Also see below:     
Carbon Is Key to Securing Global Stability    [

    Drastic Action on Climate Change Is Needed Now - And Here's the Plan
    By George Monbiot
    The Guardian UK

    Tuesday 31 October 2006

The government must go further, and much faster, in its response to the moral question of the 21st century.

    It is a testament to the power of money that Nicholas Stern's report should have swung the argument for drastic action, even before anyone has finished reading it. He appears to have demonstrated what many of us suspected: that it would cost much less to prevent runaway climate change than to seek to live with it. Useful as this finding is, I hope it doesn't mean that the debate will now concentrate on money. The principal costs of climate change will be measured in lives, not pounds. As Stern reminded us yesterday, there would be a moral imperative to seek to prevent mass death even if the economic case did not stack up.

    But at least almost everyone now agrees that we must act, if not at the necessary speed. If we're to have a high chance of preventing global temperatures from rising by 2C (3.6F) above preindustrial levels, we need, in the rich nations, a 90% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030. The greater part of the cut has to be made at the beginning of this period. To see why, picture two graphs with time on the horizontal axis and the rate of emissions plotted vertically. On one graph the line falls like a ski jump: a steep drop followed by a shallow tail. On the other it falls like the trajectory of a bullet. The area under each line represents the total volume of greenhouse gases produced in that period. They fall to the same point by the same date, but far more gases have been produced in the second case, making runaway climate change more likely.

    So how do we do it without bringing civilisation crashing down? Here is a plan for drastic but affordable action that the government could take. It goes much further than the proposals discussed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown yesterday, for the reason that this is what the science demands.

1. Set a target for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions based on the latest science. The government is using outdated figures, aiming for a 60% reduction by 2050. Even the annual 3% cut proposed in the early day motion calling for a new climate change bill does not go far enough. Timescale: immediately.
   
   
2. Use that target to set an annual carbon cap, which falls on the ski-jump trajectory. Then use the cap to set a personal carbon ration. Every citizen is given a free annual quota of carbon dioxide. He or she spends it by buying gas and electricity, petrol and train and plane tickets. If they run out, they must buy the rest from someone who has used less than his or her quota. This accounts for about 40% of the carbon dioxide we produce. The remainder is auctioned off to companies. It's a simpler and fairer approach than either green taxation or the EU's emissions trading scheme, and it also provides people with a powerful incentive to demand low-carbon technologies. Timescale: a full scheme in place by January 2009.
   
   
3. Introduce a new set of building regulations, with three objectives. A. Imposing strict energy-efficiency requirements on all major refurbishments (costing 3,000 or more). Timescale: in force by June 2007. B. Obliging landlords to bring their houses up to high energy-efficiency standards before they can rent them out. Timescale: to cover all new rentals from January 2008. C. Ensuring that all new homes in the UK are built to the German Passivhaus standard (which requires no heating system). Timescale: in force by 2012.
   
   
4. Ban the sale of incandescent lightbulbs, patio heaters, garden floodlights and other wasteful and unnecessary technologies. Introduce a stiff "feebate" system for all electronic goods sold in the UK, with the least efficient taxed heavily and the most efficient receiving tax discounts. Every year the standards in each category rise. Timescale: fully implemented by November 2007.
   
   
5. Redeploy money now earmarked for new nuclear missiles towards a massive investment in energy generation and distribution. Two schemes in particular require government support to make them commercially viable: very large wind farms, many miles offshore, connected to the grid with high-voltage direct-current cables; and a hydrogen pipeline network to take over from the natural gas grid as the primary means of delivering fuel for home heating. Timescale: both programmes commence at the end of 2007 and are completed by 2018.
   
   
6. Promote the development of a new national coach network. City-centre coach stations are shut down and moved to motorway junctions. Urban public transport networks are extended to meet them. The coaches travel on dedicated lanes and never leave the motorways. Journeys by public transport then become as fast as journeys by car, while saving 90% of emissions. It is self-financing, through the sale of the land now used for coach stations. Timescale: commences in 2008; completed by 2020.
   
