Good old Gerard Henderson has been at it again. His most recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled "A time for Australia's consolidation, not isolation, on carbon emissions" continues his long history of representing the traditional view of Australia's politicians and business "leaders" that Australia shouldn't do anything if the big boys haven't done it first.
His comments on the recently released Productivity Commission report try to make Australians feel silly for thinking that we should do anything about human-induced climate change because our trading partners aren't doing much more (in his opinion) than us and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) aren't doing anything at all in terms of a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme. And the American economy might experience a "double-dip". Ipso facto, we shouldn't be wasting our time on this climate change nonsense - after all, there's an economy to look after!
I have to assume that Mr Henderson does not understand anthropogenic climate change, because surely no one who understands the science, the risks and the consequences could be so blithe as to ask "but what's everyone else doing?" before asking "what can I do to stop this?". I say "understand" and not "believe" because, unlike the religions of the world (buddhism, catholicism, islam, communism and neoliberalism), it does not require "belief", but rather an understanding of basic physics and humanity's reliance on the "services" nature delivers to us for free.
But I digress. I really want to focus on some specific issues as I see them with his article:
"As followers of the US media know, there is almost no debate on climate change there."
Not so. There's plenty of "debate" (acrimonious gainsaying might be a more appropriate term), which sets the US apart from the picture in Europe where the populous generally seems to have a better grasp of the issue and the debate really is largely "over". The US and Australia are the great bastions and perpetrators of climate denial fictions. Don't compare tweedledum with tweedledee in order to convince anyone of the soundness of your argument!
"It found Australia was in the "mid-range" - along with the US and China - with respect to the electricity generation sector. Germany and Britain are out in front of Australia, but the likes of India, Japan and South Korea are behind."
Remind me again - which of these nations are the worst polluters per capita? From amongst the so-called advanced nations, it's the US, followed closely by Australia. No wonder the US and Australia lead the world in self-interested, professional climate sceptics. China is the world's biggest carbon polluter overal, but, along with India, they are way out in front in terms of population. China and India are 99th and 140th in terms of per capita emissions! Good old Australia though - 15th biggest carbon polluter in total (not per capita) in the whole world, but 50th in terms of population. Like I said, Mr Henderson clearly doesn't understand climate change because, if he did, these numbers which show where we rank in terms of dealing with this issue would make his blood boil for a different reason. Then again, considering his comments about the US in the article ("At the national level, Barack Obama no longer talks much about climate change."), it's pretty clear that whatever the US does ranks very high in Mr Henderson's thinking. This is par for the course for people who see themselves as identifying with a right-wing ideology.
"The EU's scheme does not cover road transport fuels but is scheduled to cover aviation and petrochemicals in 2012 and 2013 respectively."
I'm quite surprised he mentioned this, since it plays strongly against his argument that we shouldn't be doing as much as we are planning to. EU members already pay over AU$2 per litre for petrol, and it only looks so "good" due to the strong Australian dollar. By and large, the price difference is tax. That high level of tax on transport fuels has probably helped the EU achieve a significantly lower level of per-capita emissions than Australia, along with a significantly lower energy usage. Adding a new carbon tax on top of that would be redundant. So, by 2013, two massive carbon emitting industries will also covered under the EU's cap-and-trade scheme. Note that I'm not analysing how well their scheme has worked here, merely that they will have a fairly all-encompassing scheme. In contrast, Australia is only now implementing a carbon pollution tax on 1,000 big polluters, which plays well to the Green's definite anti-business sentiment, and also to the great masses who want to do something but don't want to pay for it. Who knows when an ETS will be implemented? Malcolm Turnbull's old mates over at Goldman Sachs are salivating now at the massive commissions they'll be able to charge on such an abstract market, but again, I digress.
"That's all. In the US, California is the only state that is committed to implementing a scheme by next year."
California being the 8th largest economy in the world. When you put it like that, this move is pretty significant, especially given the US's role as one of the biggest purveyors of anti-science rhetoric and the inventors of neliberalism. Speaking of California, I'm reminded of their power blackouts back in about 2000 which proved that unregulated markets are NOT the cure for all the world's ills. Often quite the opposite in fact.
