Setting Some Expectations for the Glasgow Climate Change Summit
Author
Bob Sussman - Sussman and Associates
Sussman and Associates
Current Issue
November-December 2021
Issue
6
Bob Sussman

As world leaders assemble in Scotland for the 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN climate convention, the enormity of the threat has never been greater. “Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe,” according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

With increasing confidence, the science is telling us that these extreme events are linked to rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and increasing temperatures. According to the IPCC, average global temperatures are now 1.5° C above 1850-1900 values. We thus have already exceeded the 2015 Paris Agreement target for avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, and damaging warming-related extremes are likely inevitable however much we reduce emissions.

Should we admit defeat and abandon our efforts to reduce emissions? We can’t afford to.

The sobering reality is that, as emissions increase, the world will get hotter, and climate-related impacts will get much worse. The IPCC says that there is “high confidence” in “a near-linear relationship between cumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions and the global warming they cause” and that “[p]rojected changes in extremes are larger in frequency and intensity with every additional increment of global warming.”

The more deeply we cut emissions, the more we can moderate the scale and severity of damage from climate change. According to the IPCC, if we reach zero net emissions by 2075, the temperature increase by 2100 would be only 1.8° C. But if we do nothing, global temperatures will most likely rise by 4.4° C by 2100. Even if we achieve a 75 percent reduction by the end of the century, temperatures will still rise by 2.7° C.

Obviously, the globe will be better off by reducing net emissions to zero but is that realistically achievable in the next few decades?

Heading into the Glasgow COP, the UN reported that the National Determined Contributions of the 191 parties to the Paris Agreement would increase global emissions by 16 percent in 2030 compared to 2010 levels. A similar analysis by the International Energy Agency projects steadily declining emissions in advanced economies but strong emissions growth in developing countries, leading to rising emissions overall through 2045. There is no doubt that we have the technologies to reverse these trends and drive down emissions, but ending the long hegemony of fossil fuels will take time and massive resources.

The gap between the lofty goals of the Paris Agreement and the unimpressive progress of the global economy toward meeting these goals six years later underscores the daunting challenge facing world leaders in Glasgow. Reaffirming ambitious targets that are not being met would be a hollow gesture — but pushing countries toward aggressive commitments that will dramatically bend the emission curve by 2030 may be a largely futile exercise. The struggle of the Biden administration to deliver on the president’s 50-52 percent emission reduction target for 2030 is a timely reminder that ambitious rhetoric on climate change has rarely been matched by political will.

This reality was largely obscured by the Paris accord, which produced a new architecture for setting national emission goals, seeming agreement on the imperative of avoiding unsafe increases in global temperatures, and a closer convergence between developed and developing countries. However, Glasgow won’t be able to repeat these accomplishments and may instead lay bare the practical political and economic obstacles to rapid reductions.

Aspirational emission reduction goals are effective in marshalling public support. However, goals that are unachievable — such as preventing temperature increases above 1.5° C — may create unrealistic expectations that we can succeed in staving off climate change. This may cause us to deny the inevitability of increasingly severe climate events as global temperatures continue to rise.

Up to now, our response to these events has been to spend more money to fight forest fires, provide disaster relief, and strengthen flood control in vulnerable areas. But these short-term measures sidestep the difficult choices society will have to make as climate impacts worsen.

Will the California Central Valley be unable to sustain the high levels of agricultural production that are critical to the U.S. food supply? As water levels in the Colorado River drop, do we need to restrict population growth in booming areas of Arizona and Nevada? As storms and flooding become more intense, will it become impossible to protect Southern Louisiana? Is it time to stop rebuilding other flooded areas and relocate vulnerable businesses and communities? We need to have these painful conversations before it is too late.

Setting Some Expectations for the Glasgow Climate Summit

The Potential Role for Emission Offsets in Climate Change Policy
Author
Joseph E. Aldy - Harvard Kennedy School
Harvard Kennedy School
Current Issue
November-December 2021
Issue
6
Joseph E. Aldy

Governments, big corporations, and universities have recently issued ambitious greenhouse gas emission pledges. The European Union and a number of its largest member-states have legislated net-zero emissions by 2050. The state of California set a goal of net-zero emissions by 2045, Microsoft aims to be carbon-negative by 2030, and Harvard University has committed to being fossil fuel-neutral by 2026.

Common to each of these goals will be the use of emission offsets — emission reductions outside of a government’s jurisdiction or the footprint of a company or a university. These offsets would make up for the residual emissions for that entity — the difficult-to-eliminate uses of fossil fuels in some specialized industrial purposes, aviation, building heating, etc. So long as these emissions offsets equal or exceed the residual emissions for that entity, then its net emissions would be equal to zero in the first case or even less in the second.

