Climate Change 3.0 - Time to Move On

We’ve had Web 3.0 so why not Climate Change 3.0? I believe it’s time to move forward on this issue and start thinking smarter.

Let’s start with the basic problem. Governments are controlling the issue and yet governments do not create greenhouse gases. Who does? People and organisations do (ok and so do some animals) and they need to deal with it. Then we need to ask who provides the polluting items? Fossil fuel companies in the main (ok farmers and cement manufacturers as well) are the providers of the feedstock.

Added to that we have the other side of the equation which is the sequestration system, our rainforests, soils, other vegetation, oceans and whatever else sucks up greenhouse gases.

So we have a certain volume of fossil fuel feedstock coming into the system to be combusted in various forms to provide energy in the main (as well as a multitude of petrochemical based products) and we know where the major changes in land use occur so we know the net volume of greenhouse gases added in any given period.

What we don’t know is the tolerable limit of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It could be 400ppm, 500 or 600 (using carbon dioxide equivalents). No one knows and quite frankly the models we have are really best guesses. We do know that there is likely to be a tipping point over which we will have some severe and irreversible impacts. Hopefully our science will get better and allow us to forecast accurately but we are still learning about our systems and as yet cannot be certain as to where this level is.

So at some point we have to pick a number. Let’s say 500ppm. We are now at 380ppm so we can plot out a course for getting there. We must have a global cap on emissions or we are wasting our time. Forget about national limits..they are a complete red herring and unworkable unless governments want to control the sale and use of all fossil fuels within their own region. Given global trade that is simply not possible.

Once we have a global cap we can work out an annual quota for fossil fuel production. Then the fossil fuel companies can compete for the right to produce. One suggestion is that rights are grandfathered in but a better one is that the rights are auctioned off annually and the receipts put into a global environmental contingency fund. This has been suggested by Oliver Tickell through his proposal Kyoto2. You can read about that here www.kyoto2.org.

Once annual quotas are put into place the market will adjust prices to meet demand at the appropriate supply level. I have proposed a complete reorganisation of the global energy market to increase efficiencies and therefore lower prices.

Then we can forget about all the attempts to somehow finesse this problem. We just have to work out how much we can use and then carry on as normal. If prices go up then renewable and alternative energy will be sought out. Either way we need to adjust our behaviour.

This is the most likely way of achieving that. Governments can help negotiate the process like they did with Montreal but ultimately this problem can be solved easily by the fossil fuel companies taking charge like the CFC producers did before them.

Give people the freedom and the incentive to change and they will.

Do incentives work?

Research from the UK into people’s “green” behaviour demonstrates that people respond poorly to price signals and very rarely make the changes required without strong arm tactics. Recent fuel surcharges on air travel have made little difference to people’s travel plans. As our recent experiences with credit show us, people are always happy to go into debt to have what they want right now. Ecological credit is no different.

We must stop offering unlimited ecological credit if we really want to cap greenhouse gas emissions at any chosen level. Like our money supply it is currently in an acceleration phase upwards with little or no control.

Time to Limit Fossil Fuel Production

Climate Control: Managing Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions

It’s time to face the fact that climate change can only be dealt with at the global level in a similar manner to ozone depletion.

I issued the following press release today. Read the full paper at the above link.

Should we limit fossil fuel production
Monday, 5 February 2007, 11:56 am

Press Release: Sustento Should We Limit Fossil Fuel Production?NZ economist proposes global fossil fuel production quotas to stem greenhouse gas emissions.

Christchurch-based policy institute Sustento says governments must set up a global quota system urgently to control fossil fuel production.

Institute director, Raf Manji says the Sustento Framework is based on the reality that climate change is a global problem and needs to be dealt with at the global level.

“Currently efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been devolved to the national level where policy has been limited to improving energy efficiency and switching to renewable energy. This approach has not yielded major results and other policy proposals such as carbon based taxes have not found favour with either politicians or their voters.

“As the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report demonstrates this policy impasse needs immediate attention,” he urges.

The Sustento Framework calls for action at the production rather than consumption level. The Framework combines a global carbon inventory with an agreed limit to global greenhouse gas emissions, and from that produces an annual production quota for fossil fuels.

“This guarantees that agreed targets will be met - unlike current consumption reduction approaches which simply hope that this will happen,” he says.

Mr Manji is aware that critics of this approach argue that producers will not like the idea of quotas but, he counters, this approach was very successful in dealing with ozone depletion via the Montreal Protocol where producers rather than consumers were targeted.

Quotas also currently operate within OPEC and informally within the IEA, which represents non-OPEC producers. In July 2006 the G8+5 met for the first time to consider climate change issues. This group alone controls 76% of global coal production, 57% of natural gas and 38% of crude oil production. G20, which is an enlarged version of the G8+5, controls 94% of coal, 73% of gas and 59% of crude oil.

“If the problem of climate change is to be taken seriously by the major nations of the world then it is likely that forums such as the G8+5 will be the place where concrete action will be possible,” he says.

In 1977 the Brandt Commission proposed an international strategy on energy.

“If we are to limit growth in greenhouse gas emissions now is the time to implement such a proposal,” concludes Mr Manji .

ENDS