By Alex Trembath and Jesse Jenkins

Updated: This post was originally published on January 1, 2012. It was updated on January 27, 2012 to reflect the announced closure of six coal-fired power plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

Two new federal air pollution regulations are expected to spur the closure of up to 69 aging, inefficient, coal-fired power plants, reducing both harmful air pollutants and emissions of the climate destabilizing greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2), according to an AP survey of US power plant operators and a preliminary Breakthrough Institute analysis of the likely impacts on CO2 emissions.

According to the AP survey, 31 coal-fired electricity generating units at power plants in a dozen states are expected to close rather than face costly upgrades to comply with a pair of new EPA regulations designed to curb emissions of smog-forming pollutants and toxic smoke stack emissions. These plants are joined by four plants in Ohio that were formerly classified by the AP survey as "at risk for closure" and two plants in Pennsylvania and Maryland that were not on AP's list. These units have a combined nameplate capacity of 15,532 megawatts.*

Up to 32 additional coal-fired units with a combined 9,714 megawatts of capacity may also decide to close, as the costs of compliance with the EPA's recently enacted Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, designed to curb air pollution in states downwind from coal-fired power stations, and the new Mercury and Air Toxics Rule announced this week both take effect.

While the purpose of these regulations is to reduce harmful pollutants and improve public health, closure of these aging plants will also lead to a 1.4 to 4.4 percent reduction in US electric power sector emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), according to an analysis completed by the Breakthrough Institute. These air pollution regulations are thus a prime example of the ongoing success of pragmatic, "oblique" strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Continue reading "Breakthrough Analysis: New Air Pollution Rules Could Reduce US Electric-Sector CO2 Emissions By More Than 4 Percent" »

By Matthew Stepp, Clean Energy Policy Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and Jesse Jenkins, Director of Climate and Energy Policy at the Breakthrough Institute

It is time to take stock of our current climate trajectory, and consider what it means for climate policy. In Part 1 of this week long series, we argued that our current climate trajectory means we must 1) redouble efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions as quickly as possible, and 2) we must proactively build resilience to the uncertain impacts of a changing climate. Part 2 examined why voluntary economic contraction is a not a viable strategy for reducing emissions “as quickly as possible.” Part 3 explained why implementing a robust clean energy innovation strategy is the key way to making clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels, thus enabling the rapid adoption of low-carbon energy sources and drastically reducing CO₂ as quickly as possible. Part 4 discussed why adaptation through innovation is central to preparing for the impacts of a warmer world. Finally, Part 5 discusses how reducing a set of non-CO₂ pollutants and greenhouse gases can make a significant, near-term dent in warming and buy time to decarbonize the energy system.

As we have argued previously in this series, averting as much dangerous climate change impacts as possible hinges on our efforts to drive innovation and make clean energy cost competitive with fossil fuels. The cost of decarbonization is the key moderating force affecting the pace of carbon dioxide (CO₂) reductions, and innovation is the key to lowering these costs and accelerating climate progress. However, CO₂ isn’t the only powerful contributor to global warming, and scientists have identified opportunities to make a significant, near-term dent in warming by tackling other greenhouse gases and pollutants.

While we cannot effectively manage human impact on the climate over the long-run without decarbonizing the global energy system — a task that hinges on the energy innovation efforts described in Part 3 of this series — in the short term, we would do well to seize opportunities to reduce non-CO₂ emissions, particularly those with immediate co-benefits (e.g. profitable byproducts, improved public health, or better agricultural yields) that align incentives for rapid action.

Continue reading "The Future of Global Climate Policy: Slowing Warming by Cutting Methane and Pollutants (Part 5)" »

By Matthew Stepp, Clean Energy Policy Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and Jesse Jenkins, Director of Climate and Energy Policy at the Breakthrough Institute

It is time to take stock of our current climate trajectory, and consider what it means for climate policy. In Part 1 of this week long series, we argued that our current climate trajectory means we must 1) redouble efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions as quickly as possible, and 2) we must proactively build resilience to the uncertain impacts of a changing climate. Part 2 examined why voluntary economic contraction is a not a viable strategy for reducing emissions “as quickly as possible.” Part 3 explained why implementing a robust clean energy innovation strategy is the key way to making clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels, thus enabling the rapid adoption of low-carbon energy sources and drastically reducing CO₂ as quickly as possible. Part 4 discusses why adaptation through innovation is central to preparing for the impacts of a warmer world and buying us time to drastically cut emissions.

The door is closed to mitigating away all of the potentially dangerous impacts of climate change.  We’ve simply waited too long to take sweeping action and provide a cheap and viable clean energy substitute to fossil fuels.  In Part 1 of this series, we discussed that even so, the key objective of climate mitigation efforts is still the same – we must drastically cut emissions as quickly as possible (and Part 2 and Part 3 discussed how). 

Yet the warmer world we have locked ourselves into does inform other policy choices. In particular, building our resilience to extreme weather and increasing our adaptive capacity is now equally as important as mitigation and should be treated as such. Advocating for adaptation and mitigation is nothing new – in fact it’s common place. The argument here is that adaptation must now be a cornerstone of all climate policy choices – domestic or otherwise.

When it comes to climate adaptation policymaking, a lot of work needs to be done, as it’s still a topic that has been largely ignored by U.S. decision makers. In fact, the most immediate hurdle is for decision makers to stop paying lip-service to the need for an adaptation policy and begin aggressively implementing real resilience efforts.

Continue reading "The Future of Global Climate Policy: Building Resilience Through Climate Adaptation Innovation Policy (Part 4)" »

By Matthew Stepp, Clean Energy Policy Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and Jesse Jenkins, Director of Climate and Energy Policy at the Breakthrough Institute 

It is time to take stock of our current climate trajectory, and consider what it means for climate policy. In Part 1 of this week long series, we argued that our current climate trajectory means we must 1) redouble efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions as quickly as possible, and 2) we must proactively build resilience to the uncertain impacts of a changing climate. Part 2 examined why voluntary economic contraction is a not a viable strategy for reducing emissions “as quickly as possible.” Part 3 explains why implementing a robust clean energy innovation strategy is the key way to making clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels, thus enable rapid adoption of low-carbon energy sources and drastically reducing CO₂ as quickly as possible.

As we wrote in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, our current climate trajectory and global political economy dictates that the only way we can limit potentially dangerous climate change impacts, above the dangerous impacts we’re already locked into, is to redouble efforts to reduce global CO2 emissions as quickly as possible. To rapidly decarbonize the economy requires greatly accelerating the replacement of fossil fuels with low or zero-carbon clean energy substitutes. Implementing the right strategies to do so raises numerous stark policy choices and issues.

The most fundamental issue is that energy is largely a fungible commodity – the electricity coming out of your wall socket doesn’t have any immediately tangible differences whether it comes from a coal plant or a wind farm. The only immediate difference is cost. This key reality means that the rate of adoption for new clean energy technologies is largely moderated by two principal levers:

(1) The level of public tolerance for paying for the cost of cleaner energy in the form of higher energy costs, subsidies, or reduced economic welfare; and

(2) The cost competitiveness of clean energy compared to fossil fuels.

Continue reading "The Future of Global Climate Policy: Clean Energy Innovation Imperative (Part 3)" »

By Matthew Stepp, Clean Energy Policy Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and Jesse Jenkins, Director of Climate and Energy Policy at the Breakthrough Institute

It is time to take stock of our current climate trajectory, and consider what it means for climate policy. In Part 1 of this week long series, we argued that our current climate trajectory means we must 1) redouble efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions as quickly as possible, and 2) we must proactively build resilience to the uncertain impacts of a changing climate. Part 2 in this series examines whether voluntary economic contraction is a key strategy in reducing emissions “as quickly as possible.”

In a recent commentary, Grist’s David Roberts notes that our current climate trajectory puts us on a path to dangerous climate impacts, demanding that we must reduce emissions dramatically over the near-term. His proposed strategy to reduce emissions as quickly as possible constitutes an “all-hands-on-deck mobilization” (including a carbon tax, efficiency standards, subsidies, tech development). He also argues that the time has come to consider “shared sacrifice” in the world’s wealthiest nations: a course of voluntary economic contraction in developed economies (thus reducing fossil energy consumption), while allowing developing nations time to shift from dirty to clean energy.

As we wrote in Part 1 of this series, we firmly agree that our climate trajectory demands that we redouble efforts to reduce global CO₂ emissions as quickly as possible. They key question remains: what levers or strategies are central to determining how quickly we can reduce emissions. Is voluntary economic contraction a key climate strategy?

Continue reading "The Future of Global Climate Policy: Is Economic Contraction a Climate Solution (Part 2)" »

By Dr. Harry Saunders, Breakthrough Institute Senior Fellow

Recent posts by the CO2 Scorecard group claim to have discredited the analysis on rebound effects in industrial sectors of the US economy presented in one of my recent papers--let me here call it "Saunders." The authors offer an analysis of their own said to "devastate" the results I have reported there. Herewith is my response.

The Stakes

It is worth reminding readers of the stakes here. The energy consumption forecasts relied on by the IPCC, the IEA and McKinsey ignore rebound effects, or--to be maximally generous--treat them very inadequately. To the extent ignoring rebound effects results in underestimates of future energy use, it means we have less time than is generally believed to devise climate change solutions. This is surely problematic, but no serious individual would dispute the contention that uncomfortable reality must always trump wishful thinking. I believe rebound effects are significant and quite large, and I believe the peer-reviewed literature, including my own extensive contributions to that literature, supports this view. Unfortunately.

And to be absolutely clear: energy efficiency is a good thing (for one thing increasing economic welfare) and must be aggressively pursued; this has always been my position. It's just that it may not deliver the large reductions in energy use many (including myself) would hope for.

Editors note: for more background and reading on rebound effects see...

• An introductory FAQ on rebound effects, (Breakthrough Institute).
  
• "Does energy efficiency lead to increased energy consumption?," by Jesse Jenkins and Harry Saunders, Making It (UN Industrial Development Organization).
  
• "Energy Emergence: Rebound and Backfire as Emergent Phenomena," a comprehensive literature review on rebound effects (Breakthrough Institute)

Problems with the CO2 Scorecard Analysis

In light of the above, the CO2 Scorecard posts on this subject (1 and 2) are disappointing and disheartening. But they require a response, even if only to defend the honor of my fellow scholars in this field. A complete dissection of the CO2 Scorecard analysis would make this post too long. Rebound analysis, done properly, is a highly technical undertaking. The approach here is to show a handful of the serious problems with the authors' analysis by way of listing five points, with links to an appendix containing the technical foundation for these points. Those interested in further evaluating this foundation can link to the technical discussion; those interested only in the claims made here can skip the full technicalities. Either way, as you will see, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the authors of the CO2 Scorecard analysis are guessing at what they hope are problems with the Saunders analysis but then have not bothered to check if their guesses are actually right...

