The Daily Score
03/06/2008
The Western Climate Initiative (WCI) is a path-breaking effort. Insufficient federal progress prompted seven states and two provinces to join together to reduce climate pollution by means of an economy-wide cap and trade program. It's a momentous opportunity, and Sightline has been working hard to ensure that it's a success.
Unfortunately, there's now cause for serious concern.
Yesterday evening, WCI released its draft proposal (pdf). It proposes an initial cap that would cover less than half of the region's total emissions. And most surprisingly, WCI does not recommend including emissions from transportation fuels, by far the largest source of climate pollution in the West. [Update 3/7: The recommendation doesn't exclude transportation precisely, but rather defers the decision until further economic studies are completed.]
The proposal is at odds with WCI's own stated principles that include a commitment to cover "as many emissions sources as practical." And for an effort born of frustration with federal lawmakers, it's bizarre that the proposal is significantly smaller in scope than recent federal bills, including Leiberman-Warner.
There are no big technical challenges to including transportation fuels. In fact, the WCI admits that while there are a couple of hurdles, it's administratively feasible to include transportation emissions. So what's going on?
No one knows for sure.
I thought this was clever -- a Cliff Notes version of climate-friendly lifestyle choices. Click the image for the full-sized version.
Nothing groundbreaking here, really, but it's a nice summary. And it's cute!
03/04/2008
Here's a nice success story from Ontario: The Great Refrigerator Roundup. If you have a fridge, freezer, or a/c unit that's older than 10 years, the province will take it off your hands for free. It's no big deal, really, except that free is an attractive price point compared to the headache of transporting your old fridge, plus paying the disposal charges.
The appliances are then recycled and the refrigerants get disposed of properly. But the best part is simply that they're no longer plugged in. That means big electricity savings:
For every 10 - 12 fridges removed, one typical Ontario home is effectively removed from the grid forever... A typical fridge built in1986 uses 1,500 kWh, costing $180 per year, while a new ENERGY STAR® rated fridge will use approximately one-third of the electricity.
As of January, residents had disposed of more than 50,000 appliances this way, which is no surprise given that upgrading to a newer appliance can save so much money. It's a win for the climate too because the program yields substantial energy savings. (For more wins like this, read Alan's excellent blog post: Cap and Caulk.)
Now, just imagine how well a program like the refrigerator roundup could work if it were amped up with some auction revenue from cap and trade program. Most obviously, the revenue could simply pay to operate more programs like this, in more places. But we could go further: putting a bounty on old appliances, so that every appliance turned in would earn a reward -- maybe a $100 coupon toward a new energy-efficient one. Going further still, a sales tax exemption for energy efficient appliances could make a new model even more attractive. (In fact, British Columbia's new budget announces just such an exemption, while a similar proposal has been limping along in Washington's legislature this session.)
Combined, a coupon and a sales tax exemption could shave 25 percent or so off the cost of a basic but efficient new fridge. And that new fridge, of course, will save even more money, maybe $100 or more each year. Sweet.
But we could do even better.
In the wake of the most expensive gas in US history (even after adjusting for inflation), the Tacoma News Tribune has a stellar editorial that makes this point:
High oil and gas prices exact a terrible toll on the low-income. They eat into the grocery budget of those who must drive extensively as part of their livelihoods or education. For rich and poor alike, they drive up inflation both directly and indirectly.
Exactly. But I wish the editorial had gone a little further to spell out what this should mean for public policy. To my way of thinking, it means that it is unwise -- and deeply unfair -- to continue with business as usual for road planning. A transportation strategy that centers on roads, long distance driving, and single occupancy vehicles is like asking for economic pain.
Last weekend, when I filled up my tank, I paid $3.45 for the cheap stuff. And that could turn out to be a bargain. Nowadays, both the public and the experts believe that we may see $4.00 gas by summertime. As I've argued before, the cheapest and fairest thing is to get unhitched from oil now -- before things really get ugly.
Last week I wrote about two studies that cast biofuels production in a worrisome light, and about what that could mean for public policy.
