http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/01/opinion/01tue1.html
New York Times
January 1, 2008
Editorial: In Office
The One Environmental Issue
The overriding environmental issue of these times is the warming of the planet. The Democratic hopefuls in the 2008 campaign are fully engaged, calling for large — if still unquantified — national sacrifices and for a transformation in the way the country produces and uses energy. The Republicans do not go much further than conceding that climate change could be a problem and, with the notable exception of John McCain, offer no comprehensive solutions.
In 2000, when Al Gore could have made warming a signature issue in his presidential campaign, his advisers persuaded him that it was too complicated and forbidding an issue to sell to ordinary voters. For similar reasons, John Kerry’s ambitious ideas for addressing climate change and reducing the country’s dependence on foreign oil never advanced much beyond his Web site.
Times have certainly changed. It is not yet clear to what extent Americans are willing to grapple with the implications of any serious strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: more specifically, whether they are ready to pay higher prices for energy and change their lifestyles to reduce their consumption of fossil fuels.
Polls suggest, however, that voters are increasingly alarmed, and for that Mr. Gore is partly responsible. His film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” raised the issue’s profile. Then came four reports from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore, predicting catastrophic changes in weather patterns, sea levels and food production unless greenhouses gases can be quickly stabilized and then reduced by as much as 80 percent by midcentury.
There is also a growing appetite for decisive action — everywhere, it seems, except the White House. Governors in more than two dozen states are fashioning regional agreements to lower greenhouse gases, the federal courts have ordered the executive branch to begin regulating these gases, and the Senate has begun work on a bipartisan bill that would reduce emissions by nearly 65 percent by 2050.
[THIS IS PATENTLY FALSE - RATHER, THE U.S. SUPREME COURT ORDERED, IN MASSACHUSETTS V. EPA, WHICH WAS DECIDED APRIL 2, 2007, THAT
(http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-1120.pdf) "BECAUSE GREENHOUSE GASES FIT WELL WITHIN THE [CLEAN AIR] ACT'S CAPACIOUS DEFINITION OF 'AIR POLLUTANT', THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY MUST EVALUTE WHETHER GREENHOUSE GASES, SUCH AS CARBON DIOXIDE, "CAUSE[] OR CONTRIBUTE[] TO AIR POLLUTION WHICH MAY REASONABLY BE ANTICIPATED TO 'ENDANGER' PUBLIC HEALTH OR WELFARE", WITHIN THE MEANING OF SECTION 7601(a)(1) OF THE FEDERAL CLEAN AIR ACT. THE SUPREME COURT DID NOT REQUIRE THE EPA TO REGULATE CARBON DIOXIDE AS MANY ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST GROUPS HAVE FALSELY CLAIMED. "WHILE THE STATUTE [CLEAN AIR ACT] CONDITIONS EPA ACTION ON ITS FORMATION OF A 'JUDGMENT', THAT JUDGMENT MUST RELATED TO WHETHER AN AIR POLLUTANT 'CAUSES[S], OR CONTRIBUTE[S] TO, AIR POLLUTION WHICH MAY REASONABLY BE ANTICIPATED TO ENDANGER PUBLIC HEALTH OR WELFARE'." §7601(a)(1). UNDER THE ACT'S CLEAR TERMS, EPA CAN AVOID PROMULGATING REGULATIONS ONLY IF IT DETERMINES THAT GREENHOUSE GASES DO NOT CONTRIBUTE TO CLIMATE CHANGE OR IF IT PROVIDES SOME REASONABLE EXPLANATION AS TO WHY IT CANNOT OR WILL NOT EXERCISE ITS DISCRETION TO DETERMINE WHETHER THEY DO."]
Still, the country is a long way from a comprehensive response equal to the challenge. That is what the Democratic candidates are proposing. Senators Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, former Senator John Edwards, Gov. Bill Richardson and Representative Dennis Kucinich have all offered aggressive plans that would go beyond the Senate bill and reduce emissions by 80 percent by midcentury (90 percent in Mr. Richardson’s case), much as called for in the United Nations reports.