Continue reading "CO2 Scorecard Misrepresents and Misunderstands Efficiency Rebound Research" »

By Matthew Stepp, Clean Energy Policy Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and Jesse Jenkins, Director of Climate and Energy Policy at the Breakthrough Institute

Significantly limiting humanity’s impact on the global climate is quite simply an enormous task. Unfortunately, thanks to budget austerity and federal gridlock, any hope of implementing sweeping U.S. climate/energy policy has been optimistically pushed back to 2013 or beyond (though some incremental improvement is possible). And even the most hopeful observers of the recent global climate negotiations in Durban find little real progress towards reducing emissions. Now more than ever, it is time to take a hard look at where we stand and figure out how to match our policies to our climate goals.

Amongst climate scientists and advocates of climate policy, a growing recognition is taking hold that the current trajectory of global emissions will almost certainly lead us to a world of dangerous climate change impacts. For some, this means coming to terms with the fact that holding total global warming to less than 2°C, a commonly adopted “line in the sand” drawn by many climate advocates, has become nigh-impossible.

As a number of scientific articles have shown, most recently by Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows in the Journal of the Royal Society, limiting the world to 2°C warming most likely requires peaking total global carbon emissions in the next 5-10 years followed by immediate reductions to near-zero by 2050 (see Anderson and Bows emission trajectory options here, via David Roberts, and by David Hone here). It is now fairly obvious that the lack of global progress on decarbonization has likely pushed this timetable out of reach, prompting some recent soul searching amongst many climate advocates (the two of us included).

Is this realization a game changer for climate policy? Yes and no. 

Continue reading "The Future of Global Climate Policy: Taking Stock of Our Climate Outlook (Part 1)" »

The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled new (and long-overdue) regulations today to rein in mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal and oil-fired power plants. The new mercury rules, designed to save lives and protect children from the potent neurotoxin, are likely to trigger the closure of many of America's oldest, dirtiest coal-fired power plants over the next decade.

As the NYTimes reports:

If and when the new rule takes effect, it will be the first time the federal government has enforced limits on mercury, arsenic, acid gases and other poisonous and carcinogenic chemicals emitted by the burning of fossil fuels.

Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said that the regulations, which have taken more than 20 years to formulate, will save thousands of lives and return financial benefits many times their estimated $11 billion annual cost. ...

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin, harming the nervous systems of fetuses and young children and causing lifelong developmental problems. Other pollutants covered by the new rule, including dioxin, can cause cancer, premature death, heart disease, and asthma.

Power plants generally will have up to four years to comply, although waivers can be granted in individual cases to ensure that the lights stay on. The EPA estimates that utilities will be forced to retire plants that currently provide less than one-half of 1 percent of the nation's total generating capacity.

In this sense, the EPA's new pollution rules appear to be another example of the ongoing success of "oblique" strategies to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions. While the new rules may only force the closure of 0.5 percent of the nation's electricity generating fleet, those plants will be among the least efficient and most carbon-intensive power plants in the nation. The coal-fired power plants most likely to be retired in the face of new pollution regulations emit at least twice as much CO2 per kilowatt-hour of electricity as the national average.

This is a small step forward on climate, but a real one, strongly justified on public health grounds alone, even before any climate benefits are considered. The new rules will eliminate "up to 17,000 premature deaths" per year, along with thousands of heart attacks, asthma attacks and emergency room visits, according to EPA estimates.

Continue reading "Climate Pragmatism in Action: New Mercury Regulations To Trigger Less Coal Use" »

Writing for Conservation Magazine, reporter John Carey spotlights an ongoing debate over "rebound effects" simmering amongst academic and energy policy making communities. "The Efficiency Catch-22" notes that as economies and consumers become more efficient, demand for the services we derive from energy rebounds, eroding some or even all of the initially expected energy reductions.

As Carey writes:

Now, new studies .. are again suggesting that modern efforts to improve energy efficiency could lead to big rebound effects; they're touching a nerve and prompting debate in energy and climate circles. Governments and think tanks have launched studies of the paradox, and stories in the New Yorker and New York Times have even suggested that energy efficiency, far from being a savior, could actually be bad for the environment. "The stakes are actually pretty high," says Roland Geyer, professor of industrial ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and coauthor of a recent review of the rebound literature.

Dr. Geyer is right: the stakes are quite high.

As Breakthrough Institute documents in our comprehensive review of the academic literature on energy efficiency and rebound effects, "Energy Emergence" (February 2011), most climate mitigation strategies and national energy policies assume that significant gains can be made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and national energy imports at little to no cost or even positive economic gain, chiefly by pursuing "below-cost" energy efficiency measures -- improvements that more than pay for themselves through energy savings over time. The International Energy Agency, for example, counsels global policy makers that energy efficiency can accomplish more than half (58 percent) of all global greenhouse gas emissions reductions needed by 2050 in order to put the world on track to a stable climate (see image at right).

Yet rebound effects mean that for every two steps forward we take towards climate mitigation via below-cost efficiency measures, we take one or more steps backwards through rebound effects. And conventional climate mitigation scenarios, including the IEA's and IPCC's, ignore or incompletely and improperly consider rebound effects in their analysis.

If we follow such a course, and ignore rebound effects, the globe will be dangerously over-reliant on energy efficiency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Even if rebound effects erode just one-third to one-half of the initially expected savings, the globe could fall 20 to 30 percent short of needed emissions cuts, if the IEA's mitigation plan is followed. Further, such a shortfall means the time available to devise additional remedies is reduced, increasing the urgency of the clean energy supply-side challenge.

Continue reading "Does Efficiency Present a Catch-22?" »

In an all-to-predictable swipe at new fuel economy standards currently being negotiated by the White House and the auto industry, the arch-conservative Heritage Foundation invokes rebound effects as the latest reason to oppose increased auto efficiency:

When it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, The Atlantic's Megan McArdle notes that fuel efficiency standards will reduce carbon dioxide emissions, "but not by as much as advertised, because more fuel efficient cars make driving cheaper, so people will do more of it. This 'rebound' effect robs about 25% of gains, and also means more congestion, and more wear-and-tear on roads." The rebound effect also takes away some of the estimated cost savings and oil reduction.

Let's ignore for a moment the rich irony inherent in the Heritage Foundation expressing any concern about the efficacy of auto efficiency standards in cutting carbon emissions...

Rather, let's focus on the economic implications of rebound effects, which Heritage gets exactly backwards here. If improved vehicle efficiency triggers a rebound in demand for the energy services derived from personal transportation, that rebound represents an unequivocal improvement in economic welfare at the individual level and a sign of improved productivity and growth at the economy-wide level. Last we checked, Heritage was all for economic growth and improved individual welfare.

Continue reading "Heritage Foundation Gets Rebound Effect Backwards in Fuel Economy Attack" »

Climate Pragmatism, a new policy report released July 26th by the Hartwell group, details an innovative strategy to restart global climate efforts after the collapse of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process. This pragmatic strategy centers on efforts to accelerate energy innovation, build resilience to extreme weather, and pursue no regrets pollution reduction measures -- three efforts that each have their own diverse justifications independent of their benefits for climate mitigation and adaptation. As such, Climate Pragmatism offers a framework for renewed American leadership on climate change that's effectiveness, paradoxically, does not depend on any agreement about climate science or the risks posed by uncontrolled greenhouse gases.

The new report brings the Hartwell framework into an American perspective, and it is authored by a broad group of 14 international scholars and analysts representing a diverse range of political and ideological positions -- from the conservative American Enterprise Institute to moderate Democratic think tank Third Way and the liberal Breakthrough Institute.

Click here to read a statement on the report from Breakthrough Founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus

Climate Pragmatism is the third paper released by the Hartwell group, an informal international network of scholars and analysts dedicated to innovative strategies that uplift human dignity through mitigation of climate risk, enhancement of disaster resilience, improvement of public health, and the provision of universal energy access. Previous publications include The Hartwell Paper (May 2010) and How to Get Climate Policy Back on Course (July 2009).

Climate Pragmatism also builds on the limited and direct energy technology innovation strategy outlined by the Breakthrough Institute along with scholars at the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution in the October 2010 policy report, Post-Partisan Power.

As the report's authors explain:

The old climate framework failed because it would have imposed substantial costs associated with climate mitigation policies on developed nations today in exchange for climate benefits far off in the future -- benefits whose attributes, magnitude, timing, and distribution are not knowable with certainty. Since they risked slowing economic growth in many emerging economies, efforts to extend the Kyoto-style UNFCCC framework to developing nations predictably deadlocked as well.

The new framework now emerging will succeed to the degree to which it prioritizes agreements that promise near-term economic, geopolitical, and environmental benefits to political economies around the world, while simultaneously reducing climate forcings, developing clean and affordable energy technologies, and improving societal resilience to climate impacts. This new approach recognizes that continually deadlocked international negotiations and failed domestic policy proposals bring no climate benefit at all. It accepts that only sustained effort to build momentum through politically feasible forms of action will lead to accelerated decarbonization.

Continue reading "Climate Pragmatism: Innovation, Resilience and No Regrets" »

Phasing out the United States' entire nuclear power supply by 2030 would increase the country's carbon dioxide emissions by at least 5% and as much as 13%, depending on what mix of power plants replace the aging nuclear units. If the United States phased out the twenty-three nuclear power plants with the same design as Japan's troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex by 2030, carbon dioxide emissions in the United States would increase overall by at least 1 percent.

As the crisis at the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex continues to captivate global media attention, President Obama's domestic energy plans, which have long-included a push for the construction of new nuclear reactors, are beginning to be called into question. Two days ago, Senate Democrats demanded a broad review of the safety of the country's nuclear plants, with nine Democrats even seeking to delay legislation to allow the construction of a new plant in Iowa.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that, by 2030, nuclear power will supply about 18% of the nation's electricity, as compared to roughly 20% in 2011.

Below, we illustrate the consequences for overall United States carbon dioxide emissions if the United States phases out its entire nuclear fleet. Three scenarios project the effect of replacing lost generation either entirely by coal generation, entirely by natural gas generation, or by an equal split of both.

If nuclear power were to be completely taken out of the United States' power supply by 2030, United States carbon emissions would rise by at least 300 million tons over baseline scenarios. Carbon emissions would increase by at least 5% and as much as 13% across the entire economy, while power-sector emissions would soar by 12% to 33%, depending on the mix of replacement power.

The lowest value corresponds to a scenario in which the nuclear plants are replaced by new natural gas-fired units, perhaps the most likely scenario given recent discovery of plentiful new natural gas supplies in North America.

