Our guest blogger today is Dr. Jon Koomey.
Over the past century, US companies have often read from the same playbook when confronted by the possibility of new safety and environmental regulations.
First, they say “It’s not a problem.”
Then they say “Even if it isn’t a problem, we’re not causing it.”
And finally, they say “Even if we’re causing the problem, fixing it will be too costly to bear.”
This three-part litany should be familiar. It’s what industry said in response to proposed regulations requiring seat belts and air bags, eliminating lead in gasoline, regulating cigarettes, increasing automobile fuel economy, banning ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, and improving the purity of our food and drug supplies (among others).[i] Most of us regard each of these steps as a necessary response to real problems and are happy that a neutral party was policing industry behavior. But in each case, industry used misleading arguments to delay action and safeguard their profits at the expense of public health, safety, and the environment.
On the climate issue, the fossil fuel industry has for decades tried the same tired approach, but they’ve now failed on the first two steps. Virtually every argument denying climate change science has been addressed and refuted.[ii] And there’s no dispute about what’s causing the problem: since we all use energy from fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases, it’s us.[iii]
Now industry has moved on to the third part of the litany, arguing that any action on climate would cause irreparable harm to the battered US economy. And so two Texas-based oil companies, Tesoro and Velero, along with Koch industries, have put Proposition 23 on the California ballot. Proposition 23 would temporarily suspend implementation of California’s clean energy law (AB32) until the state unemployment rate drops to 5.5% for four consecutive quarters, a feat that’s only been achieved three times in the past 40 years.[iv]
But there are good reasons for acting on climate now. It’s been two decades since the scientific community first proposed actions to keep the Earth from warming more than two degrees Celsius to minimize the risks from climate change.[v] Last summer the G8 nations (including the US) adopted this target, which would keep the earth’s temperature within the range that has prevailed throughout human history.[vi]
The two degree limit, our current emission levels, and the science of the climate system together point toward a critical conclusion: The only way to meet that temperature target is to cut current global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050, with further reductions soon after that. That’s why we need urgent action on climate, and why arguments for delay are irresponsible.[vii]
Fortunately, the economic arguments of the backers of Proposition 23 are backwards, particularly for a hotbed of clean energy innovation like California. The most credible analyses show that substantial greenhouse gas reductions have many more benefits than costs, so taking action on climate is an economic win that will create many jobs in new and rapidly growing cleantech industries.[viii] But the picture is even better than that. People are smart and innovative in the pursuit of profit, and once society sets an environmental goal, it consistently achieves that goal at a cost lower than initially expected.[ix]
History is on our side. Californians chose to be leaders in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in the 1970s and 1980s, creatively harnessing investments, incentives, and regulations. Today, California is now one of the world’s hubs for green technology, which bodes well for our ability to turn the climate crisis to our advantage.[x] That’s one reason why the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, an association of 324 high tech companies, strongly supports AB32 and opposes Proposition 23.[xi]
In a world that takes climate seriously, regions that move most quickly to develop clean technologies will be able to sell those products in a huge and growing global market. California, with its venture capital companies, world-class universities, clean-energy infrastructure, and unparalleled depth in technological innovation, is well positioned to benefit from strong action on climate. And that’s why defeating Proposition 23 would be the best thing to happen to the California economy in a very long time.
– Jonathan Koomey is an independent researcher, author, and entrepreneur. He’s a Consulting Professor at Stanford University and was the founder of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s energy forecasting group, which he led for more than 11 years. He was also a coauthor of a book published in 1989 that contained the first comprehensive analysis of implications of the 2-degree warming limit, two decades before the G8 nations accepted this normative target.
References:
[i] Some of these cases are explored in Oreskes, Naomi, and Eric M. Conway. 2010. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press.
[ii] For a compilation, see www.skepticalscience.com.
[iii] For details on sources of emissions, see the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, The Physical Science Basis: <http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_wg1_report_the_physical_science_basis.htm>
[iv] NYT: California Braces for Showdown on Emissions.
[v] The first systematic attempt to evaluate the implications of a warming limit-based approach to addressing the climate problem focusing on the 2 degree limit was Florentin Krause, Wilfred Bach, and Jonathan G. Koomey. 1989. From Warming Fate to Warming Limit: Benchmarks to a Global Climate Convention. El Cerrito, CA: International Project for Sustainable Energy Paths. <http://files.me.com/jgkoomey/9jzwgj>. This book was republished in 1992 as Florentin Krause, Wilfred Bach, and Jonathan G. Koomey. 1992. Energy Policy in the Greenhouse. NY, NY: John Wiley and Sons.
[vi] Baker, Peter. 2009. “Poorer Nations Reject a Target on Emission Cut.” The New York Times. New York, NY. July 9. <http://www.nytimes.com> and ENS. 2009. “G8 Leaders Aim to Hold Global Warming Below Two Degrees Celsius.” Environmental News Service. Seattle, WA. July 8. <http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2009/2009-07-08-01.asp>
[vii] “Why two degrees really matters.” For a detailed recent analysis of the implications of the 2 degree limit for the phaseout of fossil fuels see Meinshausen, Malte, Nicolai Meinshausen, William Hare, Sarah C. B. Raper, Katja Frieler, Reto Knutti, David Frame, and Myles R. Allen. 2009. “Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 degrees C.” Nature. vol. 458, April 30. pp. 1158–1162. <http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7242/full/nature08017.html>
Nordhaus, William D. 2008. A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
DeCanio, Stephen J. 2003. Economic Models of Climate Change: A Critique. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Krause, Florentin, Jonathan Koomey, and David Olivier. 2000. Cutting Carbon Emissions While Making Money: Climate Saving Energy Strategies for the European Union (Executive Summary for Volume II, Part 2 of Energy Policy in the Greenhouse). El Cerrito, CA: International Project for Sustainable Energy Paths. February. <https://files.me.com/jgkoomey/rcuwyb>
Krause, Florentin, Paul Baer, and Stephen DeCanio. 2001. Cutting Carbon Emissions at a Profit: Opportunities for the U.S. El Cerrito, CA: International Project for Sustainable Energy Paths. May. <https://files.me.com/jgkoomey/x7ka8h>
[ix] Goodstein, Eban. 1999. The Trade-Off Myth: Fact and Fiction About Jobs and the Environment. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Goodstein, Eban, and Hart Hodges. 1997. “Polluted Data.” In The American Prospect. November-December.
Harrington, Winston, Richard D. Morgenstern, and Peter Nelson. 1999. On the Accuracy of Regulatory Cost Estimates. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future. Discussion Paper 99–18. January.
[x] See the Next 10 report on California Green Innovation, released October 2010: <http://www.next10.org/environment/greenInnovation10.html>. That report contains trends on venture capital funding, patents, and other important indicators, showing clearly the beneficial effects of California’s choice to nurture clean energy technologies over many decades.