"I want my, I want my, I want my permits free..." -Utility lobbyist at a recent California Air Resources Board hearing on carbon market design (paraphrased)
There's no free lunch. But greedy utilities and offsets providers have been trying to get one by lobbying for a carbon pricing system that is overly complicated. As Mark Knopfler would say, "That ain't workin.'" All you need to do is charge polluters for permits, and return the revenues back to households. That's the way you do it.
At last week's hearing on an advisory panel report, the California Air Resources Board discussed 13 recommendations for carbon market design under the state's climate law, AB32. The expert panelists said it was vital to sell permits to companies rather than give them away, and return 75 percent of revenues collected back to households, using the remaining 25 percent on renewable energy and related investments. In the worst recession in decades, in a State with 12% unemployment and a crushing budget deficit, polluters provide a revenue stream to relieve working families from the burden of increasing fuel and energy costs. The new price on carbon provides an incentive for businesses to implement energy efficiency, and for Silicon Valley to innovate and lead the green energy revolution.
But then the public comment portion of the hearing opened, and the line queued up with lobbyists from utilities and oil companies. They asked for free permits instead of auctioning, and encouraged the unlimited use of offsets. "It's too expensive," they said, "we need more time." Let me tell you them guys ain't dumb.
It wasn't just utilities and oil companies asking for free permits. Almost everyone in the room was asking for a portion of permit revenues for their cause. The problem is, if revenues are split 100 ways to appease each special interest, there will be none left to return to households to defuse the political backlash against a carbon price. Already, Texas-based oil company Valero is funding a California ballot measure in November to suspend AB32. To counter this, AB32's defenders speak of a future green economy, but an even better strategy in an economic downturn is telling people about how a climate dividend will reduce economic uncertainty for working families.
Some local government agencies have also been lobbying for an unlimited offsets market. In the rush to be early adopters, some agencies see their parks and watersheds as potential sources for carbon sequestration, and their transit systems as the holders of emission reduction "credits" that can be sold to polluters to fund future projects. Traders like Goldman Sachs tell them they are sitting on a goldmine, and the beleaguered public servants' eyes light up with dollar signs. Money for nothing?
On the surface, the idea of carbon offsets is appealing. To proponents, they relieve a guilty emitter's conscience, and provide revenues to help someone somewhere else reduce climate impacts that would otherwise add to global warming. In the idealized offsets world, enlightened citizens and businesses become "carbon neutral" by paying for enough offsets to negate your own impact. Too bad it is mostly greenwash.
At a recent green tech summit, an offsets verifier was peppered with questions. A city required a developer to donate a wetland to a land trust to mitigate impacts of a new subdivision. Could the developer claim carbon offsets? No, the verifier answered, there was no "additionality." The offset must not be something they were going to do anyway. Tree planting in plantations, while lumber companies continue to clear cut existing forestland, is problematic. Climate modelers expect an increase in forest fires. What happens when the trees burn down? Do you get your money back? The satirical website Cheat Neutral illustrates the limitations of the offsets mindset. A boyfriend who cheats on his girlfriend pays another couple to be faithful, so he can keep sleeping around. Cheat offsets allow him to be "cheat neutral."
This is not to say there is no place for offsets. Uncapped sectors like agriculture may have sequestration potential, perhaps through manure management at dairies or biochar.
But all of this talk of offsets needlessly complicates the basics of a carbon permit system. Polluters pay, and people get the money. That's the way you do it. This is the approach used in a bill introduced by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) in the U.S. Senate. The CLEAR Act prohibits the type of offsets associated with Goldman Sachs-type speculation. Instead, the government uses a portion of revenues from carbon permit sales to fund the purchase of "supplementary reductions." With the government as the only sanctioned purchaser of these reductions, additional oversight and public scrutiny of how our taxpayer dollars are invested would rein in the "wild west" mentality of the current offsets providers.
The CLEAR Act also returns 75 percent of permit revenues back to households, which according to a recent report would benefit 80% of Californians and create over 33,000 jobs in the state. If more people knew about this, instead of the lobbyists clamoring for offsets for nothing and permits for free, we might hear citizens demanding, "I want my, I want my, I want my dividend."
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/dirty-money-climate-30032010
Tracking the money behind climate change denial.
the Fossil and Nukes Status quo will continue
Cap and trade in Europe has crashed many times!
Stop wasting subsides, breaks and materials on fossil and nukes, so more will be available for green.
rooftop pv is as cheap as 3 cents per KWH,
Wind is 3-6 cents,
Waste bio fuels solve our waste and dumping problems, and give us energy, fuels, and carbon negative fertilizer.
Since we eventually throw everything out,
all the output of the land will eventually be usable for Bio Fuels. sewage, agri waste, food waste, plastics, construction material, anything organic into fuel and energy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research?action=profile
http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/EconomicsOfWind-Feb2005.pdf 3-6 cents per Kwh, 70 cents per W.
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-11-how-much-energy-does-the-us-waste/
http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/Waste_to_Worth_-_CEFWC_submission.pdf
good paper on existing landfill versus bio fuels..
soil carbon content. Once this royal road is constructed, traffic cops ( Carbon Board ) in place, the truth of land-management and Biochar systems will be self-evident.
The Ag Soil Carbon standard is in final review by the AMS branch at USDA.
The agronomic history of civilization shows that the Kayopo Amazon Indians and the Egyptians were the only ones to maintain fertility for the long haul, millennium scales. Egypt has now forsaken their geologic advantage by building the Aswan dam, and are stuck, with the rest of us, in the soil C mining, NPK rat race to the bottom. see here
http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/36/6/1821
and
http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/38/6/2295
Biochar viewed as soil Infrastructure; The old saw;
"Feed the Soil Not the Plants" becomes;
"Feed, Cloth and House the Soil, utilities included !".
Free Carbon Condominiums with carboxyl group fats in the pantry and hydroxyl alcohol in the mini bar.
Build it and the Wee-Beasties will come.
Microbes like to sit down when they eat.
By setting this table we expand husbandry to whole new orders & Kingdoms of life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvB3em82Lkw
What you described is the reason I'm dubious that carbon offsets will work. If allowed too the "participants" will game the system right out of existence. We’d have to do this in the dark of night in order to get a workable bill.