Continue reading "ANALYSIS: Decline in US Nuclear Power Would Increase Carbon Emissions" »

I've said it before and I'll say it again: when it comes to the global climate challenge, as goes China, so goes the world.

Driving that aphorism home, co2scorecard.org, a not-for-profit project that closely tracks global greenhouse gas emissions, now reports that China's CO2 emissions increased by 906 million tons in 2009 -- the second largest annual increase for any country in recorded history. China's soaring emissions were enough to completely offset the drop in emissions wrought by the economic havoc plaguing much of the Western world (see graphic below).

China's unprecedented surge in CO2

As Goes China, So Goes the World: Soaring CO2 emissions from energy use in China drive global greenhouse gas trends (click image to enlarge; source: co2scorecard.org)

To put this unprecedented 5 billion ton increase in annual CO2 emissions in context, Mr Afsah and colleague Kendyl Salcito note that during the 14-year long post-war boom period of 1959-1973, during which U.S. CO2 emissions rose each year, America's annual output of CO2 jumped by only 2 billion tons.

Continue reading "Climate Challenge Hinges on Fueling China with Clean and Cheap Energy" »

On February 17th, Breakthrough Institute released a new, comprehensive survey of the literature and evidence concerning the rebound effects triggered by many energy efficiency improvements.

"Energy Emergence: Rebound and Backfire as Emergent Phenomena" explains why energy efficiency measures that truly 'pay for themselves' will lower the cost of energy services -- heating, transportation, industrial processes, etc. -- driving a rebound in energy demand that can erode a significant portion of the expected energy savings and climate benefits of these measures.

This new set of Frequently Asked Questions explains rebound effects, how they operate, what kinds of energy efficiency improvements trigger bigger or smaller rebounds, and why coming to terms with the full scale of rebound challenges the heart of many contemporary climate mitigation strategies.

You can download the full "Energy Emergence" report here, or download and view a Power Point briefing on the report here.

Click any question below to view the answer...

Q: What is a "rebound effect?"

Q: So do rebound effects wipe out all of the energy savings from efficiency improvements?

Q: So what's the big deal? We still make progress right? Why do rebound effects matter?

Q: But I've always heard that rebound effects are really small. Amory Lovins has written that "we are observing only very small rebound effects (if any at all) in the United States," for example. He says that we don't drive our cars twice as much just because they are twice as efficient, for example. How big a deal is this?

Q: So how large would rebound be if we improve end-use consumer energy services like personal transportation or home heating or appliances?

Q: Should we expect rebounds to be the same in rich and poor nations?

Q: What about industrial efficiency improvements? Does making a business or a factory more efficient trigger energy demand rebound?

Q: What happens if we pursue efficiency improvements across an entire sector or economy? If we make the entire U.S. economy more efficient, for example, should we still expect rebound effects?

Q: When is backfire likely to occur? Are there times when rebound wipes out ALL of the savings from energy efficiency?

Q: Are you saying energy efficiency is a waste of time then? Are you arguing against pursuing efficiency?

Q: Are you saying that rebound effects are the reason energy use has continued to rise? Isn't energy use just growing because the economy is growing and richer people are using more energy?

Q: But we aren't capturing all the efficiency opportunities out there. If we work harder at efficiency, can't we out pace the rate of economic growth and finally decouple the economy from consuming ever more energy?

Q: Are rebound effects peculiar to energy? Does the same thing happen for labor or other materials

Q: Are "Rebound Effects" the same as the "Jevon's Paradox"?

Q: Do all energy efficiency improvements trigger rebound effects?

Q: I read a blog post by staff from the Natural Resources Defense Council who said that your report "blames a host of evils on efficiency, but fails to back up their accusations with facts." Is that true?

Do you have your own questions that aren't answered here? Please leave your question in the comments and we'll do our best to answer.

by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger

It is a great pleasure to be here at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies for this retrospective on "The Death of Environmentalism." In early 2005 Yale invited us to debate that essay, and since then the School has continued to demonstrate a genuine interest in what our friend and colleague Peter Teague has taken to calling ecological innovation. You train your students to ask hard questions -- we saw this first hand in 2010 Breakthrough Fellow and Yale School Masters candidate David Mitchell -- and your flagship publication, Yale360, is publishing some of the most interesting green thinkers today. We are grateful once again for this opportunity to reflect on the nearly seven years since we wrote our essay, and make some new arguments about what the green movement must do now.

Seven years ago the two of us started interviewing America's environmental leaders with the intention of writing a report on the politics of global warming for the October 2004 meeting of the Environmental Grantmakers Association. We came away from the experience deeply disappointed. Not one of the environmental leaders we interviewed articulated a compelling vision or strategy for dealing with the challenge. None expressed much interest in rethinking their assumptions about the problem or the solutions. What we heard again and again during our interviews were the same old riffs that green leaders had been repeating since the late 1980's. Global warming would be solved through the same kinds of policies that we had used to address past pollution problems such as acid rain. Most were confident that John Kerry was, with their help, about to be elected president, and the biggest funders in the movement told us they were just a few steps away from passing cap and trade legislation.

That October we delivered our paper, "The Death of Environmentalism," at the Environmental Grantmakers Association conference. While leaders at environmental philanthropies and national green groups hoped that the debate the essay started would just go away, "The Death of Environmentalism" struck a cord with many others and sparked a spirited debate. Many took the paper's arguments personally and, without question, the most common reaction to our essay was "I'm not dead." Our friend Adam Werbach gave a speech called "Is Environmentalism Dead," wherein he suggested that environmentalists make common cause with a broader coalition of progressive interests in hopes of building a broader and more diverse movement. And Yale's own Gus Speth questioned whether capitalism itself was compatible with ecological sustainability and suggested a radical shift in values was required to deal with the problem.

Continue reading "The Long Death of Environmentalism" »

From the Chronicle of Philanthropy, February 20, 2011
By Lance Lindblom and Peter Teague

In the wake of serial disappointments, a new consensus is beginning to emerge that may guide climate and energy policy into a new and more constructive phase, with philanthropy poised to play a key role.

Environmental groups--and the foundations that support them--spent the past decade pressing a single approach to global-warming policy.

The problem was defined narrowly--if accurately--as the emission of too much heat-trapping gas into the atmosphere from the burning of oil, coal, and gas.

The solution was to reduce those emissions by making conventional energy expensive enough to change how individuals and corporations consume energy and, most important, to drive massive levels of private investment into energy efficiency and clean-energy alternatives.

The events of the past two years, however, with the failure of the environmentalists' strategy in the U.S. Senate and the collapse of international climate talks in Copenhagen, made it clear that substantially raising the price of fossil fuels is not a viable option.

Recognizing the need to rethink the problem and to open the conversation to a larger set of solutions, philanthropy has begun to support the development of new approaches focused on making clean energy cheap in absolute terms.

Continue reading "More Donors Need to Support Innovative Climate Solutions" »

There is a large expert consensus and strong evidence that below-cost energy efficiency measures drive a rebound in energy consumption that erodes much and in some cases all of the expected energy savings, concludes a new report by the Breakthrough Institute. "Energy Emergence: Rebound and Backfire as Emergent Phenomena" covers over 96 published journal articles and is one of the largest reviews of the peer-reviewed journal literature to date.

Readers in a hurry can download Breakthrough's PowerPoint demonstration here or download the full paper here. An introductory FAQ can be found here, and is a good starting point for readers interested in rebound effects.

In a statement accompanying the report, Breakthrough Institute founders Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger wrote, "Below-cost energy efficiency is critical for economic growth and should thus be aggressively pursued by governments and firms. However, it should no longer be considered a direct and easy way to reduce energy consumption or greenhouse gas emissions." The lead author of the new report is Jesse Jenkins, Breakthrough's Director of Energy and Climate Policy; Nordhaus and Shellenberger are co-authors.

The findings of the new report are significant because governments have in recent years relied heavily on energy efficiency measures as a means to cut greenhouse gases. "I think we have to have a strong push toward energy efficiency," said President Obama recently. "We know that's the low-hanging fruit, we can save as much as 30 percent of our current energy usage without changing our quality of life." While there is robust evidence for rebound in academic peer-reviewed journals, it has largely been ignored by major analyses, including the widely cited 2009 McKinsey and Co. study on the cost of reducing greenhouse gases.

Continue reading ""Energy Emergence: Rebound and Backfire as Emergent Phenomena" - Report Overview" »

Seems it might be about as easy to convince someone global warming is fake by pointing to the serial nor'easters slamming the east coast as it is to persuade an individual that global warming is fact by placing them in a warm room, reports the NYT:

The study, by Jane Risen, a behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago, and Clayton Critcher, a marketing professor at the University of California, Berkeley, found that university students placed in a heated room expressed higher confidence that global warming was a proven fact than those placed in a neutral control room...

"These results suggest that the mere experience of heat influenced belief in global warming," the researchers wrote...

Liberals and conservatives were similarly influenced by the raised temperatures, and the effect was present even when attention was drawn to the temperature of the room.

Continue reading "Putting So-Called "Deniers" In the Hot Seat " »

Over at the Economist, Ryan Avent notes that economists are beginning to move beyond a simple reliance on carbon pricing as the sine qua non of climate policy:

The typical baseline economist response to the problem of global warming is a very simple and straightforward one. Climate change is a negative externality, and the carbon emissions that generate it are easily targetable. The clear thing to do, then, is to place a tax on carbon emissions which will lead economic actors to internalise the cost of the warming they create with their decisions. This will discourage carbon-intensive activities and contribute to the development of clean alternative, reducing emissions and climate change.

Easy enough. Unfortunately, this strategy quickly runs into difficulty. One big problem is political. It's very difficult to convince people to accept higher energy costs, and it's very difficult to coordinate policy across countries, which is necessary to ensure that the policy works correctly. But there are also economic challenges. ... Economies are good at finding substitutes for key technologies, but it does take some time. And so because the world has waited so long to act, it now seems that the disaster-avoiding carbon tax path may itself be too economically damaging. So what's an economist to advocate?

Continue reading "Economists Moving Beyond Carbon Pricing" »

Here's an intriguing story to kick off the new year with a little retrospection...

Flash back to 2008, and nearly all of the top GOP contenders for a 2012 presidential run were taking global warming pretty seriously and offering real, if measured, endorsements of Congressional or state action to curb pollution and GHGs.

On the campaign stump, in books, speeches and nationally-televised commercials, aspiring GOP White House candidates such as Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney have warned in recent years about the threats from climate change and pledged to limit greenhouse gases. Some have even committed the ultimate sin, endorsing the controversial cap-and-trade concept that was eventually branded "cap and tax."

Back in 2008, Newt Gingrich took to a couch next to the Right's current-day arch-nemesis, Nancy Pelosi, to endorse Congressional climate action in an ad sponsored by Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection.

