Todd Luger :: Blog :: Greenhouse Gases

There has been a lot of hub-bub in the news about carbon trading these days. For advocates of carbon trading as part of the solution to global warming, it was a major disappointment when the senate republicans used procedural rules to effectively kill the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. However, there is apparently some controversy over this approach. I had read an article in a progressive journal or newspaper last week on this subject, but couldn't remember which one. So, I did a Web search on carbon trading fraud and most of the sites I came upon were rabid rightwingers and global-warming dissenters. That was almost enough to make me dismiss the concerns as propaganda promulgated by corporate shills. However, I then remembered it was Mother Jones where I read the article "Turning Carbon Into Gold." MJ is a highly regarded progressive magazine known for its investigative journalism. As such, they are not cheerleaders for the left and have been known to write many articles over the years that really pissed off the progressive crowd. (Personally, I want the truth, not some regurgitated pablum that supports political solutions that are costly and ineffective, but that's just me.) Anyway, according to the article:

Yet prominent environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and Greenpeace are resisting the inclusion of offsets in the bills. "We feel that offsets are very suspect," says Shawnee Hoover, legislative director for Friends of the Earth. "The whole system is just rife with the potential for corruption."

Opponents cite the perverse incentives that have been created under Kyoto's CDM, which last year authorized hundreds of offset projects to be converted into $1.2-$1.8 billion worth of carbon credits. At the heart of their concerns is the question of whether these projects are "additional"—in other words, do they create new emissions reductions, or simply bankroll endeavors where carbon credits are incidental, yet profitable, byproducts? A 2006 United Nations investigation found that a third of CDM-approved offset projects in India would have happened even without Kyoto funding. In China, almost every new hydroelectric and natural-gas-fired power plant has applied for CDM money, casting doubt on whether they really require the offset revenue to be built. "It looks like the CDM is just turning into a production subsidy," says Stanford University climate policy expert Michael Wara, "and that's not a good way to spend our money."

It seems to be a clever idea to use market incentives to reduce carbon emissions. After, we live in a world where corporations do as they please unless they are restrained by the government. However, corporations are pretty good at preventing government from doing things they don't want or mitigating the true effects in some way. In this case, selling carbon offsets has created a very lucrative market. Thus, an opportunity arose for money to be made in one market while money was lost in another. However, the amount lost to the carbon buyers was not near as much as if they had been forced to clean up their acts. It was a compromise that managed to get a law passed in Europe regulating carbon trading. However, the results are questionable. Consider one out outcome of Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM):

In total, CDM-approved offsets have captured or destroyed the equivalent of 135 million tons of CO2 emissions worldwide, slightly more than the annual emissions of Pakistan. Yet an astounding 51 percent of those offsets have been generated by paying refrigerant manufacturers to incinerate HFC-23, an industrial byproduct and potent greenhouse gas, instead of spewing it into the atmosphere. The price of HFC-23 offsets can be worth more than twice the market price of the refrigerants themselves, which has had the unintended effect of encouraging refrigerant companies to produce (and then destroy) even more greenhouse gases in the name of eliminating them. The 43,000 tons of HFC-23 incinerated between 2003 and 2012 will generate $6 billion worth of carbon credits, but cost just $150 million to destroy, according to Wara. He describes the practice as "an excessive subsidy that represents a massive waste of resources."

Now, just because the system has been abused (and clearly massively so) does not mean it cannot be properly regulated. There are already agencies and mechanisms in place to prevent this type of thing from happening. John Bennett has an informative post on this subject on his Sustainable Savannah blog. This part seems to be the key:

If you are interested in purchasing carbon offsets to mitigate airline travel, car travel, all those burgers you’ve been eating, etc. make sure that the company you are purchasing them from VERIFIES and VALIDATES their greenhouse gas reduction projects using an independent standard (TerraPass uses the Voluntary Carbon Standard). Verification and Validation ensure that offsets are producing authentic benefits that are “additional” to business-as-usual activities, measurable, permanent and unique.

