Climate Politics

A solar grand plan

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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A recent issue of Scientific American featured a "Solar Grand Plan." Its authors described a way for the United States to obtain nearly 100 percent of its electricity and 90 percent of its total energy, including transportation, from solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal resources by end-of-century. Electricity would cost a comfortable 5 cents per kilowatt hour.

U.S. carbon emissions would be reduced 62 percent from their 2005 levels. Some 600 coal and gas-fired power plants would be displaced. The federal investment would be $400 billion over the next 40 years ($10 billion a year) to deploy renewable technologies and suitable transmission infrastructure.

If that future seems too good to be true, then look at two other studies during the past 13 months that have reached similar conclusions: one sponsored by the American Solar Energy Society (PDF), the other by the Nuclear Policy Research Institute and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. All three concur that energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies can satisfy the nation's demand for power without additional nuclear or fossil-fueled power plants.

If $400 billion seems unaffordable, consider: It's less money than the federal government already has spent on the Iraq war, only a third of the $1.2 trillion that some experts now predict the war will cost, and only a sixth of the federal government's current annual subsidies for fossil and nuclear energy.

And if a Solar Grand Plan seems politically implausible, read the newspaper. Last November, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said we have until 2020 to make major changes in greenhouse-gas emissions. Two weeks ago, the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell told his staff that world oil demand will outpace supply within seven years. That means rapidly rising oil prices, more recession (the last five recessions in the U.S. were preceded by high oil prices), more power for oil-producing nations like Iran and Russia, and more likelihood of international conflicts.

The more practical -- and certainly the more survivable -- of these two futures is the Solar Grand Plan, an aggressive national effort to rebuild the economy on a foundation of efficiency and sustainable energy supplies. To get to that future, national energy and climate policy must have a few key ingredients.

How strong is McCain’s commitment to fighting global warming?

The following post was first published on Passing Through, The Nation‘s guest blog, where I will be posting all month. Though recession and war are probably higher on the public’s immediate priority list, there is no challenge of greater historical consequence facing the next U.S. president than the climate crisis. It is vitally important that […]

John McCain avoids using the word ‘mandatory’ when discussing cap-and-trade

When will the media stop calling McCain a straight-talker and realize he is a pathological doubletalker?

I realize the "L" word is frowned upon in politics, so instead of using that word, which, in any case, doesn't do justice to the full range of doubletalk in the political arena -- let's just imagine there is an agreed-upon objective scale from 1 to 10 of veracity (with 5 being half-true) that goes something like this:

(10) Fred Thompson, December 2007: "I'm not particularly interested in running for president."

(9) Bush, May 2000: "I think we agree, the past is over."

(8) Bush, January 2000: "When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there."

(5) Bush, June 1999: "I am a compassionate conservative."

(3) Bush, September 2002: "There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

(2) Nixon, November 1973: "I'm not a crook."

(1) McCain, January 2008 (in reply to Tim Russert's statement, "Senator McCain, you are in favor of mandatory caps" [which would be a 10 on this scale]): "No, I'm in favor of cap-and-trade."

A view behind the scenes at the EPA and the White House

It is now less than four weeks until the EPA announces its decision on whether to change current national standards for ozone or smog. And things are getting very interesting behind the scenes.

Officially, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget website, the EPA has not yet transmitted its plan to the White House for review. The truth is, the EPA is obviously being picked at by the OMB already.

The Bush administration is just trying to keep the details of this matter as secret as possible. (Some business lobbyists have heard that the EPA is pushing a tougher new standard, though weaker than that recommended by their science advisers.)

Despite the efforts at secrecy, some information is creeping out as EPA puts information in its official regulatory docket. (You can see this for yourself here by searching for docket number EPA-HQ-OAR-2005-0172. )

Bush administration misses deadline for decision on polar bears

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has again missed a deadline for announcing whether or not it will declare polar bears a threatened species.

Renewable energy incentives were stripped from the energy bill; what should be done next?

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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The energy bill passed by Congress last December originally contained a beneficial, if temporary, set of financial incentives to spur the growth of renewable energy technologies in the United States.

The bill included a renewable energy portfolio standard (RPS) that would require states to acquire part of their electric power from renewable resources. The RPS would have guaranteed a market for these technologies -- one of the ways to help a new industry establish a foothold in the economy.

The energy bill also contained an extension of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) -- a tax break for emerging renewable energy industries that Congress has a history of approving for only a year or two at a time. (See "The subsidy tease, part I".)

The PTC and a package of other clean-energy incentives would have been funded by taking back about $12 billion in tax breaks from the oil industry. The trade-off was sensible not only because the oil industry doesn't need the money, but because in some small symbolic measure, the repeal would have helped level the playing field for those young renewable energy industries trying to compete against oil, gas, and coal industries that have been fattened for generations by the nation's taxpayers.