Over at Climate Solutions, researcher Patrick Mazza takes a dim view of the two studies, and a sunnier view of biofuels' potential.
03/03/2008
OK, here's a post that's NOT about cars. Mostly.
As regular readers of this blog know, Eric and I have been obsessing about transportation fuels for months. Why? Well, because cars and trucks are far and away the biggest source of climate-warming emissions in Western US and Canada. As of 2004, for example, transportation represented more than half of all energy-related CO2 emissions in Washington, Oregon, and California -- with cars and light trucks accounting for the lion's share of transportation GHGs. By any measure, our vehicles have an outsized impact.
Yet globally, transportation isn't nearly as big a deal. By one estimate (see chart below), global emissions from cars, trucks, boats, trains, and airplanes accounted for only about 14 percent of worldwide GHG emissons in 2000. Compared with other GHG-emitting sectors, transportation ranked 3rd, behind electric power and industrial emissions.
At risk of blabbing too much about cars -- it struck me this morning that last week's post on vehicle efficiency might have left some people with the wrong impression.
The chart in that post showed that -- despite the rise in gas prices since 1999, the fuel economy of new vehicles hasn't increased all that much in recent years. In the chart (reproduced below), the horizontal axis represents miles per gallon, and the vertical axis shows horsepower, and the yellow arrow shows the passage of time. So... fuel economy of new vehicles increased from 1975 through 1987, but was stagnant or declining from 1988 to 2004 as horsepower skyrocketed. In 2005 and 2006, mpg improved slightly, even as horsepower continued to rise.
Now, I'm sure that some people will take this chart as proof positive that rising fuel prices have no real effect on fuel consumption. However -- and I have to be quite adamant about this -- it's fairly clear that rising prices do, in fact, help to reduce fuel consumption.
02/29/2008
Need weekend reading? Then check out the spring edition of Yes! magazine. It's an excellent read: all about climate and yet somehow not horribly depressing or crushingly boring. That's quite a coup. I like to believe it's due in part to ex-Sightline fundraiser, Madeline Ostrander, who's now the associate editor.
This is the first article you should read. It's by one Anna Fahey, who happens to be Sightline's communications strategist. In a shorter version of this popular blog post, Anna explains why the US may have some catching up to do. Catching up to China, that is.
I'll be on the Seattle Channel this evening at 7:00 (and then a few times next week). The show is City Inside / Out with C.R. Douglas, and the topic is housing affordability, regulation, and growth management -- all topics that are near and dear to my heart.
It's a roundtable discussion with yours truly; Sam Anderson, the executive of the Master Builders Association; and Richard Morrill, a professor emeritus of the University of Washington's Department of Geography.
It's on the web here.
(Sheesh, I need to look at the camera more.)
Maybe I haven't had enough coffee this morning, but the headlines on today's Seattle Times website seemed oddly revealing. Here's a sample:
Should toll roads help fight global warming?
Rabbi who hit, killed pedestrian gets two years deferred
SUV becomes airborne; 2 people injured
Delays ahead with I-90, I-5 roadwork
Crash in Seattle kills father, injures 2 daughters
$4-a-gallon gas? Predictions surprise Bush
Notice a pattern? The thing is, it's no special indictment of the Seattle Times; this morning's headlines are probably a fairly accurate reflection of our collective obsession with cars.
I hope I don't sound smug. I'm no different. I love writing about cars, roads, or fuel, in part because it's these posts that are the most widely read and emailed -- almost without exception.
And when you think about it, there's a good reason for our obsession. Cars are woven into everyday life for most of us. Unfortunately, as the headlines reveal, they are responsible for a large share of our tragedies too.
02/28/2008
I can't let this nifty news go unmentioned -- King County, home to Seattle, Bellevue, and the bulk of Puget Sound's population, is taking the lead in trying to reduce the climate impacts of new development:
King County Executive Ron Sims plans to introduce legislation that would allow the county to reject or modify development projects because of their effect on global warming.
If the proposal is passed by the Metropolitan King County Council, county land-use officials believe King County would be the first jurisdiction in the nation to take that step.
Cool: first in the nation. It's good to see this corner of the continent forging ahead.
