19th out of 19

So, this little gem from the FT of Jan 18...

The new generation of Tory MPs due to take power after the election does not share David Cameron's professed commitment to tackling climate change, a survey being published this week suggests.

"Reducing Britain's carbon footprint" was rated as the lowest priority, out of 19 policies, by 144 Conservative candidates responding to the survey of the 240 most winnable Tory target seats. Rating each policy on a scale of one to five, where five was the most important to them personally, the candidates gave the climate change issue an average rating of 2.8, significantly below "more help for marriage" (3.6 rating) and "protecting the English countryside" (3.57 rating).

They rated "cutting red tape" as second only to tackling the budget deficit in terms of priorities, suggesting resistance to environmental regulation.

Where to begin? How stupid do we have to get, before it all goes tits up? Can we nominate the entire fracking species for an Arrhenius Award (like a Darwin Award, only for climate stupidity).

Oh, and those wonderful tables at the back of the rigorous Copenhagen Accord? The ones with the January 31st deadline. Yeah, well, screw that!

The post-Copenhagen world?

Sigh. Just putting the latest MCFly (issue 29. Oh god, what a rod for my own back/enablement of my martyr complex).

And on the stepper last night read a rather fun (in a "we are so toast" kind of way) piece by Alex Evans and David Steven, of the grandly named Centre on International Co-operation.

It's about the post-Copenhagen world, and it's catchily titled "An Institutional Architecture for Climate Change." It was commissioned by the Department for International Development.

So, the authors do that "scenario" thing that we have Per whatsit and Vince Cable to blame for. You know, they come up with three different ways things could go over the next 20 years or so, then spice it up with some glib "humour" about Chelsea Clinton becoming prez and so forth.

Their three scenarios are - (drumroll please)

"In Age of Climatocracy, early success in negotiations nonetheless fails to lead to a sustainable deal.

"In Multilateral Zombie, an early breakdown in international co-operation is followed by the eventual emergence of a new order based on a patchwork of bottom up solutions.

"Finally, in Operating System, a long-term deal proves sufficiently robust to deliver results, based on an ambitious effort to integrate all aspects of international reform, and an approach based on agreeing shared principles and a long-term route map rather than just incremental initiatives. "

In all of these I think they ignore what some of the smarter climate scientists are trying to say. Susan Solomon and the "it's later than you think" line, Stephen Schneider and the "unpleasant surprises", Wally Broecker and the Climate Beast thing. You see, Evans and Steven live in the dumb-bell world, and either won't or can't think about it all going horribly tits up in uncontrollable ways. I'm reminded of what some Daniel Finkelstein wrote recently in the Times about Robert McNamara upon the old fraud's death
"The first less is this: that men of action want to act. They are paid to act, they are brought into government to act. From his very first visit to Vietnam, McNamara could have learnt- if he wanted to- how difficult things were. But he was an executive type and he wasn't about to tell the boss that he couldn't get the job done. So doubt was excluded. The facts were altered to suit the theory."

The men of thinking (and they're damn good at it, btw. Check out their Global Dashboard) want to think, and to plot out continuities. But we are facing such radical uncertainty that... Actually, maybe I am being unfair to these guys; I guess nobody pays you to throw your hands up in the air and say "fucked if I know" for 50 pages.

Good points are made throughout. Here's a small selection that resonated with me as I stepped away on the stepper:
"This demonstrates a crucial point: action taken on climate change today is fundamentally influenced by expectations of what will happen in the future. By extension, the primary task for climate institutions is to shape expectations about future policy responses over the very long time periods associated with climate change. " (p16)

and

"Today’s institutions are structured in such a way that assumes that:

The likely impact of climate change will be considerably less than predicted by the IPCC. Emissions are climbing at a rate that makes more rigorous stabilization levels difficult, or impossible, to achieve.

The cost of reducing emissions far exceeds the benefits, while there is little need to insure against catastrophic impacts. Countries, firms and individuals behave as if they believe that they cannot afford the transition to low carbon development.

