses to Consumerism.

Source: http://www.alternet.org/environment/141657/is_vancouver_about_to_become_the_greenest_city_in_the_world/