Former Greenpeace Co-Founder Exposes 'Pop-Environmentalism' as the Root of Climate Change Hysteria, While Calmly Discussing Virtues of Nuclear Energy

http://www.newsweek.com/id/131753

A Renegade Against Greenpeace: Why he says they're wrong to view nuclear energy as 'evil'


Fareed Zakaria


NEWSWEEK


Apr 12, 2008


Patrick Moore is a critic of the environmental movement—an unlikely one at that. He was one of the cofounders of Greenpeace, and sailed into the Aleutian Islands on the organization's inaugural mission in 1971, to protest U.S. nuclear tests taking place there.


After leading the group for 15 years he left abruptly, and, in a controversial reversal, has become an outspoken advocate of some of the environmental movement's most detested causes, chief among them nuclear energy.


NEWSWEEK's Fareed Zakaria spoke to Moore about his sparring with the green movement, and why he thinks nuclear power is the energy of the future.


Excerpts:


ZAKARIA: At Greenpeace, you fought against nuclear energy. What changed?


MOORE: My belief, in retrospect, is that because we were so focused on the destructive aspect of nuclear technology and nuclear war, we made the mistake of lumping nuclear energy in with nuclear weapons, as if all things nuclear were evil. And indeed today, Greenpeace still uses the word "evil" to describe nuclear energy. I think that's as big a mistake as if you lumped nuclear medicine in with nuclear weapons. Nuclear medicine uses radioactive isotopes to successfully treat millions of people every year, and those isotopes are all produced in nuclear reactors.

That's why I left Greenpeace: I could see that my fellow directors, none of whom had any science education, were starting to deal with issues around chemicals and biology and genetics, which they had no formal training in, and they were taking the organization into what I call "pop environmentalism," which uses sensationalism, misinformation, fear tactics, etc., to deal with people on an emotional level rather than an intellectual level.


Why do you favor nuclear energy over other non-carbon-based sources of energy?


Other than hydroelectric energy—which I also strongly support—nuclear is the only technology besides fossil fuels available as a large-scale continuous power source, and I mean one you can rely on to be running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Wind and solar energy are intermittent and thus unreliable. How can you run hospitals and factories and schools and even a house on an electricity supply that disappears for three or four days at a time? Wind can play a minor role in reducing the amount of fossil fuels we use, because you can turn the fossil fuels off when the wind is blowing. And solar is completely ridiculous. The cost is so high—California's $3.2 billion in solar subsidies is all just going into Silicon Valley companies and consultants. It's ridiculous.


A number of analyses say that nuclear power isn't cost competitive, and that without government subsidies, there's no real market for it.


That's simply not true. Where the massive government subsidies are is in wind and solar. I know that France, which produces 80 percent of its electricity with nuclear, does not have high energy costs. Sweden, which produces 50 percent of its energy with nuclear and 50 percent with hydro, has very reasonable energy costs. I know that the cost of production of electricity among the 104 nuclear plants operating in the United States is 1.68 cents per kilowatt-hour. That's not including the capital costs, but the cost of production of electricity from nuclear is very low, and competitive with dirty coal. Gas costs three times as much as nuclear, at least. Wind costs five times as much, and solar costs 10 times as much.


What about the issue of nuclear waste?


As is now planned, I'd establish a recycling industry for nuclear fuel, which reduces the amount of waste to less than 10 percent of what it would be without recycling. How many Americans know that 50 percent of the nuclear energy being produced in the U.S. is now coming from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads?


The environmental movement is going on about how terrible it will be if someone does something destructive with these materials. Well, actually the opposite is occurring: all over the world, people are using former nuclear-weapons material for peaceful purposes—swords into plowshares. This constant propaganda about the cost of nuclear energy—that's just activists looking for the right buttons to push, and one of the key buttons to push is to make consumers afraid that their electricity prices will go up if nuclear energy is built. In fact, it's natural gas that is causing [energy] prices to go up.


Don't you worry about proliferation?


You do not need a nuclear reactor to make a nuclear weapon. With centrifuge technology, it is far easier, quicker and cheaper to make a nuclear weapon by enriching uranium directly. No nuclear reactor was involved in making the Hiroshima bomb. You'll never change the fact that there are evil people in the world. The most deaths in combat in the last 20 years have not been caused by nuclear weapons or car bombs or rifles or land mines or any of the usual suspects, but the machete. And yet the machete is the most important tool for farmers in the developing world. Hundreds of millions of people use it to clear their land, to cut their firewood and harvest their crops. Banning the machete is not an option.