The concluding paragraphs in Mr Henderson's article are a smattering of random right-wing fears: EU sovereign debt crisis - which doesn't seem to be stopping German energy companies from investing big time in solar thermal reactors in North Africa - the Muslim Brotherhood taking over the Middle East, and fear about the US economy continuing to suffer at the hands of neoliberalism doctrine and cronyism, though that's not exactly how he puts it, admittedly. The idea being to try to create enough fear in the reader's mind to think there are many more important problems to deal with other than trying to save the planet.
Maybe if we make enough money we can buy another planet somewhere instead. Will that be the lowest cost option?
[Edited only to correct some typos - I really should proofread at least once!]
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Tree-planting projects for producing carbon credits...
As has been pointed out by several people (a brief summary is available on wiki), tree-planting projects are sometimes a problematic source of carbon sequestration. In theory, they are brilliant, but when we talk about removing carbon from the atmosphere that we have added since the start of the industrial age, we mean to remove it permanently. It wouldn't be much of a solution if we found a way to remove CO2 for, say, 100 years. We could lock up massive quantities of CO2, only to have them returned to the atmosphere with a sudden vengeance in the not-too-distant future.
Of course, this is a problem with all carbon sequestration schemes. The problems for trees basically boil down to fires and the fact that they are so damn useful! In 100 years time, whose to say we won't have decided that we really need a certain forest after all, even if it was planted to soak up carbon emissions. Indeed, we'll hear all the same old arguments - it's only a small contribution to the problem, we have to have jobs, the economy must grow, etc.
The other problem with tree-planting projects, and it's a large problem really, is that, just like most things to do with the world of finance these days, we've let people get away with selling promises based on the future prospects of the trees (just like credit) rather than on what has actually been achieved. Now, I can understand the basis for this. Traders currently buy, for example, a whole crop of, say, fruit from a commodities market before the crop is actually harvested. They are therefore taking a risk - they pay a lower price, but risk losing money if the crop fails or is damaged, or just not the size they expected. The farmer gets capital to run their business, while taking less risk for guaranteed lower income. Sounds like a sensible arrangement, right?
For tree-planting, we are dealing with something vitally different. We are trying to permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere that results largely from the burning of fossil fuels, in order to avoid possibly catastrophic consequences due to human-induced climate change. The current practice of planting a bunch of trees and then selling the estimated lifetime carbon capture (known as forward-selling) is just untenable and too prone to error to be valid. Remember, the risk isn't that a crop of wheat won't produce the required quality or quantity over the course of a season, it's the risk that we, human beings, will seriously and perilously alter the world's climate, biodiversity, and ocean chemisty, and effectively bring about the end of our own civilisation in the process. Maybe the effects won't be all that terrify in the end, but that is the risk.
Obviously, the best way to help remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere is to make everyone pay for their emissions as they produce them, from carbon savings already in the bank. The notion of only spending what you've already earnt, rather than relying on the miracle of credit, is rather anathema in the western world, and in particular in the UK, the USA and Australia (Germans, for example, are more restrained in their use of credit). I think that our society should turn back more to relying on savings for our expenditures, rather than promises on future earning power. I'm sure some neo-classical economist could show me just how crazy an idea that is, but sometimes it seems to me that economists live in their own little world of non-dependent, linearly-aggregatable agents which we would be better off eschewing for most practical purposes.
However, carbon-offset schemes from trees don't work this way. They work on the promise of future value. Does this mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater, and not use carbon-credits generated from tree-planting?
No, of course not. It simply means the design of the systems is not adequate. So, here's what I propose:
- Carbon Credits can be sold at the end of every year, based on the estimated growth of the trees in the plantation area over that time. Estimating this sort of quantity in hindsight is certainly much easier than predicting the future value of something.
- The plantation is under a permanent, legally-binding, type of title that recognises the carbon stored therein. The plantation can be freely sold, with the proviso that any trees that are harvested, or destroyed by fire, are offset by the owner with carbon credits bought elsewhere. The harvested/damaged areas could be replanted, of course, with new credits being generated, but it is absolutely vital that any carbon lost from the plantation is offset elsewhere.
- Trees that die and rot into the soil should be offset at the time of falling, but perhaps the full amount wouldn't need to be offset as some of the rotten tree may end up permanently stored as a deep layer of soil. I don't think the reduction should be much though, as the risk would be high that most of the carbon could be returned to the atmosphere.
