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1. Adventures in carbon pricing
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2. Comparing climate change plans
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3. Green Stats: 323 Million
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4. What's So Great About Bamboo?
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5. iLinc reports CO2 spared through Web conferencing
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6. ComputerWorld: Discovery is #2 Green-IT User in U.S.
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7. Dial F for fish
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8. Equitrac aims at monitoring and cutting costly print waste
Adventures in carbon pricing
A federal carbon tax in the U.S. appears to be a political dead letter, but all sorts of interesting experiments in carbon pricing are underway regionally.
First: the California Assembly this week votes on the California Clean Car Discount Act, a "feebate" system that imposes a direct charge on sales of gas guzzlers and uses the funds to reward buyers of fuel sippers. The way it works it pretty simple. If you buy a Chevy Tahoe, you'll have to pony up a $2,500 fee, which will then go straight to all the folks buying Honda Civics. Fees and rebates are determined on a sliding scale based on the fuel efficiency of the vehicle in question.
Although not quite a carbon tax, the system does establish clear price signals for energy efficiency, and such feebate systems are thought to be an improvement over CAFE. Unfortunately, some members of the Assembly are still sitting on the fence:
"What if some poor guy in Watts retires and says, 'I want an SUV,'" Dymally said. "Do you punish him for that?"
Feel free to email Assemblyman Dymally to explain respectfully that no one wants to punish, um, poor, inner city...retiree SUV drivers. We just want them to shoulder the full cost of their choices, so that the rest of don't have to. (You might also point out that some of the cleaner SUVs won't be subject to any charges under the bill.)
Further north, Bay Area regulators are mulling a straight-up carbon tax of 4.2 cents per metric ton. This is, by any measure, a pittance, but environmentalists are nevertheless ecstatic about the possible precedent.
Stories like this always come with unintentionally amusing quotes:
Once a carbon fee is in place, critics worry, it could easily increase.
Yes, I suppose that is a worry. Pass the smelling salts. I feel faint.
Moving still farther north: British Columbia just enacted an honest-to-goodness carbon tax, effective July 1. The tax will start at about $10 per ton, rising to about $30 per ton in 2012. This is a tax shift, meaning that all revenue will be returned to tax payers through offsetting tax cuts and credits (which is generally speaking a good thing).
I know what you're thinking: what's British Columbia? It's a village north of Washington state, in a protectorate referred to by locals as "Canada." What makes this news particularly intriguing is that British Columbia is also part of the Western Climate Initiative, a collaboration between BC, California, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Arizona.
So soon enough, BC could be operating under both a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade system. Despite what you may have heard, there's no particular reason the two carbon pricing mechanisms can't shake hands and be friends. This will be worth watching.
Comparing climate change plans
Per request, I wrote up a post comparing Hillary, Obama, and McCain on climate and energy policy. The post was long and dense and boring, so I threw it away and instead wrote the following long, dense and absolutely riveting primer on what to look for in a good climate change plan. These principles apply to cap-and-trade style programs, because that's what all the presidential candidates are proposing.
1. Go deep
The "cap" part of cap-and-trade refers to the emissions level mandated by the legislation. Good legislation considers both the short term and the long term.
The available science indicates we need an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. For a variety of reasons (CO2 is a long-lived pollutant; the initial cuts will be easiest, etc.) we should start cutting quickly. 20% by 2020 is a reasonable interim target.
Use these figures as a benchmark, but don't obsess over them. A climate change plan that calls for an 87% cut is not necessarily better than one calling for an 84% cut. Our understanding of climate change will progress over the next several decades, and we'll adjust accordingly. The important thing for now is that the planned cuts are sufficiently deep and predictable to stimulate a cascade of infrastructure improvements.
2. Go broad
The question arises: cut 80% of what? Naively, we might assume that a cap applies to all greenhouse gas emissions, but often this isn't the case. Some plans only cover electricity generation; some ignore aviation; etc.
Good climate change legislation will cover the entire economy, including transportation. There are at least two reasons for this. The first is the elementary fact that the climate system doesn't care about the source of the emissions. The second is the economic problem of emissions "leakage." If only certain portions of the economy are capped, polluting activities may just migrate to the unregulated sectors.
On a related note, carbon offsets can help push carbon pricing into sectors of the economy -- soil tillage, municipal waste water, etc. -- that cap and trade wouldn't otherwise touch.
3. Cap the source
How to put a carbon cap into practice? The necessary accounting, monitoring, and tracking systems are complex under any circumstance, but as a general rule, we should cap as far upstream as possible, meaning close to the point where fossil fuels enter our economy.
To take an example, there are over 150,000 gas stations in the United States, but only about 150 oil refineries. Rather than trying to assess fuel usage at the pump, it's far easier to track it at the point of distribution. Not only is an upstream cap easier to implement, it also is harder to cheat.
Note that, at least theoretically, the effects of a carbon cap are independent of where the cap is implemented. Gas prices will rise regardless of whether fuel is tracked at the pump or at the refinery. In practice, though, this issue gets rather complex.
4. Make polluters pay
A cap raises the question of who gets to pollute. Presently, we can all pollute freely. After a cap is in place, companies will have to vie for limited pollution allowances. The "trade" part of cap-and-trade allows polluters to swap these allowances between themselves, but how do they get the allowances in the first place?
