Articles by Eric de Place

Forget a carbon cap; try guilt instead!

This is quite possibly the most idiotic argument I've ever heard against cap-and-trade. Why is it bad?

By turning carbon emissions into commodities that can be bought and sold, cap-and-trade policies could remove the stigma from producing such emissions ... the purchase of the right to emit greenhouse gases would likely reduce any stigma associated with doing so. Emission levels, consequently, could rise.

Oh, lordy, that's a good one. But that's from an op-ed in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor written by Justin Danhof from The National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative D.C. think-tank.

Could he be right? Could it be that the only thing standing between us and a climate crisis is stigma? We need more guilt!

A big addition to the Western Climate Initiative

Ontario officially joins the Western Climate Initiative as a full partner. Sweet.

Some Americans may not fully realize the significance of this. So for my fellow Yankees (and with apologies to readers north of the border) ... Ontario is the California of Canada in the sense that it has more people and economic activity than any other province. On the other hand, Ontario is the Michigan of Canada in the sense that it has a huge auto manufacturing base. And yet Ontario is also the New York of Canada in the sense that it is the seat of the country's biggest city, major banks, and cultural headquarters. And finally, Ontario is the Washington, D.C. of Canada in the sense that it is home to the nation's capitol.

So it's a big deal.

Ontario adds nearly 12.9 million people to the Western Climate Initiative. In combination with British Columbia, Manitoba, and Quebec -- already members of WCI -- nearly 80 percent of Canada is now under a hard carbon cap. In political terms, this means that prime minister Stephen Harper and the province of Alberta (the Texas of Canada) will now have to go off and play by themselves. It's a giant poke in the eye to Canada's lax federal leadership on climate change.

And it's terrific news for the WCI states too. Ontario has a GDP comparable to the combined economies of Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Utah. And it means that the WCI is now home to nearly 85 million North Americans.

Can the West match the Northeast?

Next week, the Western Climate Initiative will release a proposal outlining the program's cap-and-trade design.* In the proposal, we should expect to learn what share of carbon permits will be auctioned (and will therefore generate public revenue) and what share will be given away for free to emitters.

Auctioning is important -- extremely important -- because, among other virtues, it is the best way to promote fairness for people with moderate incomes. We've had lots to say about auctioning in the past, and we'll have lots to say about it in the future. In the meantime, for comparison purposes, I thought it might be helpful to share the auctioning percentages [PDF] from the cap-and-trade program in the Northeast, called RGGI:

• Connecticut.................91 percent
• Maine........................100 percent
• Maryland.....................90 percent
• Massachusetts.............99 percent
• New Hampshire.........100 percent**
• New Jersey................100 percent**
• New York..................100 percent
• Rhode Island..............100 percent
• Vermont.....................100 percent

RGGI sets a good standard, one that WCI should strive hard to match or exceed.

How transportation wonks can make your city rank

Here's an interesting ranking. For each major U.S. city, the list-happy editors at Men's Health calculated the negative effects of driving. They aggregated scores on transit ridership, air pollution, fuel consumption, and driving miles. (Presumably, the data are for metropolitan areas, not city limits.) Northwest cities do exceptionally well: Seattle ranks number one, Portland ranks third, and Spokane is eighth.

Men's Health doesn't appear to include a methodology on the web, but I'll take a stab at the explanation. First, a minor point. Seattle and Portland benefit from a felicitous geographic situation: prevailing westerly winds tend to keep our air some of the cleanest in the country, so we do relatively well on air pollution scores. Second and more importantly, the list illustrates that urban areas control their own destinies. Smart policy matters, even if it's relatively small-caliber.