The Green Skeptic on FOX Business: EU Emissions Permits Won't Fly

I sat down with Stuart Varney & Company in the FOX Business Studios this morning to talk about the EU proposal to require airlines to pay to offset carbon through its carbon credit scheme.

This flies in the face a long-standing global effort, which would have more consistent impact.

In other words, this permit scheme won't fly, in my humble opinion.

Here is is the video:




And here is a link if the player doesn't work in your browser: The Green Skeptic on FOX Business

Present in His Absence: Obama Poses at Poznan, Not

My friends over at Red, Green and Blue report that President-elect Obama is a big presence at the Climate talks this week in Poznan, Poland, even if he's not actually there:

It's the fourteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP14), and the fourth meeting of its kind this year.

"The pending change in American leadership is palpable in Poznan," writes Timothy B. Hurst of RGB. The "global climate conferees see the potential of president-elect Barack Obama ushering in a new era of U.S. leadership on the environment."

Obama didn't send an official delegation; after all, the US still has only one president, according to some. But Massachusetts Senator John Kerry did go to observe the 12-day conference.


President-elect Obama's plan is getting props at the sessions, according to Hurst and other reports.

"It's ambitious," Yvo de Boer, the UN’s top climate official said of Obama's target of slicing CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, with a further 80 percent by 2050.

He'll have 11 months to work his magic on the global stage and hammer out an agreement that includes the US. The deadline for a new agreement to replace Kyoto is December 2009.

Perhaps Obama could even show up for one of these COP meetings.

Now THAT would send a strong message that change has come to the climate change stage.

Further coverage @: redgreenandblue.org

and http://tinyurl.com/6ng8oq

Clean Tech: Paulson and Lugar Support Clean Tech Fund

Senator Richard G. Lugar, a Republican from Indiana and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr (left) have come out in support of the Clean Technology Fund (CTF), which was proposed by President Bush last September.

In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, Paulson and Lugar announce their support, claiming the CTF will "stimulate private-sector investment in existing clean technologies and speed the deployment of emerging technologies once they are market-ready."

Using a mix of loans, grants, equity investment and credit guarantees to finance this incremental cost, the CTF will "help make the choice between clean and dirty technologies economically neutral."

The US will contribute US$2 billion, which will be matched by up to US$8 billion from other donors to the fund, which is to be housed at the World Bank.

"The fund recognizes that addressing climate change presents economic opportunities, not just constraints, and that with advanced technology developing countries can curb emissions growth without limiting economic growth," Lugar and Paulson write in their Op Ed, concluding, "If we do not act immediately to help provide developing countries with the right incentives, their investments today may lock in a legacy of highly polluting, less efficient technologies."

Read the full piece here.

Global Climate Change: Brits Skeptical About Climate Change, But Does Anyone Care?

An Ipsos MORI poll released last Sunday found that a majority of the British public does not believe human activity has caused global warming.

According to the poll, which first showed up in The Observer, found that 60 percent of the 1,039 British adults surveyed agreed that "many scientific experts still question if humans are contributing to climate change," with a further 40 percent saying they "sometimes think climate change might not be as bad as people say."

Still, 75 percent of the respondents said they were "concerned about climate change."

According to the Observer, "More than half of those polled did not have confidence in international or British political leaders to tackle climate change, but only just over a quarter think it's too late to stop it. Two thirds want the government to do more but nearly as many said they were cynical about government policies such as green taxes, which they see as 'stealth' taxes."

But does it matter what folks in the UK think? Last we checked, it was the US that still needs to come around.

See original article in The Observer/Guardian online

Global Climate Change: World Bank Says, Oil Will Come Down Hard; Sovereign Wealth Can Fund Climate Fight

So, this morning on CNBC's Squawk Box, the show that never met a bear it didn't like, Uri Dadush, the dowdy and drowsy chief of International Economics at the World Bank, told the lovely and smart Becky Quick (she's quick too) that oil will be at $95/barrel by end of year and $88/barrel by 2010.

Watch video: Squawk Box

But how does that jibe with what the World Bank's Latin America chief, Pamela Cox told Reuters today that, "essentially, emerging economies can help fund the fight against climate change through sovereign wealth funds, swollen by oil and other exports receipts"?

"'It would be great if some of these sovereign wealth funds started investing in alternative technologies, some of the climate change funds that are being put forward,' Cox said, but added that the World Bank could not tell countries how they should invest their sovereign wealth."

"Emerging economies control up to US$3 trillion in sovereign wealth funds," according to Reuters, much of which have been padded by skyrocketing oil and commodities prices," along with bulging trade imbalances.

But those sovereign wealth funds will be a lot less swollen at $95-88/barrel.

Meanwhile, CNBC reported that oil prices fell today, despite an earlier advance to $137 on greatly reduced oil consumption projections from the Energy Department.

"The Energy Department, in a monthly report, indicated that high prices are cutting oil consumption more than expected in the industrialized world," according to CNBC. "Consumption is now expected to fall by 240,000 barrels a day in 2008; last month, the department forecast consumption would be unchanged from 2007 levels."

