Articles by Adam Stein

Two encouraging signs that global climate treaties might be having the intended effect

Although rumors of its death may be exaggerated, the Kyoto Protocol hasn't so far been anyone's idea of a rip-roaring success. The question remains: is the international treaty fundamentally flawed, or is it a fixer-upper that bureaucrats are slowly tweaking into an effective carbon-fighting regulatory framework?

Two pieces of recent evidence boost the fixer-upper view. The first is a report from a prominent research group suggesting that a large part of the European Union's drop in carbon emissions last year are attributable to the cap.

EU emissions dropped by 3 percent in 2008. According to New Carbon Finance, 40 percent of this drop is due to Kyoto. Another 30 percent is due to the recession. Much of the drop came from a switchover from coal to natural gas.

To be sure, this is a modest improvement. The drop itself is small, and natural gas is still a fossil fuel. Nevertheless, this is how a carbon price works: gradual, steady pressure yields incremental movement toward cleaner technologies. The mechanism appears to be sound, and legislators are presently engaged in the political task of making the cap more stringent.

Why the rush to defend this not-so-embattled style of legislation?

Recently the green blogosphere has been engaged in an oddly vigorous defense of command and control style legislation. I'm not sure whether this trendlet grows out of environmentalists' unfortunate habit of ranking and re-ranking and arguing over the ranking of various solutions to climate change; or out of pique that odious people like Charles Krauthammer are pretending to be proponents of carbon pricing; or, as I suspect, out of something else entirely, but I have some good news for supporters of mandates: Both the public and public officials love command and control style legislation.

To be sure, the term "command and control" is pejorative, but no congressperson ever introduced the 2008 Command and Control Environmental Protection Act. Nevertheless, virtually every single piece of environmental legislation ever enacted takes the form of a mandate. From renewable portfolio standards to CAFE to wilderness protection to the quality of our air and water to species protection to waste management to an endless stream of subsidies and tax credits (good, bad, and ugly) -- they don't call it environmental regulation for nothing.

Carbon price volatility is a real issue

Both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were at it this week, flogging stories about how falling carbon prices are threatening clean technology. I've written before about how easy it is to get distracted by carbon prices, which, under cap-and-trade, are more of a symptom of a broader issue, not a cause.

The Journal piece is fairly defensible. The Times piece is fairly hopeless:

Another blow to the sector is the tumbling price of permits for emitting carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. In countries where emitters must buy these permits, like those in the European Union, low prices mean emitters have fewer incentives to make their production process more efficient or move to less greenhouse gas intensive fuels.

Battery makers come begging to Congress

American lithium-ion battery makers, including giants like 3M, are banding together to try to extract a few billion dollars from Congress so they can build a shiny battery manufacturing plant that, for whatever reason, they aren't willing to spend their own money on. This latest handout request is a fairly dubious idea that is nevertheless likely to appeal to a lot of people on grounds of both economic nationalism and a vague aura of environmental goodness.

Whatever you think of the request, though, let's at least all agree not to put up with this:

"We don't want to go from being dependent on Middle East oil to Asian batteries."

- Jeff Depew, chief executive of Imara, a start-up that makes lithium-ion batteries

Oil is a viscous substance, finite in quantity, concentrated in hard-to-reach pockets in certain corners of the globe. These properties allow a relatively small handful of countries to exert some imperfect control over its supply. Batteries differ from oil in just about every important way.*

Depew has an obvious interest in promoting American battery manufacturers. But surely savvy outsiders understand that a competitive, low-cost industry, whether centered in Asia or anywhere else, is good for everyone who needs batteries?

Recently, Andrew Grove, former chairman of Intel Corp., began urging the chip maker to explore whether it could play a role in battery manufacturing. Mr. Grove and others say U.S. companies must step up efforts to produce advanced batteries for the country's car industry or America will end up trading its dependence on foreign petroleum for dependence on foreign-made batteries.

Oh, well. The industry consortium is organized by Jim Greenberger, a lawyer specializing in clean tech. In case you're not scared enough yet of the Asian battery menace, Greenberger spells it out: