Ah, Home Star – the legislative proposal that has eaten all my time over the last six months. What more is there to say? Creates jobs!…Slashes energy use!…Saves money!
All of that was said today and more, during a hearing in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The Congressional Research Service, the Department of Energy, and a collection of business, utility, and state advocates all testified today along those lines.
Home Star is a $6 billion proposal that would create incentives for homeowners who choose to make their homes more efficient. Silver Star would offer rebates for individual measures like insulating your attic or installing an efficient new furnace (capped at $3,000 but always requiring at least a 50 percent match from homeowners), while Gold Star creates a performance path where the homeowner and their contractor figure out what measures to undertake, and the size of the incentive is determined by the percent improvement of the home’s efficiency. Gold Star incentives start at $3,000 for a 20 percent improvement and go up $1,000 for each additional 5 percent from there
From the hearing, it sounds like we all emphatically agree – it’s a great idea. We are big supporters of the program and a member of the Home Star Coalition. But the details matter.
And there are details upon details. Arguments about AFUEs, SHGCs, SEERs, and EERs and other esoteric concepts that most people don’t want to know about. But these nasty acronyms are crucial to making sure this program actually saves energy and creates jobs and doesn’t just sell a bunch of stuff with no long term benefit. In other words, we shouldn’t just spin our wheels.
Some of the issues came up during the hearing today are crucially important.
Do we need an incentive for do-it-yourself insulation?
A tough call, since this wouldn’t create jobs in installation, and the insulation, if not installed properly, may not save energy. But, as someone who likes to DIY whenever possible, I understand the appeal. I think we should be able to figure out some way to make sure the DIYers get the installation right and get the energy savings.
Should we lower all the efficiency requirements that equipment must meet to receive incentives in Silver Star to Energy Star?
NO – and I can’t say that emphatically enough. Just based on last years sales of Energy Star products, free ridership (folks who would have bought these units anyway) would suck $3 billion from the program budget and no additional energy would be saved. That’s almost 90 percent of the proposed Silver Star budget! These products will be purchased, incentive or no incentive. Bad idea.
The levels currently in the bill were negotiated with industry and advocacy groups at the table, and they thread the needle on maximum job creation and energy savings. We should leave them where they are. Cathy Zoi, DOE's Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, said as much in the hearing.
Should we relax the certification requirements for contractors?
I don’t think so. We need good contractors doing the work right to actually save on energy bills. And beyond that, there are safety implications of improper installations. Contractors who aren’t certified but really understand how to improve a home will have no problem getting certified. The extra business they will get as a result of this program will more than outweigh certification costs.
Should states with existing programs play by the same rules?
Everyone wants to see Home Star build on the great work that is happening in the states, largely as a result of the Recovery Act, but we also need to make sure we have consistent standards and quality assurance everywhere. Basically, you should be able to do the work, play by the rules, and get the money whether you are in Ketchikan, Alaska or Miami, Florida.
These are all tricky issues, and we will see how the political process plays out. Home Star is tantalizingly close to being the performance-based program that will create jobs in the ailing construction industry and make American homes much more energy efficient that everyone wants to see. Home Star, in its current form, hits the bulls-eye on job creation and energy savings. It would successfully jumpstart the home retrofit industry and be the bridge to the efficiency programs that accompany comprehensive climate and energy legislation.
Of course, a whole lot more work has to be done by Congress to make sure that the program mechanics are right and the work can start as soon as possible, and that is significant. Congress, President Obama, and the broad based Home Star Coalition have worked incredibly hard to get it this far and we will all keep pushing it forward towards the finish line.
Two weeks ago I reported that white-nose syndrome had been documented in Hellhole Cave – Virginia’s largest and most important cave – home to half of the world’s remaining population of endangered Virginia big-eared bats. I also pointed out that because of this subspecies’ vulnerability to extinction, the Smithsonian’s Zoo had begun an effort to establish a captive population of Virginia big-eared bats in the event that they would be needed to re-establish the subspecies in the wild.
Two stories coming out recently point to mixed news for Virginia’s big-ears. The first is that the efforts to maintain a captive population of these bats have not been particularly successful. Out of 40 bats originally collected for the project, only 11 remain alive. The Zoo says that maintaining them in captivity has been difficult due to the fact that the bats stress easily and it’s difficult to replicate their natural feeding conditions. If we needed to rely on this population to re-establish Virginia big-ears in the wild, we would be in trouble.
The good news is that we may not need to – at least not yet. Exploration into Hellhole Cave revealed that while many of its inhabitants were dead or likely to die from white-nose syndrome, the Virginia big-ear bats appear to be unaffected. Not enough is understood about WNS to know why Virginia’s big-ears have not yet succumb to the fungus, but experts speculate that it may have to do with differences in the species biology including a preference for very dry and very cold areas and the fact that they rouse more quickly than other species.
The same isn’t true for the cave’s other inhabitants, though. The floor of the entrance to the cave was littered with little brown bats. And WNS infection levels for clusters of the cave’s endangered Indiana bats ranged between 12-50% - similar to patterns found during the first year of infection in other northeastern caves that now demonstrate between 50 - 90% mortality for these species.
At a budget hearing on the hill yesterday, Secretary Salazar vowed that white-nose syndrome would be a high priority for the Interior Department. However, the current budget proposal contains some significant cuts from last year – particularly for endangered species – and doesn’t contain any funds specifically allocated for white-nose syndrome research. The senate has the ability to make changes to the proposed budget and to set aside funds to be used specifically for researching white-nose syndrome. Yesterday, Senator Patrick Leahy – who last year helped secure $1.9 million for WNS – indicated his concern with the issue again.
As news comes out today that Maryland is now likely to join the ranks of states with its first case of white-nose syndrome, we hope that more representatives on the hill will join Leahy in pushing Interior to increase funding for this mysterious disease that is quickly devastating our bat populations.
Image credit: USFWS
This story in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times makes a compelling case for what NRDC calls the virtual river – new water supplies that can be tapped without pumping more from our overtaxed rivers. In fact, the dam advocates themselves make this case very persuasively.
As the article points out, some Central Valley growers are quite enthusiastic about the proposed $3.3 billion Temperance Flat Dam on the San Joaquin River. That's no surprise - the federal water reclamation program has been very generous to its agricultural beneficiaries. As Bettina Boxall points out, after a 60 year interest-free loan provided by federal taxpayers, Central Valley Project growers have repaid only 19 percent of the 1.2 billion dollars they owe the federal government for the construction of the existing project. (That amounts to a 300 year interest-free loan. Imagine what your mortgage payment might be if you could get those terms!) If these farmers could get that kind of financing deal on Temperance Flat Dam, of course they would jump at the opportunity. But even a casual look at the numbers raises real questions about such an investment.
As grower Harvey Bailey admits in the piece, farmers couldn't pay $1,500 per acre for water from the proposed dam. At around 3 acre-feet applied per acre of land, that amounts to a per acre-foot cost of about $500. In reality, the real cost of water from the dam would certainly be far higher. The Bureau’s estimate of $850 per acre foot is also certainly too low. In 1994, the Bureau estimated that raising Friant Dam – a very similar storage project – would produce water costing nearly $3,000 per acre-foot. A realistic low estimate of the true cost of water from Temperance Flat is perhaps $1,000 to $1,500 per acre-foot. That’s more than 20 times what farmers in the area pay the Bureau of Reclamation for water today. As Mr. Bailey admits, such a project would only be viable if subsidized by urban taxpayers or water users. The problem is that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, quoted in the article, seems less than enthusiastic about the proposal. The reasons for this reluctance are many - and persuasive.
First, there’s just not much water there. For most of the past half century, 60 miles of the San Joaquin River have been literally dry – with every drop of water captured by the existing Friant Dam. (Today, thanks to an agreement reached by NRDC, the Friant water users and the federal government, restoration flows have begun in the river. As a result, in most years, Temperance Flat Dam would not produce a drop of water. In very wet years, some water would be captured; however, on average, this yield is tiny. It’s hard to justify building a new multi-billion dollar dam when there’s just not much water left to squeeze out of the river.
Second, the alternatives are far cheaper. At perhaps $1,500 per acre-foot, just about everything would be cheaper than water from Temperance Flat - conservation, water recycling, groundwater clean up and storage, water purchased on the open market, even desalination could cost less. And the proposed urban subsidy for agricultural water from this project – contemplated by the growers in the Times story – would further raise the cost of water for urban dwellers.
Third, the water from this dam would go to agriculture, not urban water users. The Bureau of Reclamation owns the current dam on the San Joaquin River. It holds the water rights and is studying Temperance Flat. Existing Central Valley Project agricultural contractors would expect the lion's share of water from any project. Even if MWD wanted a piece of the project, getting water from Temperance Flat to Southern California would be a long uphill struggle.
Fourth, with every new groundwater project built in this part of the Central Valley, the tiny amount of water left to capture in the San Joaquin River would shrink. Even optimists admit that it would likely be 20 years before Temperance Flat could be completed. By that time, two decades of groundwater development would reduce the already small potential yield of the dam to a trickle.
Fifth, climate change is likely to further shrink the yield of Temperance Flat. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program has projected that California could be 5-10 percent drier by the middle of the next century. Clearly, water planners should be careful when considering a potential multi-billion dollar investment to capture the last 5 percent of water on the San Joaquin or any California river. That water simply might not be there in the future.
It’s not a surprise that agricultural interests are interested in building more old-fashioned dams in the Central Valley. This technology served them well in the past. However, given the issues above, it’s also not a surprise that business leaders, urban water agencies and environmentalists agree that the virtual river is a far better investment.
The only thing the LA Times got wrong in this story was the title – “Another Water Project Could Divide the State.” When it comes to expensive projects like Temperance Flat Dam, most of the state is united.
It is almost 3 months after the Copenhagen Accord was hammered out by 28 of the world’s key countries that represent over 80% of the world’s global warming pollution and some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (as I discussed here). Given the state of the Accord just after Copenhagen with some calling it a failure, some outlining the foundations in the Accord for international efforts (and as my colleague discussed here), and others…well not quite sure what to make of it, where do things stand on international efforts to address global warming?
If you just picked up the paper, watched TV, listened to the radio, or read blogs you might think that things aren’t really moving as there is very little coverage of international global warming discussions (especially compared to last year when every 5 seconds some news story or analysis emerged). But that doesn’t mean that nothing is happening on the international front. In fact, despite the lack of regular coverage, things are moving forward – albeit tentatively, behind the scenes, and without a big splash. Here are four things that are occurring that are worth following.
Over 108 countries have “associated with” the Copenhagen Accord (as summarized here).* These countries account for over 80% of the emissions and 77% of the population of the world. The last two major pieces fell into place when China and India formally “associated with the Accord” in the last 2 days (as my colleagues discussed here and as covered by the New York Times). Basically these countries are saying: “we agree to international action on global warming and on the basis of the outlines agreed in the Accord”. Of course many of these countries have urged for deeper action than outlined in the Accord, but by Associating with the Accord they are signaling that they want to proceed internationally to address global warming.
60 countries representing over 80% of the world’s emissions have formally recorded actions to reduce their global warming pollution (as I discussed here). Many of these countries aren’t simply waiting for some future international meeting or for the final international agreement to implement specific policies and programs to reduce their pollution. For example, as my colleagues have discussed, China and India have adopted new domestic policies since Copenhagen that will reduce their global warming pollution. Brazil signed a bilateral agreement with the US (available here) and there are expectations that the US will sign another one with Indonesia when President Obama goes there March 20-22 (hopefully with concrete near term actions).
Key countries will begin to coordinate efforts to address deforestation emissions. Over 15% of the world’s global warming pollution comes from deforestation and forest degradation, so the Copenhagen Accord agreed: “on the need to provide positive incentives to such actions [that reduce deforestation and forest degradation]”. Key countries including the US, Australia, Germany, and France agreed to contribute $3.5 billion over 3 years to “prompt start” efforts to reduce deforestation emissions. It is critical to ensure that the flow of this early money goes to effective actions that reduce deforestation as every second a football field size of rainforest is lost (and it won’t return). So instead of waiting for the next international negotiating session or greater clarity on how things proceed (and more loss of the tropical forests), a group of key developed countries and deforesting countries are meeting as we speak to begin efforts to better coordinate global efforts to combat deforestation.
High-level and influential set of policymakers will be discussing ways to generate sizeable funding to assist developing countries in deploying clean energy, reducing deforestation emissions, and adapting to the impacts of climate change. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has created a High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing to be chaired by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, with representatives including George Soros, Nick Stern, and Lawrence Summers. The group is tentatively scheduled to meet March 29th and will provide an initial report to the May/June climate negotiating session and a final report to the climate meeting in Cancun, Mexico in December. Let’s hope some politically possible and specific proposals emerge that can be adopted by key countries.
That is the positive momentum that has occurred post-Copenhagen. But of course not everything is all good news. The World Bank is still funding things that are taking us in the wrong direction by proposing to finance a coal plant in South Africa that isn’t capturing its carbon (and doesn’t put in place a real plan to capture it’s carbon in the future), and is barely investing in renewables and doesn’t have a real energy efficiency investment as a part of this proposal. Indonesia is proposing to classify its palm forests as “forests” in order to access money that is supposed to be set aside for deforestation reduction efforts – not exactly the aim of that funding as it is supposed to support things that are slowing deforestation, not actions that deforested rainforests in the first place. Critical actions by the US gained a little momentum when President Obama met with key Senators and made clear his support for a comprehensive climate and energy bill this year, but uncertainty about US action still clouds international prospects (let alone holding back the needed investments in job creation, energy independence, and clean energy technology leadership).
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So there is some uncertainty about how things proceed. In many respects that is only natural as the Summit in Copenhagen wasn’t your normal climate negotiations and the process after the Summit was left unclear. So the world spent a couple of months sorting out what was achieved, how the Copenhagen Accord was to proceed, and what are the next steps for the UN climate negotiations. But while that “sorting” was occurring, things proceeded and countries moved forward with actions to reduce their emissions (with some hiccups along the way).
The expectations for the climate meeting in Cancun, Mexico this December appear to be focused not on agreeing to the final treaty (as the European Commission just outlined is likely), but rather to making concrete progress to implement the actions that countries committed to reduce their emissions, the finance that is to be deployed in the near- and medium-term, the rules for the “transparency” provisions agreed in the Accord, and the guidelines for efforts to solve the loss of tropical rainforests. Those actions are critical and countries have made it clear that they want those things to proceed, even while they sort out exactly how things will progress this year.
Now is not the time to sit in a holding pattern and wait for exact clarity on how things proceed. We must plug ahead and implement key actions that will put the world closer to solving this critical challenge.
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* This includes countries that have formally sent letters to the UNFCCC signaling their desire to be “associated with the Accord” and those that have submitted emissions reduction actions but may not have not clarified in their submission that they want to be “associated”. All values based upon data from the World Resources Institute Climate Analysis Indicator Tool. Emissions from 2005 and include deforestation; population data from 2006.
In a reprise of the debate between NRDC's Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Massey Coal CEO Don Blankenship over mountaintop removal coal mining, the Washington newspaper The Hill published dueling pieces by both adversaries in today's edition. Back in January, these two squared off face-to-face in a debate held in Charleston, West Virginia. Now, their opinion pieces on the same controversial topic appear side-by-side in the paper.
