The Developing Debate Over GG Controls

The President-Elect, Nov. 18, 2008, video address to meetings on climate change “Delay is no longer an option. … Denial is no longer an acceptable response.” “Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all.”

What the campaign promised: Reduce our Greenhouse Gas Emissions 80 Percent by 2050 Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by The Obama-Biden cap-and-trade policy will require all pollution credits to be auctioned, and proceeds will go to investments in a clean energy future, habitat protections, and rebates and other transition relief for families. Make the U.S. a Leader on Climate Change. Obama and Biden will re-engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) -- the main international forum dedicated to addressing the climate problem. They will also create a Global Energy Forum of the world’s largest emitters to focus exclusively on global energy and environmental issues.

John Bonine, University of Oregon “If cap-and-trade means mostly planting trees, in exchange [for] exceeding the caps, we are toast.” “[In addition to a global cap, we should enact] a US cap that allows no purchasing of credits outside the US” ▫“I just don’t trust that reductions claimed elsewhere will materialize in a world with insufficient enforcement” ▫That would force the US to develop technologies and strategies to control GG

Wil Burns “A carbon tax is a far superior mechanism to cap and trade … but it probably remains one of the third rails of politics” Cap-and-trade has “very little capability of controlling distributional outcomes” “We need to develop stringent standards, e.g., no credit for tree planting in non-tropical regions”

Prof. Lesley McAllister, San Diego “[C]aps in existing cap-and-trade programs have been ‘over-allocated,’ with caps set at levels that require few if any reductions from business-as- usual emissions.” Caps should require reductions “at least as great as those that would be achieved by mandating the use of feasible emissions control technologies.”

Prof. David Hodas, Widener “[A]bandon the Kyoto model for a global cap. Then forestry can be a real, verifiable form of sequestration, not a counterfactual game of baseline poker.” “[T]o be enticing hosts for projects, developing nations will need to improve their rule of law generally, so that they have a stable set of rules and institutions to support significant investment.”

Emmanuel Kisimbazi, Maryland “My concern is that different developing countries are at different levels of development. … South Africa is not at the same level of development as Uganda my country. How do you develop a legal regime to address the two countries?” “[M]ost countries, especially in Africa, have recently developed environmental laws that can deal with forestry management issues but the most crucial challenge is their implementation.”

TNC experience with forest carbon under the Kyoto Protocol

Allow regulated sources to use international forest carbon credits for compliance Could generate billions of dollars for protecting endangered forests in the tropics and elsewhere

Forest carbon legislation has to address three issues Additionality—make sure the emissions offset/reduction is not something that would have happened anyway Leakage—make sure you aren’t just shifting GG-emitting activities such as deforestation to another site Permanence—are restored/protected forests likely to remain intact indefinitely?

Dimensions of the problem More than 37 million acres of tropical forest—an area larger than New York State—are lost each year. In many developing countries, deforestation is the largest source of emissions. The IPCC projects that 30% of Earth’s plants and animals will be at increasing risk of extinction by century’s end with “business as usual” Globally, about 20% of GG emissions are associated with forest losses.

There are good arguments for including Forest Carbon—can we solve the legal and institutional problems?

For the holidays: Give your friends and loved ones Carbon Offsets—the gift that keeps on giving (~100 years)