Emission offsets have long served as a flexible, market-oriented approach to implement environmental goals. Since the 1980s, new emission sources can be built in areas with poor air quality if they offset their emissions at existing sources. Starting in the early 1990s, developers can drain a wetland if they enhance or create new wetlands nearby. And offsets have played a role in implementing UN climate change agreements.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol established the Clean Development Mechanism, where a project in a developing country could generate emission reduction credits that could be used by a developed country for compliance with its emission target. For example, Japan’s emissions exceeded its Kyoto target, but it offset its emissions above its target through the purchase of CDM credits. The European Union also permitted emission sources covered by its Emission Trading System to use CDM credits as a compliance strategy in lieu of emission allowances. More recently, emission offsets have been used by sources covered by the California carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program.

Emission offsets may lower the cost of attaining ambitious emission goals by giving businesses covered by a cap-and-trade or regulatory program the flexibility to invest in emission-cutting projects beyond their footprint. Such programs may create incentives to drive emission reductions in sectors of the economy or countries of the world where the political economy precludes emission regulation. Examples include the U.S. agricultural sector and developing countries under the Kyoto Protocol. As more and more companies adopt net-zero emission goals, the demand for emission offsets could increase, with some estimating a market size as large as $50 billion a year by 2030.

The potential for offsets, however, must confront a few key implementation challenges. The estimated emissions reduced, avoided, or sequestered associated with any given offset project reflects a comparison with a hypothetical counterfactual, such as a no-project baseline. This is intended to show that the emission reductions are additional or incremental; i.e., that they would not have happened otherwise.

In practice, this is difficult to demonstrate. There are cases where offset project developers gamed the rules, such as CDM projects in China to reduce HFC-23, a potent greenhouse gas. The revenue from selling CDM credits made it economic for developers to build HFC-23 manufacturing capacity for the primary purpose of shutting it down in order to generate emission reduction credits.

In other cases, there are legitimate questions about the permanence of the estimated emission reductions. For example, forest conservation and afforestation programs may remove carbon dioxide from the air and store it within woody biomass and soils. If these forests are cut down or burn down later, however, then the sequestered carbon could be emitted, effectively eliminating the climate benefits of the original project.

Even for well-intended projects, there may be a form of market leakage that reduces the emission-cutting benefits for those projects. Conserving forests to sequester carbon may increase the incentive to cut forests elsewhere to meet lumber demand. Building a wind farm in lieu of a coal-fired power plant may enable existing coal-fired plants to operate longer by reducing demand for coal. Installing solar may appear additional today, but if public policy evolves — such as through a high carbon tax or a regulation mandating solar — then this project should not be considered additional under these future policies.

Providing cost-effective ways to cut emissions will be critical for countries and companies to secure durable political support along the journey to attaining their ambitious net-zero emission goals. Offsets can play a key role, so long as transparency and rules can minimize the prospect that this approach undermines the environmental integrity of net-zero goals.

The Potential Role for Emission Offsets in Climate Change Policy

IPCC Ignores That Institutions Are the Creatures of Fossil Fuels
Author
Craig M. Pease - Scientist and Former Law School Professor
Scientist and Former Law School Professor
Current Issue
November-December 2021
Issue
6
Craig M. Pease

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report is grim. Global CO2 emissions were a mere 0.2 billion tonnes per year in 1850, increasing to 6 billion in 1950, and are 36 billion now. We are nowhere close to net-zero.

Emissions continue to grow. In 1981, when James Hansen and his colleagues published their seminal paper on climate change, the atmospheric CO2 level was 340 parts per million. Today it is 415 ppm.

The wishes of policymakers notwithstanding, it is now practically impossible to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius. Since 1850, cumulative CO2 emissions have been 2,500 billion tonnes. Very roughly, each additional 1,000 billion results in about 0.5 degrees of warming. Holding warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees would require future cumulative emissions to be limited to roughly 500 or 1,300 billion tonnes, respectively. That is just 20 percent to 50 percent of total cumulative emissions since 1850.

As shown by University College London’s Dan Welsby and colleagues in a recent Nature piece, staying under 1.5 degrees would require fossil fuel use to decline each year by several percent. Even staying under 2 degrees would require a quick decline in fossil fuels consumption. Yet since the groundbreaking 2015 Paris Agreement, global CO2 emissions have continued to increase.

Climate policy has been a colossal failure. Why?

This thorough and comprehensive IPCC report, “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis,” is an extraordinary account of how carbon dioxide alters energy flows through the atmosphere, oceans, ice, biosphere, and climate. To understand the failure of climate policy, following the reasoning of pioneer systems ecologist Howard Odum, we need to augment the report with the physical science basis of human society, especially energy flows through human institutions.