(Don Blankenship, seated left, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on right, at WV debate in January. Photo by Andrea Lai/Climate Ground Zero)
Blankenship: MTR is Good
The article by Mr. Blankenship, the no-holds-barred head of the nation's fourth-largest coal mining company, is entitled: "Coal mining continues legacy of affordable energy, job source in an era of dubious ‘green’ alternatives". Blankenship dives right in by attacking his nemesis, Bobby Kennedy, writing: "In 1960, West Virginians helped catapult John F. Kennedy into the White House. Fifty years later, his nephew has returned the favor with an agenda shared by environmental elitists in Washington that would accomplish nothing less than the economic cleansing of Appalachia."
Blankenship trots out the tired myth that "our coal economy depends on surface mining" and heralds strip mining as "the safest way to mine coal." He conveniently sidesteps the fact that the most extreme strip mining -- mountaintop removal -- actually stands in the way of jobs because it's heavy reliance on mechanization essentially removes the miner from the mining. Traditional underground mining requires far more miners, for far longer, than the economically expedient and more environmentally destructive decapitation of mountaintops and the dumping of mining waste into Appalachian streams. As for the safety and welfare of people, he conveniently overlooks the thousands of citizens in the Appalachian coalfields who suffer all manner of health risks and dangers at the hands of Massey's "scorched earth" approach to mining -- blasting on the mountain, deadly coal dust in the air, poisoned drinking water, overloaded coal trucks speeding down narrow, twisting roads, etc.
As might be expected from a man desperate to cling to the profits of a declining dirty industry and one who seemingly is in denial about the fact that fossil fuels are, after all, a finite resource, Blankenship portrays himself the victim of a "political crusade against coal [that] will devastate Appalachia’s economy." Naturally, it's not Massey's profits he's worried about at all, it's the fact that "the first casualties will be thousands upon thousands of good-paying jobs with good benefits. Jobs might not matter on the beaches of Hyannis Port, Mass., but they do in the hollows of West Virginia."
Kennedy: MTR is Greed
Bobby Kennedy, senior counsel for NRDC, is no wallflower himself. His counterpoint is entitled, "Poverty and tyranny central to immoral practice of mountain destruction, water and air poisoning". He sets up his argument by noting that the Appalachian forest is "the oldest and richest ecosystem north of the equator, having survived the Pleistocene ice era and provided the seed stock that reforested the continent." The kicker: "Now the Massey Energy coal company, the largest practitioner of mountaintop removal, and a few corporate cronies are accomplishing what the Pleistocene could not: flattening Appalachia’s mountains, obliterating those ancient forests and historic landscapes."
Not surprisingly, Mr. Kennedy's take on mountaintop removal is decidedly different than Blankenship's: "Using mammoth machines designed to replace human workers, and explosives with the power of a Hiroshima bomb each week, coal companies have already flattened 1.4 million acres, buried nearly 2,000 miles of streams and blown up 500 of America’s oldest mountains," Kennedy explains.
Kennedy strongly disputes industry's claim that mountaintop removal brings prosperity to the region, calling it a dirty lie. "To the contrary," Kennedy writes, "the out-of-state companies and Wall Street banks that control Appalachian coal are liquidating the resources of the region while impoverishing its residents."
He cites the example of West Virginia -- "ground zero for the plundering of Appalachia" -- as a state blessed with some of the country’s richest natural resources yet ranked as the second poorest state in the country. "Coalfield counties throughout the region have some of the highest poverty levels in the nation," Kennedy points out. He charges that mountaintop removal "is incompatible with either economic development or human habitation" and identifies once-thriving communities reduced by rapacious mining to "ghost towns dotting the coalfields." Whereas Blankenship accuses environmentalists of "economic cleansing" in Appalachia, presumably the result of regulations constricting mining operations, Kennedy accuses coal companies of engaging in "a deliberate policy of buying and closing coal towns and paying the residents to leave. Then, after a few short years of production, the companies leave too, abandoning depopulated hollows and barren moonscapes that are useless for economic development or functioning ecosystems."