And as Politico notes, even Sarah Palin has flip flopped on the issue:

Just days after McCain picked her as his running mate, Palin told ABC News she believes human activities "certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change" and that "we've got to do something about it, and we have to make sure that we're doing all we can to cut down on pollution."

Politico's Darren Samuelsohn calls it the McCain effect, with John McCain's prominent endorsement of cap and trade legislation making it safe for GOPers to talk about climate.

"I think McCain is moving in a responsible direction," then-House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told E&E News in May 2008. "Clearly the issue of climate change is on the minds of a lot of people. Humans clearly contribute to this. It just really depends on what kind of a cap-and-trade system, what kind of safety valves are in there."

Flash forward just a few years and each of these prominent GOPers are likely running for an excuse, a mea culpa, or another way to distance themselves from green records that are now liabilities with a Republican base strongly influenced by the Tea Party movement.

So what happened? Was it simply the polarizing direction of the cap and trade debate? The shift in the economic winds? The rise of the Tea Party? The inherent politics of a proposal centered on making our current base of energy sources more expensive, rather than making the cleaner alternatives cheaper?

Whatever the constellation of causes, the change is quite stark. Looking ahead to 2011 and beyond, can we build a new and enduring consensus around an innovation-centered approach to energy reform, building a clean economy, and responsibly reducing pollution? And can we make it sustained enough to avoid the factors that turned the endorsements of prominent GOP leaders into liabilities just a few years later?

We welcome thoughts from our readers...

For 35 years, government and the market have been trying and failing to get energy policy right. Congress has failed to pass large-scale clean energy and climate legislation, while China and other competitors are moving aggressively to take the lead in new energy technology. And the market has failed to create needed low-carbon technology on its own. Meanwhile, the nation's dependence on oil and coal deepens and global temperatures continue to rise. To address these issues, we need to get past the old energy policy paradigm - and we just may be turning the corner.

On December 15th 2010, hundreds of leading thinkers, scientists, public officials, and innovators gathered in Washington, DC for the Energy Innovation 2010 Conference to initiate a new conversation on a new energy policy paradigm: one that recognizes the central role of innovation in resolving the world's looming energy challenges and boosting American competitiveness. Climate change aside, we can't rely on carbon-based fuels for the next 150 years the way we did for the last 150. And we can't create the transformational energy innovations we need without putting innovation front and center.

Spearheaded by the Breakthrough Institute, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and a large coalition of think tanks and organizations from across the political spectrum (full list of partners and speakers here), the conference sought to chart the proper course for a new paradigm with energy innovation as a central focus.

"Energy Innovation 2010" merely begins a new national energy dialog that must continue well into the coming years. Breakthrough Institute and our partners will continue to spearhead this conversation as we seek new strategies to address the multifaceted energy challenges facing America and the world.

In case you missed the conference, held before a packed house at the National Press Club, or if you simply want to revisit the top notch presentations delivered throughout the packed day, videos from the full conference can be viewed below.

Continue reading "Energy Innovation 2010 - Event Recap and Videos" »

By Michael Shellenberger, Ted Nordhaus, and Jesse Jenkins

If there's one thing everyone knows for certain, it's that energy efficiency reduces energy consumption. President Obama, Steven Chu, Fortune 500 chieftains, Silicon Valley VCs, the U.N. and McKinsey all say it.

Why, then, does ever-greater efficiency go hand-in-hand with ever-greater energy consumption? In this week's New Yorker, journalist David Owen explains this apparent paradox. The essay (excerpted below) is as fascinating as anything written by Malcolm Gladwell. And the implications for energy and climate policy are of great significance.

Continue reading "The Efficiency Illusion" »

After two years of often-tumultuous debate in Congress, the national debate over energy and climate change policy has now been altered: cap and trade policy efforts have run aground in Congress, perhaps fatally, and Republicans are ascendant, reshaping the national political landscape. Meanwhile, with economic recovery the top priority for the public and policymakers alike, America's clean tech competitors are surging ahead, raising the stakes for energy policy.

Against this backdrop, support is growing on both right and left for new national investments in energy innovation that can help address some of the most urgent imperatives of our time - renewing the economy, improving energy security and public health, and overcoming key environmental challenges.

A growing chorus of voices thus counsels a renewed national commitment to develop breakthrough energy technologies - and to the reform of America's energy innovation system itself.

In recent months, energy experts have advised policymakers to: take a page from the nation's long history of successful military research and procurement; build on the success of agricultural research stations and the National Institutes of Health by establishing new innovation institutes and clusters nationwide; promote the right mix of both competition and collaboration to spur innovation and productive knowledge spillover; reform energy subsidies to reward innovation; and restructure business taxes to promote investment in the building blocks of an innovation economy.

On December 15^th, a group of America's leading policy think tanks will host a day-long conference in Washington D.C. to rethink energy innovation.

Energy Innovation 2010, held at the National Press Club, will bring together leading experts from government, think tanks, academia, and business to ask hard questions about how energy innovation efforts can be brought to scale, how the innovation system must be restructured and reformed, and how to renew the kind of active partnerships between the public and private sectors that were responsible for so much of America's prior technological innovation and economic strength.

Breakthrough Institute is proud to organize and sponsor this free, day-long conference, along with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and with sponsoring partners the American Enterprise Institute, Third Way, Clean Air Task Force, Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Securing America's Future Energy, and the Brookings Institution. We are pleased to welcome TheEnergyCollective.com and Yale Environment 360 as media sponsors for the event.

Registration for Energy Innovation 2010 is free, but required in advance as space is limited, so register today.

Panels and discussions will be moderated by some of the nation's leading journalists and commentators on energy and innovation, and include:

Continue reading "Energy Innovation 2010: Rethinking Energy Innovation" »

By Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus

The failure of the U.N. climate process is proof that shared economic sacrifice cannot be the basis of global action. Nations will not scale up clean energy as long as it remains so much more expensive than fossil fuels. Thinking past talks in Cancun, nations should focus instead on energy innovation, adaptation, and no regrets policies that do not require agreement about global warming. The first step is recognizing that the global market for clean energy exists only thanks to government subsidies and mandates. Instead of imposing emissions controls and subsidizing existing technologies, nations should use competitive deployment to purchase advanced energy technologies, benchmark the winners, and allow intellectual property to spill-over between firms and nations.

This is the framework we propose for pragmatic global climate action in the cover story for a special energy section in today's Wall Street Journal, pegged to the start of U.N. climate talks in Cancun, Mexico. Today also marks the launch of a new web site, Breakthrough Europe, and its kick-off post, "Cancun Can't: The Twilight of European Climate Leadership," which documents the failure of Europe's cap and trade system to reduce emissions.

Our Wall St. Journal essay, "How to Change the Global Energy Conversation," builds on Breakthrough Institute's thinking about the failure of the UN process ("Scrap Kyoto," Democracy Journal), the clean tech intellectual property illusion ("The Revolution Will Not Be Patented," Slate), the green Keynesianism and neoliberalism behind Obama's green jobs fiasco ("Green Jobs for Janitors," The New Republic), and our proposal to make clean energy cheap through technology innovation ("Fast, Clean & Cheap," Harvard Law and Policy Review, Feb 2008).

Continue reading "WSJ: Forget the U.N. Climate Convention, Rethink Innovation Instead" »

Were the European Union to call for a deeper cut in carbon dioxide emissions, it would do little to stem the unrelenting increase in global emissions and is unlikely to have any effect on the international climate negotiations, according to the International Energy Agency.

While Europe's negotiating position in international climate talks remains a target of 20 percent emissions reductions below 1990 levels by 2020, some have pushed it to target an additional ten percent reduction. The EU has long maintained that it would boost its target to 30 percent if other industrialized countries followed suit.

What is the significance of an extra ten percent reduction in EU emissions by 2020? Not much, according to IEA Chief Economists Fatih Birol:

"We estimate extending Europe's plan to cut emissions from 20 to 30 percent would roughly equal China's two-week gas output."

Could the 10 percent EU additional emissions cut really equal only two weeks of emissions in China? We checked the numbers on that (h/t Roger Pielke, Jr.), and Mr. Birol is indeed correct.

Continue reading "Eye on the Prize: China is Make or Break for Climate" »

This should come as no surprise...

According to E&E news ($ubscription required):

There will be no cap-and-trade climate bill considered in the next Congress, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) promised a colleague today.

Newly sworn-in Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said today that Reid made a "total commitment" to him that there would be no cap and trade next session.

Reid's office confirmed the promise. "Given the election results, there is no chance we can deal with cap and trade," Reid spokesman Jim Manley told E&ENews PM.

New ideas will clearly be needed to make clean energy progress in the next Congress and beyond.

For more on that, see the "Climate Next" series now underway at the Atlantic, Slate, Mother Jones and the other participating partners in the Climate Desk project. Breakthrough's Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus kick off the series with their essay, "Innovate First, Regulate Later."

Here's an interesting argument from our friends across the pond at the UK-focused Political Climate blog, making the case that despite rising deficit concerns and austerity measures in the UK and elsewhere, borrowing from the future may still actually be an appropriate way to pay for clean energy innovation today:

Against this background, it may sound mad to argue for more public borrowing in order to pay for investments in low carbon technologies and infrastructure, but that is what I am going to do in this post.

Let's start with the rationale. ... The starting point is that in advanced economies successive generations tend to get better off over time. For example, at the depths of the 1930s depression Keynes observed that despite the general gloom, he was confident that 100 years in the future, people might be eight times better off in real terms. And indeed average GDP per capita in the UK is now already about 5 times what it was in the 1930s. By extension, we would normally expect future generations to be better off than us in GDP terms.

... [Furthermore, if] we in this generation mitigate climate change, we will allow future generations to have a higher standard of living than they would have if we did nothing. We are very slowly beginning to do this, with policies being introduced to encourage us to invest less in conventional capital (e.g. fossil fuel power stations) and more in investments that effectively maintain natural capital (like renewable energy).

At the moment we are paying for these more expensive investments through reduced consumption, in the form of higher energy bills. If instead we were to borrow a certain amount of money from future generations (who will have to repay through their taxes) and use this money to pay the extra cost of renewables, carbon capture and storage and so on, then the theory says it should be possible to make both our generation and future generations better off. ...

Continue reading "Should We Borrow from the Future to Pay for Clean Energy Innovation Today?" »

Support for a technology-first approach to America's energy and climate needs is rapidly growing in the wake of the October 14 release of the "Post-Partisan Power" proposal by scholars at the Brookings Institution, AEI and Breakthrough Institute. Here is a sampling of the many reactions and widespread discussion generated by the report...

