EU Proposes Emission Trading Scheme; Chinas Dubious CO2 Reductions; Global Warming Insurance?; Carbon Tax Proposals Overseas

by William Yeatman on June 26, 2001

in Blog

EU Proposes Emission Trading Scheme

A new plan being drawn up by the European Commission would require industry participation in a new CO2 emissions trading scheme. Under the proposed law, all major industries, with the notable exceptions of waste incineration and chemical production, would be compelled to begin trading CO2 credits by 2005. These allotments would be granted by member countries to industry based on current emissions.

The scheme is the beginning of an attempt by the EU to meet its target reductions under Kyoto. The Commission admits that capping and trading CO2 quotas will not directly reduce greenhouse gases. However, they believe that making quotas tradable will encourage industry to find cost-effective ways to reduce overall CO2 output.

The draft law also includes some hefty fines for those who exceed their ration of CO2 and cannot buy more credits. The commission is considering fines of $170 per ton of excess CO2 emission. The fine per ton is about 10 times what the Commission believes the future average per ton trading cost will be.

The European Commission wants the EU to set the standard for CO2 cap and trade systems. This would take advantage of the “flexibility mechanisms” that are allowed under Kyoto. By creating the pre-cursor to any international system, the Commission may have substantial impact on what the final rules would be.

Russia is extremely interested in the EU trading scheme because of the benefits it could reap if it were expanded internationally. The implosion of Russias economy reduced CO2 emissions far below their 1990 levels. Russia would be able to sell its “hot air” credits to foreign companies.

The draft law would not include any other greenhouse gases. The Commission decided that regulating methane, nitrous oxide, and the fluorinated gases would prove too complicated (Reuters, June 25, 2001).

Chinas Dubious CO2 Reductions

The New York Times reported in its June 15 issue that China reduced its emissions of CO2 by 17 percent between 1997 and 1999. The story, which appeared on the front page, was largely a broadside aimed at President Bushs statement that the Kyoto Protocol is “fatally flawed” because China, the worlds second leading emitter of greenhouse gases, is exempt.

Zhou Dadi, director of the Energy Research Institute of the central governments State Development Planning Commission, stated, “We already have one of the worlds best records in improving energy efficiency.” He also put the onus back on the U.S., “As an energy expert, I think we need a demonstration from a developed country to prove that a high living standard can be associated with lower carbon emissions,” he said. “Then China will follow that example or even do better.”

The Times story was based on a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The report states, “There is a good basis to argue that China has done more to combat climate change over the past decade than has the United States.”

Besides the dubious credibility of statistics from Chinas communist government, there are problems with these claims. As noted in Electricity Daily (June 27, 2001), the NRDC report says, “Chinas lower energy consumption is clearly the result of declining coal consumption, since other primary energy forms did not record such a drop. This reduction in coal consumption appears to be concentrated in direct uses household cooking and heating, for example since conversion of coal for power generation and other uses has remained stable.”

So, says Electricity Daily, “The only way this cut could be real is if people in China stopped cooking and heating their homes, since industrial and electric power coal consumption did not drop. Such an explanation is highly unlikely.”

“What is evident,” says Electricity Daily, “is that during this period the central Chinese government issued decrees designed to close many of the small local coal mines that supply domestic consumption. By far the most likely explanation is that these local mines simply stopped reporting production.”

Global Warming Insurance?

The Washington Post (June 26, 2001) has turned a virtual non-story into another global warming scare. According to the article, companies are buying weather insurance to guard against financial loss due to adverse weather conditions.

The story begins by discussing the Dallas-based Atmos Energy Co., which recently spent $4.9 million on weather insurance from Enron Corp. Enron began selling the insurance in 1997 in response to El Nio, a naturally occurring phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean that has produced several warm winters. Of course, warm winters are anathema to energy companies. Purchasing insurance to guard against a well-known, regularly occurring event such as El Nio makes good business sense.

The Washington Post, however, makes an absurd leap from good business practice to, “Thats the kind of practical response beginning to take place throughout U.S. industry as business leaders face up to the prospect of climate change.” It also tries to link El Nio to global warming, a link that has no basis in the scientific literature.

If global warming led to a situation where energy companies were confronted with a long string of warm winters or ski resorts with a long string of winters with inadequate snowfall, then they would simply go out of business. Theres no way these companies could afford the premium to insure against a long-term shift in climatic conditions. Thus, if catastrophic global warming were a serious threat, rather than seeing an increase in the sales of weather insurance, wed see a decrease.

Carbon Tax Proposals Overseas

Japan and the European Union are proposing to use taxes to lower CO2 emissions in order to comply with their obligations under Kyoto. A new report from the Central Environment Council in Japan says that creating a tax on CO2 could bring as much as a two percent reduction in emissions below 1990 levels. The tax would be around $240 per ton of CO2 emitted. The report also noted that the CO2 tax would reduce GDP by almost one percent (Japan Times, June 21, 2001).