Through Massey’s brand of mountaintop removal, Kennedy says Blankenship has “caused more suffering to more people in Appalachia than any other human being.” Kennedy calls this kind of mining a moral crime, as well as a "criminal enterprise", citing Massey's record-breaking $20 million fine from EPA for tens of thousands of Clean Water Act violations. "Thanks to the coal industry," writes Kennedy, "every waterway in central Appalachia is now contaminated with dangerous levels of heavy metals like mercury," as well "deadly chemicals like arsenic and selenium illegally dumped into Appalachia’s waterways."
According to Kennedy, mountaintop removal is only profitable due to huge public subsidies. For instance, he cites a study on the impact of coal on Kentucky’s state budget. It concluded that the industry generated roughly $528 million in tax revenues in 2006. "However," Kennedy notes, "placating King Coal cost the Bluegrass State $642 million to maintain thousands of miles of coal roads and other public subsidies – a net loss of $115 million annually." (By the way, that study did not even consider the public health consequences of mining or its many other externalized costs.) Aside from the economic costs of coal, Kennedy cites research on the alarming health costs of people who live in the coalfields, which exceed the economic contributions of the entire mining industry by up to $50 million annually.
Kennedy also points out that the myriad ills of mountaintop removal are in no way justified when you consider that only about 5 percent of the nation’s electric power comes from this form of mining. He concludes:
"It’s not a good thing for Appalachia, America, or democracy when corporations own the landscape and drive people off the land. West Virginians, Virginians, Kentuckians and Tennesseans are proud of their mountain heritage and they dearly love the hills and hollows. A robust majority want to see mountaintop removal ended. Even West Virginia’s senior senator, Robert Byrd, acknowledges the growing consensus against this extreme strip mining. They know that Appalachia at long last must move toward a diversified economy that will provide sustainable jobs and relieve the state of boom-bust cycles that spiral always toward poverty and tyranny."
(One of the "ghost towns" mentioned by Kennedy: Lindytown, WV)
Over the next two decades, 2.6 billion new consumers will enter the ranks of the global middle class. This rise in global wealth is expected to test the ecological limits of the planet as demand for raw materials, food, and fuel rise, water becomes more scarce, and global warming makes the climate less certain.
The only way to avoid these very real threats to our long term prosperity is to make economic growth radically cleaner and leaner. This process begins at home by passing comprehensive climate and energy legislation.
The following is a list of 5 ways our world is expected to change under business as usual growth assumptions:
1. The second world becomes the “new” first world
The combined GDP of the largest emerging countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China or BRICs) is expected to be larger than the G7 developed countries by the year 2035. This power shift from the “old” first world to the “new” first world is likely to create significant tensions in a resource constrained world.
2. Global demand for many commodities triples
Demand for key industrial commodities like steel is expected to triple over the next two decades as another 700 million passenger light duty vehicles hit the road. India and China alone are fore casted to increase vehicle purchases by 250 million cars as their populations grow richer. Demand for copper, bauxite, and other raw materials are also expected to rise significantly as countries aim to double global gross power generation capacity at a cost of nearly $14 trillion.
3. Rising oil demand to be met with new finds in unstable countries
Oil demand from China and India is expected to nearly double over the next twenty years. This rise in demand is expected to create new global tensions as nearly two-thirds of existing oil wells will have run dry by this time and new finds will be sourced by politically and socially unstable countries.
4. Food demand to rise 50% as arable land and water become more scarce
Food production will need to increase 50% by 2030 as a larger, richer global middle class increases their daily caloric consumption. This will create one of the biggest challenges as growth rates for arable and harvest able land are predicted to slow while the population in areas under extreme water stress rises from the current 3 billion to 4 billion by 2030.
5. The planet will struggle to meet these challenges
Increased demand for just about everything is expected to put yet more pressure on the planet’s carrying capacity. According to Global Footprint, the world, which already exceeded its bio-capacity in 1990, will be running at an unsustainable 180% of its carrying capacity by the year 2030.