My sense is that this is potentially a viable approach, but the current system used in Europe has already been corrupted. That is probably the reason that while the EU claims to be on target for their emissions reductions goals, the details of their own report suggest it has little or nothing to do with carbon trading. As reported on the Breakthrough Blog (a site run by two progressive, environmentalists):

When you take out the UK and Germany, whose emissions decreased due to factors exogenous to Kyoto or EU climate and energy policies (UK emissions declined precipitously after Margaret Thatcher broke the coal miners union in the 1980's and the UK switched over to North Sea natural gas. German emissions declined by similarly after reunification, when East German heavy industry collapsed), the remaining advanced developed economies in the EU (call them the EU 13) saw their emissions increase by almost 12 percent between 1990 and 2005. With full implementation of existing policies, projections for 2010 are in fact marginally worse among these nations, exceeding 1990 emissions by over 12 percent.

Even under the best case scenario in the report for EU 15 emissions, which projects an 11 percent reduction in GHG from 1990 levels, over 70 percent of that reduction can be accounted for solely by the reduction in actual emissions in the UK and Germany between 1990 and 2005 (put another way, the 8 percent reduction required by Kyoto can be almost entirely accounted for by the reduction in emissions in the UK and Germany since 1990).

The guys who run this site are not a couple  of hacks or trolls. They have written a best-selling book on the subject, which got rave reviews from major liberal and mainstream publications. Since the CDM does not seem to have accomplished much in its present form, it might be a mixed blessing that Lieberman-Warner failed (though I do love to see Lieberman, the arch-traitor, fail, that's for sure). So, what's to be done? Well, we are going to have to wait until the next administration. If Obama wins, and he is really a forward-thinking post-partisan who can effectively cut the power of big business in thwarting legislation, we may have a chance to do something innovative that really works. However, after reading this post by progressive economist Dean Baker over at Talking Points Memo about who Obama has chosen as his economic advisers, I think it's just as likely that it will be Business (with a capital B) as usual in D.C. come January, regardless of who takes the oath of office:

Like many progressives I was disappointed to hear the line-up for Obama's economic team going into the general election. The lead figure will be Jason Furman, who was the director of the Hamilton Project at Brookings. This project is the brainchild of Robert Rubin the leading light of the Wall Street Democrats. While my friends and fellow progressive economists, Jared Bernstein and Jamie Galbraith are on the team (I have also been contacted), it is clear who has the leading role.

I was disappointed by this line-up, but not surprised. After all, Senator Obama wants to be president.

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When it comes to economic issues the tone this crew sets is decidedly more in line with Wall Street than Main Street. This can be seen on issue after issue.

Baker ends with a few words of hope and an important reminder:

However much we might like to see Senator Obama openly embrace a progressive economic agenda, that is not going to happen because of the current political realities. As the Internet and alternative media outlets grow, and the reach of the establishment media shrivels, there will be more room for progressive economics and progressive economists, but we aren't there yet.

Until then, we should keep our ammunition dry. Senator Obama's election can make an enormous difference in the political environment and the direction the country takes. But progressives must keep the pressure on. Senator Obama is an enormously talented political figure, but he alone is not going to bring about change. It takes a movement.

We have a lot of work left to do, and the election of a progressive president is just the beginning.

There are a wide range of things an organization can do to make itself greener. Many revolve around the concept of decreasing the institutional carbon footprint. We often hear about stuff like using mass transit, riding one's bike, getting a more fuel-efficient vehicle, using compact florescent bulbs, and the like. These are all important steps one can and should take (within the limits of reason and finances, of course). However, one option I rarely hear about in the context of becoming greener is telecommuting. Telecommuting seems to come up most often in the context of flex time, allowing parents time to care for their young children, for example. But, what has it got to do with going green? Well, I think a moment's reflection makes this obvious. When people work part of the week from home, they don't drive their cars to work, thus conserving gas and reducing traffic congestion and air pollution. According to the Green Living Ideas Web site:

Seeing as the typical U.S. household spends 18% of its income on driving costs– more, even, than it spends on food– telecommuting offers a viable way to offset the steep expenses of gas and automobile maintenance. One study reports that we could save about 1.35 billion gallons of fuel a year if everyone who was able to telecommute, did so just 1.6 days a week.