Joshua Green, Atlantic Monthly & Boston Globe: "Unlike most of what gets introduced just before an election, this was not a soon-to-be-forgotten political ploy, but a long-term project to accomplish what Congress and the president could not: put the country on the path to a clean energy future."

David Leonhardt, New York Times: [T]he death of cap and trade doesn't have to mean the death of climate policy. The alternative revolves around much more, and much better organized, financing for clean energy research. It's an idea with a growing list of supporters, a list that even includes conservatives -- most of whom opposed cap and trade."

Tim Mak, Frum Forum (a site started by former Bush speechwriter David Frum): "If Americans want to fight the challenges of climate change and reduce their dependence on foreign oil, this piece sets a good baseline for discussion."

Ezra Klein, Washington Post: "It's not that PPP is a sure thing, nor that it will pass Congress anytime soon. The Tea Party Republicans will need to sow their wild and crazy oats for awhile before they feel any need to tack to the center. But when they do, they aren't going to embrace cap and trade. They might, on the other hand, embrace a limited and direct approach to energy innovation."

Michael Levi, Council on Foreign Relations: [T]his idea may well make a lot of sense... most of the paper is actually a smart and thoughtful discussion of how to do energy innovation policy right".

Kirsten Powers, New York Post: " If America wants to remain the leader of the world economy, Washington has to attack this issue."

Bryan Walsh, TIME Magazine: "A truly bipartisan approach on energy and climate won't be easy--sometimes, especially right before an election, it seems completely impossible--but it's the only approach we can hope for, if we still hope."

Nature: "[G]iven the lack of consensus in other areas, long-term R&D intended to bring the cost of clean energy down might well be one area where lawmakers will be able to agree."

Case Western professor Jonathan Adler writes: "While not without flaws, the proposal represents a serious alternative to politically-moribund cap-and-trade proposals and the regulate-everything mindset that produced the Waxman-Markey bill."

Newsweek: "Cap-and-trade is on life support, but its weakness is giving other ideas room to breathe. Emerging proposals focus on investment in clean energy, pitched to the public with a narrative that omits a doomsday point of view about global warming and instead focuses on more practical considerations like job creation or the need to stop certain types of pollution."

Economists Dani Rodrik and Tyler Cowan also saw hope in the new proposal.

All that convergence around a politically centrist, technology-first approach alarmed some climate warriors on left and right.

Climate skeptic Steven Milloy of Green Hell blog (and Junkscience.com) wrote: "The left isn't oscillating at all. They are focused on establishing a one-world socialist paradise. Whatever path gets the comrades there, they'll follow. Global warming has just been there most successful gambit to date."

Said Grist.org's David Roberts: "The Republican Party don't want to spend government money on clean energy, Hayward notwithstanding."

Joe Romm, ClimateProgress.org: [It] should also be obvious we're not going to get a massive federal clean energy program either."

Not all long-time climate warriors were sour on the proposal.

While EDF chief economist Nathaniel Keohane reiterates that "we need both cap and trade and sustained investment in clean energy R&D," he went on to tell the New York Times' David Leonhardt, "if it turns out that we can't get cap and trade in the near term, we need R&D investment all the more."

Harvard's Robert Stavins still insists "there is no other feasible approach that can provide meaningful emissions reductions" beyond cap and trade, but he acknowledges: "New path-breaking technologies will be needed to address climate change, and public support for private-sector or public-sector R&D will be crucial to meet this need."

MIT's Michael Greenstone, a long-time cap and trade supporter, isn't so sure about the real-world viability of the policy he once advocated. "The first best hope was getting a world price for carbon, and that now looks remote in the coming years," he told Leonhardt. "But there are ways in which the other options may be preferable to a price only in the U.S." Greenstone endorses the need for $25 billion in clean energy R&D investments and rightly explains, "All the action is really going to be occurring in developing countries" who will need clean and affordable energy to power their economic growth.

In a second post, Washington Post's Ezra Klein looks the realpolitik in the face as well and concludes: "The best of all worlds would've been a price on carbon married to a big investment in clean-energy research. But this is not the best of all worlds. This is our world. And this [technology-first proposal] ... might be our last, best chance to protect it."

Update The Washington Post editorial page endorses Post-Partisan Power's call for a bipartisan energy innovation strategy, noting: "Even if cap-and-trade had passed, the logic goes, the government would still have had to invest in scientific research to make green energy affordable; might as well make those investments, anyway ... incremental action is better than none."

Continue reading "Technology-First Consensus Grows" »

It is time to hit the reset button on energy policy, according to scholars with American Enterprise Institute, Brookings Institution and the Breakthrough Institute, who are today releasing a new report, "Post-Partisan Power," which calls for revamping America's energy innovation system with the aim of making clean energy cheap.

The new report calls for increasing federal innovation investment from roughly $4 today to $25 billion annually, and using military procurement, new, disciplined deployment incentives, and public-private hubs to achieve both incremental improvements and breakthroughs in clean energy technologies. The authors point to America's long-history of bi-partisan support for innovation.

Writes David Leonhardt in today's New York Times, "the death of cap and trade doesn't have to mean the death of climate policy. The alternative revolves around much more, and much better organized, financing for clean energy research. It's an idea with a growing list of supporters, a list that even includes conservatives -- most of whom opposed cap and trade."

Mark Muro of Brookings tells Politico the proposal's four parts "are broadly popular, provide a very broad and appealing American vision of economic transformation and are certainly far more doable than a global pricing system at this point." Added Steve Hayward of American Enterprise Institute, "The entire climate and energy agenda that we've been talking about for several years now has hit a dead end, so it's time to hit the reset button."

Click here to download the full report. Read on for a summary of recommendations and other resources.

Continue reading ""Post-Partisan Power" - Summary of Recommendations" »

According to most electoral prognosticators, Republicans are poised to win major victories in the upcoming November midterm elections, with control of both the House and Senate within their reach. That should spell the end for climate and clean energy legislation, according to many observers, at least for the next Congressional cycle.

But what if it doesn't? Over at SolveClimate, Elizabeth McGowan takes a fresh look at what a GOP win in November could mean for clean energy progress, noting that split control in Washington could actually improve chances for bipartisan energy legislation.

Continue reading "Does November GOP Win Spell the End for Clean Energy Progress? Maybe Not" »

In another clear sign of the steadily unraveling pollution paradigm, Yvo De Boer, the former head of the UN climate negotiations, has acknowledged that the long debate over targets and timetables for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions is irrelevant. Asked by Bloomberg about emissions reductions targets in the context of the upcoming climate negotiations in Cancun, De Boer replied:

"Discussions about targets have become largely irrelevant in the context of the Copenhagen outcome. I don't think that we're going to see a dramatic increase in the level of ambition."

De Boer was singing a different tune in the run up to last year's Copenhagen climate negotiations, which ended, predictably, without a comprehensive and legally binding emissions treaty. In August 2009, de Boer told TIME Magazine that even if the U.S. didn't show up to Copenhagen with a new climate change law in hand, an ambitious target would be enough to placate the international community:

"The international community is keenly interested in seeing what steps America is making at home to get its emissions under control, but it also wants to see what the Administration says it will do. If the Administration in Copenhagen commits to a target that is good enough for the international community, that will work. It's up to the U.S. to see how the target will be implemented nationally."

Continue reading "Former UN Climate Chief: Emissions Targets and Timetables are Irrelevant " »

By Roger Pielke Jr., Breakthrough Institute Senior Fellow. Cross-posted from Roger Pielke Jr's Blog.

In a perspective just out in Science commenting on a new paper (Davis et al.) that shows another way to explain the decarbonization challenge, Breakthrough Institute Senior Fellow Marty Hoffert of NYU explains how the magnitude of the challenge of stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at a low level has been underestimated:

Pacala and Socolow (8) analyzed a scenario that envisioned stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 at 500 ppm within 50 years. They found that reaching that goal required the deployment of seven existing or nearly existing groups of technologies, such as more fuel-efficient vehicles, to remove seven "wedges" of predicted future emissions (the wedge image coming from the shape created by graphing each increment of avoided future emissions). Those seven wedges, each of which represents 25 gigatons of avoided carbon emissions by 2054, are cited by some as sufficient to "solve" climate change for 50 years (9).

Unfortunately, the original wedges approach greatly underestimates needed reductions. In part, that is because Pacala and Socolow built their scenario on a business as usual (BAU) emissions baseline based on assumptions that do not appear to be coming true. For instance, the scenario assumes that a shift in the mix of fossil fuels will reduce the amount of carbon released per unit of energy. This carbon-to-energy ratio did decline during prior shifts from coal to oil, and then from oil to natural gas. Now, however, the ratio is increasing as natural gas and oil approach peak production, coal production rises, and new coal-fired power plants are built in China, India, and the United States (10).

The enormous challenge of making the transition to carbon-neutral power sources becomes even clearer when emissions-reduction scenarios are based on arguably more realistic baselines, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's "frozen technology" scenario ( 11, 12). Capturing all alternate energy technologies, including those assumed within this BAU scenario, means that a total of ~18 of Pacala and Socolow's wedges would be needed to curb emissions (13) (see the figure). And to keep future warming below 2°C, even under the Davis et al. age-out scenario, an additional 7 wedges of emissions reductions would be needed-- for a total of 25 wedges (see the figure).

Continue reading "Science: Scale of the Climate Challenge Demands Committment to Technology Innovation" »

If you live in states like Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia or Kentucky, you may have already seen them: new political hatchet ads attacking Democrats and even some moderate Republicans for support of Congressional cap and trade bills.

According to E&E News ($usbcription required), the climate policy, which narrowly passed the House of Representatives last year before stalling in the Senate, is the latest weapon wielded by conservative Republican Congressional candidates across the country, who are trying to ride a wave of anger over perceived, out-of-control big government policies into office.

Continue reading "Republican Candidates Wield Cap and Trade as Political Weapon" »

In a new interview with Technology Review, Bill Gates nails the global energy and climate challenge and discusses the need for dramatic increases in energy innovation funding to make clean energy cheap.

Bill Gates has been speaking out publicly over the last few months--first in a blog post on his website, then in a talk at the TED conference, and now as part of the American Energy Innovation Council--for radical energy innovation to drive carbon emissions to zero.

In a climate discourse dominated by emissions targets and carbon caps, Gates has provided a refreshing and clear-eyed look at the first-order importance of direct public investment to develop clean, affordable technologies to replace fossil fuels on a global scale.

In this new interview, Gates discusses why dismissing the difficulty of the challenge is counter-productive, and argues that carbon pricing can never drive the dramatic innovation required to transform the global energy system. Instead of raising the price of fossil fuels, Gates argues that the time has come to shift our attention to raising the revenues necessary to fuel innovation and make clean energy cheap.

Below the fold, you can find excerpts from Gates' interview, which can be read in full here.