Short-term economic imperatives outweigh longer-term interests, including both economic and – especially – non-economic ones. While there is growing appreciation of the damage we are doing to future generations, there is not sufficient commitment to overcome the obstacles to collective action.

The needs of the poor should be given less weight than those of the rich. The poor, both acros and within countries, will suffer far more from climate change."
(page 17)

And there's ammo to sling at Ed Miliband next he uses the "we're 18% below 1990 levels" line on UK GHG emissions. Maybe (just maybe) we are on our production, but not on our consumption, not if you count the "embedded carbon":

"Dieter Helm finds that on a crude calculation, the UK’s consumption of greenhouse gases increased 19% between 1990 and 2003, even though production declined 12.5% – in line with the UK’s Kyoto target.
Other research suggests that only around half of China’s rapid emissions growth is due to increased domestic consumption; the rest are exported.
In effect, rich countries have exported ‘dirty industries’ to emerging economies, who then hav to bear the cost of investing in technologies for reducing their emissions."
(page 21)

And a good point on the UNFCCC negotiations:

"In climate change, this problem is compounded by the fact that agreements are negotiated by environment ministers who generally have low status within their governments, and whose position becomes increasingly exposed as the potential impact grows of any deal on economies. One understandable response is to increase centralisation, both within national governments (as heads of state take increasing responsibility for international issues), and at a global level (where there is a trend towards escalating hard issues to fora such as the G8 and, more recently, the G20).
However, the problem with centralisation is that it comes with very limited capacity. At national level, heads’ offices have small staffs that usually have to focus on the urgent rather than the essential. At international level, the limited ‘bandwidth’ of the network of sherpas that prepares the G8 agenda means that summit outcomes more often tend towards headline-friendly ‘initiatives’ instead of comprehensive plans to manage global risks. " (page 23)

and the final bit I'll cut and paste (promise) is one dear to my heart, namely, the complete lack of work done on "softening up" people for the meaning of a 'successful' Copenhagen deal:

"Public engagement is therefore paramount. At present, to a surprising (and alarming) extent, international climate policymakers act as though what takes place in the climate ‘bubble’ is the key determinant of success.

"But in fact, recent experience underlines the extent to which publics matter in foreign policy. The European Constitution and its successor, the Lisbon Treaty, were both examples of agreements where policy elites successfully reached a bargain, but then found it bluntly rejected during the ratification phase by publics who had been largely excluded from earlier deliberations. Many other international institutions struggle with public apathy or antipathy towards them.

"Accordingly, it will be essential for policymakers to engage early in the process with non-state constituencies – not only to gauge what public opinion is likely to bear, but also to build a broader sense of buy-in in order to prevent catastrophic public-driven ‘wild cards’ from defeating agreements late in the process. Yet it is astonishing how little governments and international agencies are actually doing to prepare publics for the prospect of a far-reaching global deal on climate change – particularly given that such a deal will, after all, be designed to catalyse a massive change in public behaviour. " (page 39

In summary- read this essay, it is worth it. Just don't take comfort from the scenarios....

Fart Gags and/or Climate Justice Analysis

On a day when news reaches us of a shambolic and literally unendurable Climate Camp meeting in Oxford, and on a day when the Financial Times reports that the price of carbon in the EUETS is at a record low, with predictable negative consequences for investment in low-carbon technology, it's hard to find Reasons to be Cheerful.

Sure, there's the inevitable fart gags of Marc Roberts. But for once he is trumped (ho ho) in the RtbC stakes.

Danny Chivers [disclaimer- I know him a little] has written a very clear and actually amusing (no, really) summary of what is likely to be on the table at Copenhagen. More up to the minute than my look last June or so...

Chivers' piece is in the New Internationalist.

Heathrow and Copenhagen

Crunch time at the Copenhagen climate negotiations, December 2009.
It's late on the final night (already extended for an extra day). Everyone is ratty, smelly and desperate.
The British Foreign Secretary is trying to broker a deal between the Chinese and the Americans, to avoid the US-China Suicide Pact.

Brit: "But the Honourable Chinese represtentative surely agrees that we must all cut our emissions dramatically."