Clearly these changes are far from trivial and are likely to become even more challenging due to the impacts of climate change. While climate deniers argue that the planet has gone through warming spells before and as such there is no reason to be concerned about these impacts, this narrow-minded thinking completely ignores the real life risks of having 8.2 billion people generating over $100 trillion of GDP, on a planet already running far beyond its carrying capacity (the business as usual case in 2030). When these factors are taken into consideration, it becomes painfully obvious that we are running a sub-prime bet on our future where even modest climate missteps are likely to prompt situations that can quickly spiral out of control.
While passing comprehensive energy and climate legislation won’t change the global growth trends, it will enable the US to step up and help transition the global economy to a low carbon, lower impact growth model. This powerful leadership role would also help US companies to grow jobs and profits, enhance our energy security, reduce risks to our military personnel, and keep global growth from pushing the planet beyond its limits.
On Tuesday, in an official letter to the UNFCCC signed by China’s climate negotiator Su Wei, China officially expressed its willingness to be associated with the Copenhagen Accord. To be precise, the one-sentence letter confirmed that “the [UNFCCC] Secretariat can proceed to include China in the list of Parties included in the chapeau of the Copenhagen Accord” (the preamble to the Accord).
China's official decision comes on the heels of a similar decision from India. Having these two major countries formally associate with the Accord alleviates some previous concerns about their engagement while breathing new life into the international agreement.
Long before Tuesday’s announcement, China made its intentions clear by confirming that it endorsed the outcome of the Accord (as I blogged about here) and was moving forward with actions to control its greenhouse gas emissions (as I blogged about here). Nonetheless, having China and India officially join the list of countries in the preamble is an invaluable new step. The Copenhagen Accord is currently endorsed by over 100 countries, including all of the world's largest economies and largest emitters, and covers more than 80% of the world's emissions.
On Wednesday, in front of the annual session of the National People’s Congress, China’s chief climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, reiterated China’s support for the Copenhagen Accord emphasizing his hopes that the next round of international negotiations in Mexico later this year will be successful. Xie also highlighted that under the requirements of the Copenhagen Accord, China has agreed to submit an inventory report every two years to the UN Secretariat of its actions to reduce its emissions.
When asked by a reporter whether the United States’ inaction on climate change was the largest barrier to reaching an international climate agreement, Xie answered that he recognizes the political obstacles that exist in the U.S. at the moment, but he hopes that the U.S. won’t as a result of its domestic political constraints end up pushing America’s responsibility onto the rest of the world. My colleague Alex Wang will be blogging about this conference in more detail shortly.
In addition to the annual session of the National People’s Congress, another top political body in China, the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is also holding its annual meeting. During this year’s CPPCC session, Chinese leaders have made a number of significant announcements related to climate change and the environment.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) highlighted China’s substantial budget allocations for clean energy and energy efficiency over the past four years and for the coming year. China is investing heavily in clean energy and energy efficiency projects and the MoF revealed the following statistics:
These numbers illustrate that China is pushing into new markets and expanding its research and development capabilities in the clean energy sector.
In addition, “low-carbon development” has been the buzzword of this year’s annual legislative session. One topic of debate at the CPPCC session is whether China should implement a carbon tax. One CPPCC member specifically cited the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) passed by the House as one reason why China should consider implementing a carbon tax, since ACES contained a provision that would tax imports from countries that don’t take certain actions to reduce their emissions:
Jia also pointed out that the levying of a carbon tax can reduce risks of being hurt in international trade friction, as some developed countries have mulled levying such a tax and will also likely impose carbon tariffs on imported products from other countries that do not have quotas for emissions reductions -- like the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last June. "But if we have already levied a carbon tax in China, the other countries would be suspected of double taxation by imposing carbon tariffs, which violates World Trade Organization agreements," he said.
The wheels are spinning worldwide as the fight to counter climate change presses on. The interconnections of this global problem are reflected in how interconnected the solutions must be. The fact that China is considering U.S. domestic policy while formulating its own response to climate change and that China and India have signed on to the Copenhagen Accord, illustrates once again the global nature of these issues and highlights the possibility for collaboration, cooperation and competition in achieving solutions.