The EU is also experimenting with tax proposals to reduce CO2 emissions (Financial Times, June 22, 2001). Instead of taxing CO2 emissions themselves, Belgium is using its presidency of the EU Commission to push a unified EU tax on energy usage. By making energy use more costly they hope to reduce demand. Also the energy tax would improve the bottom line of the EU budget. Under the proposal the revenue from the tax would flow directly to the EU, bypassing the member states.

Belgiums tax proposal highlights inter-EU tensions. So far energy tax proposals have been strongly opposed by Spain and Britain who do not want to see an EU standard set. However, Belgium has signaled that they are willing to go ahead without unanimous support.

300-million-year Record of CO2 Levels; Uncertainties in Climate Science

by William Yeatman on June 26, 2001

in Science

300-million-year Record of CO2 Levels

There has been a lot of hand wringing over increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. The increase is relatively small when compared to historic levels. Preindustrial concentrations were about 280 parts per million. Currently concentrations are about 370 ppm. A study in the May 17 issue of Nature shows that CO2 levels were much higher in the past.

The studys authors constructed a 300-million-year record of CO2 concentrations using “stomatal abundance from fossil leaves of four genera of plants that are closely related to the present-day Gingko tree.” Two periods of low (meaning less than 1,000 ppm) CO2 concentrations were discovered, which corresponded to two known ice ages. During most of the Mesozoic era (the period from 65 to 259 million years ago), CO2 levels were between 1,000 and 2,000 ppm, with occasional peaks that reached levels higher than 2,000 ppm.

Results from the middle Miocene, a warm period about 10 million years ago, failed to show high CO2 levels. The researchers suggest that the warming may have occurred due to “episodic methane outbursts.”

Uncertainties in Climate Science

In a recent issue of Climatic Change (49: 2001), Dr. Gerald North, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology and Oceanography at Texas A&M, used a book review to discuss the major uncertainties in climate science. The book, Global Warming: The Hard Science, was written by L.D. Danny Harvey.

North noted that twenty years ago the National Academy of Sciences produced a study that stated that, “If the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere were doubled, the new temperature after equilibrium would be 1-3 degrees C higher.”

“It is now two decades later,” wrote North, “and we still have approximately the same or even greater uncertainty for the sensitivity of climate to such an external forcing. In spite of all our increased understanding of [the] climate system over this period, we have not managed to narrow this uncertainty.”

One reason is that, “Climate modeling and simulation do not form a science in the classical sense. We cannot formulate a hypothesis and then proceed to test it in the laboratory. We have a complicated system with only a finite history of empirical information about it far from enough, in fact.”

North notes another problem in the modeling community. “The range of uncertainty is not an easy thing to assess. It seems to be mainly derived from an intercomparison of the models produced by different scientific groups around the world. This is a very poor means of arriving at the real uncertainty, since the models are rather similar to one another and probably even more like each other than like nature.”

Using our fastest computers, North points out, it would take a month to run a point-by-point simulation of a one second evolution of the atmospheric motions within a one-kilometer cube. “Hence, one is forced to the familiar procedure of parameterization and the inevitable fudge factors. We simply cannot get around it.”

“Finally,” wrote North, ” on the behavioral side the modeling groups cannot escape the external pressures from politicians and other pressure groups. It is very difficult to announce results that make your group an outlier. First, the modeling groups must answer to funding authorities, and these figures invariably hate the anomalous report. Other groups outside the line of authority and the scientific community also apply pressure to find the answer acceptable to their group. Leaders of the modeling groups will seek the protection of conformity. Hence, I suspect that the error bars on climate sensitivity are already artificially narrow because of this multiplicity of effects.”

The uncertainty, North concluded, “does not excuse inaction by policymakers.” He says that virtually all scientists believe that global warming is real and manmade and that this consensus should be acted upon in “prudent” ways. He fails to define what he means by prudent, however.

Etc.

  • Barbra Streisand has taken it upon herself to scold her fellow Californians on energy conservation. The crisis has left her “wondering why the citizens of California have not been called on and encouraged to play our part in helping deal with this problem” (www.barbrastreisand.com).

In “A Call to Conserve,” she suggests that Californians turn up their air conditioning thermostats to 78 degrees, wash clothes with cold water, use a clothesline rather than a clothes drier, and do several other things to save energy.

Streisand seems oblivious to the hypocrisy of the owner of several multi-million dollar homes preaching about conservation. When asked whether she planned on following her own advice, a spokesman for Streisand said, “She never meant that it necessarily applied to her” (New York Times, June 20, 2001).

Writing in the June 23 issue of the Daily Telegraph (London), Mark Steyn published his alternative suggestions in “A Call to Celebrities to Conserve.” They include: “6) another good way to conserve energy in the evenings is to remove the bulbs from the maids room.”

Heres an energy conservation tip from your friendly Cooler Heads staff. Refrain from buying any of Streisands hats, t-shirts, mugs, CDs or any of the other merchandise available on her website.

Informal Talks Hit Early Snags; Knollenberg Provision Survives; UK to Evaluate Nukes

by William Yeatman on June 26, 2001

in Politics

Informal Talks Hit Early Snags

Informal talks are being held this week in the Hague in preparation for the resumption of COP-6 in the Bonn in mid-July. The talks were hastily arranged by COP-6 president Jan Pronk to figure out how to continue negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol in the face of U.S. opposition. Early press reports suggest that bickering has broken out between the parties.

Interestingly, although President Bush has rejected the Kyoto Protocol, he has sent a delegation, led by Kenneth Brill, to participate in the negotiations. It is not clear what roll the Bush Administration intends to play in further talks.

According to a June 26 Agence France Presse article, part of Pronks proposal is for the industrialized countries to provide one billion dollars per year to help developing countries adapt to global warming. Although Russia has managed to obtain a concession to halve the contribution of former communist countries to the fund, the Eastern European countries are apparently still opposed to the plan. “This will be a big problem for getting the treaty ratified,” a source in the European Union said.

Another obstacle is the reluctance of Japan to proceed in the negotiations without U.S. cooperation. On June 27, the BBC reported that Japans environment minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, criticized Pronks plan and reiterated that U.S. participation is still essential to make Kyoto succeed. Pronk and the EU have offered several concessions in an attempt to convince the Japanese government to ratify Kyoto without the U.S.

The informal Hague talks began with a meeting of the Group of 77 developing nations. They are scheduled to meet later in the week with the industrialized nations to try to resolve their remaining differences.

Knollenberg Provision Survives

During floor debate in the U.S. House of Representatives over the FY 2002 transportation appropriations bill (H.R. 2299) on June 26, the Knollenberg provision, which prohibits any federal action to implement or prepare to implement the Kyoto Protocol prior to Senate ratification, survived efforts to eliminate or weaken it. This is the latest of a series of similar attempts over the past two years.

After an attempt to eliminate the provision failed, Reps. John Olver (D-MA) and Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), offered an amendment that would have exempted any activities authorized under existing law from the Knollenberg provision. However, they then agreed to withdraw their amendment before it came to a vote.

According to Environment and Energy Daily (June 27, 2001), the bill that passed the House Appropriations Committee on June 13 does not include language blocking the administration from raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. “Congressional sources said there was no mention of CAFE standards in the list of amendments expected to be offered to the bill on the floor, though that does not mean one will not be offered,” according to the article.

UK to Evaluate Nukes

Fearing they will not be able to meet their Kyoto target, Britain has begun an energy needs review. According to a June 26 Financial Times article, the review will focus heavily on nuclear power.

Energy minister Brian Wilson will chair the review, much to the chagrin of Greenpeace, who said it was like “putting a fox in charge of the hen coop.” Wilson, an advocate of nuclear power, said the review will be finished by the end of the year and will focus on the role of nuclear, coal, gas, oil, renewable energy, combined heat and power and enhanced energy efficiency.

The Labor Party had pledged not to build any nuclear stations, but this could mean the end of that pledge. The party would rather break promises than abandon the unachievable Kyoto Protocol. In order to meet Kyotos targets, Wilson thinks Britain should reduce its carbon emissions. “In the longer term we will need to reduce our carbon emissions further in order to play our part in meeting the challenge of global warming.”

Currently, Britain is heavily dependent on gas and some think the country should diversify. Gas prices have doubled in the past year because the main producers tie their gas prices to oil prices. Because they rely heavily on one source, consumers are very aware of gas price fluctuations.

This dependence on gas has led to the energy review. The plan aims to meet “the challenge of global warming while ensuring secure, diverse and reliable energy supplies at a competitive price.” For all of their posturing on Kyoto, it seems even European countries will find it difficult to meet their targets, as there is much opposition to nuclear power in Britain. Friends of the Earth UK said nuclear technology is dangerous and uneconomic. With that ringing endorsement, the review steams ahead.

Former Clinton Aides Now Admit Kyoto Would Be Costly; Kyoto = Millions of Lost Lives; EU Claims Kyoto Will Be Painless; Insurers

by William Yeatman on June 12, 2001

in Kyoto Negotiations

Former Clinton Aides Now Admit Kyoto Would Be Costly

Amidst major criticism from both domestic environmental groups and European officials, President Bush is receiving aid and comfort from an unexpected source former Clinton Administration officials. Bush has stated that the U.S. will not comply with the Kyoto Protocol because it is “fatally flawed” and would impose undue economic hardships on the country.

Now, according to the June 12 issue of USA Today, “Economists from the Clinton White House now concede that complying with Kyotos mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases would be difficult and more expensive to American consumers than they thought when they were in charge.” This change in tune from the Clintonites is part of the reason that Bush decided to reject Kyoto.

The Clinton Administration was overly optimistic about the costs of Kyoto because its economic analysis was based on unrealistic assumptions. It assumed, for instance, that China and India would accept emissions reduction limits and that they would be able to fully participate in an unlimited international emissions trading system. China has made it clear, however, that it will not accept commitments, and the European Union has remained opposed to unlimited emissions trading.

The Clinton Administration also assumed that industry and consumers would rapidly adopt energy efficient technologies without subsidies. Without Chinas participation, for instance, costs would double under the Clinton analysis. According to Joseph Aldy, who assisted in developing the Clinton estimates, “We always thought the (emissions) targets were very ambitious. But the thing that made us really uneasy about our analysiswas that if our assumptions didnt come true, you could come out with costs that were much, much higher.”

