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)" »

By Mark Caine, Research Officer at the London School of Economics, Co-ordinator for the Hartwell Group, and 2010 Breakthrough Generation Fellow

Ideas Whose Times Have Come

Something profound is happening in the world of energy and climate policy.

In the wake of another tepid COP conference that, once again, failed to put the world even "on a path to solve the climate problem", previously heterodox ideas are entering mainstream thinking.

From the inadequacy of the Kyoto protocol and the immediate imperative for adaptation to an innovation-centric climate policy, no-regrets action on non-CO2 forcers, and energy access for all: a set of pragmatic ideas that the Breakthrough Institute, Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke Jr., the authors of The Hartwell Paper, and others have advocated for years -- often to an onslaught of cynical opposition -- are now being promoted as front-line strategies to manage our complex set of energy and climate challenges.

Take the Kyoto protocol, which despite its well-documented structural flaws has been treated for years as the only game in town--the plan A for which "there really is no plan B". Now, realizing that the modest agreement reached at Durban is little more than a face-saving maneuver that means, at best, an eight year punt on universally binding emissions reductions, commentators are beginning to sing a different tune.

"Kyoto was built to fail," reports left-of-center UK paper The Guardian. The process has faltered, writes John Broder in the New York Times, because it taken on "too great a task." Political analyst Andrew Charlton reports from down under that there is, in fact, a plan B, consisting primarily of policy prescriptions that will sound remarkably familiar to anyone who has read Fast, Clean, and Cheap, The Hartwell Paper, The Climate Fix, or a growing body of books and academic articles advocating innovation-centric energy policies combined with robust adaptation measures and a commitment to universal energy access.

Perhaps more than any, this last issue has sailed from the margins to the mainstream. A key tenet of the 2010 Hartwell Paper, the imperative to empower the world's poor through the provision of universal energy access -- and bring energy poverty to the center of energy and climate debates -- has become a cause celebre at the UN Foundation. Did you know that 2012 is the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All? Finally, something everyone from Ban-Ki Moon to nu metal band Linkin Park can agree on!

In all seriousness though, the global community's newfound support for universal energy access is a heartening development--not least for the 1.3 billion people lacking electricity and the 2.7 billion people burning dung and sticks to cook and heat their homes. To be sure, the emissions implications of empowering these people using available technology remain inconclusive: the IEA's rosy estimate of a .7% increase in global CO2 emissions defines 'access' for rural denizens at a paltry 250 kWh/year, 1/55th of the US average and 1/32nd that of ultra-efficient Japan (World Bank data). Yet any steps to bring modern energy to the energy-poor are justifiable in their own right on basic principles of equity, not to mention their contingent benefits for public health, education, economic opportunity, and enhanced resilience to future climate impacts.

Post-"Post-pollution"

In his New York Times review of the shifting dynamics in the energy and climate debate, Andrew Revkin cites both Roger Pielke Jr. and the authors of The Hartwell Paper, crediting them for helping spread this "post-pollution" emphasis on climate resilience, energy modernization, and strategic public and private investment in clean energy innovation. Revkin is nearly alone amongst journalists in tracing back the roots of these approaches, but a frequent lack of attribution is predictable. Indeed, the broad, uncoordinated adoption of these "post-pollution" framings and policy approaches may have been inevitable, a reflection less of their progenitors than their sensibility.

As these framings and policy ideas become more widely accepted, the challenge for those of us who have long advocated these positions, including the Hartwell Group network which I work to coordinate, will begin to shift. As once-heterodox problem definitions and policy approaches from the Breakthrough Institute, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the Hartwell Group, and others enter mainstream discussion, what can we offer going forward?

Arguably, the most important thing we must do now is deliver top-quality research and analysis on the hard questions of innovation that are not yet being addressed in most climate policy discussions. Though many have accepted rapid innovation as a necessity, few have actually opened up the "black box" of innovation to understand what specific kinds of innovation we need, how to fund and scale them, and how to overcome persistent challenges such as rent-seeking behavior, energy efficiency rebound and backfire, and the "valleys of death" that plague the innovation and commercialization process. Understanding the need for innovation is not the same as knowing how best to do it.