We've just posted an opening for a research internship this spring. All the details are here.
UPDATE: The application deadline is March 21.
About a year ago, I was cautiously bullish on British supermarket giant Tesco's pledge to start putting carbon labels on its food. But I think that their progress so far -- which I'll get to in a minute -- suggests an important lesson about the policy risks of treating a fuzzy exercise as if it were completely reliable.
Tesco's idea was that the chain and its suppliers would pay for objective, comprehensive reviews of the greenhouse gas emissions from the foods on the store's shelves. The analyses would cover all major steps in bringing food from farm field to the checkout line -- everything from running farm machinery, to food processing, to transportation, to refrigeration. Then, each item in the store would be labeled with the climate-warming emissions that could be traced to that particular product.
This sort of exercise is called "life cycle analysis," and it's been used for decades, to great effect, to shed light on all sorts of questions: paper vs. plastic (for bags), cloth vs. disposable (for diapers), hybrids vs. hydrogen (for cars), and a host of others.
Last week, a nifty article by Michael Specter in The New Yorker reported on Tesco's progress so far. The results? There's still only one product on the shelves with a carbon label -- a single brand of potato chips, or "crisps" in British parlance.
You see, as it turns out, life cycle analysis can be really, really difficult. And to make matters worse, it may be that the whole enterprise is chock full of uncertainty.
Where carbon is concerned, it can be hard to trust the label.
02/27/2008
This post is part of a series.
True confessions: I love weatherstripping. And programmable thermostats. And insulation—all kinds. Oh, and efficient shower heads with “Navy shower” shut-off valves. And high-efficiency appliances. And waste-water heat recovery systems. You get the idea: I actually enjoy the process of making buildings more energy wise—enjoy as in, “Yippee, it’s Saturday! Where’s my caulk gun?” So today’s topic is especially near to my heart: the role in climate policy of low-income weatherization programs and related efficiency upgrades for working families.
A quick review: climate change is economically unfair by nature; it punishes those least to blame. Auctioned Cap and Trade can counteract this injustice. I’ve already written about two ways to seize this opportunity: distribute the money from the auction of carbon allowances as equal dividend checks to every citizen (“Cap and Share”) or make sure dividends get to low-income families who are hardest hit by rising energy prices (“Cap and Buffer”).
A third option is to invest auction proceeds in energy efficiency in ways that specially benefit working families, by weatherizing homes, for example, or improving the efficiency of household appliances. (Let’s call it “Cap and Caulk.”)
02/26/2008
Last week, when I expressed my concern about biofuels, it generated a lively discussion. But I'd hate for folks to think I'm picking on biofuels. Petroleum can really chap my hide. To wit, check out this new report from Environmental Defence Canada. The title says it all: Canada's Toxic Tar Sands: The Most Destructive Project On Earth (pdf).
I found the title a bit overheated at first, but take a look before you decide. The claim may be debatable, but it's also not mere hyperbole: the tar sands oil extraction very well could be the most destructive project on earth. In fact, it's already yielding catastrophic results for human health, not to mention for a vast swath of North America's ecology. (In any case, I've had the privilege of working on climate policy a bit with one of the authors, Matt Price, and I can attest that he's a smart guy.)
I won't summarize the study here, but just point out that among the many problems with tar sands oil, is that it can only be extracted and processed with very large energy inputs (which means very large carbon emissions):
The main reason is that extracting the oil from the sand is so energy intensive, from the large machines to the natural gas used to melt the bitumen out of the sand. It is estimated that by 2012 the Tar Sands will use as much gas as is needed to heat all the homes in Canada... Using huge amounts of relatively clean burning natural gas in order to produce dirty and carbon heavy oil is what commentators have dubbed “reverse alchemy” – the equivalent of turning gold into lead.
For a long time, it wasn't economical to extract tar sands oil. But now, with high and rising oil prices -- and plenty of demand from Canada's neighbor -- it's starting to pencil out. It's just a shame the accounting doesn't factor in pollution, the cancer risk, the wildlife, the water quality, the air quality, the atmospheric carbon...
You get the idea.
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