While in office, however, the Clinton Administration never explicitly stated its assumptions, nor did it express any misgivings during several congressional hearings on the matter.

Kyoto = Millions of Lost Lives

Dr. Bjorn Lomborg is causing apoplectic fits across Europe with his recent book, The Skeptical Environmentalist. His views on the Kyoto Protocol are particularly heretical.

The Times of London (June 12, 2001) began its story on Lomborgs views as follows: “The cost of limiting carbon dioxide emissions far outweighs the damage that global warming will eventually do to the world and merely postpones the problem for six years, Bjorn Lomborg, an environmental statistician, has calculated. As a result, he argues, trillions of pounds that might otherwise be spent on fighting poverty and malnutrition and improving infrastructure in developing countries will be wasted.”

Lomborg is an associate professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. He is also an environmentalist and a former member of Greenpeace. His book was originally published in Danish, but has been translated into English and will be published by Cambridge University Press in August.

The Times story continues that Lomborg bases his conclusions on a “four-year audit of a massive set of environmental indicators.” If the Kyoto Protocol is implemented, “millions of lives will be lost that could otherwise be saved and the eventual impact of climate change on the Third World will be much worse as countries will be less equipped to adapt.”

EU Claims Kyoto Will Be Painless

The European Union can easily meet its Kyoto targets, according to a report by the European Climate Change Programme. The report says that, “There are sufficient potential cost-effective measures to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by twice the target set for the 15 nation EU under Kyoto” (Financial Times, June 12, 2001).

Reuters (June 12, 2001) reported that according to a European Commission official, the total cost to the EU to meet its Kyoto target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 would be 3.7 billion euros per year or about .06 percent of GDP.

It is unclear how the ECCP defines “cost effective.” Given that Kyoto would have almost no effect on predicted global temperatures and hence virtually no benefits, any cost would seem to outweigh the potential benefits.

“These results increase our credibility,” said Margot Wallstrom, the EU environment commissioner. “I hope they will encourage the European Council to restate its commitment to meeting the Kyoto target even if the US withdraws from the process.”

Just before this good news from the EU was released, UPI (NewsMax.com, June 6, 2001) reported that European Union leaders had failed to agree on a EU-wide energy tax. The proposed tax is the main tool to reduce energy consumption and thereby meet the Kyoto targets.

Insurers Not Worried About Global Warming

Proponents of government policies to fight global warming often cite concerns of the reinsurance industry companies that insure the insurers as evidence that catastrophic global warming is real. Indeed, some major reinsurance companies have expressed concern over global warming, but others have pointed out that the upward trend in insurance claims due to natural disasters is almost entirely due to greater economic development in disaster-prone regions, not to global warming.

An article in the May 31 issue of the Palm Beach Post reports that Floridas property insurers arent really concerned about global warming. “At State Farm we do not see global warming as an issue that drives anything,” said Tom Hagerty, the companys Florida spokesman. “We have not changed any of our plans or policies on the basis of global warming information or on the various hurricane activity forecasts.” Frank Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of American said, “The industry doesnt treat it as a serious issue. Its not factored into rating decisions.”

Bush Reaffirms Opposition to Kyoto, Proposes Alternatives; COP-6 President Presents Plan

by William Yeatman on June 12, 2001

in Politics

Bush Reaffirms Opposition to Kyoto, Proposes Alternatives

President George W. Bush made a major policy statement on global warming and the Kyoto Protocol on June 11, immediately before flying off to a week of meetings with European leaders. Although the speech may have been intended to assure European leaders that he is committed to taking action on global warming, his strong, reiterated opposition to the Kyoto Protocol drew immediate criticism throughout Europe before Air Force one landed in Madrid.

Bush said that the Kyoto Protocol was “fatally flawed in fundamental ways” and “unrealistic.” He noted, “Many countries cannot meet their Kyoto targets. The targets themselves are arbitrary and not based upon science.”

He stated clearly that he accepted that the global mean temperature had “risen about 0.6 degrees Celsius over the past 100 years.” But he went on to emphasize that major scientific uncertainties remain. “We do not know how much effect natural variations in climate may have had on warming,” and hence the influence of manmade emissions; “how much our climate could or will change in the future” or “how fast change will occur or even how some of our actions could impact it;” and “no one can say with any certainty what constitutes a dangerous level of warming and therefore what level must be avoided.”

Opposing Kyoto does not mean that the U.S. will drop out of the ongoing negotiations process. The administration will attend COP-6.5 in Bonn, Germany in July. President Bush proposed several actions, including two research programs, the Climate Change Research Initiative, to further study global warming, and the Climate Change Technology Initiative, to subsidize the development of technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These programs resemble ongoing Clinton Administration programs.

He also stated that these are only the first steps that the administration will propose in the next few months. Inside EPA reported on June 8 that options under active consideration include several cap-and-trade systems for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and a crash program to develop technology to sequester carbon dioxide from hydrocarbon combustion.