These plans would rest primarily on a cap-and-trade scheme that imposes a gradually declining ceiling on emissions and allows power plants, refineries and other emitters to figure out the cheapest way to meet their quotas — either by reducing emissions on their own or by purchasing credits from more efficient producers. The idea is to give companies a clear financial incentive to invest in the new technologies and efficiencies required to create a more carbon-free economy.
[THE USE OF EMISSIONS CAP & TRADE REGIMES ARE QUITE EXPENSIVE TO THE PUBLIC (CONSUMERS) AND CANNOT ENSURE THAT ACTUAL EMISSIONS OF CARBON DIOXIDE INTO THE ENVIRONMENT ARE INDEED REDUCED, SINCE A CAP & TRADE REGIME SIMPLY INVOLVES ONLY 'PAPER ACCOUNTING ENTRIES' THAT REFLECT 'OFFSETS' OF FICTITIOUS CARBON CREDITS CALCULATED IN RELATIONSHIP TO A REGULATORY LIMIT, WITH ACTUAL CALCULATED EMISSIONS. THE CANDIDATES' CAP & TRADE PLANS DO NOT SPECIFY HOW SUCH CALCULATIONS CAN AND WILL BE VERIFIED. ONE NEED ONLY LOOK TO THE SELF-ADMITTED FAILURE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION'S CARBON DIOXIDE CAP & TRADE SYSTEM]
None of the Democrats trust the market to do the job by itself. All would make major investments in cleaner fuels and delivery systems, including coal-fired power plants capable of capturing carbon emissions and storing them underground. Every Democrat except Mr. Kucinich says that carbon-free nuclear power has to be part of the mix, although all are careful to say that safety issues and other concerns must first be resolved.
Internationally, the Democrats say they would seek a new global accord on reducing emissions to replace and improve upon the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Winning agreement among more than 180 nations will be slow-going, so several candidates, including Mrs. Clinton, have suggested jump-starting the process by bringing together the big emitters like China very early in their administrations. China and the United States together produce about 40 percent of the world’s total emissions and neither has agreed to binding reductions.
The only Republican candidate who comes close to the Democrats with a plan for addressing climate change is John McCain, one of the authentic pioneers on the issue in the Senate. In 2003, along with Joseph Lieberman, Mr. McCain introduced the first Senate bill aimed at mandatory economy-wide reductions in emissions of 65 percent by midcentury. He also regularly addresses the subject on the campaign trail.
The other leading Republican candidates — Mitt Romney, Rudolph Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee — talk about energy issues almost exclusively in the context of freeing America from its dependence on foreign oil. All promote nuclear power, embrace energy efficiency and promise greener technologies. Only Mr. Huckabee has dared raise the idea of government regulation, embracing, at least theoretically, the idea of a mandatory cap on emissions. The rest prefer President Bush’s cost-free and demonstrably inadequate voluntary approach, which essentially asks industry to do what it can to reduce emissions.
So far, the Democratic candidates seem more engaged with the issue than some of their interrogators in the news media. In a recent study, the League of Conservation Voters found that as of two weeks ago, the five main political talk-show hosts had collectively asked 2,275 questions of candidates in both parties. Only 24 of the questions even touched on climate change.
One result is that even the candidates who urge comprehensive change have not been pressed on important questions of cost: How do they intend to pay for all the new efficiencies and technologies that will be necessary? And what kind of sacrifices will they be asking of people who almost certainly will have to pay more for their electric bills and their greener cars?
[THESE ARE EXCELLENT QUESTIONS THAT DESERVE HONEST ANSWERS, WHICH HAVE NOT YET BEEN FORTHCOMING]
Addressing these questions will require more courage of the candidates than simply offering up broad new visions. The voters deserve an honest accounting and the candidates should be prepared to give it.