Critically, those 2,500 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted since 1850 not only altered the climate, but just as importantly, entirely restructured our institutions. Today’s economic actors and corporations, government agencies, and civil society organizations are qualitatively different from the institutions of 1950. They are even more different from those of 1850, when the institution of human slavery was widespread in the United States. In 1900, roads were designed for horses. In 1930, less than 10 percent of U.S. homes had a refrigerator.

Energy from fossil fuels powers today’s institutions. About 80 percent of total human energy use today derives from coal, oil, and natural gas. Few appreciate that to successfully address climate change, we must replace or profoundly restructure the entire institutional ecosystem that sprang forth to feast on the energy from fossil fuels.

The dramatic increase in CO2 emissions since 1950 accompanied an equally dramatic increase in goods and services. Will Steffen and colleagues’ classic 2015 paper on the Anthropocene presents graphs showing huge increases from 1950 in water use, fertilizer use, tourism, foreign direct investment, McDonald’s restaurants, motor vehicles, paper consumption, and so on. Underlying each good or service are diverse and numerous institutions, including multinational corporations, small businesses, government programs and regulations, and advocacy organizations. The goods and services we take for granted are most all produced by institutions whose energy source is fossil fuels.

The energy transition needed to address climate change will be slow, difficult, and ridden with conflict. Since 1850, the world has enjoyed an ever-expanding energy pie, leading to abundant opportunities for conflicts to be resolved with win-win solutions. A successful climate policy will cause the energy pie to shrink. In a world of net-zero emissions, many more conflicts will be zero sum.

Carbon dioxide is different. Classic environmental problems such as water and air pollution, endangered species, and ozone depletion are all unwanted byproducts of wanted goods and services. Those externalities have no intrinsic value. We regulate them in ways that impact only the periphery of our institutions, without altering core energy flows. By contrast, a successful climate policy must regulate energy, which most certainly has substantial value to producers and consumers. Energy is not an externality. It is intrinsic to modern civilization.

Quickly reducing fossil fuel consumption would likely result in an equally quick collapse of our institutions, ways of living, and economy. If instead we fail to stop burning fossil fuels, we face a collapse caused by climate change, albeit somewhat less immediate. The institutions that define modern civilization exist only because of the energy from fossil fuels.

IPCC Ignores That Institutions Are the Creatures of Fossil Fuels

Lessons From the Pandemic for the Future of Work
Author
Scott Fulton - Environmental Law Institute
Environmental Law Institute
Current Issue
September-October 2021
Issue
5
Scott Fulton

During the spring of 2020, while we were in the early grip of the pandemic, I pointed in this column to a possible silver-lining. Perhaps what appeared then to be broad societal acceptance of the science around the coronavirus might leave us better able to also rally around the science on our other mega challenge — climate change.

Well, the broad consensus on pandemic science hasn’t exactly held. The prior administration downplayed the pandemic — and the science behind it — in an effort to rally the economy and stir up support for a reelection bid. Then, with the turnover at the White House and in the Senate, the politicization of pandemic science intensified, with some questioning whether a scourge that has disrupted lives everywhere and killed over four million people is actually an elaborate hoax.

But this doesn’t mean that we have nothing to learn from the pandemic. Our collective experience in shifting to the use of remote engagement tools, the quantum leap in the quality of those tools, and our discovery that we cannot only hold our own but in some cases increase our productivity, should mean something going forward. Indeed, if, when we reach the other side of the pandemic, we simply snap back to how things were done before, we will be missing a major opportunity to reshape our approach to work in ways that can enlarge our impact, improve quality of life, and contribute to our environmental objectives.

Let’s take ELI’s experience. We, like everyone, were quite concerned about whether our programming could survive a period of home sequestration. But we pivoted to virtual approaches, and experienced, to our amazement, dramatic bump-ups in most of our activity measures. So, for example, we saw through the use of virtual engagement tools a dramatic increase in the number of educational programs that we were able to bring forward and a near doubling of attendance at those programs. We were likewise able to increase the number of podcasts we produced and saw a near doubling in podcast listenership. Our video views also nearly doubled. Downloads of our research reports also saw a significant bump-up. These are dramatic increases in both productivity and reach.

As our staffing has not increased, the increases in productivity signal that virtual tools are making us more efficient at what we do. I’d like to think that the expanded reach reflects the ever-improving quality of our products, but there is clearly more going on than that alone. The increases in listenership, viewership, and participation also signal recovered bandwidth within our community.

There’s no doubt that for some, regular work has been down, which helped enlarge the space for engaging with ELI’s programs. But a current that cuts across organizations and sectors is the harvest of time that came from greatly limiting all forms of movement — travel, commuting, trips across town, and jaunts up and down the halls and stairs for meetings. From this collective experience, we have learned just how much time is consumed in moving about and what is possible when we put it to other use.

