CO2 emissions to be reduced to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050

[Howzit]

From: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/EnergyFactSheet.pdf

"Obama supports implementation of a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by the amount scientists say is necessary: 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Obama will start reducing emissions immediately in his administration by establishing strong annual reduction targets, and he’ll also implement a mandate of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

In contrast to other approaches like a carbon tax, cap-and-trade programs provide maximum assurances that emissions will decline to desired levels by the targeted dates. A cap-and-trade program draws on the power of the marketplace to reduce emissions in a cost-effective and flexible manner. Under the program, an overall cap on carbon emissions is established. The emissions allowed under the cap are divided up into individual allowances that represent the permission to emit that amount. Because the emissions cap restricts the amount of pollution allowed, allowances that give a company the ability to pollute take on financial value. Companies are free to buy and sell allowances in order to continue operating in the most profitable manner available to them.

Those that are able to reduce pollution at a low cost can sell their extra allowances to companies facing high costs. Each year the number of allowances will decline to match the required annual reduction targets."


I understand the idea that companies will be able to sell their unused pollution allowance to those companies that cannot meet their pollution limits, but I'd like to know what happens when very few or no companies meet these requirements?

[losthills]

1. Ethanol, clean coal, safe and secure nuclear energy...

Don't look to Obama to get us out of this mess. He's already taken too much money from the corporations that created it. He's just a panderer...

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. Sadly, this is true

[AdHocSolver]

2. Simple! The lobbyists pay off the appropriate representatives to raise the caps. n/t

[Usrename]

3. The price keeps rising for the pollution credits.

This was the method that was used to eliminate CFCs from the marketplace. At one time, CFCs were cheap and plentiful, and there was no readily availble substitute, and even more importantly, there was no incentive for industry to wean itself off of them. Once they were forced to buy the cap and trade credits, it gradually became too expensive to continue using them.

That's what will happen here with the carbon credits. If the emissions aren't reduced over time, then the value of the credits (the ability to continue dumping carbon into the air) will rise steeply. At some point the cost to dump the stuff into the air will exceed the cost of carbon removal and quarantine. People will start sucking the stuff out of the waste stream if they can get a couple hundred dollars a ton for it. And if no one will do it at that price the, then the price will just go higher until it works.

At least that's how it's supposed to happen.

[Howzit]

4. I suppose companies unable to comply will just have to go out of business?

They would not be allowed to do something sneaky such as outsourcing energy intensive industries to countries that have not accepted the same limits? Metal smelting and refining for example.

[Usrename]

5. I don't think there will be any way to circumvent the system.

A lot of right-wingers are bitching because a lot of carbon credits will be allotted to third-world countries, in order to try and prevent that sort of thing. They would have a choice of either selling their credits to a polluter, or importing the industry. In any event, if they were to flaut the rules then they would lose whatever they were entitled to for participating.

The spin from the global warming denial community is that it's all a huge scheme to try and redistribute wealth, and they point to the carbon credits going to these unindustrialized countries as proof. But you can see that it's really done in order to close the loophole that you already spotted.

I don't see how this scheme will force anyone out of business. If it's implemented correctly then everyone will be hit equally by it. I imagine some will make that argument, and some companies will actually go out of business. Those that are unable to comply will just have to pay to purchase credits from those that are well within the compliance standards.

I don't think there is any other way, at least none that I have heard. We have to make it worth their while for everyone to work together on this, and the only way is to make it very expensive not to.

[kristopher]

12. There are several loopholes in the current rules based on Kyoto

The biggest of which is that the Eastern European countries had extremely high rates of CO2 production in 1990 and then suffered an economic collapse, their allocation reflects the 1990 levels and makes significant quantities of excess carbon credit available. This depresses the potential price and seriously impacts the overall effectiveness of the idea.

I think we are past the point where we can depend on a carbon market approach to work without other policies directed specifically at supplanting fossils with renewables. There are many policies out there to choose from, but the goal of those selected should be to firmly establish an irrevocable global commitment to build an energy infrastructure based on renewables.

[greenman3610]

6. this was done to deal with acid rain - right wingers predicted disaster

left wingers cried foul, because it
"gave polluters permission to pollute"
but it has been one of the great success stories.


http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/04/electricity_rate.html


The rate increase predictions by Mr. Addison, the Southern Company, Edison Electric Institute, and Temple Barker and Sloane were unquestionably, undeniably, unambiguously, unarguably wrong. Despite EEI and Southern Company’s opposition, the acid rain program was included in the Clean Air Act of 1990. Since then, national electricity rates have actually declined by an average of 19 percent from 1990 to 2006 (2006 dollars). At the same time, sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal power plants were reduced by 46 percent and 49 percent, respectively. The EPA determined that the “estimated public health benefits from ARP emission reductions exceed program costs by a margin of more than 40 to 1.” And a third round of reductions not included in the Act was required when the Bush administration issued the Clean Air Interstate Rule in 2005.

Of the 10 states Mr. Addison specifically identified that would suffer some of the highest rate hikes, the average electricity price in 2006 dollars was 35 percent lower in 2006. Missouri’s electricity rate fell nearly 59 percent, almost a 71 percent difference than what the Edison Electric Institute predicted. Their Illinois and West Virginia predictions had similar outcomes, with a difference of nearly 68.5 percent and 55 percent respectively.

[excess_3]

7. print up more carbon offsets n/t

[AlecBGreen]

8. IMHO

we better be SEQUESTERING carbon by that point. i.e. a NEGATIVE emissions rate.

[hunter]

9. Mad Max will be racing down the highway on a bicycle he found.

His tires will be stuffed with dry weeds, because he couldn't find any inner tubes.

I'm not too hopeful about 2050. Most of the people on earth will be looking for sticks to burn to cook their gruel... if they have some gruel.

2050 is further away than 2008 was from 1928.

There are some very serious structural flaws in our civilization that must be dealt with now, or we are going to crash and burn.

I suspect we are very much past the point where cap and trade programs will make much difference. Maybe it's worth a shot because it will get people in the habit of thinking about solutions to these problems and set the groundwork for other sorts of legislation more likely to be effective.

[Howzit]

10. Interesting discussion on NPR: Cost vs benefit of measures against global warming

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7551080


What is the projected cost? According to: http://www.seminole-electric.com/newsclip/04_07_08_ot_warming.htm

"Late last year, the Paris-based International Energy Agency compiled a list, which it presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, outlining what's required in order to meet emissions reductions of 50 per cent by 2050. The list, described by the Los Angeles Times, included: 30 new nuclear power plants, 17,000 wind turbines, 400 biomass power plants, two hydroelectric dams the size of China's massive Three Gorges project, and 42 coal or natural gas plants using carbon-capture technology to store CO2 emissions underground. But that's not all. It concluded that all of that would have to be built and up and running by 2013--and the process repeated every year until 2030."


This suggests that Obama's goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions might be a little optimistic.