Showing posts with label carbon offsets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label carbon offsets. Show all posts
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
EU Commission Cited For Inherent Carbon Energy Policy Flaws: Scientists Question Value of Carbon Offsets
http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-change/carbon-offset-schemes-inherently-flawed/article-164715
Carbon-offset schemes 'inherently flawed'
Tuesday 19 June 2007 Updated: Wednesday 11 July 2007
Wouter Buytaert, University of Lancaster
The only long-term solution to climate change is to reduce carbon emissions, not to compensate with carbon-offset schemes, says Wouter Buytaert – Department of Environmental Science, University of Lancaster - in a June article for the Environmental Research Web.
Buytaert claims that carbon-offset schemes are controversial in their own right and deserve a scientific debate of their own. They divert attention from how we reduce our own emissions – and are considered as paying someone else for having reduced their greenhouse-gas emissions, thus buying one's way out of responsibilities, he adds.
Highlighting concerns over the effectiveness of carbon-offset schemes, Buytaert observes that a shortage of verification in the emerging – and lucrative – carbon-credits market, in which there are a plethora of different carbon-reduction projects, means that the impact of such actions can be called into question.
He claims that some practices are inherently flawed, such as preventing the clear-cutting of forests that would be preserved for conservation anyway, or selling credits for cleaner and more efficient production techniques that are introduced for economic reasons.
Other practices fail through insufficient scientific understanding of the system, such as reforestation in developing countries, claims the author. He points out that carbon-offset schemes focus on fast-growing trees, which are non-native and have far lower environmental and biodiversity benefits than native species, and cause severe problems for the water cycle and local water security. In the case of pine, Buytaert suggests that this species' higher water consumption may even result in a net release of carbon into the atmosphere.
Even if such scientific questions are solved, significant concerns remain about the sustainability of carbon pools in forests, insists the author. He claims that organic carbon capture can only continue if both the current forest is maintained, and ever-more area is forested – which is unsustainable in the long term.
Buytaert concludes that finding new ways to decrease greenhouse-gas emissions is a major scientific challenge that merits the full attention of society.
http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/opinion/30246
Jun 12, 2007
Carbon offset schemes are of questionable value
At this year's European Geosciences Union (EGU) meeting, we challenged the scientific community to think about the carbon footprint of academic travel. This action resulted in a healthy debate about the environmental and social benefit of scientific conferences. One of the recurrent suggestions for concrete action was that the EGU should incorporate the cost of buying carbon credits in the meeting registration fee. The idea is to offset the carbon emissions of the event, including travel, and so to make the conference carbon neutral. However, carbon offset schemes are controversial in their own right and may be worth a scientific debate of their own. Here I highlight some reasons why we should be cautious.
A first concern is the effectiveness of carbon offset schemes. Increasing environmental awareness among companies and individuals has sparked an emerging and lucrative market in carbon credits based on a plethora of carbon reduction projects. But due to a shortage of verification, the impact of these actions may be questioned. Some practices are inherently flawed, such as preventing clearcutting of forests that would be preserved for conservation anyway, or selling credits for cleaner and more efficient production techniques that are introduced for economic reasons. Other practices fail because of insufficient scientific understanding of the system.
For instance, (re)forestation in developing countries is one of the most popular offset schemes. Forests are a convenient method of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon. There are also several positive side effects. Many forests, in particular where native species are used, are a breeding ground for biodiversity. Forests may be planted on degraded areas and reduce erosion, and they may also provide a sustainable source of firewood and other environmental services for local inhabitants.
But there are negative side effects too. Carbon offset schemes tend to focus on fast-growing trees, such as eucalyptus and pine, which are non-native and have a far lower environmental and biodiversity benefit than native species. Tree plantations also tend to consume more water than grasses and shrubs. On a global scale, tree plantations decrease streamflow by about 200 mm per year (roughly 50%). This may have serious impacts on the local water cycle. For instance, extensive parts of the Andean páramo have been forested with pine for carbon sequestration purposes. The páramo is an ecosystem that consists of extensive grasslands in the upper parts of the tropical Andes, and stores vast amounts of water in its soils, swamps and lakes. It provides many environmental functions, but the most important is water supply for the highland area, including major cities such as Bogotá, Columbia, and Quito, Ecuador. Forestation with pine reduces streamflow by about 70%. Since most of this reduction affects low flow conditions, the consequences for local water security are serious.