Are you optimistic that there will be an aggressive move toward nuclear power in the industrial world, and in particular in the United States?


There are 32 nuclear plants on the drawing boards right now. Last year four applied for their licenses and this year we expect 10 or 11 more. That's just in the United States. There are hundreds of nuclear plants on the drawing boards around the world. This is a completely new thing: the term "'nuclear renaissance" didn't exist three years ago, and now it's a widely known term. Unfortunately, the environmental movement now is the primary obstacle here. If it weren't for their opposition to nuclear energy, there would be a lot fewer coal-fired power plants in the United States and other parts of the world today.

Bully for the UN and its Long Overdue Scrutiny of Funny Money Carbon Dioxide Cap and Trade Emissions Clean Development Schemes!!

Two carbon-market millionaires take a hit as UN clamps down


The Wall Street Journal


April 14, 2008


OXFORD, England -- Marc Stuart and Pedro Moura Costa have become multimillionaires in a booming new market designed to fight global warming.


Now, their empire is under attack.


Their firm, United Kingdom-based EcoSecurities Ltd., helps companies in the industrialized world meet their obligations to pollute less by selling them "credits" that fund clean-air projects in poorer nations. Last year, some $9.4 billion in these credits were traded, up from almost none four years earlier.


The market's anything-goes early days now appear to be ending. United Nations officials who regulate the trade have started questioning scores of proposed projects, from hydroelectric plants in China to wind farms in India. The issue: whether they provide real environmental gains, or are just padding the pockets of middlemen like EcoSecurities.


[Marc Stuart]EcoSecurities' woes are a prime example of how tough it is proving to be to launch a coordinated world-wide attack on global warming. The carbon-credit industry's growing pains come just as Congress is considering similar pollution-cutting rules targeting U.S. industries.


EcoSecurities is one of the main players in an international market that was created as part of the Kyoto Protocol to combat global warming. A key premise of the system is that, because greenhouse gases damage the atmosphere no matter where they originate, society should attack them first where the cleanup is cheapest, in the developing world. But policing that far-flung market has proved to be tricky because it involves valuing a commodity, climate-warming emissions of gas, that is far less tangible than oil or gold. [Go to map.] See a map with photos and details on some of EcoSecurities' top credit-generating projects world-wide.


The "credits" sold by EcoSecurities and its rivals are supposed to fund clean-air projects in the developing world that otherwise wouldn't get built. But the U.N. is worried that players in the market may be gaming the system by putting a green imprimatur on some projects that would have happened anyway, defeating the intent of the U.N. program.


The tougher U.N. scrutiny is necessary to "ensure the environmental integrity of the system, because otherwise it's not achieving its purpose," says Kai-Uwe Barani Schmidt, the top administrator for the U.N. board that referees this trade.


EcoSecurities is one of the largest and most aggressive of a dozen or so major firms that scour the globe for projects like these, then profit by selling credits to help fund them. The main buyers are companies in Europe and Japan, whose governments have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, a global agreement imposing pollution caps on industrialized nations. Like EcoSecurities, most of the project developers are based in Europe.


[LIKE ECO-SECURITIES, MOST OF THESE COMPANIES, INCLUDING THAT OWNED BY AL GORE GENERATION INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT (GIM), STAND TO PROFIT HANDSOMELY OFF OF ORDINARY CITIZENS AND FROM CORPORATIONS IF THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CAREFULLY SCRUTINIZE SUCH PROGRAMS AS IT IS OBLIGED TO DO]


That business is now in turmoil. Late last year, EcoSecurities said it would fail to deliver one-quarter of the credits it had promised. Its stock has fallen nearly 70% since that write-down -- and 80% since its peak last summer. The firm's two co-founders, Messrs. Stuart and Moura Costa, have lost about $147 million on paper due to the stock's overall decline.


Mr. Stuart acknowledges that his firm, in its race to dominate the field, sometimes pushed the envelope. "The first couple of years, this business was a land grab," he says. But many projects, he says, didn't generate as many credits as originally estimated, leading to last year's big write-down.


[IN OTHER WORDS, THE PUTATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS WERE OVERSTATED AND THE COSTS TO SOCIETY UNDERSTATED]


The firm's approach "was very successful at first, but it did leave a bit of a mess to clean up," says Mr. Stuart, a former Ultimate Frisbee champion at the University of Pennsylvania, who holds a master's degree in environmental law and economics from the London School of Economics. He is frank about the problems the industry faces.


