Tag Archives: Emissions

Government & Business

AB 32: It’s All About the Numbers…or Not

3239422267_691b4f3488_m.jpgWith its legal mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions approximately 30% by 2020, California leads the nation in plans to combat climate change. But unlike Gov. Schwarzenegger and Al Gore, not everyone thinks reaching 80% of current emissions levels in 11 years is a plausible target.

At a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conference this week in San Francisco, Stanford professor Stephen Schneider called the 2020 target “an impossible dream” and argued that setting unrealistic targets such as this one could ultimately hurt the emissions reduction process by reducing credibility, and perhaps, momentum.

Schneider, a member of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment, said that instead of focusing on specific percentages, policymakers should be focused on investing in the right technologies so that by 2020, our economy will be ready and able to handle a sustainable, long-term reduction in emissions.

“We need to get off the numbers and get on (the) investments,” said Schneider. “We’re not going to be credible if we get focused on something that can’t happen.”

Proponents of AB 32, like Google CEO Eric Schmidt, argue that the goals set by California’s 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) will foster clean energy technology–the type of investment that Schneider advocates. No one denies that reaching the 2020 target will be a challenge. And earlier this month California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols seemed to echo Schneider’s sentiments when she told VerdeXchange News that rather than using the AB 32 as a “counting game,” the the goal “is to achieve real transformation in our energy economy.” She cited the requirement that the law be updated every five years, thus leaving room for a mid-course correction down the road.

Read the full Nichols interview here.

Government & Business

A Few Miles Closer to that EPA Waiver

img_1777.JPGContinuing his methodical repudiation of Bush administration policies, President Obama today took California’s long-delayed request to regulate tailpipe emissions off the shelf. The President ordered an immediate review of the state’s request for a waiver to supersede federal requirements with its own, stricter ones.

We should be just as clear about what didn’t happen, however. He did not throw a thunderbolt at the EPA and reverse the previous administration’s denial of said waiver. He essentially told new EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to put it back on top of the stack in her in-box. Jackson had already promised a “speedy review” of California’s request, during questioning at her Senate confirmation hearing. “Speedy” is a relative term, however and the reality is that it will likely be months before we get a final decision.

Though there is little doubt what that decision will be, the President did leave room for the EPA to soften the blow to the destitute auto industry. Automakers claim that the waiver will cost them billions in new investments and add an average of $5,000 to the price of new cars.

There’s a lot on the line for California, which had taken the EPA to court over the waiver. The state’s proposed tailpipe emission standards (known as the Pavley regulations) account for nearly 20% of the hoped-for CO2 reductions in the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB-32) and 70% of the attendant economic gains (estimated to be $11 billion).

Some reactions to the White House executive order today…

From the Governor:

“With this announcement from President Obama less than a week into his administration, it is clear that California and the environment now have a strong ally in the White House. Allowing California and other states to aggressively reduce their own harmful vehicle tailpipe emissions would be a historic win for clean air and for millions of Americans who want more fuel-efficient, environmentally-friendly cars.”

From Bernadette del Chiaro, Environment California:

“After being stuck in reverse for eight years when it comes to clean energy and global warming policy, President Obama has taken America from 0 to 60 in six days. From here on, science and not special interests will be in the driver’s seat in America.”

 You get the idea. It was high fives all around and a cavalcade of automotive metaphors in Sacramento today.

 

 

Government & Business

Green Index a Green Light for California Economy?

ggheadlands.jpgA new study from the privately funded think tank Next 10 will be released today, making the case for an economic revival based on giving the state and the nation a “green” overhaul. The study includes the latest reading in Next 10’s California Green Innovation Index, begun a year ago.

Next 10 is essentially using California as a case study, showing that you can have it both ways; growing and greening at the same time (the same argument advanced by President Obama and Al Gore, among others), and that other states can choose to follow California’s lead. According to the report, California’s “energy productivity” is 68% higher than the nation as a whole. Next 10 defines energy productivity as the total economic growth produced per unit of energy.

Much of the story is told in one especially interesting graph (p. 14 of the report), which shows diverging trend lines for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and GDP (gross domestic product, by which they really mean gross state product). The graph shows that since 1990, GHG emissions, measured per capita, have dropped, despite a fairly steady rise in GDP.