The Breakthrough Institute has already taken up this effort, backing up its long-standing support for innovation as an energy and climate solution with detailed analysis of the mechanics of how innovation works and, by extension, how to spark, accelerate, direct, fund, and scale it. And the Hartwell Group is working to coordinate a network of international scholars and analysts to further develop key recommendations for actionable and pragmatic climate solutions.

This work alone won't solve the myriad complex, interconnected energy and climate challenges that face us. But it will help lay the foundation for a safer, more prosperous, and more equitable future--a future in which the essential functioning of the earth system is preserved and all people have access to safe, reliable energy and protection from the vagaries of extreme weather, whatever its cause.

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?" »

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" »

In the pages of United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)'s Making It quarterly magazine, Breakthrough Institute Energy and Climate Policy Director Jesse Jenkins and Senior Fellow Harry Saunders published an article explaining the impact and implications of the energy demand "rebound effect" spurred on by energy efficiency.

The article builds upon the Breakthrough Institute's "Energy Emergence: Rebound and Backfire as Emergent Phenomena", a comprehensive literature review pointing to the expert consensus and evidence that below-cost energy efficiency measures drive a rebound in energy consumption that erodes much of expected energy savings.

Read the full article: "Hot topic: Does energy efficiency lead to increased energy consumption?," Making It June, 2011

In the article, Jenkins and Saunders argue:

Truly cost-effective energy efficiency measures lower the effective price of the services derived from fuel consumption - heating, cooling, transportation, industrial processes, etc. - leading consumers and industry alike to demand more of these services. There are other indirect and economy-wide effects as well, as consumers re-spend money saved through efficiency on other energy-consuming goods and services, industrial sectors adjust to changes in the relative prices of final and intermediate goods, and greater energy productivity causes the economy as a whole to grow. Collectively, these economic mechanisms drive a rebound in demand for energy services that can erode much - and in some cases all - of the expected reductions in total energy use, along with much-hoped-for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Furthermore, rebound effects are often most pronounced in the productive sectors of the economy, including industry and agriculture, as well as throughout the world's emerging economies.

...

Conventional climate mitigation strategies count on energy efficiency to do a great deal of work. For example, the IEA in a global climate stabilization scenario published by the agency in December 2009, estimates that efficiency measures could account for roughly half of the emissions reductions needed. Yet, from a climate or global resource conservation perspective, rebound effects mean that for every two steps forward taken through greater efficiency, rebounds take us one (or more) steps backwards. This is particularly true throughout the developing world, and in the productive sectors of the global economy.

A clear understanding of rebound effects therefore demands a fundamental re-assessment of energy efficiency's role in global climate mitigation efforts.

A continued failure to accurately and rigorously account for rebound effects risks an over-reliance on the ability of efficiency to deliver lasting reductions in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Without a greater emphasis on the other key climate mitigation lever at our disposal - the de-carbonization of global energy supplies through the deployment and improvement of low-carbon energy sources - the global community will fall dangerously short of climate mitigation goals.

At the same time, however, we can re-affirm the role of energy efficiency efforts in expanding human welfare and fueling global economic development. Unlocking the full potential of efficiency may very well mean the difference between a richer, more efficient world, and a poorer, less efficient world. The former is clearly the desirable case - even if the world uses more or less the same amount of energy in either scenario.

The pursuit of any and all cost-effective efficiency opportunities should thus continue as a key component of an efficient course for global development, even as we reconsider the degree to which these measures can contribute to climate mitigation efforts.

You can also find an introductory FAQ on the rebound effect here.

Yesterday, Freakonomics featured the Breakthrough Institute on a panel of experts debating the myriad of questions surrounding the costs of Japan and Germany's recent decisions to turn away from nuclear power. The Freakonomics Quorum posed the following question:

With Japan deciding not to expand its nuclear power base, and Germany and Switzerland vowing to phase out nuclear power altogether, how will those (and other) countries replace that electricity, and what sort of political, economic, and environmental trickle-down effects will we see?

The Breakthrough Institute's response is appended below. The Freakonomics Quorum and full participant responses can be viewed here.

In the months following the tsunami-triggered nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power station, both Japan and Germany announced major U-turns on nuclear policy. In separate, politically calculated moves, Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to end Germany's reliance on nuclear power by 2022, while Prime Minister Naoto Kan scrapped plans to ramp up nuclear generation to 50 percent of Japan's power supply in the coming decades, each while reaffirming already-ambitious climate change goals.