"I guess in some ways it's akin to subprime," says Mr. Stuart, 43 years old, referring to the subprime-debt woes rattling the U.S. economy. "You keep layering on c- until you say, 'We can't do this anymore.'"


Pushing Back


EcoSecurities has helped assemble about 10% of all developing-world projects approved so far by the U.N., more than any other player. Its main rivals include Camco International Ltd., which says it, too, has had projects delayed. Another rival, AgCert International PLC, says the tightening of U.N. rules has contributed to the company's filing for protection from creditors in Ireland, its home country.


EcoSecurities is pushing back. It notes that the vast majority of its projects ultimately get approved. And it argues the U.N. crackdown hurts the environment more than it helps, since it delays clean-air projects and cuts off a funding source. It says regulators have failed to set clear rules -- and now they're changing their standards midstream.


One thorny issue: Who should vouch for the quality of clean-air projects? EcoSecurities says the U.N. scrutiny adds bureaucracy because it duplicates work already done by independent auditors who are hired to vet all projects. The U.N. panel should stick to an "executive and supervisory role," EcoSecurities says.


U.N. officials have questioned whether the auditors have been tough enough. The concern centers on whether auditors, who are hired by project developers, are adequately staffed to police the environmental legitimacy of the swelling number of projects. The auditors strenuously defend the quality of their oversight.


[THIS MEANS THAT THE AUDITORS NEED TO BE AUDITED!]


While that debate rages, EcoSecurities has been busy refocusing on projects less likely to raise red flags. For instance, it is shifting to projects to curb secondary greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide, produced in obscure industrial processes like nylon making. The problem, as EcoSecurities executives point out, is that targeting secondary gases does nothing to combat fossil-fuel use, which according to the U.N. is the primary man-made contributor to global warming.


[MORE SMOKE AND MIRRORS]


The situation is "extraordinarily frustrating," Mr. Stuart says.


The trade in developing-world credits results from a provision of the Kyoto Protocol called the Clean Development Mechanism. A 10-member U.N. board vets proposed projects to ensure their environmental legitimacy. The independent auditors accredited by the U.N. act as the board's field inspectors, traveling the globe to certify whether a project is up to snuff.


Each credit is essentially a permission slip to emit one ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Currently these credits sell for $16 to $24 apiece.


EcoSecurities went public in late 2005 and was an immediate market darling. Mr. Moura Costa, 44, a Brazilian forestry expert living in Oxford, recalls that by early 2006 he was telling the firm's lawyers to ink contracts for new projects at the rate of one per working day. "It was a madhouse," he says.


Permissive Board


Over the next 18 months, EcoSecurities contracted more than 200 additional projects around the world -- from Nicaragua to Inner Mongolia -- promising tens of millions of emission credits. Its stock price nearly tripled. Messrs. Stuart and Moura Costa became multimillionaires on paper.


EcoSecurities' rise coincided with a permissive U.N. board. In 2004 and 2005, the board automatically approved 95% of the projects proposed to it, according to U.N. statistics. [A Leader Stumbles]


Mr. Schmidt of the U.N. says the board was thinly staffed at the time. By its current standards, he says, some proposals "probably went through without" proper scrutiny.


In mid-2006, there was an early hint that regulators were toughening their stance. The issue: manure.


[DO THEY MEAN MANURE AS A NOUN OR AN ADJECTIVE?]


Decomposing manure at farms emits methane, a greenhouse gas. The projects involve placing a tarp over the manure to capture and dispose of the rising gas. EcoSecurities expected at least 10% of its credits to come from projects like these.


But in 2006 the U.N. tightened its rules, requiring animal farms to measure the amount of methane they were capturing rather than simply estimating the number based on a formula -- and use the lower number. That move slashed by more than one-third the number of credits a typical animal-waste project would produce for sale.


[SIMPLE ESTIMATES ARE LIKELY TO PRODUCE INCORRECT DATA]


Suddenly, the projects no longer made economic sense, Mr. Moura Costa says. EcoSecurities canceled most of them, erasing about $100 million in potential profit.


Still, investors remained impressed with the company, because it continued to grow. Last July, with the stock near its peak, Mr. Stuart sold 2.2 million shares for about £8 million, or about $16 million, and Mr. Moura Costa sold 1.3 million shares for about £5 million as part of a secondary offering, according to financial filings. The two men remain the biggest shareholders with a 20% stake between them.