   
7. Oblige all chains of filling stations to supply leasable electric car batteries. This provides electric cars with unlimited mileage: as the battery runs down, you pull into a forecourt; a crane lifts it out and drops in a fresh one. The batteries are charged overnight with surplus electricity from offshore wind farms. Timescale: fully operational by 2011.
   
   
8. Abandon the road-building and road-widening programme, and spend the money on tackling climate change. The government has earmarked 11.4bn for road expansion. It claims to be allocating just 545m a year to "spending policies that tackle climate change". Timescale: immediately.
   
   
9. Freeze and then reduce UK airport capacity. While capacity remains high there will be constant upward pressure on any scheme the government introduces to limit flights. We need a freeze on all new airport construction and the introduction of a national quota for landing slots, to be reduced by 90% by 2030. Timescale: immediately.
   
   
10. Legislate for the closure of all out-of-town superstores, and their replacement with a warehouse and delivery system. Shops use a staggering amount of energy (six times as much electricity per square metre as factories, for example), and major reductions are hard to achieve: Tesco's "state of the art" energy-saving store at Diss in Norfolk has managed to cut its energy use by only 20%. Warehouses containing the same quantity of goods use roughly 5% of the energy. Out-of-town shops are also hardwired to the car - delivery vehicles use 70% less fuel. Timescale: fully implemented by 2012.

    These timescales might seem extraordinarily ambitious. They are, by contrast to the current glacial pace of change. But when the US entered the second world war it turned the economy around on a sixpence. Carmakers began producing aircraft and missiles within a year, and amphibious vehicles in 90 days, from a standing start. And that was 65 years ago. If we want this to happen, we can make it happen. It will require more economic intervention than we are used to, and some pretty brutal emergency planning policies (with little time or scope for objections). But if you believe that these are worse than mass death then there is something wrong with your value system.

    Climate change is not just a moral question: it is the moral question of the 21st century. There is one position even more morally culpable than denial. That is to accept that it's happening and that its results will be catastrophic, but to fail to take the measures needed to prevent it.

---

    George Monbiot's latest book is Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning. www.monbiot.com.

 

---

    Go to Original

    Putting a Price on Carbon: The Key to Securing Global Stability
    By Larry Elliott
    The Guardian UK

    Tuesday 31 October 2006

New technologies and removal of barriers to change seen as key factors.

    The Stern review makes it clear that there is more to reducing the risks from global warming than making consumers pay more for long-haul flights or the use of gas-guzzling cars: "Three elements of policy for mitigation are essential: a carbon price, technology policy and the removal of barriers to international change. Leaving out any one of these elements will significantly increase the costs of action."

    Sir Nicholas's starting point is that the world needs to put a price on carbon. Economic theory says prices are set by the forces of demand and supply, but the report says global warming represents the failure of the market on a colossal scale.

    The reason is that the price of a cheap flight to eastern Europe or of a bunch of hothouse flowers flown in from east Africa does not include the cost to the environment. By international agreement, airline fuel is exempt from tax.

    "Greenhouse gases are, in economic terms, an externality," the report says. "Those who produce greenhouse gas emissions are bringing about climate change, thereby imposing costs on the world and on future generations, but they do not face the full consequences of their actions themselves."

    As the first leg of his strategy, Sir Nicholas says there needs to be an appropriate price for carbon. This could be achieved by raising taxes, by tougher regulation or by carbon-trading - a mechanism whereby companies or countries would pay for the right to pollute. Once people were faced with the full social cost of their actions, they would switch from high-carbon goods and services and invest in low-carbon alternatives.

    The prime minister said yesterday that he was keen to see expansion of the EU's emission trading scheme. Under this, each country is granted a quota for greenhouse gases from sectors such as energy generation, metal production, cement, bricks, and pulp and paper.

    The UK believes that under a global carbon-trading scheme rich countries would have to buy up a share of the pollution permits granted to poor countries and that this would help developing nations invest in low-carbon energy sources. Mr Blair said yesterday that aviation had to be brought to the heart of a beefed-up EU scheme when the current agreement runs out in 2012.