Would this be expensive? Well, compared to what? Destroying up to 90% of species on our planet, causing massive social upheavals and wars over diminishing and failing resources, and seeing our children's or our grand-children's lifestyles being significantly worse than our own as a result - or, doing something real about the problem now?
But the short answer is yes. Yes, it would be expensive to try to lock up carbon permanently once it's been released from fossil fuels.
You didn't really think you could offset your domestic flight's carbon emissions for just $20 now, did you?
Of course, this is a problem with all carbon sequestration schemes. The problems for trees basically boil down to fires and the fact that they are so damn useful! In 100 years time, whose to say we won't have decided that we really need a certain forest after all, even if it was planted to soak up carbon emissions. Indeed, we'll hear all the same old arguments - it's only a small contribution to the problem, we have to have jobs, the economy must grow, etc.
The other problem with tree-planting projects, and it's a large problem really, is that, just like most things to do with the world of finance these days, we've let people get away with selling promises based on the future prospects of the trees (just like credit) rather than on what has actually been achieved. Now, I can understand the basis for this. Traders currently buy, for example, a whole crop of, say, fruit from a commodities market before the crop is actually harvested. They are therefore taking a risk - they pay a lower price, but risk losing money if the crop fails or is damaged, or just not the size they expected. The farmer gets capital to run their business, while taking less risk for guaranteed lower income. Sounds like a sensible arrangement, right?
For tree-planting, we are dealing with something vitally different. We are trying to permanently remove carbon from the atmosphere that results largely from the burning of fossil fuels, in order to avoid possibly catastrophic consequences due to human-induced climate change. The current practice of planting a bunch of trees and then selling the estimated lifetime carbon capture (known as forward-selling) is just untenable and too prone to error to be valid. Remember, the risk isn't that a crop of wheat won't produce the required quality or quantity over the course of a season, it's the risk that we, human beings, will seriously and perilously alter the world's climate, biodiversity, and ocean chemisty, and effectively bring about the end of our own civilisation in the process. Maybe the effects won't be all that terrify in the end, but that is the risk.
Obviously, the best way to help remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere is to make everyone pay for their emissions as they produce them, from carbon savings already in the bank. The notion of only spending what you've already earnt, rather than relying on the miracle of credit, is rather anathema in the western world, and in particular in the UK, the USA and Australia (Germans, for example, are more restrained in their use of credit). I think that our society should turn back more to relying on savings for our expenditures, rather than promises on future earning power. I'm sure some neo-classical economist could show me just how crazy an idea that is, but sometimes it seems to me that economists live in their own little world of non-dependent, linearly-aggregatable agents which we would be better off eschewing for most practical purposes.
However, carbon-offset schemes from trees don't work this way. They work on the promise of future value. Does this mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater, and not use carbon-credits generated from tree-planting?
No, of course not. It simply means the design of the systems is not adequate. So, here's what I propose:
- Carbon Credits can be sold at the end of every year, based on the estimated growth of the trees in the plantation area over that time. Estimating this sort of quantity in hindsight is certainly much easier than predicting the future value of something.
- The plantation is under a permanent, legally-binding, type of title that recognises the carbon stored therein. The plantation can be freely sold, with the proviso that any trees that are harvested, or destroyed by fire, are offset by the owner with carbon credits bought elsewhere. The harvested/damaged areas could be replanted, of course, with new credits being generated, but it is absolutely vital that any carbon lost from the plantation is offset elsewhere.
- Trees that die and rot into the soil should be offset at the time of falling, but perhaps the full amount wouldn't need to be offset as some of the rotten tree may end up permanently stored as a deep layer of soil. I don't think the reduction should be much though, as the risk would be high that most of the carbon could be returned to the atmosphere.
Would this be expensive? Well, compared to what? Destroying up to 90% of species on our planet, causing massive social upheavals and wars over diminishing and failing resources, and seeing our children's or our grand-children's lifestyles being significantly worse than our own as a result - or, doing something real about the problem now?
But the short answer is yes. Yes, it would be expensive to try to lock up carbon permanently once it's been released from fossil fuels.
You didn't really think you could offset your domestic flight's carbon emissions for just $20 now, did you?
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