And of course it’s not just time that is saved — there is potential for reducing environmental impacts. There is considerably more study needed of the trade-offs between the energy demands connected to remote, distributed work, and the demands associated with office work performed in installations that are often oversized and inefficiently used.

But we do know for sure that less transportation means better local air quality and a smaller carbon footprint. It also means less traffic congestion, fewer mass-transit hassles, fewer airport and transit irritations — perhaps a net reduction in some of the more grinding aspects of modern life. This is no doubt why many surveyed employees don’t want to return to the way things were.

There are no panaceas when it comes to human systems, and an all-remote, all-the-time approach is not problem free. Inequities can emerge between those whose work is portable and those whose work is not. The cohesion of work teams can suffer. Networking and forming new relationships can take more effort. The spontaneous synergies and collective creativity that comes from inventive people being in proximity can be lost. There is also the problem of losing the physical separation between work and home and the tendency for many of us to just never stop working in the absence of such a seam. For these reasons, the work of the future will likely need to include some elements of the past. But the new normal should also carry forward with strength some of the learning and tools from this bizarre, abnormal period from which we are hoping to emerge. We can work differently — and should.

On Pandemic’s Lessons for Work Future.

ELI Report
Author
Akielly Hu - Environmental Law Institute
Environmental Law Institute
Current Issue
September-October 2021
Issue
5

National Wetlands Awards Digitally recognizing five exemplary stewards of country’s natural history and heritage

ELI’s National Wetlands Awards are presented annually to individuals who have excelled in wetlands protection, restoration, and education. The winners are selected by a committee composed of experts from around the country, including representatives from each federal supporting agency, the conservation and business communities, and state and local governments.

What is usually a moving ceremony held on Capitol Hill was instead conducted digitally this year.

Full descriptions of each award winner are at www.elinwa.org.

Award for Business Leadership. Russell J. Furnari is the manager of environmental policy enterprise for Public Service Enterprise Group and serves as chairman of the New Jersey Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership. The NJCWRP is a unique public-private collaborative focused on restoring, preserving, enhancing, and protecting aquatic habitats throughout New Jersey.

Through Russ’s leadership and commitment, the partnership has experienced extraordinary success and is considered a model for similar groups across the nation. Since its inception in 2003, NJCWRP has raised more than one million dollars in contributions and pledges of in-kind services from its corporate partners, NGOs, and academia. NJCWRP’s projects are located throughout New Jersey and have aided in the preservation of more than 724 acres and 35 stream miles.

One project, the Upper Wallkill Watershed Riparian Restoration and Floodplain Reforestation Initiative, aims to restore a degraded section of the Wallkill river while educating the next generation of students engaged in environmental protection. With the help of 200 middle and high school students, the first phase of the project resulted in the restoration of 4.5 acres of habitat and improved surface water quality. When completed, the entire project has the potential to restore more than 60 acres of vital habitat.

According to his supporters, Russ’s work building partnerships among diverse interests, identifying and successfully generating funding, and guiding projects through myriad approval processes have been critical to NJCWRP’s success. Russ exemplifies the importance of having strong support from the business community in helping to sustain and enhance wetlands and the environment for the future.

Award for Youth Leadership. Sonja Michaluk is a research scientist, writer, environmental educator, and founder of a genetics and microbiology lab. At 17 years old, Sonja has been a certified water monitor since she was six and has advocated on behalf of wetlands since she was 11.

Between 2014 and 2020, Sonja contributed to the preservation of over 50 acres of ecologically sensitive wetlands and wildlife corridors in central New Jersey. Her data also helped minimize the impacts of a natural gas pipeline. These research results, submitted to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, as well as Sonja’s testimony to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, helped save 1,800 trees and mitigated damage to waterways.

Sonja has been honored for her work locally and internationally. She was called a “Force of Nature” by Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space, served as a keynote speaker at The Alliance for Watershed Education’s River Days event, and has been praised by the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly and acknowledged by the New Jersey governor. Before the pandemic, she was flown to Sweden to represent the United States at World Water Week and at a climate change symposium. Her research has been published in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and she has presented at numerous conferences and was featured in films about climate change and the environment.

Sonja’s supporters say her familiarity with freshwater ecology and the ease with which she explains scientific concepts to others make her an effective teacher. She has been educating the public about wetlands conservation and water monitoring for over ten years.

Sonja’s current work includes a project to preserve 200 acres of threatened wetlands and old growth forest in Princeton, New Jersey, in collaboration with Ridgeview Conservancy and the Watershed Institute.