For more, the NYTimes Andy Revkin and TIME magazine's Bryan Walsh each spotlight the interview here and here, respectively.

Continue reading "Gates: Invest in Innovation to Make Clean Energy Cheap" »

By Jesse Jenkins and Devon Swezey

Cap and trade is dead. Again. For real this time.

Reports put the time of death at 1 P.M. EST, July 22nd, 2010. That is when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid emerged from a meeting of the Democratic Caucus without enough support for even a severely weakened and scaled-back emissions cap on the utility sector.

With that, recognition has finally set in everywhere: the United States Senate is not going to enact any form of cap and trade. Not this year. And probably not any time in the foreseeable future.

Worse yet, clean energy progress this year has gone down with the long-sinking cap and trade ship.

Continue reading "Time to Bury Cap and Trade and Plan Anew" »

Cross-posted from the ABC's The Drum Unleashed.

By Leigh Ewbank, Breakthrough Fellow

The ascension of Julia Gillard provides an opportunity for Labor to reorient its climate change policy agenda.

Contrary to what its proponents have argued for years, emissions trading has not been as politically feasible as initially thought. Labor's inability to pass a market-based mechanism in its first term not only brings into question the political palatability of neoliberal-inspired policy, but also draws attention to the need for alternative approaches.

With the national climate change debate focused solely on capping and trading carbon, policymakers have forgotten that there are many paths to reduce Australia's emissions and transition to a clean energy economy.

The launch of Beyond Zero Emissions' Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy report is an attempt to push back against narrow-minded policymaking. It details a path for Australia to meet 100 per cent of its energy needs with renewable energy by the end of the decade. Making the plan a reality will require a radical shift in climate policy.

Continue reading "Progressive Climate Policy: the Case for Nation Building" »

Julie Gillard, who replaced Australia's Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister, has expressed interest in pursuing climate and energy policy, just not the rickety carbon emissions trading scheme proposal that ultimately cost Rudd his job.

According to coverage by the Sydney Morning Herald (via E&E News; subs. req'd):

Julia Gillard has declared she is the woman to back if voters want action on climate change, despite confirming she will not reverse the government decision to shelve the emissions trading scheme until 2013...

Ms Gillard is preparing to announce new policies to address climate change - including an energy-efficiency program and new renewable energy projects - to fill the gap left by the decision to shelve its trading scheme.

The government allocated $652.5 million in the budget to new renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs...

We will as a nation need a price on carbon; to get there we need community consensus,'' Ms Gillard said.

Gillard's focus on a carbon price - a policy that continues to be embattled in the U.S. and ineffective in the EU - raises plenty of skeptical eyebrows as to whether climate and energy policy will prove to be her undoing, as well.

Over at online environmental magazine Grist.org, I've been featured among a panel of "seven of Grist's favorite journos and wonks" each offering their two cents on what (if any) changes to climate and clean energy strategy should be made now that cap and trade is on the ropes.

Part 1 focuses on what to do with the remainder if this quickly-waning Congressional year, while Part 2 focuses on longer-term strategy. Here's my response to each question:

Continue reading "Jenkins 'Empanelated' At Grist" »

Update (Jul 16, 2010): Expanding on a Washington Post op-ed, Vinod Khosla delineates his argument "about the deficiencies of an isolated cap-and-trade or carbon-pricing bill," and joins the climate technology consensus. Khosla writes, "If we want to make a significant difference, we need to get on the path to reducing carbon worldwide by 80 percent now by focusing on what I call "carbon reduction capacity building" -- in other words, we need to develop radical carbon-reduction technologies. A utility cap (or a carbon price) won't build capacity -- it will just increase our utility costs and decrease our manufacturing competitiveness without any increase in our technological competitiveness. On the other hand, although a policy that promotes capacity building will increase research investments in the short term, it will likely decrease overall electricity costs in the medium to long run (through the magic of competition, technology and regulatory certainty), while simultaneously reducing carbon. Disruptive technologies require investment; they don't come from the status quo."

Update (Jul 10, 2010): See Andrew Pendleton and Matthew Lockwood of the UK-based IPPR think tank response to Alex Evans' contention that real action on climate will only occur after a major global warming disaster. "There is simply no reason to believe that a climate shock big enough to bring about major changes in thinking will come along before we reach a tipping point (how would we know?)" they write. "Climate change is by its nature long-term and insidious, more like a frog in a warming pot than a sudden Anschluss."

The twenty-year effort to create a single global pollution framework to reduce carbon emissions is in a state of collapse. Meanwhile, a new climate policy consensus is emerging, one which prioritizes direct investment in technology innovation to make clean energy cheap. The new framework begins from the understanding that the root cause of the failure of the pollution paradigm was the technology and price gap between fossil fuels and their alternatives. But hard and important questions are being asked of the new investment-and-innovation paradigm. How is it different from just increasing subsidies for clean energy? How can we be sure it will reduce emissions? What role should carbon pricing play? Here Breakthrough Institute answers frequently asked questions of the climate technology paradigm and responds to challenges raised by Alex Evans on the left and Robert Michaels on the right, among others, who have taken aim at Breakthrough's and Bill Gates' proposals, respectively.

By Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger

The twenty-year effort to create a single global pollution framework to reduce carbon emissions is in a state of collapse. Europe's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has not reduced emissions and is quickly fading as the central effort to decarbonize European economies. The UN process is becoming a forum for nations to compare and coordinate national policies and measures, not create or enforce a binding global treaty. And it is now clear that, if energy legislation passes the U.S. Senate, it will not create an economy-wide cap-and-trade system, nor will it increase the deployment of clean energy.

Meanwhile, a new climate policy consensus is emerging, one which prioritizes direct investment in technology innovation. This consensus begins with the recognition that the root cause of the failure of the pollution paradigm was the technology and price gap between fossil fuels and their alternatives. No nation -- not even the wealthiest in Europe -- is willing to price carbon enough to cover the difference. Until the technology gap is closed, little will be done to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Continue reading "The Emerging Climate Technology Consensus" »

Over at NRDC, David Doniger writes a last-ditch defense of a diminished, utility-only cap and trade proposal while categorically rejecting any "energy-only" legislation -- e.g. legislation lacking a cap and trade component.

Unfortunately, Doniger, NRDC (and EDF) wind up clinging onto a "cap" on carbon they have already given away while at the same time standing opposed to a new clean energy strategy that could still salvage a substantive win despite what little time remains on the Congressional clock.

Continue reading "In Defense of 'Energy-Only'" »

In a new IEA report intended to inform and guide climate and energy policy decision makers, the Energy Technology Perspective 2010 (Exec. Summary; full report purchase required) demonstrates that the clean technology revolution will require an additional $46 trillion investment (beyond energy infrastructure investment expected in BAU scenarios) if we intend to halve carbon emissions by 2050 (from 2005 levels). And, the IEA adds, a carbon price alone will not be sufficient to drive that level of investment.

Continue reading "IEA: New Report Says $46 Trillion More to Clean Tech by 2050 " »

Fred Krupp, the Environmental Defense Fund's iconic cap and trade champion, has finally conceded that cap and trade is dead:

"A comprehensive, economy-wide cap and trade system is not going to be passed by the Senate," Fred Krupp said...

Continue reading "EDF Throws in the Towel on an Economy-Wide Cap" »

With the final seconds ticking down on the Congressional clock, President Obama and Senate Democrats emerged from a White House summit with Republican moderates Tuesday still lacking any plan to score a last minute win for clean energy.

Wasted opportunity

Establishing a price (any price) on carbon pollution through a(n increasingly weak) cap and trade system continues to be the the preferred climate and energy approach of environmental advocacy groups and Democratic leadership. This preference holds despite the fact that for at least three years, that plan has consistently failed to uncover any route to securing the sixty votes necessary for passage in the Senate (a similar bill narrowly passed the House last June).

Heading into the Tuesday morning White House summit, Republicans eyed as key swing votes for any clean energy or climate bill telegraphed clear intentions: cap and trade would be a practical non-starter, but they were ready to act with the President on measures to promote zero-carbon electricity, electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, and greater energy technology innovation, clean up dirty coal plants, and improve energy efficiency.

The summit offered President Obama a prime opportunity to reset the Senate energy debate by calling a new play: take up the energy provisions Republicans have offered, counter with a more aggressive proposal on similar fronts, and begin earnest negotiations with GOP swing votes to ensure passage of a final bill that could move America towards a clean energy economy before the Congressional clock expires.

Unfortunately, President Obama let this chance to break from the failed and increasingly desperate cap and trade agenda slip by, using the meeting, instead, to reiterate to the assembled Senators - and greens watching from the sidelines - that "he still believes the best way for us to transition to a clean energy economy is ... by putting a price on [carbon] pollution."

Continue reading "With Seconds on the Clock, Democrats May Waste Last Chance for Clean Energy Win" »

For Breakthrough Institute's full collection of analysis of Congressional climate legislation, see here.

Published analysis in chronological order (most recent first):

• The Power to Compete: Benchmarking the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act on Clean Energy Innovation and Competitiveness - June 9, 2010

Continue reading "Analysis of Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act Climate Bill: Full Breakthrough Institute Collection" »

At Dot Earth, Andrew Revkin discusses why we should stop waiting for the "fog of misinformation and disinformation on climate" to dissipate from the public mindset and instead focus on the developing "energy consensus" that we need clean, cheap energy to meet the expanding energy needs of quickly growing global population.

As Revkin puts it:

Reflecting on lawmakers' struggles over climate bills through most of the last decade, it seems clear that insistence on comprehensive one-step legislation including firm, declining caps on emissions from the get-go -- before building confidence and momentum around the new direction -- is a path to nowhere...

Given the stasis in the Senate, even with the "external" costs of fossil fuels on glaring display in the Gulf of Mexico, it may be time to start listening more to those proposing this more stepwise route forward. Such an approach would better reflect an unbending reality: A quest for new energy choices that advance human lives while limiting conflict and climate risks will require sustained work by a generation or more -- not just one Congress or president.

Cross-posted from Roger Pielke Jr's Blog.

The Financial Times has a realistic and sobering article [subs. req'd] on the state on international climate negotiations:

Christiana Figueres startled delegates when she addressed the United Nations climate conference in Bonn last week: "I do not believe we will ever have a final agreement on climate change, certainly not in my lifetime," the Costa Rican diplomat told them. "If we ever have a final, conclusive, all-answering agreement, then we will have solved this problem. I don't think that's on the cards." Addressing the issue successfully would "require the sustained effort of those who will be here for the next 20, 30, 40 years".

Her words count, and not only because of her 15-year involvement in tackling global warming. Next month, Ms Figueres takes over from the Netherlands' Yvo de Boer as executive secretary of the UN's climate change secretariat, based in the former west German capital.

