Cap and trade can fight global warming--but not this bill, and not now

July 4, 10:13 AMSF Environmental Policy ExaminerThomas Fuller

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Roger Pielke Jr. showed me the numbers that have moved me away from my previous support of the Waxman Markey ACES legislation instituting a cap and trade mechanism for limiting emissions. He was speaking July 1st at Giannini Hall at U.C. Berkeley. The room was full of exactly the type of people you would expect to see at a discussion of energy policy on a beautiful summer evening--serious and intelligent people. When he presented his conclusions, the people from this liberal university in this liberal city had no objections to offer, which makes me feel a bit more comfortable walking away from a position I have held for years. (The first two articles on his presentation are here, here and here.)

I still believe a cap and trade policy can work in the future. I think it can be a valuable tool in our toolbox, although I don't think it can be our only tool. Here's why, according to Pielke, professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and an Associate Fellow at Oxford's Institute for Science, Innovation and Society:

The legislation implies that we would need to 'decarbonize' by 80% by 2050, and by 17% by 2020. Our economy 'naturally' decarbonizes through efficiency improvements, but at a slower rate.

Pielke's calculations, which can be found in his slide presentation from the lecture here, show convincingly that even if we replaced all of our coal consumption (about half of our electricity comes from coal) with the more efficient natural gas, we would still not meet our targeted reductions by 2020, overshooting it by about 10%.

To reach the target by expanding the use of renewable energy (including nuclear), we would have to guarantee a reduction in coal consumption of 40% and double the use of renewables (including nuclear) to the point where they constituted 30% of all energy consumption. We might be able to double the number and energy from windmills. I would be surprised if we cannot double the energy produced from solar. But to move from 124 to 248 nuclear power plants in 10 years (which makes up the lion's share of what we're referring to as renewable) is not going to happen without a draconian imposition of anti-NIMBY legislation. The same is true when speaking of redoubling the energy we get from hydro-electric power, considering protection schemes for salmon in the Northwest, and other environmental concerns elsewhere.

To get the same energy from wind and solar only, Pielke says their use would have to be multplied by 40 times current production. Again, absent a huge investment program and new laws permitting the siting of these very large plants (windmill farms and solar arrays take up surprisingly large amounts of space), it just isn't going to happen.

Increasing efficiency might help, but if we rely on this alone to reach our goals, we would have to become so efficient that we would return to consumption levels last seen in 1992, when our economy was one-third smaller.

For the world to stabilize emissions at a rate estimated to stabilize temperature increases at 2 degrees Celsius, we would have to add one large emission free power plant every day for the next 50 years.

King Canute is unjustly ridiculed for ordering the tides not to advance (He was actually teasing advisors who were recommending impossible legislation). But passing a law requiring the impossible is not going to make it happen, especially if the law has get-out clauses and loopholes meaning that there are no penalties or rewards.

But as Pielke noted, putting our emissions policy in one basket and then cutting holes in the basket as it is woven is completely backwards. The better policy is to fund research in a variety of sectors, identify the most promising, create a strategic investment plan--and then and only then to reconvene and create a cap and trade (and/or a carbon tax) that pushes an already identified path for success with rewards and penalties.

This is how it has worked for advancing human life, human health, the Green Revolution, and even our approach to the Cold War. It could work as a strategy to combat global warming, especially if, as Pielke noted, we adopt the Japanese practice of forcing companies (and organisations) to become as efficient as the industry leader. Sadly, the end result of Waxman Markey is not going to reduce either CO2 emissions or global warming. It may make Democrats feel good, but that's not enough.

Back to the drawing board.