Award for Wetlands Program Development. Lauren Driscoll has been committed to wetlands conservation and restoration for more than 25 years.

Lauren has managed the wetlands program at the Washington State Department of Ecology since 2005. In her position, she advances the agency’s role in the protection of wetland resources throughout the state. This includes ensuring statewide consistency in implementation of the Clean Water Act Section 401 water quality certifications for wetlands, developing and delivering technical tools and science-based guidance, and providing expert technical assistance to local wetland regulators. Lauren also mentors wetland technical staff across the state and secures grants for wetlands program activities.

Lauren’s expertise in wetland policy and mitigation has substantially strengthened the state’s work in these areas. She played a major role in establishing the state’s wetland bank certification program, and continues to provide oversight for Washington’s wetlands compliance and wetland banking programs.

Lauren’s work often serves as a model for other programs across the country. For example, she oversaw the development of Washington’s first EPA-approved Wetland Program Plan, a six-year strategy that formalizes program development and provides a longer-term vision for the state’s wetland management. Washington’s approach to the plan inspired several other states. Similarly, Lauren worked with the state’s interagency Voluntary Stewardship Program committee to create a coordinated and comprehensive statewide stewardship approach that serves as a national model.

Lauren has worked tirelessly to not only strengthen wetlands protection in her own state but also to actively engage in national planning and decision-making. These efforts include coordinating the state’s response to several federal rulemakings, such as the Navigable Waters Protection Rule.

Lauren’s supporters describe her as a skilled communicator who can bridge the gap between policymakers and scientists, and engage with an often diverse and divisive state legislature. Through her outstanding communication and leadership, Lauren has managed to keep the wetlands program intact by demonstrating its importance even during lean economic times.

Her dedication and expertise have earned her the respect of colleagues across the country.

Award for Local Stewardship. Wenley Ferguson has spent the last 31 years working for Save The Bay, an environmental nonprofit organization in Providence, Rhode Island, where she now serves as director of habitat restoration.

Throughout her career, Wenley has partnered with federal, state, and local entities to advance projects that restore and enhance coastal and estuarine habitats and improve community resilience, working tirelessly to bring projects from conception to implementation and adaptive management.

Wenley is a leader in identifying and assessing climate change impacts to coastal wetlands within Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. She is also an expert in advancing new and emerging restoration and management approaches in the southern New England region.

Wenley and her Save The Bay colleagues were the first to identify the drowning of otherwise healthy coastal marshes in Rhode Island due to sea level rise. Using a monitoring and assessment program developed by Save The Bay and state partners, two of these marshes were identified as especially vulnerable to accelerated rising waters. Wenley worked tirelessly with local, state, and federal partners to restore the drowning marshes and build their resiliency to climate change.

As a leader in her organization and community, Wenley is involved in all facets of coastal restoration projects. She is consistently on the ground assessing project success, adaptively managing projects, developing community engagement and outreach strategies, and supporting student researchers. Active in local education, Wenley has also led volunteer teams to engage local communities and advocates about the importance of conserving marsh migration corridors. She collaborates with local researchers and has contributed to several peer-reviewed publications related to coastal marsh conditions and restoration.

Award for Promoting Awareness. Xavier Cortada is an artist and professor of practice in the University of Miami’s Department of Art and Art History. For 15 years, Xavier has creatively harnessed the power of art to motivate fellow Miami-Dade County residents to learn about, conserve, and restore mangrove wetlands.

Xavier’s highly innovative eco-art projects include a volunteering project that encouraged neighbors to build up climate change resiliency by growing salt-tolerant mangroves in their yards. He also created the nation’s first underwater homeowner’s association to address the threat of rising seas and saltwater intrusion into a community’s freshwater aquifer.

One of Xavier’s most notable eco-art initiatives is the Reclamation Project, which aimed to engage “eco-emissaries” in rebuilding ecosystems above and below the waterline. Volunteers installed meticulously arranged grids of mangrove propagules in water-filled cups in the street-facing windows of local restaurants and shops. Passersby, intrigued by the displays, often asked for more information or read the accompanying information about mangroves. When the propagules matured, volunteers replanted them in a community ritual reclaiming the water’s edge for nature.

Xavier repeated the project annually for six years, reaching roughly 200,000 people. To date, the project has engaged over 10,000 volunteer participants, helping to restore 25 acres of coastal habitat.

After 2012, the Miami-Dade County community assumed responsibility for the project. It continues today through volunteers at the Frost Science Museum, in public schools county-wide, and in communities across Florida and beyond who have emulated Xavier’s project.

Newest Winners of ELI’S National Wetlands Awards.