Next 10 interprets that divergence to mean that emissions need not be linked to prosperity. By extension, they’re also saying that prosperity and energy efficiency do go hand-in-hand. Next 10’s economists argue that a good chunk of those economic gains came from energy savings, as the state became more efficient.

There are some flashing yellow lights in the report. For instance, while Calfornians have been able to reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita, total miles keep rising with the growing population. Reducing vehicle miles is one of the most effective (and challenging) ways of reducing GHG emissions. The newly passed anti-sprawl legislation (SB-375) aims to reverse–or at least slow–this trend.

Loaded to the gunwales with  wonky goodies, the report is more a rear-view mirror than a predictive tool. When I reminded Next 10’s lead economist Doug Henton of the old investment caveat, “Past performance is not an indicator of future returns,” he said he sees no reason to think that California’s energy productivity curve is topping out, i.e. reaching that “point of diminishing returns” that they teach you in Econ 101. He cites a record $3.3 billion in venture capital for related technologies last year.

Government & Business

California Lobbies for Early Action on EPA Waiver

cars.jpgWasting no time, California officials sent letters to the Obama Administration on its first day, asking that the EPA approve the state’s request for a Clean Air Act waiver, which would allow California to set stricter standards for passenger vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

As Sasha Khokha recently reported for The California Report, Sacramento requested the waiver from the EPA in 2005, only to see it denied in March 2008, a move that has blocked the state from enforcing its own laws designed to reduce tailpipe emissions.  The state has been fighting for the waiver for the last year along with several other states that have adopted the same regulations.

If granted, the waiver would allow California to take steps to reduce emissions from passenger cars 30 percent by 2016.

In his written appeal, Gov. Schwarzenegger asked that President Obama “direct the EPA to act promptly and favorably on California’s reconsideration request so that we may continue the critical work of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and their impact on global climate change.”

California Air Resources Board chair Mary Nichols also spoke out Wednesday, in a letter to the new designated EPA head Lisa Jackson, stating that “the decision made by the former adminstrator to deny  California the waiver to enforce our clean air car laws was flawed, factually and legally, in fundamental ways.”

At her confirmation hearing, Jackson said only that she promised a “speedy review” of California’s waiver issue.

This fact sheet from CARB explains more about California’s emissions standards for cars and the agency’s take on the waiver controversy.

Uncategorized

Two Billion Cars

We already have one billion, worldwide. Transportation researcher Dan Sperling says that stands to double within about a generation, with unthinkable consequences for air quality and climate change.

But it’s his job to think about the unthinkable. Sperling is a founder of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies and a member of the California Air Resources Board. He talks about his new book, Two Billion Cars, on today’s podcast of NPR’s Fresh Air.

Government & Business

National Cap-and-Trade Program Unveiled

2 Comments

California’s largest electric utility joined with a coalition of about 30 other companies and environmental groups today, in taking the wraps off a proposed national climate strategy. After two years of talks, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which includes PG&E, is ready to put its muscle behind it’s Blueprint for Legislative Action, just in time for Inauguration Day.

The program uses a trading program for carbon credits, much like the Western Climate Initiative, a collaboration of several western states and Canadian provinces. The goal is to roll back greenhouse gas emissions to:

> 97%‐102% of 2005 levels by 2012
> 80%‐86% of 2005 levels by 2020
> 58% of 2005 levels by 2030
> 20% of 2005 levels by 2050

While stated a little differently here, the targets reflect what has become the broadly accepted goal of cutting GHGs 80% by 2050.

A thorny question surrounding carbon trading programs is always whether pollution credits will be auctioned off or given away free to major emitters. According to the group’s “blueprint:”

“USCAP recommends that a significant portion of allowances should be initially distributed free to
capped entities and economic sectors particularly disadvantaged by the secondary price effects of a
cap and that free distribution of allowances be phased out over time.”

This would appear to conflict with the stated goals of the Western Climate Initiative, whose representatives have committed (at least verbally) to making companies pay for most credits up front. And yet the USCAP plan carries the endorsement of major environmental organizations, such as The Nature Conservancy and the NRDC, both of which are members.

As one corporate executive put it at the plan’s unveiling, “We simply think you have to give away a significant portion…and then phase them out over time.”

The USCAP plan also offers emitters the chance to buy approved carbon offsets and gives special allowances to companies that have already achieved verifiable reductions in GHG emissions–or plan to do so.

