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1. Gore launches $300 million into advocacy campaign
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2. Broken resolution
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3. When does additionality matter? (Part II)
Broken resolution
The William Morris "Anemone" water bottle
When TreeHugger reposted some of our TerraPass New Year's Resolutions the author snarked an "about time" to my commitment to avoid bottled water for the year.
To the casual reader, I might have come across as an Evian addict who couldn't so much as look at a faucet. But honestly, I'm really the opposite, and have been for years. I've never understood the bottled water phenomenon, even less the mildly flavored bottled water fad. Various stats on just how evil bottled water is (in my humble view) here.
The trouble is, that water in bottles is a convenience that all of us in the developed world have become very used to. I've always been perfectly happy with tap water, but never all that conscientious about carrying it with me everywhere I went. Knowing that you're never all that far from a vending machine or convenience store makes it so easy not to worry too much.
And this was really the point of my New Year's resolution. I wanted to prove that it was possible to anticipate every water need by carrying my own tap-filled bottle, all the time.
I'm sad to report that after three months of conscientious bottle-avoidance, I caved earlier this week. And I really don't think I could have done much about it. It was only once I was on board the plane for a 10-hour flight back home that I realized I hadn't refilled my bottle after drinking it all down before the security check.
The only water available courtesy of British Airways came in plastic bottles of assorted shapes and sizes (it was a small consolation that I didn't touch the 0.2 liter bottle provided with the meal and had my cup filled from the bigger bottle instead). Really, the alternative of dehydrating at 34,000 feet didn't seem a constructive approach.
I really had been doing well: camping trips, bike rides, a road trip in a Zip Car (I succeeded with the other resolution!). For each, my trusty TerraPass water bottle came with me. I even politely declined the nice (imported Italian) sparkling water at the fancy restaurant we went to on my birthday.
But as I've tried to remember hard to refill the bottle at every opportunity (trying to fit bottles under drinking fountains is an art that needs practice!) I've come to wonder what it will take to market tap water to compete with the silliness of branded bottled water.
I heard that a book soon to be published in the UK will provide wine tasting-style notes on the different tap waters available there. Meanwhile, manufacturers including Swiss firm Sigg and California's Klean Kanteen are bringing some much needed style to water bottles. Back in the UK, London's Victoria and Albert Museum is now selling bottles with some great designs.
As for the resolution, I'm feeling bad about it, but I have climbed straight back on the wagon, where I plan to stay. I'm already getting ready for the challenge of the return flight. Any tips for avoiding any further pitfalls would be much appreciated!
When does additionality matter? (Part II)
Second in a series. First one here.
In his post criticizing the design of carbon markets, Sean correctly notes that additionality is a pain to measure -- an ever more expensive pain, as the industry matures and quality controls become more stringent.
To take an example I know well, at TerraPass we spend tens of thousands of dollars per project helping dairy farmers validate their methane digesters under the Voluntary Carbon Standard. It's a complex process, requiring a fair amount of domain expertise, outside consultants, site visits, and ongoing monitoring. The process is meant to ensure additionality, but the cost carries some clear downsides. For example, we can't consider any projects that are below a certain size. Even if they're great projects, they won't generate enough carbon reductions to justify the effort.
So Sean and I agree that additionality in the carbon world is expensive and tricky to measure, and that the cost of doing so drives some worthwhile projects out of the system.
Sean also notes that other environmental markets function just fine without dragging in burdensome tests of additionality. In particular, the market for renewable energy certificates (RECs) has been thriving for well over a decade. You may be a REC buyer yourself. If you've ever signed up for your utility's "green power" program, then you bought RECs without giving a thought to additionality.
But this isn't the whole story on the REC market. RECs do in fact undergo several additionality tests, albeit simpler ones. For example, you can't generate RECs from renewable energy projects that are mandated by state or federal law. The reason for this additionality test is pretty obvious: your REC purchase isn't really funding green power in any meaningful sense if utilities were legally compelled to support the project anyway.
So additionality matters, even in REC markets. The difference is that the cost of the additionality tests is far lower in the REC market than in the carbon market. A clear tradeoff exists between the stringency of additionality tests and the cost of applying them. How to balance this tradeoff is a policy decision with no single right answer. Simpler, cheaper additionality tests set a lower bar, allowing more projects -- both "good" and "bad" -- to get through. More complex, expensive additionality tests screen out more of the bad projects, but inevitably shut out some of the good ones too.
In my first post, we saw that additionality is a concept that applies to any situation in which you use incentives to try to influence behavior. In this post, we see that additionality isn't an either-or property of a system, but instead a balancing act struck between somewhat conflicting goals. The REC market might choose one point on the additionality spectrum, and the carbon market another.
How do we determine which is the correct point? It boils down to costs and benefits, the subject of my next post.
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