The reality, however, is that turning their backs on nuclear power could push both nations' climate and environmental objectives out of reach. Simultaneously achieving both a nuclear phase-out and deep emissions cuts would necessitate an unprecedented - and unlikely - scale-up of renewable energy generation to fill the void left by the German and Japanese nuclear fleets.

Continue reading "Freakonomics Features BTI on Future of Nuclear Power" »

Increases in carbon-intensive imported goods have negated cuts in carbon emissions by developed countries since 1990, finds a new report published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

The Kyoto Protocol assigns emissions from the production of goods to the country where production takes place, rather than the country where the goods are consumed. In the past decade, however, developed countries have increasingly replied on carbon-intensive imports from developing countries, where binding emissions targets under the Kyoto Protocol are not in effect.

By not including the offshored emissions involved in the production of imports, this territory-based emissions accounting paints a misleading picture of the overall carbon emissions of developed economies.

According to the Guardian, the report finds that:

According to standard data, developed countries can claim to have reduced their collective emissions by almost 2% between 1990 and 2008. But once the carbon cost of imports have been added to each country, and exports subtracted - the true change has been an increase of 7%. If Russia and Ukraine - which cut their CO2 emissions rapidly in the 1990s due to economic collapse - are excluded, the rise is 12%.

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" »

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" »

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" »

By Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus

Japan's blunt declaration last week that it was walking away from the Kyoto climate treaty marked the end of an era. Since Copenhagen, international climate negotiations have proceeded on two parallel tracks, with most major emitting nations simultaneously participating in efforts to extend Kyoto while also working to formalize the Copenhagen Accord - the face-saving agreement among major emitters wrought in the dying hours of the COP-15 meeting in Denmark.

In stating, unequivocally, that it would only make further emissions reductions commitments under the auspices of the Copenhagen Accord, not the Kyoto Protocol, Japan left no doubt about which framework will be the primary vehicle for future international efforts to address climate change.

The announcement set off a small diplomatic riot, largely because Japan had single-handedly destroyed two contradictory fantasies at once. The first, held by Europeans and greens, was that the 2009 Copenhagen Accord would someday merge with Kyoto and require mandatory emissions limits from the U.S. and China. The second, held by China, India, and other big developing nations, was that they could demand emissions reductions from rich countries but adhere to no obligations themselves.

While the Copenhagen Accord, like Kyoto, still maintains the pretense that it will culminate in a binding agreement among major emitters to reduce emissions, the same intractable conflicts among major economies that have thwarted international agreement to legally binding emissions caps are not likely to be resolved through the Copenhagen approach. In reality, the post-Kyoto world is a post-emissions cap world. Future climate action is more likely to resemble what Japan has been proposing since the 2007 Bali climate talks - developed nations primarily focusing on developing and deploying advanced energy technologies in order to reduce their own emissions while working sector by sector with developing economies to transfer the appropriate technologies that can facilitate growth with low carbon technology.

Continue reading "Why Japan Disowned Kyoto" »

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" »

The United States and Australia have inked a new partnership to pursue joint solar energy research designed to make solar energy cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the announcement in Melbourne on Sunday, with the Australian government set to commit up to $50 million towards the program.

Ms Gillard said the aim was to make solar power as cheap as conventional energy sources.

"One of the greatest barriers to a broader commercial take up of solar power is its cost and that is specifically what this joint research initiative will address," Ms Gillard told reporters.

"The joint project with the United States is part of an aggressive effort to bring the sales price of solar technology down by two to four times."

Ms Clinton said the program aimed to make solar power competitive with conventional energy sources by 2015.

The price had dropped by 50 per cent in the past three years but there was more work to be done, she said.

"Under this initiative our two governments will share both the costs and the benefits of research and development which will speed up innovation," she said.

Secretary Clinton also pledged a $500,000 grant from the U.S. State Department to support a global survey to identify opportunities to reuse carbon dioxide emitted by power plant and industrial processes, headed up by the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, a recently established research center co-funded by the Australian government.