The implications for a greener planet are clear, but there is an important corollary here that should not be overlooked. If one didn't have to spend 18% of his or her income on transportation, that would make one's salary go a lot longer. Many are not easily convinced of the necessity or desirability of a greener planet, but some of these very same people change their tunes when they realize the economic benefits, especially to those in the middle class struggling in an economy on the brink of recession. And the one sector in the economy we don't have to worry about is the energy sector; they are still making record profits even today. A little telecommuting won't hurt their bottom line that much. And, based upon the law of supply and demand, it could very well bring prices down on oil for those times and things we would still need it for. Less demand means more supply means lower prices. Telecommuters also do not use campus resources like electricity, water, heat/ac, etc. According to this article on "The Many Benefits of Telecommuting":

More and more green businesses are encouraging telecommuting and there are a great many reasons why. Telecommuting not only saves the earth by decreasing transportation-based greenhouse gases, but also provides employees a peaceful place to complete key projects without interruption. Productivity increases of up to 40 percent have been reported through telework programs. Not only does telework reduce transportation-based emissions, it also reduces total energy consumption at the work place. Smaller businesses can inhabit smaller premises by rotating telework days amongst employees.

Now, of course, some jobs just must be done on campus. Faculty must be present to teach ground courses, and physical resources can't be serviced from a distance, to name a couple that come to mind. However, other jobs could easily be done from home, at least part of the time. Personally, I would not advocate that positions typically be 100% telecommuting. I may be old-fashioned, but I still think there is significant benefit to the office experience, especially in areas where inter-staff collaboration is common and crucial. You can certainly accomplish a lot through modern communications technology, but some times nothing beats a face-to-face brainstorming session. There are obviously a lot of variables to consider with regard to who and how and such things. However, if there could truly be increases in productivity that are concurrent with decreases in energy consumption, it seems like a potential win-win-win situation (worker, organization, and environment).

Following up on the previous post, here is a podcast from NPR.

As many of you no doubt know, the raising of cattle accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than automobiles. This has led many greens to go vegan. However, as I detailed in a previous post, despite popular misconceptions, veganism is likely to result in negative health effects. So, I decided to do some further investigating. I am well aware that most cows are corn fed their entire lives. Corn is unnatural diet for cows and is the main reason commercial beef is so unhealthy (also discussed in my earlier post). Since one of the main reasons raising cattle leads to increased greenhouse gas emissions is their methane emissions, I immediately wondered if cows on their natural diet of grass would fare differently. According to the Institute for Environmental Research and Education, "Although an animal raised on pasture actually produces more methane...the pasture itself reduces the CO2 in the air through a process called 'carbon sequestration.'" This sequestration is no small thing. According to a new study from Duke University:

"Grasses are deceptively productive," says lead investigator Robert Jackson. "You don't see where all the carbon goes, so there is a misconception that woody species [such as trees and shrubs] store more carbon. That's just not the case." Grasses store vast amounts of carbon in their underground root mass.

Raising cattle on grass is one way to make it financially feasible to expand our native grasslands. Although cows generate their own greenhouse gasses, the net effect of raising ruminants on pasture is to slow global warming.

Yes, you read that right. Cattle raised on grass have a net negative effect on greenhouse gas emissions. This doesn't just lead to less emissions than before, it reduces the total emissions below zero. Now, granted, planting grasses and getting rid of cows would do even more, but let's be reasonable. That just ain't gonna happen. I suggest if you want to make the best compromise between your personal health and the health of the planet, eat only small amounts of beef and eat only grass-fed or wild animals. Some might consider this a sellout, but I am totally convinced by overwhelming evidence that I am not wrong on the health issue. The issue of sustainability is complex. It is not just about the environment. If we cannot get our healthcare system under control, we will have an unsustainable economy and everyone will suffer. The only way we are going to reduce healthcare costs is by changing our lifestyles. Eating right is an important component of being green, and simplistic analyses of the issues will not help us achieve the best solutions.