When the White House yelled "Tax increase!" and threatened to veto the energy bill, Congress backed off.

As a result, many of the energy efficiency incentives contained in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 died on December 31, and others will expire in a few months. They include incentives for efficiency in commercial buildings; tax credits for installing efficient furnaces, air conditioners, water heaters, windows, and other improvements in existing homes; incentives for manufacturers to make high-efficiency refrigerators, dishwashers, and washing machines; the tax credit for residential solar system installations; and a tax credit for plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Delay makes environmental catastrophe more likely

This is the second in a series; the first is here.

We've covered two reasons Environmental Defense is pushing for passage of climate legislation in 2008 -- the politics will be very much the same in 2009, and we don't want to gamble away a good bill on the chance of a perfect one someday.

Today I'll look at a third reason: The price of waiting, even a year or two, is simply too high. Carbon dioxide concentrations are higher today than they've been in 650,000 years, and our emissions rate is increasing. It's crucial that we start aggressively cutting emissions as soon as possible.

Here's the math.

Source: the national allowance account for the years 2012-2020 from the S.2191 as reported out of the EPW Committee. The emissions growth from 2005 to 2013 is assumed to be 1.1 percent (an average of the 2004 and 2005 rate reported by the EPA [PDF]).

Scenario one: The Climate Security Act is passed into law this year, and takes effect in 2012. To comply with the emissions cap, covered sources would have to cut annual emissions by roughly 2 percent per year. By 2020, they would be emitting at 15 percent below the starting point in 2012.

Scenario two: We delay enacting legislation by two years, holding everything else constant. We pass a cap-and-trade bill in 2010, and it takes effect in 2014. To meet the same cumulative emissions cuts, emissions would have to fall by 4.3 percent per year -- over twice as quickly -- and we'd have to do it year after year until 2020, just to get to the same place. By 2020, emissions from covered sources would have to be cut 23 percent below the starting point in 2014.

Carl Pope of the Sierra Club lays out a blueprint for an effective climate bill

The following is a guest essay by Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club.

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There are moments when a choice of pathways shapes the future -- and makes success either feasible or impossible.

In light of the fact that all of the remaining leading presidential candidates call for some kind of action on global warming, and the Lieberman-Warner bill is already working its way through the Senate, almost everyone recognizes that sometime in the next few years the United States will limit the amount of global warming pollution that our transportation system, power plants, factories, and other sources can emit.

The most likely mechanism for tackling global warming is a so-called cap-and-trade system, whereby a declining cap is put on total emissions with individual emissions permits being traded amongst emitters. As with most things, the devil is very much in the details. Depending on how it is designed, such a system can be heavily tilted toward the interests of the planet or, as some would prefer, the interests of polluters.

Thirty-seven years ago, a similar choice faced the young environmental movement. Congress was about to pass the regulatory foundation of the environmental age -- the Clean Air Act. Environmental advocates sought to require every power plant, refinery, chemical facility, and factory to use the modern pollution control technology then coming onto the market. Industry argued that we should, instead, treat new sources of air pollution differently from old ones -- by making sure the new power plants were very clean and leaving the old ones, more or less, alone -- because old sources would shortly be retired and replaced with newer, cleaner versions. Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie, fearing that industry would block him on other points, acceded. Environmentalists -- including my new-to-the movement, 25-year-old self -- went along.

Fast-forward to present day: the carbon industries are lobbying to get a deal done this year that would give away carbon permits free of charge to existing polluters -- bribing the sluggish, and slowing down innovation. And politicians are telling us that while it would be better to auction these permits and make polluters pay for putting carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, creating that market unfortunately gets in the way of the politics.

We are being urged to compromise -- to put a system in place quickly, even if it is the wrong system. Given that we only have one chance to get this right before it's too late, our top priority must be to make sure that we do not settle prematurely and sign a weak bill into law in the name of doing something about global warming. With momentum for strong action and a friendlier Congress and White House building every day, it's no coincidence that some wish to settle their accounts now.

Obama lauds green jobs and clean tech in economy speech

In a speech on Wednesday at a GM auto plant in Wisconsin, Barack Obama outlined his economic agenda for the country. He described his stimulus plan, promising to boost green jobs, help the middle class, dole out tax cuts, negotiate worker and environmental protections in upcoming free-trade agreements -- and, to help pay for much of it, end the costly war in Iraq.

The environmental highlights of the speech are below (audio available here):

Opinion writer suggests efficiency stimulus would be more effective

An opinion writer at the Houston Chronicle says: Congress missed a major opportunity with the stimulus package. They could have invested in something that would have been good for the consumer (encouraging energy savings), the environment (reducing emissions) and the economy (stimulating development of products that represent our future). The magic elixir? Energy efficiency is […]