As Bonn's low, heavy skies pelted delegates with rain, much of the rest of the talk during the long sessions was of technical matters such as the measurement of greenhouse gases. But in quiet conversations in the corridors, in cafes over hurried coffees or while scurrying between thunderstorms, the deeper question some officials were asking was whether there was indeed any point in continuing with this type of negotiation, which had failed for 20 years. Could the UN climate talks be reformed - or were they just too broken to fix?

Continue reading "Realpolitik Goes Mainstream" »

Update (6/30/10): Andrew Revkin highlighted the ITIF report today on his blog, Dot Earth, noting that "the report is a healthy challenge to anyone, including me, with ingrained views on how to propel an "energy quest." Breakthrough has consistently worked to debunk many of the myths highlighted in ITIF's report. For additional reading, click the links in the list below.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation has released a new report dismantling the top ten myths in the climate change debate, including the claim that "we have all the technologies we need" and that carbon prices are enough to drive a transition to a clean energy economy. The full report is well worth the read, but here's a summary from ITIF:

The debate on policy responses to climate change is fueled by myths ranging from assumptions that high carbon taxes will alter behavior significantly to overconfidence that green energy is poised to restore our economic prosperity overnight. What's more, many analysts are glossing over the complexity and possible unfairness of cap-and-trade and underestimating just how big a dent we have to make in our greenhouse gas production. What is missing is an understanding that innovation in the energy sector is essential to the transformation in how we produce and consume energy that we want and need. ITIF dismantles the top ten myths in this debate in a new report.

1. Higher prices on greenhouse gases are enough to drive the transition to a clean economy.
2. The U.S. can make major contributions to solving climate change on its own.
3. Cap-and-trade is a sustainable global solution.
4. We don't need innovation; we have all the technology we need.
5. Low growth is the answer...just live simply.
6. "Insulation is enough" (e.g. energy efficiency will save us).
7. Information technology (IT) is a significant contributor to climate change.
8. Going green is green (e.g., it makes economic sense to go green).
9. We are world leaders on the green economy, and it's ours for the taking.
10. Foreign green mercantilism is good for solving climate change (and good for the U.S.).

See also:

• "Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant: Report Overview"


• "Strengthening Clean Energy Competitiveness"

The majority of Americans do believe that Earth's climate is warming and they want the government to take action, according to Stanford Professor Jon Krosnick and his Political Psychology Research Group, but they still don't want to pay higher taxes. These findings echo Breakthrough's own social values research demonstrating strong public support for large-scale federal investment in clean energy R&D and greater support for carbon limits when they are coupled with policies, like public investment, that make clean energy cheaper.

Krosnick writes in the New York Times:

Fully 86 percent of our respondents said they wanted the federal government to limit the amount of air pollution that businesses emit, and 76 percent favored government limiting business's emissions of greenhouse gases in particular. Not a majority of 55 or 60 percent -- but 76 percent. Large majorities opposed taxes on electricity (78 percent) and gasoline (72 percent) to reduce consumption. But 84 percent favored the federal government offering tax breaks to encourage utilities to make more electricity from water, wind and solar power. And huge majorities favored government requiring, or offering tax breaks to encourage, each of the following: manufacturing cars that use less gasoline (81 percent); manufacturing appliances that use less electricity (80 percent); and building homes and office buildings that require less energy to heat and cool (80 percent). Thus, there is plenty of agreement about what people do and do not want government to do.

Continue reading "Public Still Believes in Climate Change " »

Cross posted at The Real Ewbank.

By Breakthrough Fellow, Leigh Ewbank

At the weekend, Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed called for increased direct action campaigning to encourage governments to act on climate change. "What we really need is a huge social 60s-style catalystic, dynamic street action," said Nasheed in the Guardian.

If the people in the US wish to change, it can happen. In the 60s and 70s, they've done that.

President Nasheed emerged from the last year's Copenhagen Climate Conference with considerable clout among climate change campaigners, and rightly so. In the process of drawing attention to the plight of his homeland, the Maldives, a chain of small islands threatened by rising sea levels and storm surges, Nasheed became a leading voice for the vulnerable and poor in the international negotiations. Nasheed has since received several awards for his commendable efforts.

The Maldivian President's comments will no doubt be music to the ears of some climate advocates in Australia, however, the merits of such an approach should be carefully considered. Is direct action likely to be as effective for climate change as it was for social issues in the 1960s? Is Nasheed's optimism that renewed grassroots action will compel governments to implement effective climate policies well-founded?

Continue reading "Direct Action on Climate Change: Successful Tactic or Green Nostalgia?" »

In lieu of Friday Factoids:

Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming

To read Part 1 click here.

GE Food for Thought On climate, Greens point to the science, but on GE crops, many find science unconvincing.

By Breakthrough Senior Fellow Siddhartha Shome

The Scientific Basis of Environmentalism

Modern American environmentalism was born in 1962 with the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Carson was a scientist and much of the book is a scientific argument about the harmful effects of chemical pesticides.

The book is replete with scientific data, quotes from scientists, and scientific reasoning. In fact, the entire concluding chapter is an impassioned plea to adopt new biology based breakthrough technologies to replace chemical pesticides.

According to Carson,

A truly extraordinary variety of alternatives to the chemical control of insects is available. Some are already in use and have achieved brilliant success. Others are in the stage of laboratory testing. Still others are little more than ideas in the minds of imaginative scientists, waiting for the opportunity to put them to the test. All have this in common: they are biological solutions, based on understanding of the living organisms they seek to control, and of the whole fabric of life to which these organisms belong. Specialists representing various areas of the vast field of biology are contributing - entomologists, pathologists, geneticists, physiologists, biochemists, ecologists - all pouring their knowledge and their creative inspirations into the formation of a new science of biotic controls.

Carson characterized chemical pesticides of the time as "Neanderthal" technologies, belonging to the "stone age of science". Clearly, the implication was not that we should replace chemical pesticides with even more ancient Jurassic-era technologies, but rather that we supplant them with advanced biology-based breakthrough technologies that are more environmentally friendly.

Continue reading "Green VS. Green, Part 2" »

Global climate policy should be radically overhauled in the wake of the failure of the United Nations process, an international group of 14 climate policy experts and scientists argue in a new paper. The Kyoto-Copenhagen focus on national emissions targets and timetables was bound to fail because it proposed a single over-arching framework to deal with a "wickedly' complex problem. Instead what's needed is a focus on expanding access to energy for the poor, quickly reducing non-CO2 climate forcings, and adaptation to changing climate.

The paper brings together a set of ideas that have been developing over the last decade. The meeting was convened by Gwyn Prins of London School of Ecomomics and Steve Rayner of Oxford University, who wrote "The Wrong Trousers," a 2007 critique of Kyoto. The group included, among others, East Anglia University climate scientist Mike Hulme, author of "Why We Disagree About Climate Change," Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute, the economist Chris Green, co-author of a 2002 Science article calling for advanced energy research to stabilize climate emissions, and University of Colorado's Roger Pielke and Arizona State's Dan Sarewitz, authors of a 2000 Atlantic magazine story arguing climate policy to shift focus to technology innovation and adaptation. Green, Pielke, and Sarewitz are all Breakthrough Senior Fellows.

Continue reading "Hartwell Paper: A New Approach on Global Climate Policy" »

The latest from the Brookings Institution's Mark Muro is a perfectly succinct summary of how one should judge the coming Kerry-(Graham?)-Lieberman Senate climate and energy bill, reportedly scheduled for release this Wednesday:

What is clear, though, is this: To get to a good bill senators need to deal properly with the revenue--whether from offshore oil drilling or pollution allowance auctions or whatever else is in the bill. And to do that they need to make sure a huge chunk of it gets applied to clean-energy research and development. Get that right and much else needn't be perfect. Blow that, and the bill is likely not worth it.

... The bottom line is this: Putting a price on carbon, or regulating emissions, ... while absolutely necessary, will not be sufficient to address the nation's climate problem and will, importantly, not put the U.S. in the position to seize the extraordinary opportunities that will come with rebuilding to global energy economy. Also necessary, as we keep saying, will be a major drive to promote large-scale technology breakthroughs. No matter how you measure it, U.S. government investment in clean energy R&D remains grossly inadequate. Right now clean energy R&D accounts for only around $3 billion a year. But if we're going to see real progress in de-carbonizing the present economy and creating the next one this number should be closer to $15 billion and probably as much as $25 billion per year.

So that's the target: $15 to $25 billion a year is "the number"--the critical investment threshold for federal clean energy investment that must become a core benchmark for evaluating any and all federal climate, energy, or indeed appropriations deal making.

Mark notes the rumors and reports of the still-not-yet-public drafts of the K-G-L bill do not bode well for the bill's ability to clear this critical clean energy innovation threshold...

Continue reading "Clearing the Clean Energy Innovation Threshold" »

Al Gore has called on the U.S. to "commit to producing 100% of electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon free sources within ten years." But the ten-year hard-fought battle to secure approval for Cape Wind shows that we cannot come close to meeting even a fraction of his goal if we do not appreciate the scale of energy challenge and the incredible pace of clean energy innovation and deployment required to truly reduce carbon emissions and mitigate climate change.

First, let's put Cape Wind in perspective. A $1 billion dollar project, America's first offshore wind farm will consist of 130 turbines that can produce roughly 1.6 billion kWh of electricity annually, enough to power three-quarters of the homes on Nantucket and surrounding islands. But on a national scale, this iconic project will only meet about 0.04% of the total (forecasted) U.S electricity demand in 2010, expected to be about 3,784 billion kWh.

Continue reading "Cape Wind: Never Again" »

Defining Sacred Compare for yourself the destruction of the sacred rainforest by oil drilling to the modest development of this region (right) by wind turbines.

After almost a decade of NIMBY opposition Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has handed a big win to Cape Wind -- what will become the country's first offshore wind farm -- and the future of offshore wind in the U.S.

Yet, environmentalists are bitterly divided over support for Cape Wind -- a 130 turbine, 430 megawatt clean energy project that is scheduled for siting about six miles offshore and could meet up to 75% of Cape Cod's power needs. The conflict between those who see Cape Wind as a step towards a clean energy future and those who consider it a "corporate giveaway to private industrial energy developers" says much about the scale of the challenges to clean energy adoption in the U.S.

The Breakthrough Institute has advocated for the project since 2005, when Robert Kennedy Jr. led a public fight to block the wind farm. Breakthrough's Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger published an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle and organized an open letter with other global warming writers, including Bill McKibben, Ross Gelbspan, and Jon Isham, calling on Kennedy to support the project. Over 150 other global warming writers and activists signed the letter. Nordhaus and Shellenberger continued their critique in a chapter of their 2007 book, Break Through, writing about Cape Wind as a cautionary tale against green NIMBYism.