Having money was a big change for the two men, Mr. Stuart says, recalling that when EcoSecurities was young he routinely charged up thousands of dollars of debt on his credit card to help keep it operating. After the stock sale, Mr. Stuart traded his 1994 Mercury Sable for a $55,000 black Lexus hybrid sedan.


Around then, the U.N.'s crackdown started in earnest. The U.N. staff zeroed in on projects they had reason to believe might be financially viable even without revenue from the sale of credits.


Last year, the U.N. board gave automatic approval to only 57% of proposed projects, down from 95% in 2004 and 2005. Overall, it rejected 9% of proposed projects last year, more than double its rejection rate in 2006.


One of the proposals blocked was an EcoSecurities project at a grain-processing plant in Uberlandia, Brazil, to replace oil-fired boilers with one using renewable energy like scrap wood. The U.N. said EcoSecurities hadn't proved that it needed revenue from selling credits to make economic sense.


EcoSecurities wasn't surprised the project got shot down: The company's own calculations showed that replacing the boilers made marginal economic sense even without the sale of credits.


The project "was in the gray zone" of the rules, Mr. Stuart says. He likens the U.N. panel to the Internal Revenue Service: "You push things as hard as you can, within what you think are reasonable guidelines. But every now and then the IRS will push you back."


[ANYTHING GOES THAT CAN BE GOTTEN AWAY WITH!! CLIMATE CHANGE CHICANERY]


Value Judgment


The U.N.'s Mr. Schmidt says it doesn't surprise him that borderline projects like these get submitted. "If I were not to expect such behavior, I would be living in the wrong world," he says. Nevertheless, he says, "I don't see this particular case as trying to cheat."


[IS MR. SCHMIDT KIDDING? 'BORDERLINE' PROJECTS?? NOT TRYING TO CHEAT??]


Determining whether or not a project needs carbon-credit revenue is "a value judgment," he says. "It is one of the biggest challenges" of the carbon trade.


[SUBJECTIVE VALUE JUDGMENTS SERVE AS BASIS FOR ADJUDGING CLEAN DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS ECONOMICALLY VIABLE??? NO OBJECTIVE BENCHMARK STANDARDS?? DOESN'T THIS OPEN UP THE DOOR TO FRAUDULENT ACTIVITY???]


Mr. Schmidt, who has known Messrs. Stuart and Moura Costa for more than a decade, says he respects the company. "We have a very good relationship," he says. "We also know we have certain roles to play."


[IS MR. SCHMIDT TRYING TO COVER HIS TAIL (ENGAGING IN 'CYA') BECAUSE OF HIS INSIDER RELATIONSHIP WITH MESSRS. STUART AND MOURA COSTA AT ECO-SECURITIES???]


U.N. officials acknowledge that calculating whether a project can be economically viable without carbon-credit revenue is subjective. For instance, the calculus can swing widely based on whether oil prices surge, or fall. Similarly, it involves guesstimates of how long a project -- whether a hydroelectric generator or methane-recapture effort -- will remain operable.


EcoSecurities has more than 100 projects approved by the U.N., and only a handful rejected. But many of its proposed projects now are being held up by the U.N. for review. That's bad news for EcoSecurities because it delays its ability to start selling credits. The company originally operated on the assumption that U.N. approvals would take two months, on average. But now they're taking an average of nine months.


Obsessed with Detail


Starting last year, the regulators were "getting more and more obsessed with detail," raising questions that weren't relevant to projects' environmental integrity, Mr. Moura Costa recalls. He and other EcoSecurities executives expressed frustration to U.N. officials. The company's message, he says: "This is ridiculous."


[SORRY, BUT YOU MUST ACCOUNT! BUT WHO WILL INDEPENDENTLY OVERSEE /AUDIT THE UN COMMITTEE HERE?? SHOULD THE U.S. GOVERNMENT APPOINT A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR??]


Last fall, concern about the U.N.'s more activist role boiled over at EcoSecurities' headquarters here in Oxford. The company uses a computer database it calls "Carbo" to monitor the rate at which its projects produce credits. As the U.N. clamped down, Carbo's "siren was going off," Mr. Stuart recalls.


In October, EcoSecurities executives gathered in the boardroom to confront a striking reality: In the space of months, the entire landscape of their industry had changed. Poring over their biggest projects, they debated how much of their business would need to be simply written off.