What's more, the higher water consumption of pine may even result in a net carbon release to the atmosphere. Páramo wetlands store high amounts of organic carbon. This accumulation of organic matter is strongly linked to water saturation of the soils for large periods of the year. Dessication of the soils after forestation induces faster organic matter decomposition, which may offset carbon storage in the biomass above-ground. In Indonesia, the conversion of peat bogs into oil palm plantations has had similar effects.
Forestation activities in the Andes now focus more on biodiversity and use indigenous species such as Polylepis. However, there is no scientific consensus about the historical vegetation patterns of the páramo. What is considered reforestation may well be forestation of valuable and original grassland ecosystems. And since the impact of those forests on the local water cycle is not well understood, care should be taken not to disrupt a delicate and valuable hydrological system.
Even if such scientific questions are solved, significant concerns remain about the sustainability of carbon pools in forests. Forests capture most carbon early in their life cycle. The biomass of a mature forest is nearly stable, and organic carbon capture can only be maintained if carbon is transferred to another sink, such as the soil. As this is not always the case, organic carbon capture can only continue if both the current forest is maintained and ever more area is forested. Although this may seem preferable from an environmentalist viewpoint, it is not sustainable in the long term.
This lack of sustainability points to the essence of the problem. Our current carbon footprint is too high, and the only long-term solution is to reduce carbon emissions, not to compensate them by carbon offset schemes. This is also why carbon offset schemes are opposed from an ethical viewpoint. They are considered as paying someone else for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and, as such, buying your way out of responsibility. And the schemes may distract attention from the real problem of how we reduce our own emissions. This is a double challenge for scientists. Finding new ways to decrease our society's greenhouse gas emissions is a major scientific challenge that merits our full attention. Considering whether the scientific value of a trip to the other end of the world outweighs the use of resources and the carbon footprint is a much more personal challenge.
About the author
Wouter Buytaert is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Environmental Science at Lancaster University.
Carbon-offset schemes 'inherently flawed'
Tuesday 19 June 2007 Updated: Wednesday 11 July 2007
Wouter Buytaert, University of Lancaster
The only long-term solution to climate change is to reduce carbon emissions, not to compensate with carbon-offset schemes, says Wouter Buytaert – Department of Environmental Science, University of Lancaster - in a June article for the Environmental Research Web.
Buytaert claims that carbon-offset schemes are controversial in their own right and deserve a scientific debate of their own. They divert attention from how we reduce our own emissions – and are considered as paying someone else for having reduced their greenhouse-gas emissions, thus buying one's way out of responsibilities, he adds.
Highlighting concerns over the effectiveness of carbon-offset schemes, Buytaert observes that a shortage of verification in the emerging – and lucrative – carbon-credits market, in which there are a plethora of different carbon-reduction projects, means that the impact of such actions can be called into question.
He claims that some practices are inherently flawed, such as preventing the clear-cutting of forests that would be preserved for conservation anyway, or selling credits for cleaner and more efficient production techniques that are introduced for economic reasons.
Other practices fail through insufficient scientific understanding of the system, such as reforestation in developing countries, claims the author. He points out that carbon-offset schemes focus on fast-growing trees, which are non-native and have far lower environmental and biodiversity benefits than native species, and cause severe problems for the water cycle and local water security. In the case of pine, Buytaert suggests that this species' higher water consumption may even result in a net release of carbon into the atmosphere.
Even if such scientific questions are solved, significant concerns remain about the sustainability of carbon pools in forests, insists the author. He claims that organic carbon capture can only continue if both the current forest is maintained, and ever-more area is forested – which is unsustainable in the long term.