Continue reading "Cape WIN: Triumph Over NIMBY" »

The climate negotiations in Copenhagen resulted in a 193-nation agreement that included 154 policy commitments -- "the highest number of new government initiatives ever recorded . . . in a four-month period," according to Deutsche Bank -- but do they really matter?

In the months since the frenetic, and at times, apoplectic UNFCCC meeting, two conflicting views have emerged.

A report released earlier this month by Deutsche Bank (DB) presented analysis like those from Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Center for American Progress (CAP) showing the talks were "no failure."

Continue reading "Climate Paradigm in Collapse" »

For Breakthrough Institute's full collection of analysis of Congressional climate legislation, see here.

Posts on Kerry-Graham-Lieberman Senate climate bill, in chronological order (most recent first):

• Clearing the Clean Energy Innovation Threshold - May 10, 2010
• Senate Climate Bill Trio Scrapping Oil and Gasoline Fee? - April 22, 2010
• New "Tri-Partisan" Climate Framework Aims to Clear High Senate Hurdle - December 10, 2009

Continue reading "Analysis of Kerry-Graham-Lieberman Climate Bill: Full Breakthrough Institute Collection" »

[Update at end of post - 4/22/10 at 5:20 PST]

According to several reports, the trio of senators leading the effort to craft a climate and energy bill for release next Monday are back-peddling from earlier plans to implement a new fee on petroleum-based fuels such as gasoline amidst concerns that any new "gas tax" would trigger voter backlash.

Earlier reports of ongoing, private negotiations on a Senate climate and energy bill led by Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) indicated that the trio were planning to drop the 'economy-wide' cap and trade plan included in the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill in favor of a 'three sector' approach to regulating emissions from power plants, industry, and petroleum-based fuels.

A cap would be implemented on the power sector to begin with, with industry phased in at a later date, while the oil sector would be exempted from the plan. Instead, petroleum-based fuels, including gasoline and diesel fuel, would be subject to a "linked fee" that would be tied somehow to the price of carbon pollution credits under the power sector cap and trade program -- in effect, a variable tax on gasoline and other petroleum products.

Now however, the Wall Street Journal reports that Sen. Kerry vehemently declares, "There is no gas tax, there was no gas tax and there will never be a gas tax."

Continue reading "Senate Climate Bill Trio Scrapping Oil and Gasoline Fee?" »

Two new posts for Earth Day argue that we need to move from nature protection to tech innovation. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger are in Slate and Mother Jones arguing that the focus on technology transfer as part of a global climate agreement is a distraction: clean tech IP has already been rapidly transferred to China -- soon it will be transferred back here.

And Breakthrough's Director of Climate and Energy Policy, Jesse Jenkins, dings America's political 'elites', including cap and trade author Rep. Ed Markey, for frequently suggesting, in the face of all this, that "clean energy jobs cannot be exported." Like American IP, U.S. clean tech jobs in manufacturing and innovation are already flowing overseas -- or being created there in the first place.

Continue reading "Earth Day: From Conservation To Innovation" »

The Breakthrough Institute team works to publish quantitative analysis of Congressional climate and clean energy legislation, often working to publish a series of analyses "in real time" as the Congressional debate unfolds. Here is our collection of analysis of climate bills in the current Congress:

Senate:

• Kerry-Lieberman "American Power Act" (APA)


• Kerry-Graham-Lieberman (Discussion Drafts)


• Kerry-Boxer "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act" (CEJAPA, S.1733)


• Cantwell-Collins "Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal Act' (CLEAR Act, S.2877)

House:

• Waxman-Markey "American Clean Energy and Security Act" (ACESA, H.R.2454)

Cross-posted from Roger Pielke, Jr's Blog

The graph below is from the work of Max Boykoff, a friend and colleague from here at CU, and Maria Mansfield, University of Exeter. The graph shows a big drop off in media attention to climate change in the aftermath of the Copenhagen conference last December.

When I saw this graph it brought to mind a very similar graph of media attention from about 15 years ago, shown below from a paper that I did with Mickey Glantz in 1995 (on how to "sell" scientific programs to policy makers, PDF). Notice any similarities?

Obama invokes this classic imagery in his video message explaining the history of Earth Day.

Forty-one years ago, in the city of Cleveland, people watched in horror as the Cuyahoga river, choked with debris and covered in oil, caught on fire. Images of the burning Cuyahoga shocked the nation and it led one Wisconsin senator, the following year, to organize the first Earth Day to call attention to the dangers of ignoring our environment.

But as Michael and Ted wrote in Break Through in 2007, the image of the burning river that purportedly catalyzed Earth Day and the modern environmental movement was actually taken in 1952, not 1969, because the "historic" latter fire didn't even burn long enough to be photographed.

Continue reading "Nostalgia Clouds the Larger Purpose of Earth Day" »

A secret White House strategy memo on how to spin reporters and activists in the run-up to talks in Mexico later this year reveals that climate officials were coordinating public relations efforts last fall with the Center for American Progress.

But apparently the White House realized that CAP's help wasn't good enough, since now the memo says that "intimate meetings" between administration staff with "some of the harsher critics" are needed:

Larger group sessions, similar to the one held at CAP prior to Copenhagen, will be useful down the line, but more intimate meetings in the spring are essential to building the foundation of support. Or at the very least, disarming some of the harsher critics.

In their final post on the Climate McCarthyism last fall, Ted and Michael referred to CAP as "the headquarters in Washington," and worried that CAP's influence over the White House would cause Obama to follow in the footsteps of Australian PM, Kevin Rudd, in labeling green critics of cap and trade "global warming deniers." Let's hope that influence is now waning in light of the rapidly failing push for cap and trade in the U.S. and a global climate agreement from the U.N.

By Michael Shellenberger

Last month, Ted and I argued in Yale e360 that there were reasons for decarbonization other than climate change -- many commenters were incredulous. For example: "Although, fwiw, the content of their message is wrong and frankly stupid as well -- what 'bipartisan agreement has grown on the need to decarbonize our energy' exists that is divorced from climate change concerns?"

Enter George Will, not exactly a believer in mainstream climate science, offering a non-climate reason for decarb:

"America's 250-year supply of coal will be an important source of energy. But even people not much worried about the supposed climate damage done by carbon emissions should see the wisdom--cheaper electricity, less dependence on foreign sources of energy--of Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander's campaign to commit the country to building 100 more nuclear power plants in 20 years."

Continue reading "George Will Embraces Decarbonization" »

Cross-posted from Roger Pielke, Jr's Blog

I have been having an interesting debate with a few economists in a previous thread about Paul Krugman's views of climate policy. I read his latest piece as emphasizing energy conservation and de-emphasizing technology. A few economists write in the comments that my reading is "absurd." This matters of course because anyone who thinks that we can stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations at a low level via conservation while de-emphasizing technology just doesn't have a good grasp of the problem.

So I Googled around a bit to see what Krugman has said in the past. And guess what? He advocates energy conservation and de-emphasizes technology! Here are some of his earlier statements that are unambiguous on these matters and consistent with how I interpret his latest piece.

Continue reading "Does Paul Krugman Advocate Energy Conservation and Deemphasize Technology? Yes" »

Andy Revkin has posted several commenter responses to his great piece at the new Dot Earth 2.0, declaring that a global, "sustained energy quest" should be "an organizing principle if humanity wants to avoid hard knocks in the next few decades."

One response, from Hugh Whalan of New York provides a powerful way to envision the realities of energy poverty and it's central importance to the global energy quest of the 21st century:

More than 125,000 years ago, your ancestors discovered fire. With it came a source of heat, warmth, and light. Unfortunately, for 1 in 3 people living today, very little has changed. This is energy poverty.

Really let that sink in - one third of the world's population lives like this.

Addressing energy poverty is a key step to alleviating poverty - with the IEA noting that an additional 700 million people need to gain access to modern energy services by 2015 if the UN's millennium development poverty alleviation goal is to be met (halving world poverty).

Just as importantly, energy poverty is a huge contributor to climate change, as those stuck in energy poverty are forced to rely on fuels like kerosene and firewood which caused enormous amounts of pollution.

Significantly expanding green energy access to developing countries is a simple solution - addressing poverty and reducing emissions - with the possibility that we can set developing countries on a 'clean energy' path to development.

It won't be easy. It won't be cheap. But importantly companies are starting to show that delivering clean energy to billions of poor can be profitable.

Energy is important to everything. Policy makers, governments and the general public need to be more aware of this because we all too easily take access to energy for granted.

Continue reading "Energy Poverty is Being Stuck 125,000 Years in the Past" »

Andrew Revkin's well-regarded Dot Earth blog has moved to the Opinion page, now that he has moved on from his staff position at the New York Times. As Curtis Brainerd notes at the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), Revkin "has expressed a desire to move even farther beyond the constraints of traditional news reporting."

To kick off the "new iteration" of his blog, Revkin has an excellent post laying bare his thoughts on the "climate crisis" and the "energy quest" - specifically what we need to do fill the global energy gap and mitigate climate change:

"I'm talking about a sustained [energy] quest, from the household light socket to the boardroom, the laboratory to the classroom, the smart post-industrial American city to the struggling, (literally) powerless sub-Saharan village. This is not some onerous task, but an active, positive assertion that the ways we harvest and use energy -- an asset long taken for granted and priced in ways that mask its broader costs -- really do matter. Dry places do this with water all the time. In Israel, there is no toilet without two flush options. It's not some goofball green concept; it's just the way things are done.

You've heard a lot about an energy revolution of late, involving a (temporary) burst of spending from the stimulus legislation. But it's building from a paltry base of both public and private investment in the energy arenas where breakthroughs could really expand the menu of energy options required to sustain a prospering, healthy planet as the human growth spurt crests. I'm not saying that a sustained investment in scientific research is remotely sufficient, on its own, to drive an energy transformation. But I do see levels of investment in such inquiry as a proxy for our overall interest in this issue."

Continue reading "New Digs for Dot Earth 2.0" »

The Guardian has the full transcript of an interview with James Lovelock's opinions on the tribalism of some climate scientists -- as well as the role skeptics should play in the debate. Strong stuff coming from the founder of Gaia theory and a long-time advocate of aggressive action on global warming.

"We're very tribal. You're either a goodie or a baddie. I've got quite a few friends among the sceptics, as well as among the "angels" of climate science. I've got more angels as friends than sceptics, I have to say, but there are some sceptics that I fully respect. Nigel Lawson is one. He writes sensibly and well. He raises questions. I find him an interesting sceptic. What I like about sceptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: "Crumbs, have I made a mistake here?" If you don't have that continuously, you really are up the creek. The good sceptics have done a good service, but some of the mad ones I think have not done anyone any fa