COP-6 President Presents Plan

Mr. Jan Pronk, president of the UNFCCCs sixth conference of the parties and Dutch environment minister, released a “consolidated negotiating text” on June 11. It is meant to serve as the starting point for the resumption of COP-6 in Bonn, Germany, July 16-28. The 180 or so pages may be downloaded at www.unfccc.de. Pronk has also scheduled preliminary informal discussion June 25-28 in the Hague.

Pronks proposed negotiating text makes significant concessions to the position of Japan. It might therefore be concluded that Pronks strategy is to isolate the United States by drawing Japan into full support of the Kyoto Protocol.

NAS Report Confuses Public

by William Yeatman on June 12, 2001

in Science

NAS Report Confuses Public

The National Academy of Sciences released a rush report reviewing global warming science on June 7. Done at the request of the Bush Administration by a panel of 11 prominent scientists (of whom six are members of the NAS), it was immediately and uniformly hailed by the major print and broadcast outlets as confirming global warming alarmism and therefore a slap in the face to the Bush Administration.

What the report actually says, however, is difficult to determine. The opening summary begins with a fairly strong statement that, “Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earths atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes are also a reflection of natural variability.”

The report also states, “Despite the uncertainties, there is general agreement that the observed warming is real and particularly strong within the past 20 years. Whether it is consistent with the change that would be expected in response to human activities is dependent upon what assumptions one makes about the time history of atmospheric concentrations of the various forcing agents, particularly aerosols” (emphasis added).

It goes on: “The predicted warming of 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F) by the end of the 21st century is consistent with the assumptions about how clouds and atmospheric relative humidity will react to global warming” (emphasis added).

On the other hand, once you get beyond the summary, the report itself is full of qualifications and expressions of uncertainty. For example, “Because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments upward or downward.”

It also notes, “Because of the large and still uncertain level of natural variability inherent in the climate record and the uncertainties in the time history of the various forcing agents (and particularly aerosols), a causal linkage between the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established.” A comprehensive listing of the caveats has been produced by Dr. Ken Green of the Reason Public Policy Institute and can be found at www.rppi.org.

The press downplayed the reports caveats. CNNs Michelle Mitchell stated that the report constituted “a unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse, and is due to man. There is no wiggle room.”

In a June 11 Wall Street Journal op-ed, one of the scientists who helped prepare the report objected to the way it was treated in the press. Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT, said that the report says nothing of the sort. There are three things that scientists can agree upon, said Lindzen: 1) global mean temperatures have risen 0.5 degrees C over the last century; 2) atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased over the last two centuries; and 3) carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.

“But,” he said, “we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to forecast what the climate will be in the future. That is to say, contrary to media impressions, agreement with the three basic statements tells us almost nothing relevant to policy discussions.”

Etc.

Scientists in Australia have developed a vaccine for sheep and cattle that would reduce the amount of methane a greenhouse gas they emit by about twenty percent. The drug, which inhibits methane-producing organisms in the animals digestive tract, is now ready to undergo testing (BBC News, June 7, 2001).

Global warming and even the next ice age are minor problems compared to higher solar radiation that may make the Earth too hot to support life in about a billions years. Luckily, NASA is working on how to prevent the catastrophe.

Londons Observer reported on June 10 that Dr. Greg Laughlin of NASAs Ames Research Center and two colleagues have proposed using the same methods being discussed to prevent asteroids or comets from hitting the Earth to instead bring an asteroid or comet very close to Earth. If done just right, the procedure would transfer some gravitational energy to Earth and move it to an orbit farther away from the Sun.

Dr. Laughlin is quoted as saying, “It is basic rocket science,” but admits that the slightest miscalculation could result in a life-sterilizing collision. NASA, however, has several hundred million years to work on getting it right.

Solar Energy or Sunstroke?; EU Wont Meet Targets

by William Yeatman on May 29, 2001

in Blog

Solar Energy or Sunstroke?

California residents are finding that solar energy is not such a hot idea. According to a May 29 article by William Booth in the Washington Post, although Los Angeles wants to become the “Solar Capital of the World,” consumers are not buying it. The city has offered to pay for half the cost to outfit a home with solar power, which costs between $10,000 and $20,000. Even with a $10,000 rebate, only about 40 homes have installed solar power. This is a tad short of the goal of 100,000 homes.

People are not converting to solar power for a number of reasons, but mostly because it does not save money. It takes an average of 20 years for a solar power system to pay for itself, but could take as long as 36 years, even with the subsidy.

Houses must have south-facing roofs and be shade free to be eligible for solar panels. Owners must also maintain the panels by cleaning off pollution, dust and leaves, a monumental task in smoggy LA. “It is not an economic proposition at this point,” said Terry Peterson, a solar expert at Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif.

Another big problem is that solar power users are still subject to rolling blackouts. People cannot live off the grid, unless they buy a large bank of batteries, which costs thousands of dollars more. Most solar homes do not produce enough electricity to be completely free of the power company. The sun supplies a typical house in Southern California with solar panels with anywhere from 20 to 80 percent of its power. Nationally, solar power now supplies 300 megawatts of electricity, which is roughly equal to one mid-sized traditional power plant.