Uncategorized

Bay Area Greenhouse Gases on the Rise

trafficjam_sm.jpgThe Bay Area Air Quality Management District has issued a new inventory of greenhouse gas sources, updating a report issued last year, for “base year 2002.” (Yes, the 2006 report was for 2002–let me know if that’s not confusing enough).

If you thought the heavy hitters were those half-dozen or so big, smelly oil refineries strung out between Richmond and Antioch, guess again. If you’re going for your climate geek merit badge, you’ll know that here in California, at least, the transportation sector is the reigning CO2 champ.

According to the updated report, transportation accounts for about 40% of emissions. Non-farm industrial & commercial emissions (from stationary sources) weigh in at 34%. Amaze your friends! If you take that transportation sector and break it down further, it turns out that cars and light-duty trucks account for almost 64% of those mobile emissions.

Okay, so you know all that. But what jumps out of the report are the projections of emissions through 2029, which the Air District arrived at by blending current levels with projected population and economic growth. The trend is not only upward but steeply upward, from 104 million metric tons (CO2 equivalent) to 128 million by 2020 and 150 million by 2029, an increase of 44% in two decades.

But good gravy, how can that be? Isn’t California “leading the way” in greenhouse gas reductions? Well, yes and no. Henry Hilken, Director of Planning and Research for the district, explained that because most of the state’s aggressive mitigation programs are not yet in place, his number crunchers did not take them into account in their calculations. In other words AB-32, cap-and-trade, the so-called Pavley regulations on tailpipe emissions, the low-carbon fuel standard–none of it is actually happening yet. The projections represent a future based on “business-as-usual.”

That’s likely to change, however. State regulators have been virtually assured that they’ll get the required EPA waiver to put stricter tailpipe regulations in place, shortly after President-elect Obama takes office, to use just one example. For more on this issue, listen to Sasha Khokha’s feature from The California Report, earlier this week. On the other side of the ledger, full implementation of AB-32 remains in question, as the funding mechanism is not fully in place.

How much would the picture change with all those–or even some of those measures in place? Hilken says he hasn’t attempted those calculations. It’s also likely that a long, deep recession could put a kink in the emissions trend. So while you can argue that the numbers in the inventory are a weak predictor of things to come, they are a useful snapshot of where we are–and a sobering assessment of where we’ll end up without an aggressive climate policy.

The Air District report tracks two types of carbon dioxide (CO2), along with methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and a handful of lesser-known gases. The non-CO2 emissions are converted mathematically to “CO2-equivalent” values.

Power

Life After Oil

3116043117_9bdc0bc414_m.jpgScientists at the American Geophysical Union conference made it clear on Wednesday that if peak oil isn’t here now, it’s coming very soon. The US reached its peak in 1971, and according to NASA scientist Warren Wiscombe, most estimates place the global oil production peak between 2000 and 2017. While surely problematic for industry, transportation, and agriculture, could peak oil actually be a good thing from a climate perspective? Burning less oil has got to be good for getting CO2 emissions down, right?

Well, that all depends on what we do.

Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford says that oil is actually only a second tier concern when it comes to climate change because there’s not enough of it left to sustain CO2 levels at dangerous levels for very long. The real impacts will depend on how we replace oil as it disappears.

“Coal is the big bear on the block,” said Caldeira. “As we approach the end of oil, will we choose coal or will we choose low carbon technologies?”

Coal may be cheap and abundant, as the coal lobby would have us know, but replacing oil with coal-derived fuels would actually increase global CO2 emissions, according to Caldeira. Not only is coal a “dirtier” fuel than oil (coal emits more C02 per unit of energy than oil does), but there are also greenhouse gases emitted in the process of liquification.

Caldeira spoke on Wednesday at the AGU conference about his recent study examining what could happen to the climate if we ran out of oil today. He created two scenarios, one where we replace oil with coal, and one where we replace oil with renewables. Both scenarios assume we continue to use coal for the same purposes that we do today.  Under the oil-to-coal scenario, carbon emissions will actually increase, causing global temperatures to rise three years sooner than predicted under the Intergovernmetal Panel on Climate Change’s A2 scenario, increasing by 3.6 degrees F by 2042 instead of 2045. In his second scenario, where oil is replaced with renewables such as wind, solar, and nuclear, however, the same temperature rise would be delayed 11 years, to 2056.

“Addressing the climate problem means addressing the coal problem,” said Caldeira. “Most future climate change will be the result of burning coal in absence of policy.”