A big write-down "would have significant consequences to the company," Mr. Moura Costa recalls warning.


[A HUGE WRITE-DOWN WILL EXPOSE THE COMPANY FOR WHAT IT REALLY IS - A FRAUD AND OPPORTUNIST!]


Ultimately, on Nov. 6, the company announced its write-off of 23% of the credits it had promised to deliver. Its stock fell 47% that day.


Since then, the stock has fallen further. It closed Friday on the London Stock Exchange's AIM at 84 pence, giving it a market capitalization of £94.9 million.


Last month, EcoSecurities, which has 300 employees in 30 offices world-wide, reported a widened loss for last year of €45 million on revenue of €7.2 million.


EcoSecurities' largest shareholder, other than the two founders, is banking giant Credit Suisse, which bought an approximately 9% stake last summer when the stock was near its peak. Since then, Credit Suisse has lost two-thirds of its $60 million investment.


"We don't believe the market is valuing the stock fairly," says Paul Ezekiel, who heads Credit Suisse's carbon business and who sits on EcoSecurities' board.


SUCH DEFENSIVE STATEMENTS ARE SELF-SERVING, DISINGENUOUS AND A HEDGE AGAINST A FURTHER DEVALUATION OF ITS FINANCIAL INTEREST IN ECO-SECURITIES. FUNNY HOW CREDIT SUISSE'S REINSRUANCE AFFILIATE HAS BEEN OUT IN THE MARKETS SELLING 'CLIMATE RISK MITIGATION SERVICES' SINCE AT LEAST 2003. PERHAPS CREDIT SUISSE OWNS SUCH A POLICY WHICH WILL COVER THIS TYPE OF LOSS??]


Given the lack of clarity in the U.N.'s rules, it's not fair to fault EcoSecurities for trying to maximize the number of credits it produces, he says. "It's like saying the speed limit's going to be between 50 and 90. So do you drive 55 or do you drive 85?"

World Bank Rebuked By Enviros & Some Gov'ts As it Tries to Inject Common Sense and Accountability in Climate Change-Clean Energy Financing Tools

[READERS SHOULD NOT BE PERSUADED BY MEDIA (e.g., NEWSWEEK) ARTICLES, POLITICAL RHETORIC & RELIGIOUS PROPHECIES ABOUT THE COMING CLIMATE CHANGE ARMAGEDDON. IN FACT, THESE STORIES, PLUS THE DRACONIAN CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS CAP & TRADE ('SMOKE & MIRROR') REGULATORY REGIMES NOW BEING TOUTED AS THE ONLY SOLUTION THAT CAN ADDRESS GLOBAL WARMING BY THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION AND BY THE 110TH CONGRESSIONAL MAJORITY CONSTITUTES PERHAPS THE GREATEST ATTEMPTED FRAUD EVER PERPETRATED ON HUMANMANKIND SINCE THE PROPAGANDA OF THE THIRD REICH AND THE MARXIST/SOCIALIST 'PEOPLE'S' REVOLUTION. READERS NEED TO RECOGNIZE THAT IT WILL BE PRIMARILY INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS AND SMALL BUSINESSES WHO/WHICH WILL PAY THE COST OF ENERGY PRICE INCREASES, GOODS AND SERVICES PRICE INCREASES AND GENERAL STANDARD OF LIVING COST INCREASES WITHOUT PROOF THAT ANY ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS ARE PROVIDED. ACTUALLY, THE TRUE WINNERS ARE AL GORE AND OTHER INVESTMENT HOUSES AND REINSURANCE COMPANIES ON WALL STREET AND IN LONDON'S FINANCIAL DISTRICT WHO UNDERWRITE THE CARBON EMISSIONS OFFSET TRADES AND RELATED CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION INSURANCE POLICIES. THESE SCHEMES ARE NO LESS OFFENSIVE TO PEOPLES' COMMON SENSE THAN A REAL ESTATE AGENT TRYING TO SELL CONDOMINIUMS ON THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE]



http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1228263320080412


Financing crucial to next climate change pact: U.N.


Sat Apr 12, 2008 7:04pm EDT


By Louise Egan


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The global fight against climate change after the Kyoto pact expires will fail unless rich countries can come up with creative ways to finance clean development by poorer nations, a U.N. official said on Saturday.


"We are not going to see that major developing country engagement unless significant financial resources and technology flows begin to be mobilized," Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said in a media briefing.