For all its failings, solar power is still well subsidized. The LA power department has committed $75 million over the next five years to solar energy. California lawmakers have required that utilities spend 3 percent of their revenue on efficiency, conservation and renewable energy. With laws like these, it is no wonder that California is the home of the rolling blackout.

EU Wont Meet Targets

The European Union reacted with disdain and outrage when President Bush announced in March that the United States is pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol. Now, however, the EU might want to thank the US, as they will probably not be able to meet Kyotos targets and timetables, according to a May 23 Reuters story.

While overall the EUs emissions are down 4 percent from 1990 levels, Europe will still need to make major cutbacks in order to have emissions down 8 percent by 2010. If the EU continues its current course, their emissions will only be 1.4 percent below the 1990 level by 2010.

With the possible exception of Germany and the United Kingdom, European countries will find it very difficult to comply with Kyotos mandates. Frances emissions have increased by 11 percent, which is about the same as the United States. Belgiums emissions are up 13.5 percent and Ireland, which has experienced fabulous economic growth, has seen its emissions increase 29 percent.

The added expense of trying to fight global warming could hurt the EUs already perilous economy. With the recent economic downturn, governments may lack the political will to force economic sacrifices on their peoples.

Bush May Propose Kyoto-lite; NAS Reviewing Climate Science; World Attacks Bush Again

by William Yeatman on May 29, 2001

in Politics

Bush May Propose Kyoto-lite

While the Kyoto Protocol looks dead at the moment, it might be coming back to life. The Bush administration is currently working on an alternative to Kyoto that should be ready for the EU-U.S. summit meeting in Goteborg, Sweden this June.

Although the administrations deliberations on the new plans have been secretive, the May 25 issue of Inside EPA said the plan would probably include technology development, market mechanisms, such as emission trading, and carbon sequestration. European leaders are skeptical, however, that the plan will come out in time for the meeting in Sweden. In fact, they are skeptical that it will be out in time for the international climate change treaty negotiation in Bonn this July.

Wilfried Schneider, deputy director of press and public affairs for the European Commission, said US participation is critical to the climate talks. “There is no point” in trying “to solve global pollution without the United States, the greatest polluting country.”

To complicate the issue, the Democrats have taken over the Senate. In the past, both Democrats and Republicans have been against Kyoto, but now many Democrats may support Kyoto in part because the president is opposed to it. Democrats, such as Senators John Kerry (D-

Mass.), Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Tom Daschle (D-S.Dakota), have reportedly been discussing offering a resolution to replace the Byrd-Hagel Resolution.

NAS Reviewing Climate Science

The National Academy of Sciences, at the request of the Bush Administration, has convened a committee of scientists to review global warming science. The project will cover much of the same ground as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Some of the questions to be addressed include, “Is climate change occurring? If so, how?” and “Are greenhouse gases causing climate change? What is the relative contribution of each of the major gases?” They are expected to deliver their results to the White House next month.

Members of the committee include:

  • (Chairman) Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone (NAS) is the chancellor of the University of California at Irvine and the Daniel G. Aldrich Professor in the Departments of Earth System Science and Chemistry.

  • Dr. Robert E. Dickinson (NAS) is a professor of dynamics and climate in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

  • Dr. James E. Hansen (NAS) is head of the NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

  • Dr. Eric J. Barron is director of the Earth and Mineral Sciences Environment Institute and distinguished professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University.

  • Dr. Inez Y. Fung (NAS) is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor for the Physical Sciences, director of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences, and a professor in the Departments of Earth & Planetary Science and of Environmental Sciences, Policy & Management at the University of California at Berkeley.

  • Dr. Richard S. Lindzen (NAS) is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusets Institute of Technology.

  • Dr. John M. Wallace (NAS) is a professor of atmospheric sciences and co-director of the University of Washington Program on the Environment.

  • Dr. James C. McWilliams is the Slichter Professor of Earth Sciences in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and the Institute for Geophysics at the University of California at Los Angeles.

  • Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland (NAS) is the Donald Bren Research Professor of Chemistry and Earth System Sciences at the University of California at Irvine.

  • Dr. Edward S. Sarachik is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and an adjunct professor in the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington.

  • Mr. Thomas R. Karl is the director of the National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

World Attacks Bush Again

International reaction to President Bushs national energy policy has, with the exception of Italys new leader, been hysterically negative.

Mr. Jan Pronk, Dutch Environment Minister and chairman of the sixth Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, blasted the plan, saying, “Disconnecting energy and climate policies from each other is fairly disastrous. We were expecting an all inclusive program but that didn’t happen” (Agence France Presse, May 18, 2001). This is an odd expectation given President Bushs clear rejection of carbon dioxide regulations. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan used his commencement address at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University to berate the U.S., accusing the administration of putting the world at risk. “Make no mistake all countries will suffer,” he said, calling U.S. actions a “grievous setback” (UPI, May 20, 2001).

With Italys election of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, President Bush now has an ally in Europe for many foreign policy decisions that other European officials have criticized. He remarked, “I am on whatever side America is on, even before I know what it is” (Chicago Tribune, May 24, 2001).

Berlusconis leading candidate for environment minister, Altero Matteoli, has praised Bushs energy plan stating that “Europe dreams, while Bush sees reality and marks the trail for everyone” (BBC, May 20, 2001).