Chin: "How new many airport runways are you building, sunshine?"

Brit: "Er, well, there's the one at Heathrow, and the one at ..."

Chin: "Let me stop you right there: You. Are. Having. A. Laugh. Good. Bye."

OK, OK, I know this isn't how these things work, but Christ, what a stupid stupid decision from a scared and blinkered representative of a scared and blinkered species...

Corporate Responses- Interview with Dr Rory Sullivan

In November 2008, Greenleaf released a new book, Corporate Responses to Climate Change: Achieving Emissions Reductions Through Regulation, Self-Regulation and Economic Incentives, which P.E.D reviewed here. The book was edited by Dr Rory Sullivan, the Head of Responsible investment at Insight Investment. Recognised as one of the leading global experts on investment and climate change, Dr Sullivan has led Insight’s climate change-related research and engagement work over the past six years and has published a series of major reports on the subject. His academic research has focused on the role of self-regulation in public environmental policy, with a particular focus on voluntary approaches in climate change policy.

1. Where did the idea for the book come from?

The starting point was actually frustration with the nature of the public policy debate around business and climate change. In recent years, much of the discussion around business and climate change has been couched in very simplistic and quite antagonistic terms: companies bad/policy makers good (or vice-versa!), voluntarism bad/regulation good (or vice-versa again!). At the same time – and almost in a parallel universe – we have seen the first serious attempts by policy makers (most significantly through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme) to take meaningful and substantive action on greenhouse gas emissions. Companies have responded with a range of commitments and actions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, for all the rhetoric and action, global and corporate greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise inexorably.

It is this context that the book is located. The objective is not to make a case for business or government action on climate change (a case that has been made many times before) but to carefully and systematically analyse current business practice and performance on climate change, in the light of the dramatic changes in the regulatory and policy environment over the last five years, and to use this analysis to provide concrete proposals on how the next generation of climate change policy instruments may be designed and implemented in a manner that delivers the real and substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that will be required in coming years.

2. You set out with the aim

"to reflect on current business practice and performance on climate change in the light of the dramatic changes in the regulatory and policy environment over the last five years. More specifically, it examines how climate change-related policy development and implementation have influenced corporate performance, with the objective of using this information to consider how the next stage of climate change policy may be designed and implemented in a manner that is effective while also addressing the inevitable dilemmas at the heart of climate change policy”.

How far do you think you succeeded? Given the chance, what would you add to the book?

I think the book has delivered on its central objective of cutting through the lazy rhetoric that clouds the business and climate change debate and presenting a clear – albeit stark – assessment of the current state of play as well as providing credible, evidence-based proposals for public policy on climate change. The book covers the major topics that you would expect in a book on greenhouse gas emissions mitigation: corporate motivations, the role of leadership within the organisation, the manner in which external influences (policy, stakeholder pressure, etc) interact to influence behaviour, the strengths and weaknesses of different policy instruments (command and control, incentives, market based instruments, self-regulation), the key climate change policy instruments that have been adopted.

So, in response to your question, I wouldn’t change anything in the book. Indeed, the relative lack of progress at Poznan and the recent discussions around the European Union's climate change programmes confirm some of the central concerns raised in the book: that lack of progress on developing and implementing policy in this area is the key challenge, that governments have yet to explicitly answer the question of how they deal with potentially competing goals such as energy security, and that, ultimately, clear, robust, long-term public policy – i.e. ‘Long, Loud & Legal’ - is key if we are to see a significant change in corporate performance.

There is however one major topic that the book – by design – didn’t cover, namely adaptation.

Clearly, a discussion on corporate greenhouse gas emissions – the focus of the book – is only half the picture. The other is how companies are developing their business strategies to take account of the physical impacts of climate change and also the opportunities presented by a changing climate. While acknowledging the causal links between greenhouse gas emissions and the global climate, adaptation is still treated very much as a distinct issue by companies and by policy makers. Furthermore, with the obvious exception of sectors such as insurance, the thinking on how adaptation policy needs to be designed and implemented to incentivise appropriate corporate responses is still very much in its infancy and so a book on this subject is probably somewhat premature.