Solar Powerhouse? Solar irradiation in Australia is among the highest in the world, as this color-coded map from NASA illustrates (darker red areas have the most incoming solar energy). Source: The Age/Reuters

Australia, with perhaps the greatest solar energy potential in the world, has an obvious interest in pursuing affordable, scalable solar power solutions, and has also maintained several long-standing solar research efforts. Can the two new partners accelerate efforts to make solar energy cheap?

Cross-posted from Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog.

It is not clear how much support there is for such a proposal, but the EU Commission is to bring forward a proposal to ban most forms of carbon offsets:

European Union member states may oppose new rules on how far their factories and power plants can offset their carbon emissions, to be proposed by the European Commission, environment ministries told Reuters.

The EU executive is expected to propose in the next two weeks curbs or an outright ban from 2013 on the most common types of offsets.

Europe's emissions trading scheme caps planet-warming gases emitted by industry, but allows companies to offset emissions by paying for carbon cuts in developing countries, as a cheaper alternative to cutting their own.

Shutting the main supply of offsets could push up carbon prices, if agreed by a majority of member states at a meeting of Commission officials and environment ministers later this month.

Any such ban would represent a step towards a more transparent form of carbon pricing, along the lines of a straight up tax. Offsets are of course one reason why there is no such thing as a "cap" in cap and trade.

In an effort to develop a truly effective post-cap and trade climate strategy, policy is not the only aspect that requires deep reflection - philanthropists, too, must reconsider the best way to channel grants in order to successfully fund solutions to climate and energy challenges. Breakthrough's Director of Climate and Energy Policy Jesse Jenkins recently spoke to a foundation about re-thinking philanthropic efforts in a post-cap and trade policy environment, offering insight into how policy makers, activists, and philanthropists, alike, must re-orient away from the focus on limits and toward an approach that harnesses human ingenuity to directly confront the scale of the global climate and energy challenge.

The transcription of the talk is below:

Continue reading "The Future of Philanthropy in a Post-Cap and Trade World" »

In late September, Breakthrough Institute Chairman Ted Nordhaus gave the keynote address at the World Climate Solutions conference--northern Europe's biggest annual clean tech event. The conference was held in Copenhagen, Denmark in the Bella Center, the very place where the international climate negotiations collapsed less than one year ago.

Nordhaus was introduced by Anders Eldrup, CEO of DONG energy. What follows is a video of the introduction and speech, as well as each speaker's full remarks.

Continue reading "After Copenhagen: From Climate Nihilism to Climate Pragmatism" »

Cross-posted from Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog.

If you want to focus on a single metric that tells you how fast an economy is decarbonizing (that is, reducing its ratio of carbon dioxide emissions to GDP) then you should focus on changes in the proportion of energy consumption from carbon neutral sources. For any nation to hit emissions reductions targets, and the world to hit low stabilization targets the simple mathematics indicate that annual decarbonization rates will have to exceed 5% in most national economies.

By the metric the UK is presently moving in the wrong direction, according to a story in the Guardian yesterday:

The UK has suffered a second fall in renewable energy production this year, raising concern about the more than £1bn support the industry receives each year from taxpayers.

The drop in electricity generated from wind, hydro and other clean sources in the first half of 2010 could also be a setback to the coalition government's promise that the UK could help lead a "third industrial revolution" and create a low-carbon economy.

The DECC today said lower than expected wind speeds and rainfall led to a 12% fall in renewable electricity generated between April and June, compared to the same period in 2009. This setback follows a smaller but still notable decline between January and March, again compared to last year.

With a sharp drop in output from nuclear power stations as well, greenhouse gas emissions from each unit of electricity generated will inevitably have risen, at a time when the UK has pledged to cut such pollution, and is pressing other countries to do the same.

The renewable energy figures are likely to prompt criticism of the government's energy policies from all sides. Supporters want ministers to increase funding for green industry so more wind farms are built, reducing the risk of seasonal set backs; critics will say the government should instead increase support for energy efficiency, nuclear power or cleaner forms of burning fossil fuels.