Climate and Mosquito-Borne Disease; To Sink or Not to Sink?

by William Yeatman on May 29, 2001

in Science

Climate and Mosquito-Borne Disease

One of the worlds leading experts on mosquito-borne diseases, Dr. Paul Reiter, with the Center for Disease Control, Dengue Branch, has published a study in the March 2001 supplement of Environmental Health Perspectives. It has been claimed that a warming planet could lead to the spread of mosquito-borne diseases (often erroneously referred to as tropical diseases), such as malaria and yellow and dengue fever into the higher latitudes. Reiter looks at past climate history to better understand how these diseases interact with climate.

To understand how climate affects the transmission rates and geographic ranges of mosquito-borne disease, Reiter examines the historical record of these diseases during the different climatic episodes of the Ice Age, the Medieval Warm Period, which was very similar to the current climate, and the Little Ice Age.

Although Reiter discusses the existence of malaria during the Dark Ages and the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age is of most interest, since it waned only recently (circa 1850) and was “probably the coldest era of any time since the end of the last major ice age,” according to Reiter. “Yet despite this spectacular cooling, malaria persisted throughout Europe.”

Malaria was found in most of England and parts of Scotland during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was also endemic as far north as Denmark, the coastal areas of southern Norway, and much of southern Sweden and Finland. It was also found in the Baltic provinces of Russia and at similar latitudes in Siberia.

At the end of the Little Ice Age, malaria declined throughout these areas, with the exception of Russia, as global temperatures increased. This was due to several factors that are attributable to greater wealth that resulted from a warmer and more benign climate. Russias volatile political situation throughout the first half of the 20th century prevented the decline of malaria experienced throughout Europe. Reiter gives similar accounts of yellow and dengue fever.

He concludes that although the “recent resurgence of many of these diseases is a major cause for concernit is facile to attribute this resurgence to climate change.”

Indeed, the histories of these three diseases “reveal that climate has rarely been the principal determinant of their prevalence or range; human activities and their impact on local ecology have generally been much more significant. It is therefore inappropriate to use climate-based models to predict future prevalence.”

To Sink or Not to Sink?

According to the New York Times (May 24, 2001), “two new studies are challenging the idea that planting forests could be a cheap way to absorb emissions of carbon dioxide.” The studies appeared in the May 24 issue of Nature.

Unfortunately, the Times and other newspapers have misrepresented what the studies actually say. Rather than looking at whether trees are effective carbon sinks, the studies investigated “the degree to which extra CO2 in the air enables trees to produce extra biomass that removes an additional amount of CO2 from the atmosphere above and beyond the large and visibly-obvious amount trees are currently removing from the air,” according to the CO2 Science Magazine (www.co2science.org). Nearly half of a trees dry mass is made up of carbon extracted from the air.

There are problems with the studies themselves, however. The study by Oren, et al. found that at nutrient-poor sites higher concentrations of CO2 had no detectable effect on the stimulation of biomass growth and only transient effects on nutritionally-moderate sites.

One of the problems with this study, as pointed out by CO2 Science, is that the researchers failed to measure changes in root biomass. Other studies have found similar changes in trunk biomass as the Oren, et al. study, but also found significant increases in root biomass.

The other study by Schlesinger and Lichter looked at carbon storage in soils in forest ecosystems. They found that a 200 parts per million increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations led to a statistically insignificant rise in the soils total carbon content of 15.5 percent in the top 30 cm of the soil.

At the beginning of the three-year study, the percent carbon values in the soil of the control sites was measured at 1.43 percent and 1.54 at the CO2-enriched sites. At the end of the experiment, the control sites percent carbon value dropped to 1.31 percent while the CO2-enriched sites increased to 1.59 percent.

“Viewed in this light,” according to CO2 Science, “the importance of atmospheric CO2 enrichment to soil carbon sequestration is immediately obvious. Under the site-specific conditions of the study in question, the soils of the forest plots growing in ambient air were actually losing carbon, i.e., they were carbon sources; while the soils of the plots exposed to the extra 200 ppm of CO2 were gaining carbon, i.e., they were carbon sinks.”

Of Sun and Things

Three new studies looking at how changes in solar radiation affect the climate have recently appeared, further confirming the suggested link between solar and climate dynamics.

A study in Science (May 18, 2001) used lake-sediment cores from the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico to reconstruct the regions climate history for the last 2,600 years. The reconstruction revealed a drought cycle of 208 years, which is similar to a 206-year variation in solar activity. The researchers conclude, “that a significant component of century-scale variability in the Yucatan droughts is explained by solar forcing,” which also “correspond with discontinuities in Maya cultural evolution.”

A Nature study (May 17, 2001) used stalagmite samples from northern Oman in Arabia as a proxy for variations in the tropical circulation and monsoon rainfall in the Indian Ocean over a period of 9.6 to 6.1 thousand years to the present. They compared this record to a record of changes in solar activity. “The excellent correlation between the two records suggests that one of the primary controls on centennial- to decadal-scale changes in tropical rainfall and monsoon intensity during this time are variations in solar radiation,” conclude the researchers.