De Boer and Katherine Sierra, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development, said they were studying a long list of financing schemes and proposals and were hopeful of meeting an end-2009 deadline.


But they were acutely aware of critics who have expressed fears the World Bank will "hijack" billions of dollars of development aid to tackle climate change.


"The overriding concern of developing countries is economic growth and poverty eradication and you cannot expect developing countries to engage on the question of climate change and harm those overriding objectives," De Boer said.


"At the heart of this is intelligent financial engineering," he said.


World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in a speech on Thursday that "addressing climate change won't work if it is simply seen as a rich man's club."


The first formal talks to draw up a replacement to the Kyoto climate change pact, which ends in 2012, took place in Bangkok earlier this month with plans for another seven rounds of negotiations culminating in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.


U.N. climate experts want the new treaty to go beyond Kyoto by getting all countries to agree to curbs on emissions of the greenhouse gases that are fueling global warming.


Under Kyoto, only 37 rich nations are bound to cut emissions by an average of five percent from 1990 levels by 2012.


But developing countries want firm commitments of aid to meet the new targets that will eventually be set out.


The international carbon market is one source of funding but it is not enough, said De Boer who said he was very interested in a German proposal to auction emission rights and use the proceeds for international aid.


"That is a very interesting way of mobilizing new financial resources that are not related to official development assistance," he said.


The World Bank is developing a new strategy on climate change that includes embedding climate change into its existing programs to help countries boost their economies and combat poverty, said Sierra.


She said the bank would meet with donors over the next several days to discuss its proposals, including a $5-10 billion Clean Technology Fund, a $500 million "adaptation" fund and possibly a third fund dealing with forestry.


Zoellick said the needs of developing nations in climate change will be the subject of a Sunday meeting of World Bank officials and ministers from rich and poor countries.


(Reporting by Louise Egan, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSBKK28941120080404


World Bank accused of climate change "hijack"


Fri Apr 4, 2008 5:26am EDT


By Ed Cropley


BANGKOK (Reuters) - Developing countries and environmental groups accused the World Bank on Friday of trying to seize control of the billions of dollars of aid that will be used to tackle climate change in the next four decades.


"The World Bank's foray into climate change has gone down like a lead balloon," Friends of the Earth campaigner Tom Picken said at the end of a major climate change conference in the Thai capital.


"Many countries and civil society have expressed outrage at the World Bank's attempted hijacking of real efforts to fund climate change efforts," he said.


Before they agree to any sort of restrictions on emissions of the greenhouse gases fuelling global warming, poor countries want firm commitments of billions of dollars in aid from their rich counterparts.


The money will be used for everything from flood barriers against rising sea levels to "clean" but costly power stations, an example of the "technology transfer" developing countries say they need to curb emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide.


As well as the obvious arguments about how much money will be needed -- some estimates run into the trillions of dollars by 2050 -- rich and poor countries are struggling even to agree on a bank manager.


At the week-long Bangkok conference, the World Bank pushed its proposals for a $5-10 billion Clean Technology Fund, a $500 million "adaptation" fund and possibly a third fund dealing with forestry.


However, developing countries want climate change cash to be administered through the existing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), which they feel is much less under the control of the Group of 8 (G8) richest countries.


"Generally we have been unpleasantly surprised by the funds," said Ana Maria Kleymeyer, Argentina's lead negotiator at the meeting.


"This is a way for the World Bank and its donor members to get credit back home for putting money into climate change in a way that's not transparent, that doesn't involve developing countries and that ignores the UNFCC process," she said.


[NO, MS. KLEYMEYER: IT IS A WAY TO HOLD CORRUPT GOVERNMENTS LIKE YOURS ACCOUNTABLE FOR HOW THEY SPEND THE MONEY!!]


(Editing by Michael Battye and Alex Richardson)

EPA Must Find CO2 Endangers Public Health Before It Can Regulate Emissions - California & Greenies Misrepresent Law

http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1870.cfm



The EPA's Prudent Response to Massachusetts v. EPA


by Ben Lieberman



Heritage Foundation WebMemo #1870


March 28, 2008


The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Administrator Stephen Johnson deserve praise following the announcement that the agency will respond to the Supreme Court's Massachusetts v. EPA decision by issuing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) on the question of regulating carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles under the Clean Air Act. Taking irreversible steps toward regulating emissions would lead to the imposition of unnecessary costs on the economy, which would be all the more damaging in the current economic climate. An ANPR, which will allow for public comment without committing the agency to a specific outcome, is the best course of action.