Still a long way to go from $131/barrel to $95. And it remains to be seen what this news will have on investments in climate change initiatives and alternative energy?

Very little, it appears.

According to Reuters, some emerging economy oil exporters are already planning clean energy and other climate initiatives:

--OPEC is planning a US$750 million research fund into burying greenhouse gases underground and has committed about US$35 million so far.

--The United Arab Emirates has launched a $15 billion "Masdar Initiative" to help plan for an era of falling oil reserves by investing in low carbon-emitting energy like solar power.

--Tokyo will contribute US$1.2 billion to the planned US$10 billion of developed country Climate Investment Funds (CIF) administered by the World Bank.

--The United States has pledged US$2 billion to the CIF and the UK will add part of a 800 million pound (US$1.57 billion) environment fund to the mix.

--The CIF will invest roughly US$5 billion each in funds to help developing countries cut emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases, and to plan for climate change.

But how much of this could materialize without oil prices being what they are? And what happens if the oil bubble bursts or tankers are sitting just beyond the Verrazano Narrows waiting for the signal?

Earth: The Sequel by Fred Krup and Miriam Horn: A Review

Entrepreneurs can save the planet, but they need a cap-and-trade system to do it.

That's the premise of Earth: The Sequel, by Fred Krup and Miriam Horn, and published in March by W.W. Norton.

The authors, the head of Environmental Defense and a journalist now working for the same, respectively, argue passionately on behalf of emissions cap-and-trade as the solution to unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit of Americans (and others) to solve the climate crisis.

They also tell the story of some of "cutting-edge" innovators in the clean energy space, people like Conrad Burke of Innovalight, the solar nanotechnology company, Isaac Berzin, the chemical engineer who co-founded algae-farm biofuel developer GreenFuel Technologies, and the colorful Bernie Karl of Chena Hot Springs, who is trying to capitalize on geothermal energy found below the Alaska bush with the help of Fortune 500 company United Technologies Corporation.

The stories are simply told, some of them compelling, some bordering on boosterism, but the focus on entrepreneurs is welcome. There's nary a whiff of skepticism in these pages, however, which read like a virtual catalog of potential clean tech investments.

I realize the authors don't want to back one technology solution over another -- and the new green economy requires not just one silver bullet but a full chamber -- but a little more critical analysis of the full panoply would have been nice (see Pernick and Wilder's The Clean Revolution for more in-depth analysis of the sector).

Private investment is fine, the authors reason, whether entreprenuer or venture capitalist; however, it can't scale without a cap on carbon emissions. In their view, a cap is the only thing that will make alternative energy more affordable to generate. Without it, we will neither reduce emissions enough nor grow the burgeoning clean tech industry.

"To save the planet from calamity," write Krup and Horn, "innovation and deployment of known technologies must occur now at a pace as intense and a scope as vast as the settlement of the western frontier."

Scientists have determined we need to reduce CO2 emissions by 80 percent by midcentury to "stabilize the global climate." According to the authors, "we must produce at least 14 trillion watts of carbon-free energy by 2050 -- about as much power as we now get from the entire fossil energy business" to reach that goal.

The advantage of a cap is that it puts a true limit on total emissions; the problem is it can lead to higher prices for consumers and windfalls for certain companies.

Companies need the stability and predictability of a cap. As Dupont CEO Chad Holliday, whose company is part of a coalition calling for a national cap, says in a quote from the book, "You need some certainty on the incentives side and on the market side, because we are talking about multiyear investments, billions of dollars that will take a long time to pay off."

A national cap would provide that certainty. We just need to make sure it covers all the carbon economy and that the permits are sold not given away free, as in the current European Union scheme. There is even talk of a cap-and-dividend style program that would make equal payments to all Americans (along the lines of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend).

"We have before us an extraordinary opportunity," Krup and Horn conclude. "to harness the power of the United States of America's huge and dynamic markets to ensure a safe future...Enacting a cap on carbon will gather U.S. ingenuity and resourcefulness to serve a higher purpose: protecting this planet for generations to come. We have the talent and a brief window of time to create the world of possibilities. All we need is the resolve."

Higher purpose or base greed, I don't care; let's just get moving on the new green economy.

In the end, as NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg offers in his advance praise blurb, "Earth: The Sequel makes it crystal clear that we can build a low-carbon economy while unleashing American entrepreneurs to save the planet, putting optimism back into the environmental story."

Global Climate Change: Hans Rosling on CO2 Emissions and Human Development Trends

Dr. Hans Rosling rocked the house at TED in 2006 with his sportcaster-like presentation of data on human development trends (see embedded video below).

It really is quite a fascinating presentation; watch him describe trends in life length and family size like it's the Kentucky Derby. Wow.

Hans Rosling's TED Talk is really more like, what can I call it, a "datashow":



Rosling has also taken a look at CO2 emissions trends and finds that some humans emit much more than others.



For example, while "the total CO2 emissions from China are almost as big as those from United States, the emission from a single American is more than 6 times those from a person in China."

In the end, Rosling concludes, what "China needs is an environmental friendly way of producing electricity that is cheaper than coal." Don't we all?

You can find more GapCasts and information about Dr. Rosling's data at: gapminder.org