Unlocking Opportunity With Policy
Author
Rachel Fakhry - Natural Resource Defense Council
Natural Resource Defense Council
Current Issue
September-October 2021
Issue
5
Parent Article
The Debate: Net-Zero by 2050: How Should We Achieve a Carbon-Free U.S. Economy?
Rachel Fakhry

The new U.S. Nationally Determined Contribution for 2030 under the Paris Agreement puts America firmly back into the global climate Olympics. An ambitious target commensurate with the urgency of the climate crisis, it is set to trigger seismic shifts away from our dependency on health and climate-damaging fossil fuels toward a more resilient, prosperous, and equitable U.S. economy.

In fact, an ambitious NDC is aligned with what improves Americans’ lives. It weds economic growth and the creation of millions of good paying jobs with markedly improved public health, a healthy natural world for our enjoyment, and the avoidance of more destructive extreme weather events. And several rigorous studies, one of which I led for the Natural Resources Defense Council, have demonstrated that it can be met at a modest fraction of our GDP: clean energy technologies are now affordable and reliable enough to replace many of our fossil fuel-reliant assets – oil-guzzling cars, coal-fired power plants, and so forth — for either a modest cost premium or substantial savings.

We therefore stand at a pivotal moment where we can confidently assert that unlocking this opportunity hinges on policy. The primary challenge in cutting our greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of this decade rests in building the societal and political commitment to the transition. It will require a whole-of-government approach to drive decisive progress at the necessary nonstop pace. One bright beacon is that the federal government has all the necessary tools to deliver the pace of transformation, and many of the policy tools are familiar and have already been enacted in some form. In fact, a pile of rigorous analyses conducted ahead of the NDC announcement converged on this conclusion.

To achieve the pace of transformation, we need to pursue bold regulatory and legislative pathways that include both standards and incentives.

The Biden administration can deliver strong ambition with maximal implementation of existing administrative authority. For instance, the Environmental Protection Agency should pursue an ambitious multi-pollutant power-sector strategy under the Clean Air Act. This bears emphasis considering the overwhelming consensus that the power sector is the engine of the decarbonization of the economy in this decade and beyond as we increasingly electrify our homes and vehicles. In the transportation sector — the highest-emitting sector — EPA is expected to re-grant the waiver repealed by the Trump administration to allow states to adopt their own clean car standards. The agency should also move to quickly restore and strengthen the Obama-era clean car standards, and rapidly adopt new car and truck GHG emission standards to catalyze the transition to zero-emission vehicles. The Department of Energy has sizeable authority in accelerating the adoption of electric appliances in our homes and businesses in lieu of health-damaging gas appliances. The department must pursue appliance efficiency standards, to shift investment decisions toward high-efficiency electric options.

New, far-reaching climate and energy legislation is also critical to cut GHG emissions. Complex congressional political dynamics may complicate the passage of bold legislation. However, a series of independent studies have demonstrated that ambitious climate action would not hinge on Herculean congressional solutions, a la Obama-era Waxman-Markey legislation, but would instead be unlocked by sector-specific policy interventions, many of which already exist. In particular, a clean energy standard in the electricity sector would be game-changing and is a popular, cost-effective means of catalyzing the sector’s transition away from fossil fuels. A stable and long-term tax incentive platform for the range of clean energy technologies, such as electric vehicles and high-efficiency heat pumps and batteries, would be transformational in rapidly shifting consumer choices toward clean options. Achieving the transformation envisioned by the NDC is preconditioned on the large-scale buildout of interstate electric transmission lines and ubiquitous electric vehicle charging networks; legislation must confer robust financial incentives for the buildout of this job-creating infrastructure.

Critically, social commitment to the transition to clean energy can only be achieved if the federal government makes it as much about improving Americans’ lives as it is about averting a climate catastrophe. “Just transition” policies must be prioritized to meaningfully support communities adversely impacted by the decline of fossil fuel-related industries. The federal government should enact incentives for the domestic manufacturing of clean energy technology parts, and prioritize both emissions mitigation and new economic opportunities in pollution-overburdened communities and communities historically shunned from economic growth. Congress should pass President Biden’s American Jobs Plan, which delivers a bold climate vision tying together the host of critical policy interventions.

Solving the climate crisis may be the challenge of our time, but it also presents an unprecedented opportunity to consciously reimagine a U.S. economy that is more prosperous, sustainable, equitable, doesn’t choke its citizens in the name of progress, and does its part in avoiding a climate catastrophe.

It is high time to bring the iconic American ingenuity and leadership to bear and rise to these historic times.