The worst way to distribute the allowances is simply to give them away. Painful experience has shown that free distribution of allowances creates windfall profits for polluting companies, who then pass the bill for higher energy prices on to consumers.
The best way to distribute the allowances is to sell them via auction. Not only is such a process economically efficient -- those who need the allowances most will bid the most for them -- but it also raises revenue for the government that can be put to good use.
5. Spend wisely
Good climate change legislation will raise many billions of dollars in revenue through the auction of pollution allowances. What to do with that money? There's not a single right answer to this question, but there are several worthwhile goals to which the money could be applied.
- Invest in complementary policies such as renewable energy and efficiency
- Address fairness issues that arise from higher energy prices
- Build political support for climate change policy
Fortunately, many measures further several of these goals simultaneously. For example, polls show that public opposition to gasoline taxes drops considerably if the revenue is pledged to renewable energy development.
Unsurprisingly, opinions on how to put the money to use vary dramatically. Some propose that the revenue should simply be divided up and returned to citizens directly, which would bolster popular support for the cap-and-trade program and also soften the regressive nature of higher energy prices. Others put forward a range of worthwhile infrastructure projects that could benefit from public investment. In reality, there are several good uses to which the money can be put. To judge a climate change plan, ask how well the money serves the above goals.
6. Be (a little) flexible.
Cap-and-trade programs can include a variety of exotic technical features meant to soften some of the potentially harmful economic impacts of carbon pricing. These features sometimes get a bad rap as mechanisms for holding down cost of carbon (and therefore undermining the cap). At least in theory, though, the issue isn't cost but volatility. Building some flexibility into a cap-and-trade system can lower short-term volatility without compromising long-term caps. Various flexibility mechanisms -- banking and borrowing, circuit breakers, offsets -- can be usefully incorporated in a limited way. Other flexibility mechanisms -- particularly safety valves -- are theoretically useful but in practice subject to abuse.
There is one flexibility mechanism that shouldn't be controversial: a "look back" provision that requires the government to evaluate the cap and make adjustments if in the future we discover that global warming is worse than we thought, or that our present efforts aren't up to the task of mitigating it.
7. Politics matter
Indulging in some harmless policy wonkery may make you popular at parties, but it also potentially obscures the fact that having a good plan on paper isn't enough. The devil is in the details, and many of those details will be left up to the regulatory agency charged with implementing the cap. So tawdry politics matters. Who's running the government? What priority does climate change hold in the legislature, the judiciary, and the executive? Who will be most effective at forging the coalitions necessary to shepherd through a compromise bill? What compromises will have to be made?
Congratulations if you made it this far. Although I will eventually return to the specific question of the presidential candidates, my main recommendation is to put your new knowledge to work using the Grist posts linked to in the following haiku:
Eighty percent cuts
For Clinton and Obama
McCain can't keep up
Green Stats: 323 Million
Culture & Celebrity
Photo credit: eszter 323 million -- the amount, in dollars, that US consumers spent last week on chocolate candy for Valentine's Day, according to Nielsen estimates. 414 million -- the amount, in dollars, that US consumers spent last week on candy for Valentine's Day, making it the most popular day for chocolate sales and third in overall candy sales, behind Halloween and Easter. 0.1 -- the percent of the global chocolate market that's Fair Trade certified, according to 
What's So Great About Bamboo?
Design & Architecture
Photo credit: FredArmitage Bamboo has blossomed with the green movement, going from Panda chow to material extraordinaire in a few short years; we've seen it used in just about everything: flooring, anti-microbial bedding, and notebook computers, not too mention more furniture than you can 
iLinc reports CO2 spared through Web conferencing
Ted Samson - Web conferencing
ComputerWorld: Discovery is #2 Green-IT User in U.S.
electronics
Discovery owns TreeHugger, so reporting on this story is a bit delicate. We'll limit ourselves to saying that we're proud of what Discovery is doing, with its LEED headquarters, with its groundbreaking upcoming 24/7 green TV channel Planet Green (in the meantime you can check out the Planet Green website), with its IT department, and many other things. To keep some objectivity, we'll just quote ComputerWorld: "Discovery's approach is ahead of the curve. A recent Forrester Research Inc. survey found that just 15% of U.S. companies have... 
Dial F for fish
This has roughly zero climate change relevance, but it's nifty and green and perhaps you'll find it as useful as I do: text the message "fish <fish name>" to Blue Ocean's Fishphone (30644) to receive an assessment of whether the filet you're planning to purchase for dinner is environmentally kosher.
So, for example, when I text "fish cod" to 30644, I immediately get the following response:
Pacific cod (GREEN) few environmental concerns, MSC certified as sustainable; Atlantic cod (RED) significant environmental concerns
Green means go. Red means stay away. MSC indicates that the Marine Stewardship Council has certified the fish as a best environmental choice.
The service is fairly clever. It also issues health warnings and suggests alternatives. For example, when I ask about Chilean sea bass, the response sounds the alarm about illegal fishing and mercury content, and suggests I try striped bass or pacific halibut instead.
Put the number (30644) in your address book now and never worry again about tripping up on your cod.
Update: if you can't access the SMS service, you can also download and print a fish guide here, or browse a web site designed for mobile devices at http://fishphone.org.
Via Bitten.
Photo available under Creative Commons license from flickr user clairity.
Equitrac aims at monitoring and cutting costly print waste
Ted Samson - Paper waste
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