3. On page 35 of the book you write "Overall, there needs to be a scarcity of allowances in order to create a market price for carbon and thereby induce reductions in greenhouse gas emissions." Anyone reading the Financial Times recently could be forgiven for thinking that German industry- carmakers, steel etc- have just gutted the European Climate Programme, especially on the question of the auctioning of carbon credits for the emissions trading scheme. Is that a fair representation? If so, what signal does that send to energy-generators?

I’m not sure that the wording of the question presents a completely fair representation of the recent debate. There are actually two distinct issues at play. The first is whether the European Climate Programme will deliver the significant, substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are required. From the evidence to date, the EU does seem likely to deliver on its targets of reducing the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020. As an intermediate goals towards the longer-term goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, as suggested by the IPCC, this is an important and substantive contribution and the EU should be applauded for providing real leadership on this.

The second is the distributional effects of the EU’s policy actions. The EU is faced with significant challenges of keeping its Member States on board with its overall climate change goals; inevitably, this requires paying attention to issues such as protecting European companies from unfair competition from companies outside the EU who do not face the same carbon constraints, and avoiding EU businesses relocate to outside the EU with the loss of jobs that would entail but at no net benefit to the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. One of the consequences has been that some of the major beneficiaries have been the energy companies and large industrials. Clearly, this raises the ethical (or distributional justice) questions of whether companies should be rewarded for having historically high emissions. But, this outcome, uncomfortable though it may be, may be a necessary price to pay in order to deliver on the EU’s overall climate change goals.

4. Elsewhere in the book, an author points out that the EU negotiating position of "20% cut by 2020, or 30% if comparable economies come aboard" actually creates policy uncertainty for companies, which they generally don't like. Given the uncertainty over whether there will even be a deal at Copenhagen (there seems to be some back-pedalling and downward massaging of expectations), what would you like to see the EU doing? What are your hopes/expectations of Copenhagen.

Obviously, the ideal outcome from Copenhagen would be a binding agreement that sets clear targets for the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and puts us clearly on the pathway to a low carbon economy. However, we need to recognise that there are many obstacles in the way of such an agreement, and it may be 2010 or 2011 before we see any form of agreement emerge.

There are some positive signs at the national and regional level. For example, China has set a nationally binding goal to reduce energy consumption per unit of economic output by 20 % in 2010 from 2005, South Africa has said that its emissions will peak by 2025, with cuts starting a decade later and Mexico has said that it intends to halve its emissions by 2050 against a 2002 baseline.

I think we are, now more than ever, looking to the developed countries – the EU, the US and Australia seem the most likely - to provide leadership by example. If there is a single conclusion to be drawn from the EU’s experience over the past few years it is that meaningful policy action on climate change does not necessarily entail significant adverse economic effects and, indeed, any short-term costs should be outweighed by longer-term benefits such as improved energy security and more efficient use of energy. Furthermore, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has played a catalytic role in putting climate change on the corporate agenda, not only demonstrating that governments could act but that they were prepared to act and to take decisions that were not necessarily in the best short-term interests of all companies.

5. The UK Government has created the Department of Energy and Climate Change. What key decisions do you think it should make on nuclear and new coal-fired power stations? Does the lack of CCS mean there should be, as James Hansen proposes, a moratorium on coal-fired stations? Would the gap be filled by renewables, or something worse?

There is a lot of rhetoric around the government’s commitment to action on climate change, yet at the same time many of the individual projects being proposed/discussed – the third runway at Heathrow, the Kingsnorth power station – seem likely to significantly increase the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.

New coal fired power stations represent the key litmus test of the government’s commitment to action on climate change. Allowing coal-fired power stations to proceed without carbon capture and storage would clearly demonstrate the lack of government appetite for substantive action on this issue.

A balanced approach to climate change policy does not mean that greenhouse gas emissions cannot or should not increase from specific activities but the government should explain how, if it does intend to allow such projects to proceed, it intends to reduce emissions elsewhere in the economy to compensate for increases that result from other of its decisions.