Finally, Geophysical Research Letters (28: 2001) has published a study looking at how changes in the cosmic ray flux, caused by solar variation, affect precipitation. Using data on the cosmic ray flux recorded by ground-based neutron monitors and precipitation data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Climate Prediction Center Merged Analysis of Precipitation, the researchers found “evidence of a statistically strong relationship between cosmic ray flux, precipitation and precipitation efficiency over ocean surfaces at mid to high latitudes.”

Etc.

  • In a May 3 speech to the Science and Technology Policy Colloquium sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Larry Lindsey, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy said the following about the Kyoto Protocol:

“This financial math is important when considering some of the biggest environmental challenges one faces today. When confronting long-run challenges – and the environment is certainly one of these – investments in the research and development of new technologies, with actual applications decades in the future, are far more cost-effective than trying to act with existing technologies.

“It is for precisely this reason that the Administration opposes the Kyoto protocol. We believe the Kyoto protocol could damage our collective prosperity and, in so doing, actually put our long-term environmental health at risk. Fundamentally, we believe that the protocol both will fail to significantly reduce the long- term risks posed by climate change and, in the short run, will seriously impede our ability to meet our energy needs and economic growth. Further, by imposing high regulatory and economic costs, it may actually reduce our capacity both to find innovative ways out of the environmental consequences of global warming and to achieve the necessary increases in energy production.” The full speech is available at www.aaas.org/spp/dspp/rd/colloqu.htm.

  • The Atmospheric Division of Australias Commonwealth Science and Industry Research Organization (CSIRO) has released a new global warming brochure, Climate Change: Projections for Australia, filled with the usual scare stories about floods, droughts, heat waves, etc. The following appears at the end of the report (see www.john-daly.com):

Disclaimer

The projections are based on results from computer models that involve simplifications of real physical processes that are not fully understood. Accordingly, no responsibility will be accepted by CSIRO for the accuracy of the projections inferred from this brochure or for any persons interpretations, deductions, conclusions or actions in reliance on this information.

In Praise of “Green” Industry; Levy Imposes Heavy Burden

by William Yeatman on May 15, 2001

in Blog

In Praise of “Green” Industry

Several articles have recently appeared praising those industries that are positioning themselves for what they believe to be the inevitable regulation of CO2 emissions. The Wall Street Journal (May 10, 2001), the New York Times (May 15, 2001), and Business Week (May 14, 2001), have all taken the view that industry should go ahead with CO2 reductions even if President Bush wont.

Business Week advised business CEOs to “explain [to President Bush] that globalization is the most powerful force acting on all governments, economies, and societies, and that an international strategy must be based on ramping up economic engagement,” and that, “We need better arrangements for environmental protection and social safety nets to cushion change.” Presumably, the president should agree to cut carbon dioxide emissions, even though there is no plausible justification for such action, in the name of globalization.

The Wall Street Journal, in an article titled “Utilities May Be Greener Than Bush,” argued that, “A substantial segment of the electric-utility industry was almost as disappointed [as environmentalists]” over President Bushs decision to not regulate their emissions of CO2. “Sensible, farsighted utility executives look at the world as it is, no as they wish it to be,” opined the Journal. The Journal quotes Exelon Corp.s chief executive John Rowe as saying, “Theres mandatory carbon capping in the long-term future,” and calls him a “realist.”

But what exactly does the Journal expect these utility executives to say? The utility industry is a government-protected monopoly that has never had to operate in a competitive environment. As the Journal pointed out, “Not so long ago, regulated utilities saw environmental rules as a nuisance but not a threat to profits. Every extra dollar spent on pollution-control gear increased the value of the asset base that regulators use to set electric rates.” More regulation meant higher rates and more profits for utilities.

“Utility executives fear, with some reason,” said the Journal, “that they will spend heavily on an old coal plant to reduce sulfur, nitrogen and mercury emissions, and then be forced to shut it anyhow because new limits on CO2 arrive.” But begging to be regulated now wont create a stable regulatory climate. It will only embolden regulators to impose even heavier regulation in the future.

James DeLong, a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, noted the profit motive behind the utility industrys support for CO2 regulation on www.techcentralstation.com. Some have bet billions of dollars on a rapidly diminishing global warming threat giving them a vested interest in regulation, said DeLong. Moreover, “A cap and trade system would be a bonanza for utilities that derive their power from non-coal sources because they would then get the equivalent of a royalty on every kilowatt hour produced by coal-fired plants.”

Levy Imposes Heavy Burden

The United Kingdoms climate change levy is starting to take a heavy toll on manufacturers in the country. According to Londons Times (May 15, 2001), it has “more than tripled the pace of cost increases in Britains industry after its introduction last month, official estimates have revealed.”

Business leaders are warning the government that the tax could sink some manufacturing companies that are already struggling to stay solvent. “This is the most badly-designed and ill-conceived economic instrument of recent times,” said Martin Temple, Director-General of the Engineering Employers Federation. Another article in the same issue of the Times notes that the market is so tight manufacturers cannot pass the costs of the levy to their customers, meaning that it is cutting directly into profits.

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