    According to the Stern review: "The level of the carbon price faced by aviation should reflect the full contribution of emissions from aviation to climate change. The impact of aviation is two to four times higher than the impact of the CO2 emissions alone. This should be taken into account, either through the design of a tax or trading scheme, through both in tandem, or by using additional complementary measures".

    Sir Nicholas said the second ingredient necessary to tackle climate change was a range of policies to support the development of low-carbon and high-efficiency technologies.

    Gordon Brown, the chancellor, said the government was already expanding its efforts in this sector, and would strive to ensure that the UK was "at the cutting edge of discovery and development of environmental innovation".

    Britain's environment sector had increased in size from 16bn in 2001 to 25bn in 2004, with the numbers employed rising from 170,000 to 400,000.

    The Stern review noted that low-carbon technologies were "currently more expensive than the fossil-fuel alternatives", but that as the green sector grew larger the cost would fall. Carbon pricing, it stressed, was important to ensure there was an incentive to invest in new technologies, but companies faced with the risk of making big new investments had to have the assurance that there would be no backsliding in the future.

    "Public spending on research, development and demonstration has fallen significantly in the last two decades and is now low relative to other industries," the review said. "There are likely to be high returns to a doubling of investments in this area to around $20bn ( 10.5bn) per annum globally, to support the development of a diverse portfolio of technologies."

    With an urgent need to find alternatives to coal and oil as sources of electricity generation, Sir Nicholas said there was a need to help greener energy sources establish a foothold in the market. The scale of incentives worldwide needed to increase by "two to five times, from the current level of around $34bn per annum".

    Finally, Sir Nicholas said there was a need to remove the barriers that prevented people from changing their behaviour. Even where measures to reduce emissions were cost effective, there were often obstacles - such as a lack of information, transaction costs, or simple inertia - that prevented change.

    "Regulatory measures can play a powerful role in cutting through these complexities and providing clarity and certainty. Minimum standards for building and appliances have proved a cost-effective way to improve performance, where price signals alone may be too muted to have a significant impact."

    Sir Nicholas stressed that it would take time - several decades - for the three-pronged mitigation strategy to work and that until then countries had to adapt policies as best they could. "Some aspects of adaptation, such as major infrastructure decisions, will require greater foresight and planning," says the review.

    As global temperatures rose, the report added, the cost of adaptation would rise sharply. "The additional costs of making new infrastructure and buildings resilient to climate change in OECD countries [the 30 rich nations in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development] could be $15-$150bn each year". That would represent up to 0.5% of GDP.

    Sir Nicholas concluded that the need for action was urgent. "Demand for energy and transportation is growing rapidly in many countries, and many developed countries are also due to renew a significant proportion of capital stock. The investments made in the next 10-20 years could lock in very high emissions for the next half-century, or present an opportunity to move the world on to a more sustainable path."

    10 Things You Can Do

    How to reduce your carbon footprint - as recommended by environment groups and government advice centres:

1. Save energy in the home by sealing drafts, insulating roofs and walls, turning down heating and buying low-emission lightbulbs. Turn off TVs and computers not being used. www.est.org.uk
   
   
2. Avoid flying. This is by far the fastest growing and heaviest emitter of greenhouse gases. www.foe.co.uk
   
   
3. Choose your fuel. Natural gas is more climate friendly than oil or coal; wood is better if it's from sustainable forests. www.greenpeace.co.uk
   
   
4. Turn to renewable energy via the energy savings trust. www.est.org.uk
   
   
5. Generate power with photovoltaic panels, windpower or ground source heat pumps. www.micropower.co.uk
   
   
6. Give up the car or get a climate friendly one. www.goingreen.co.uk
   
   
7. Offset your carbon emission. www.climatecare.org
   
   
8. Calculate your energy "footprint" and get a home energy check. www.myfootprint.org
   
   
9. Commit yourself to reducing emissions. Set yourself targets and timetables to reduce emissions. www.energysavingtrust.org.uk
   
   
10. Point out conspicuous wasting of energy in other people's homes, shops and businesses.