[See brief explanation of the USSct's holding in Mass. v. EPA at: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama Call For Large Unspecified National 'Sacrifices' and High Cost Enviro-Energy Use Regulatory 'Changes', at: http://itssdenergysecurity.blogspot.com/2008/03/hillary-clinton-and-barack-obama-call.html ].


Background




In April 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-4 decision against the EPA over its refusal to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from motor vehicles. Notwithstanding assertions to the contrary, Massachusetts v. EPA did not require the agency to change its position; it only required the agency to demonstrate that whatever it chooses to do complies with the requirements of the Clean Air Act. The Court stated that "[w]e need not and do not reach the question whether on remand EPA must make an endangerment finding" and that
"[w]e hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for action or inaction in the statute."



Nonetheless, some people in the environmental activist community, Congress, and the EPA wanted to read the decision as a mandate to begin cracking down on carbon dioxide. But doing so is not required under the law.[1]


[A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF THIS ARE THE STATEMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE BY THE ACTIVIST GROUP ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE. "In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the gases that cause global warming are pollutants under the Clean Air Act. The court also found that the U.S. government has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) and other heat-trapping gases... Although the ruling does not require the federal government to act, it puts new pressure on Congress to set a national policy that caps carbon pollution — the best way to solve this problem. 'This is ultimately up to Congress,' said Environmental Defense President Fred Krupp. "The Court did all it can," he said, "but if we’re really going to fix climate change, Congress must pass a cap on carbon pollution, and soon."
See http://www.edf.org/article.cfm?contentID=5623 ].


ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE WAS JUST ONE OF A NUMBER OF ACTIVIST PLAINTIFFS IN THE MASS. V. EPA CASE. OTHER ACTIVIST GROUPS INCLUDED:

Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental Advocates, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, International Center for Technology Assessment and its affiliate, the Center for Food Safety, National Environmental Trust, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE IS HOW CALIFORNIA'S ATTORNEY GENERAL HAS CREATIVELY INTERPRETED THE U.S. SUPREME COURT'S RULING AND PRESSURED THE EPA TO IMMEDIATELY MAKE A FINAL ENDANGERMENT DETERMINATION WITHOUT ADEQUATE REVIEW AND CONSIDERATION. THE CALIFORNIA RELIES ON INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, WHICH HAPPENS TO BE CHAIRED BY HENRY WAXMAN, A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS NOT UNKNOWN FOR HIS FIERCELY PARTISAN POLITICS: "California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. went to federal court today to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to release a court-mandated determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health or welfare. Such a determination of endangerment is the first step towards establishing federal controls on greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming... On April 2, 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that the EPA must regulate greenhouse gas emissions after making a formal determination that such pollution threatens public health or welfare. The EPA itself described the Court’s mandate as follows: '...the EPA must determine...whether greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution that endangers public health or welfare'...A recent investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform revealed that the EPA had already made its endangerment determination--including an extensive scientific review--and sent it to the White House Office of Management and Budget for final approval. Brown called EPA’s inaction “a textbook case of unreasonable delay” because the agency already completed its endangerment determination last year and is simply refusing to release it publicly. “It is makes absolutely no sense for the EPA to say it needs a year-long public comment period before it can obey the Supreme Court,” Brown said. “The EPA has finished its determination and Johnson should keep his promise by releasing the final version immediately.” See "Brown Takes EPA To Court For Ignoring Supreme Court Mandate", News Alert, Office Of The Attorney General, The State of California (April 2, 2008) at: http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=1540 .]

A Cautious Federal Approach to Regulating Carbon Dioxide

Thus Far Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring component of the air and is created by breathing and other natural processes. It is also the ubiquitous and unavoidable byproduct of fossil fuel combustion, which currently provides 85 percent of America's energy. Thus, any effort to substantially curtail such emissions would have extremely costly and disruptive impacts on the economy and on living standards.

However, that may change over the long term: The Bush Administration is supporting research into carbon-friendly energy technologies as well as means to capture and store carbon emissions underground rather than releasing them into the air. But these efforts will likely take at least 20 years to reach fruition. There are no cost-effective solutions in the interim.

For this reason, the federal government has been extremely cautious about embarking on mandatory carbon reductions over shorter time frames. In 1997, the Senate unanimously resolved to reject any climate change treaty that unduly burdened the U.S. economy or failed to engage all major emitting nations such as China and India. Although the Kyoto Protocol was signed by the U.S. later that year, neither President Bill Clinton nor President George W. Bush ever submitted the treaty to the Senate for the required ratification.