The changes in the UK energy mix suggest that the economy has become more carbon intensive as gas has increased at the expense of nuclear power:

The latest energy statistics for the second quarter of 2010 show total energy production in the UK was 9.2% lower than the same period last year, while final energy consumption was 1.8% higher. Among the different fuels, output from oil and coal fell, while only gas increased its output, by 7.1%. It was a similar picture for electricity alone: coal power stayed steady at about 23% of electricity supplied, nuclear output fell by 23% to 15.8%, and gas production rose by more than 10% to over half of all electricity.

It is not just the UK that is recarbonizing, but the US as well. What is remarkable is that these trends have been foreseeable for a while. Even so, the hold of magical solutions remains strong.

One of the most curious facts about energy is that economies continue to use more of it even as they use it more efficiently. This strikes us as strange because it has become an article of faith that making cars, buildings, and factories more energy efficient is the key to cheaply and quickly reducing energy consumption, and thus pollution.

But energy experts have never seen this as particularly mysterious. As energy historian Vaclav Smil notes, "Historical evidence shows unequivocally that secular advances in energy efficiency have not led to any declines of aggregate energy consumption." A group of economists beginning in the 1980s went further, suggesting that increasing the productivity of energy would increase economic growth and energy consumption. Efficiency advocates dismiss the evidence of rebound in energy use pointing to direct behavioral changes at the household or business level that are easiest to measure. But the most significant energy rebounds are indirect -- in the production of energy, raw materials, and consumer goods -- not in the "end use" of consumer products.

Below, a leading energy economist, Harry Saunders, explains why energy efficiency does not decrease energy consumption in the way we conventionally understand it. In the process, Saunders clarifies the controversy over his recent co-authored study for the Journal of Physics, which reviews 300 years of lighting history to predict the impact of new solid-state lighting technologies (e.g. LEDs). Against the widespread belief that new lighting technology will reduce energy consumption, Saunders and his colleagues found that they will likely increase it -- greatly expanding the global use of lighting in the process, especially in developing countries. Saunders clarifies some important questions, and explains the basics of "the rebound effect."

With the new study, rebound has firmly moved from the theoretical to the empirical, and the implications of it must now be dealt with by all of us who were counting on efficiency to be an easy way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

-Michael Shellenberger, President, Breakthrough Institute

Why Energy Efficiency May Not Decrease Energy Consumption

By Harry Saunders

I recently co-authored an article for the Journal of Physics ("Solid-state lighting: an energy-economics perspective" by Jeff Tsao, Harry Saunders, Randy Creighton, Mike Coltrin, Jerry Simmon, August 19, 2010) analyzing the increase in energy consumption that will likely result from new (and more efficient) solid-state lighting (SSL) technologies. The article triggered a round of commentaries and responses that have confused the debate over energy efficiency. What follows is my attempt to clarify the issue, and does not necessarily represent the views of my co-authors.

Continue reading "Why Energy Efficiency May Not Decrease Energy Consumption" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

Cross-posted from Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog

The Indian government's decision to partially rescind subsidies for petroleum, diesel and kerosene, and the associated public reaction provides us with a natural policy experiment to see how the Indian public might respond to a high price on carbon (see the news report above for how that experiment turns out).

Continue reading "How Might Indians React to a $30/tonne Carbon Tax" »

This is a guest post from the Breakthrough Generation blog. To read more writings from this year's 2010 Breakthrough Fellows, head to http://breakthroughgen.org.

By Mark Caine, Breakthrough Fellow

Environmentalists have long couched their opposition to nuclear power in the argument that tinkering with elementary particles to produce energy is inherently unsafe. But advances in climate and nuclear sciences suggest that the dangers posed by today's nuclear technology are far less serious than the risks of tinkering with global climate systems.

In 1945, J. Robert Oppenheimer gave the go-ahead for the Trinity test, the first human-induced nuclear explosion. As he observed the massive explosion unleashed by his creation, he uttered the now-famous phrase:

"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Continue reading "Elementary Particles, Complex Challenges" »

It comes as no surprise that a broad-based coalition of activists are calling the bluff of 19 companies earning carbon offset credits through the Carbon Development Mechanism created by the Kyoto Protocol. The activists accuse the companies, based largely in China and India, of creating greenhouse gas emissions for the sole purpose of earning credits from destroying them.

