The Lieberman-Warner bill is not strong enough to do the job

As a member of both the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee it is my view that the time is long overdue for Congress to go beyond deal making and "politics as usual" in addressing the crisis of global warming. The droughts, floods and severe weather disturbances our planet is already experiencing will only get worse, potentially impacting billions of people, if we do not take bold and decisive action in the very near future.

While the Lieberman-Warner cap and trade bill is a step forward, it goes nowhere near far enough in creating the policies that the scientific community says must be developed if we are to avert a planetary catastrophe. It is also lacking in paving the way for the transformation of our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy technologies. Here are some of my concerns with the Lieberman-Warner bill:

• First, virtually all of the scientific evidence tells us that, at the least, we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050 if we stand a chance to reverse global warming. Lieberman-Warner, under the very best projections, provides a 66 percent reduction.
• Second, this legislation allows major polluters to continue emitting greenhouse gases for free until 2036. In fact, old-fashioned dirty coal burning plants could still be built during this period. That's wrong. The "right to pollute" should not be given away for up to 24 years. Further, in calculating emission reductions, the bill relies much too heavily on "offsets," a process which is difficult to verify and which could significantly undermine the actual emissions caps.
• Third, this bill provides a massive amount of corporate welfare to industries which have been major emitters of greenhouse gasses while requiring minimal performance standards and accountability. According to a report by Friends of the Earth, the auction and allocation processes of the bill could generate up to $3.6 trillion dollars over a 38 year period. While a large fund exists in the bill for "low carbon technology," there is no guaranteed allocation for such important technologies as wind, solar, geo-thermal, hydrogen or for energy efficiency. But, there is a guaranteed allotment of $324 billion for the coal industry through an "Advanced Coal and Sequestration program" and $232 billion for the auto industry for "Advanced Technology Vehicles."

The time is late, and if Congress is serious about preventing irreversible damage to our planet because of global warming we need to get moving in a bold and focused manner. And we can do it.

A must-read article from Science on the underestimation of climate change impacts

The new issue of Science has a terrific article that underscores many of the points I have been making here. Its central argument is that the scientific consensus most likely underestimates future climate change impacts, especially in the crucial area of sea-level rise and carbon-cycle feedbacks.

The authors are highly credible, led by Princeton's Michael Oppenheimer, one of the most widely published climate experts. I will excerpt the article here at length ($ub. req'd):

Strange Riverbed Fellows?

IBM partners with New York institute to create river-research center Tech giant IBM is partnering with a state-financed science organization...

Read on

A study by Stephen Schwartz of Brookhaven National Lab, to be published in the Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR), has the deniers and doubters delighted.

"Overturning the 'Consensus' in One Fell Swoop" gloats Planet Gore, which says the study "concludes that the Earth's climate is only about one-third as sensitive to carbon dioxide as the IPCC assumes" and so we "should expect about a 0.6°C additional increase in temperature between now and 2070″ [0.1°C per decade] if CO2 concentrations hit 550 parts per million, double preindustrial levels.

Is this possible? Aren't we already warming up 0.2°C per decade -- a rate that is expected to rise? Has future global warming been wildly overestimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) consensus?

Or, as I argue in my book, has future global warming been underestimated by the IPCC? This is perhaps the central issue in the climate change debate, so this will be a long post. To cut to the chase, it is not possible for one study to overturn the consensus, and in any case this inadequately researched, overly simplistic, and mistake-riddled study certainly doesn't.

Climate sensitivity expert James Annan points out key mistakes that rip the guts out of Schwartz's analysis. That is strike one. Now I'll offer my two cents.

European cap-and-trade program gets a positive review

At the end of their recent climate report, Lehman Brothers has one of the best brief discussions of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) that I have seen. Since the EU ETS is often viewed in this country as a failure, I thought I would reprint their somewhat different perspective in its entirety:

Cato’s Jerry Taylor responds to Michael Tobis

The following is a reply to a post by Michael Tobis entitled "Should economics rule?"

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"Should Economics Rule?"

Well, I take it that Michael means to suggest that someone out there -- in this case, me -- would contend that economic analysis should dictate climate policy. I do not hold that opinion. For a brief defense of my position, see my post on the matter at the Cato Institute website. By the way, even a lot of scientists held in high esteem by the Grist crowd would have little complaint with my argument that scientists are in no position as scientists to dictate public policy. See, for instance, these comments by Prof. Mike Hulme, founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

"Is one a Marxist or even a Stalinist for pointing out that economists are not, themselves, necessarily right about everything?"

I don't know quite what that means. No one among us -- no matter what their academic training -- is "right" about everything ... so far as I know. The consensus beliefs within any academic discipline are unlikely to represent the last and final truth on every subject within that field, given the limitations of human knowledge. So I agree with Michael but am not aware of anyone serious who would not.

"Economists, meanwhile, claim to have the key to rationality."

I don't know of a single economist who claims that their discipline is intrinsically more "rational" than any other. I don't even know what that would mean exactly. A more crisply stated proposition is that many (most?) economists think of themselves as empiricists. They distrust disciplines that do not empirically test their hypotheses in any meaningful way. Likewise, they distrust arguments that cannot be tested and disproved (which means that the argument in question is actually religious in nature). In that regard, they are much like scientists and think of themselves in the same way.

An important (albeit minority) exception is the so-called Austrian school of economics, which contends that economic cause and effect is so difficult to isolate that the empiricism embraced by most modern-day economists is a practical fantasy. The Chicago school of economics (the bastion of what most people are referring to when they refer to "neo-classical economics") would beg to differ. And in case you are curious, there are both "Austrians" and "Chicago-ites" here at Cato.

Solar thermal company says its generation/storage combo can power the nation

A new design for solar thermal electric generators could bust the technology out of niche status and supply the country’s...

NYC debates grass v. artificial turf on playing fields

This NYT piece is interesting in that oh-I-never-thought-of-that sort of way. Grass playing fields are — in New York City,...

Can it happen here?

From CNNMoney.com:

It may seem strange that the emirate of Abu Dhabi, one of the planet's largest suppliers of oil, is planning to build the world's first carbon-neutral city.

But in fact, it makes a lot of financial sense. The 3.7-square-mile city, called Masdar, will cut its electricity bill by harnessing wind, solar, and geothermal energy, while a total ban on cars within city walls should reduce the long-term health costs associated with smog.

Masdar will be filled with shaded streets to encourage walking. A solar-powered transit system will take you to the airport.

Masdar is still on the drawing board -- construction begins in January, with a very tentative completion date of 2009 -- but the result will be watched closely around the world.

Maybe they read Car Free Cities by J.H. Crawford.