Buytaert concludes that finding new ways to decrease greenhouse-gas emissions is a major scientific challenge that merits the full attention of society.
http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/opinion/30246
Jun 12, 2007
Carbon offset schemes are of questionable value
At this year's European Geosciences Union (EGU) meeting, we challenged the scientific community to think about the carbon footprint of academic travel. This action resulted in a healthy debate about the environmental and social benefit of scientific conferences. One of the recurrent suggestions for concrete action was that the EGU should incorporate the cost of buying carbon credits in the meeting registration fee. The idea is to offset the carbon emissions of the event, including travel, and so to make the conference carbon neutral. However, carbon offset schemes are controversial in their own right and may be worth a scientific debate of their own. Here I highlight some reasons why we should be cautious.
A first concern is the effectiveness of carbon offset schemes. Increasing environmental awareness among companies and individuals has sparked an emerging and lucrative market in carbon credits based on a plethora of carbon reduction projects. But due to a shortage of verification, the impact of these actions may be questioned. Some practices are inherently flawed, such as preventing clearcutting of forests that would be preserved for conservation anyway, or selling credits for cleaner and more efficient production techniques that are introduced for economic reasons. Other practices fail because of insufficient scientific understanding of the system.
For instance, (re)forestation in developing countries is one of the most popular offset schemes. Forests are a convenient method of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon. There are also several positive side effects. Many forests, in particular where native species are used, are a breeding ground for biodiversity. Forests may be planted on degraded areas and reduce erosion, and they may also provide a sustainable source of firewood and other environmental services for local inhabitants.
But there are negative side effects too. Carbon offset schemes tend to focus on fast-growing trees, such as eucalyptus and pine, which are non-native and have a far lower environmental and biodiversity benefit than native species. Tree plantations also tend to consume more water than grasses and shrubs. On a global scale, tree plantations decrease streamflow by about 200 mm per year (roughly 50%). This may have serious impacts on the local water cycle. For instance, extensive parts of the Andean páramo have been forested with pine for carbon sequestration purposes. The páramo is an ecosystem that consists of extensive grasslands in the upper parts of the tropical Andes, and stores vast amounts of water in its soils, swamps and lakes. It provides many environmental functions, but the most important is water supply for the highland area, including major cities such as Bogotá, Columbia, and Quito, Ecuador. Forestation with pine reduces streamflow by about 70%. Since most of this reduction affects low flow conditions, the consequences for local water security are serious.
What's more, the higher water consumption of pine may even result in a net carbon release to the atmosphere. Páramo wetlands store high amounts of organic carbon. This accumulation of organic matter is strongly linked to water saturation of the soils for large periods of the year. Dessication of the soils after forestation induces faster organic matter decomposition, which may offset carbon storage in the biomass above-ground. In Indonesia, the conversion of peat bogs into oil palm plantations has had similar effects.
Forestation activities in the Andes now focus more on biodiversity and use indigenous species such as Polylepis. However, there is no scientific consensus about the historical vegetation patterns of the páramo. What is considered reforestation may well be forestation of valuable and original grassland ecosystems. And since the impact of those forests on the local water cycle is not well understood, care should be taken not to disrupt a delicate and valuable hydrological system.
Even if such scientific questions are solved, significant concerns remain about the sustainability of carbon pools in forests. Forests capture most carbon early in their life cycle. The biomass of a mature forest is nearly stable, and organic carbon capture can only be maintained if carbon is transferred to another sink, such as the soil. As this is not always the case, organic carbon capture can only continue if both the current forest is maintained and ever more area is forested. Although this may seem preferable from an environmentalist viewpoint, it is not sustainable in the long term.
This lack of sustainability points to the essence of the problem. Our current carbon footprint is too high, and the only long-term solution is to reduce carbon emissions, not to compensate them by carbon offset schemes. This is also why carbon offset schemes are opposed from an ethical viewpoint. They are considered as paying someone else for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and, as such, buying your way out of responsibility. And the schemes may distract attention from the real problem of how we reduce our own emissions. This is a double challenge for scientists. Finding new ways to decrease our society's greenhouse gas emissions is a major scientific challenge that merits our full attention. Considering whether the scientific value of a trip to the other end of the world outweighs the use of resources and the carbon footprint is a much more personal challenge.
About the author
Wouter Buytaert is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Environmental Science at Lancaster University.
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