According to a review by E&E News (subs. Req'd):

"Sometimes they produce gas just to burn it and get some CDM money, and it's not at all an honest way of behaving," said Chaim Nissim, an engineer with Noe21, a Geneva-based climate change advocacy organization that has researched carbon offsetting projects at industrial gas companies.

"It's fake," Nissim said.

CDM officials say they are investigating the allegations...

With countries still unable to negotiate a second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol, the future of the entire CDM is in limbo. No one could say what it meant for the carbon market as a whole if it is indeed determined that one third of the whole volume of CERs don't represent any actually abated or avoided greenhouse gas emissions.

Continue reading "Carbon Offsets Fraud Continues" »

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" »

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?" »

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" »

Originally published at Foreign Policy

By Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger

There was good reason to be hopeful in January of 2009 that the election of Barack Obama would bring about America's long-awaited clean energy revolution. As president-elect, Obama had started to talk about energy policy in a way that no leader of either party had before. Promising to save the country from both severe recession and industrial decline, Obama described the transformation of America's energy economy as a defining challenge of his presidency -- an economic and national security imperative that Congress would fail to address at the nation's peril.

But the reality fell far short of expectations. The Obama administration succumbed, like many others, to a sort of magical climate thinking that promised a painless and even prosperous transition to a low-carbon future with the tools already at hand. The only official within his administration to accurately grasp the technology challenges we faced, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, was sidelined at crucial moments.

Continue reading "The End of Magical Climate Thinking" »

Anticipated as an opportunity to take unified action against climate change, the climate negotiations in Copenhagen have amounted to nothing more than a postmodern, self-congratulatory global event in which much is promised, but nothing meaningful is accomplished. With an apocalyptic narrative serving as the motivational undercurrent, delegates are focused on empty emissions reductions targets they have no strategy to meet and are distracted from the most important challenge in the effort to mitigate climate change: sustainable global development.

Meeting the global energy challenge does not require empty promises, but instead massive government investment in the clean energy technologies that will transform our global energy system by making clean energy cheap and abundant for developed and developing nations, alike.

What follows is the Breakthrough Institute's coverage of the climate talks in Copenhagen. Understanding why this world effort failed will be the first step in fomenting an internationally tenable plan to put the world on a low-carbon path and ensure clean, cheap, accessible energy on a global scale.

Continue reading "Copenhagen Coverage" »

Download the PDF here.

Read more in Slate.

Download the PDF here.

Renewing America's economy, responding to the threat of global climate change, and finally securing the nation's energy independence all compel the transformation of United States energy system. Accomplishing this transformation requires the rapid development and deployment of a suite of clean, affordable, and scalable energy technologies.

The challenge is this: Over the next four decades, global energy demand is expected to triple. But at the same time, global greenhouse gas emissions must fall rapidly, decreasing at least 50 to 85 percent by mid-century to avert potentially catastrophic climate change.

Read the full article here.

As the election enters its endgame, Democrats and their environmental allies face a political challenge they could hardly have imagined just a few months ago. America's growing dependence on fossil fuels, once viewed as a Democratic trump card held alongside the Iraq war and the deflating economy, has become a lodestone instead. Republicans stole the energy issue from Democrats by proposing expanded drilling -- particularly lifting bans on offshore oil drilling -- to bring down gasoline prices. Whereas Barack Obama told Americans to properly inflate their tires, Republicans at their convention gleefully chanted "Drill, baby, drill!" Obama's point on conservation and efficiency was lost on an electorate eager for a solution to what they perceive as a supply crisis.

Read the full article...

Download the PDF here

A path-breaking analysis published in the Harvard Law and Policy Review that documents the radical improvements to low-carbon technologies needed to meet humanity's growing energy needs and the kinds of policies needed to secure them.

Nordhaus, Shellenberger, Jeff Navin, Teryn Norris and Aden Van Noppen co-authored this 2007 treatise.

Download the PDF here.

Green groups may carp, but the the truth is the book could turn out to be the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring."

Download the PDF here.

Literature Review Reveals Expert Consensus on Need for Large Public Investments into Energy Technology Innovation to Stabilize the Climate.

Report prepared by Ted Nordhaus, Michael Shellenberger, Jeff Navin, Teryn Norris, and Aden Van Noppen.

Download the PDF here.

Download the PDF here.

Download the full PDF here.