Rachel Fakhry is a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

An All-of-the-Above Approach to Climate Policy
Author
Kelly Sims Gallagher - Fletcher School, Tufts University
Fletcher School, Tufts University
Current Issue
September-October 2021
Issue
5
Parent Article
The Debate: Net-Zero by 2050: How Should We Achieve a Carbon-Free U.S. Economy?
Kelly Sims Gallagher

Tempting as it is to seek a “silver bullet” in climate policy, it doesn’t exist. Policymakers must utilize a mix of regulatory, fiscal, market-based, investment, information and disclosure, education, and innovation policies to achieve a more globally competitive, low-carbon, resilient economy by mid-century. Compared with other countries, the United States has an incoherent, often contradictory approach to climate policy, and it shows. While U.S. emissions peaked in 2007, they remain 2 percent above 1990 levels. By comparison, the United Kingdom plans to achieve a 78 percent reduction below 1990 levels by 2035.

It’s important to set forth some principles for American climate policymaking. First, American policies must be predictable and durable so that private firms and individuals can make informed decisions about their investments. This will require bipartisanship so that policies don’t sharply zigzag depending on which political party is in office. Ideally, new climate legislation will be developed and passed with Republican, independent, and Democratic support because we must stop vacillating if we are to take advantage of the genuine economic opportunity in a low-carbon transition. The United States must be a real contender in the race for low-carbon markets around the world.

The economic transition must also be taken seriously. For workers who rely on carbon-intensive industries, vague assurances of clean energy jobs are hardly reassuring. It is not so simple for a parent to pick up and move to another town or state because a new job happens to be there. Moreover, many local towns, counties, and even states rely heavily on tax revenue from certain types of industry. If the local school or hospital depends on royalties to provide its services, then new sources of revenue must be found. Planning for the transition must thus begin now, town by town, city by city, county by county, and state by state. A recent National Academy of Sciences study on accelerating decarbonization called for the establishment of a new National Transition Corporation together with a National Transition Taskforce, regional planning offices, and a net-zero transition office in every state capital.

This transition must be genuinely fair and requires a new social compact. Fairness needs to be considered, among other dimensions, in terms of race, income, age, gender, and geography. Certain communities are much more vulnerable to climate change itself and others are vulnerable to the economic transition to a low-carbon economy. Others are fortunate to live in less risky places or to already be employed in a clean, low-carbon industry. Those more fortunate must recognize that they have a responsibility to help those at risk.

We need to be disciplined in our approach to climate policy. We need to set goals, performance metrics, and budgets and stick to them. Net zero by 2050 means we have 29 years to get from the 5,769 million metric tons in 2019 to no net emissions. We need a carbon budget and we need to hold ourselves accountable to it, just as most American families live within their own household financial budgets. An independent body should be established to track progress against our goals and recommend revisions to policy as needed. Congress needs to appropriate sufficient financial resources to achieve our goals.

Let’s invest wisely and efficiently. Every public dollar invested and new policy announced should get the most bang for the buck in terms of economic gain, climate mitigation, and resiliency. Let’s stop siting new infrastructure in flood-prone areas. Let’s rebuild houses, schools, and hospitals to be energy efficient and low carbon. Integrating distributed renewables and battery storage cannot only help reduce emissions but can provide power after strong hurricanes when the grid is down. We need an American infrastructure or development bank so that we can ensure that financing is available for all communities to invest in low-carbon, resilient infrastructure.

Finally, we must recognize that climate policy is really economic, labor, and social policy. The U.S. competitive position in low-carbon technologies and industries has eroded, and American firms and workers are not economically benefiting as they should from the global energy transition. China is doing a better job than the United States in domestically deploying and exporting renewable energy technology, building new nuclear capacity, and launching a thriving electric car industry.

America must invest in innovation and construct a market-based industrial policy that supports U.S. firms and labor while holding them accountable for performance. Public and private investments in research, development, and demonstration must be greatly increased, commensurate with the scale of the challenge of climate mitigation and resilience. Just as important is investment in our human capital so that we have the people to invent the new technologies, the entrepreneurs who can bring the ideas to reality, the workforce that can manufacture advanced technologies, and the government officials who can devise and execute smart policy.

Kelly Sims Gallagher is professor and director of the Climate Policy Lab at The Fletcher School, Tufts University.

Legal Pathways to Biden’s Climate Goals
Author
Michael B. Gerrard - Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia University
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia University
Current Issue
September-October 2021
Issue
5
Parent Article
The Debate: Net-Zero by 2050: How Should We Achieve a Carbon-Free U.S. Economy?
Michael B. Gerrard

Achieving President Biden’s goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with interim targets of being halfway there by 2030 and having entirely clean electricity by 2035, is possible with law and technologies that already exist or can be readily imagined. In the process, many more jobs would be created than lost, and aspects of the environment beyond climate change would be greatly improved. But it is a massive undertaking.