Legislatively, Congress has rejected every attempt to control carbon dioxide emissions, from proposed provisions in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments to ones in the 2005 energy bill. Even the current Congress, with its stated zeal for regulating carbon, has done little since taking power in January 2007. One climate change bill, S. 2191, has been voted out of committee, but its proponents still have a number of hurdles to overcome before it stands a realistic chance before the full Senate. The House has done nothing beyond introducing several bills and holding hearings.

Beyond costs, there are questions about whether these measures would accomplish anything environmentally. Even assuming the worst-case scenarios of man-made warming, these bills would likely reduce it by an amount so small as to be difficult to detect.

Overall, Congress has, quite rightly, recognized the potential pitfalls of ill-advised climate measures and is acting with appropriate caution.

The Clean Air Act: A Regulatory Pandora's Box

It is with this justified caution that the Administration should approach its response to Massachusetts v. EPA. This is especially so given the many shortcomings of the Clean Air Act as an instrument for rationally regulating carbon dioxide emissions—something the statute was not set up to do.

The Clean Air Act is a model of redundancy. Virtually every type of pollutant is regulated by not one but several overlapping provisions. Terms of art like "air pollutant" and "public health" appear throughout the statute, as do a number of non-discretionary duties for the EPA. Thus, any finding that carbon dioxide from motor vehicles is a pollutant that endangers public health or welfare would not only lead to regulations for cars and trucks, but also unleash many additional measures with impacts throughout the economy.

Under the Clean Air Act, once carbon dioxide emissions are regulated from motor vehicles, they must also be controlled from stationary sources under the New Source Review (NSR) program, which applies to all pollutants subject to regulation anywhere in the statute. And given that the threshold for regulation—250 tons per year and in some cases as little as 100 tons per year—is easily met in the case of carbon dioxide emissions, the agency could impose new and onerous NSR requirements heretofore limited to major industrial facilities.

Most emissions regulated under the Clean Air Act are trace compounds measured in parts per billion, so these threshold levels make sense to distinguish de minimis contributors from serious ones. But carbon dioxide occurs at far higher levels (background levels alone account for 275 parts per million), and even relatively small usage of fossil fuels could meet these thresholds. Thus, even the kitchen in a restaurant, the heating system in an apartment building, or the activities associated with running a farm could cause these and other entities—potentially a million or more—to face substantial and unprecedented requirements whenever they are built or modified.

The bottom line: The kind of industrial-strength EPA red tape that routinely imposes hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in compliance costs in a process that can drag on for a year or more could now be imposed for the first time on many commercial buildings, farms, and all but the smallest of businesses. Not only would the costs and delays hamper the private sector, but the paperwork would do the same to federal and state environmental regulators, drawing resources away from more useful endeavors.

Even if the EPA attempts to limit the impact to motor vehicles, it will be hit with a number of lawsuits from environmental organizations trying to force an expansion of its carbon dioxide restrictions. In addition to NSR, the language used to regulate carbon dioxide from motor vehicles could also qualify it as a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS), and a lawsuit seeking to do so would be inevitable. If carbon dioxide becomes a NAAQS, it would trigger requirements that could be met only by severely curtailing economic activity. Other Clean Air Act regulations could also be unleashed—and all of this without congressional approval.
In effect, initiating carbon dioxide restrictions for motor vehicles would lead to a regulatory scheme far more extensive than those Congress has wisely rejected. The economic impacts, unintended consequences, and public anger could be unprecedented. It would leave a highly unfortunate legacy for this Administration; indeed, the cost of this de facto tax increase on businesses and consumers would undo the benefits of the Bush tax cuts and then some.

Conclusion

A wave of costly new regulations is the last thing the economy needs. An ANPR is the best option at this time. It will allow for comment on the economic implications of various options open to the EPA for regulating motor vehicles and on other critical issues, such as the impact of the recently passed Energy Independence and Security Act.

EPA's announcement is entirely consistent with the Supreme Court's decision, which neither set a deadline for the agency to act nor required it to undertake a particular course of action. The EPA is to be applauded for taking the most sensible course of action.

Ben Lieberman is Senior Policy Analyst for Energy and Environment in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

[1] Edwin Meese III et al., Heritage Memorandum, "Possible EPA Regulation of Carbon Dioxide Emissions," December 13, 2007, pp. 3–4.