The nature of this task was spelled out in detail in a prescient report, Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States, issued in 2014 and 2015 by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations. Much of the same team, led again by Jim Williams, prepared an updated version in 2020 as part of the Zero Carbon Action Project.

Based on the 2014/2015 reports, in late 2015 John Dernbach and I began work on an edited volume that the Environmental Law Institute published in 2019, Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States. It analyzed how federal, state, and local law and private governance need to change for the United States to achieve goals that are very similar to those that the Biden campaign would announce a year later.

Five pillars underlie this effort.

Electricity decarbonization. In generating electricity, we need to eliminate all use of coal and almost all use of gas unless it is coupled with carbon capture and sequestration, or comes from biological sources. This will require a massive program to build new solar (both utility-scale and rooftop) and wind (both onshore and offshore) facilities, as well as more geothermal, hydropower, and other non-fossil technologies. The existing nuclear fleet needs to keep running as long as it can operate safely. A comparably massive program of new transmission lines is needed to bring the power from these new sources to where it is needed, coupled with storage to fill in the gaps when there is no wind or sun. According to the Zero Carbon Action Project, that will require 3,000 gigawatts of new generation by 2050 — an average of 100 gigawatts a year. (One good-sized nuclear power plant generates about one gigawatt.)

Energy efficiency. We need a 40 percent reduction in per capita energy demand. This would mostly come from improvements in the efficiency of appliances, buildings, and all manner of industrial operations.

Electrification. Most uses that now rely on fossil fuels need to switch to electricity. The biggest sector here is transport. This means that all new cars and SUVs need to be electric by about 2035, with trucks and buses not far behind (unless hydrogen or other technologies do the job). Electricity needs to be used instead of oil and natural gas to heat buildings and water; all new buildings need to be all-electric, and over time older buildings need to be converted. The added electricity demand that all this will create (even after aggressive energy efficiency programs) is one reason we need so much new generation and transmission.

Carbon capture and removal. It is difficult to abate the emissions from certain industrial operations, such as making cement and steel. For these, and for any remaining natural gas power plants, we need to capture the carbon dioxide before it leaves the stack, and either use or sequester it. We also need to remove large amounts of the carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere. Some of this can be achieved by planting more trees and better managing forests. Some can be done through improved agricultural practices, which will also reduce methane emissions. Beyond that, we need various technologies now being developed to draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Non-CO2 pollutants. Carbon dioxide is not the only pollutant that contributes to climate change. Methane, fluorinated gases, nitrous oxide, and black carbon are also important, and each can be drastically reduced.

All of this will require a great deal of new infrastructure. President Biden’s American Jobs Plan, if enacted by Congress, would be an important move in that direction.

Congress has not passed a major new environmental law since 1990. The partisan paralysis since then has been a major obstacle to progress in the fight against climate change (and many other things). There are several items Congress could enact that would greatly assist in meeting the 2050 goals. These include an economy-wide carbon pricing system; a clean electricity standard; stricter command-and-control regulations of air pollution; more subsidies for clean energy; and elimination of subsidies for fossil fuels. None of these would do the whole job, but any would greatly help.

Meanwhile, many states, cities, and corporations are making great efforts. But the federal government must take the lead — both the president (who has stepped up) and Congress (for which we are still waiting).

Michael B. Gerrard is a professor of environmental and energy law at Columbia Law School, and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

The Pathway Forward for the Power Sector
Author
Roger Martella - General Electric
General Electric
Current Issue
September-October 2021
Issue
5
Parent Article
The Debate: Net-Zero by 2050: How Should We Achieve a Carbon-Free U.S. Economy?
Roger Martella

When it comes to achieving President Biden’s goal of a 50-plus percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, not all sectors are created equal. Although the president has not set sector targets, basic math teaches that because 50 percent is an average, some will see more ambitious targets in the upcoming decade.

Among those sectors generating higher expectations is the power sector. Observers see emissions from power easier to abate by 2030 relative to transportation, industry, and agriculture. Thus, much attention is focused on the technology, innovation, policy, and law to drive deeper decarbonization of power.

The pathway for power begins with where it’s come from. The International Energy Agency provides a starting point: in the 14 years between 2005 (the Biden baseline) and 2019, emissions from the sector declined 31 percent. To meet the president’s average goal, the sector has 19 percent to go, but expectations are to over-perform.

To achieve deeper decarbonization beyond 50 percent by 2030, three developments must align.

First, accelerating renewables is the most immediate priority, but challenges must be addressed. For example, while the next generation of offshore wind technology is ready to be installed, regulatory delays have stalled deployment. Here, the Biden administration in a short time has worked to address permit bottlenecks and approved the first full-scale offshore wind project, Vineyard Wind. But to succeed on this timeline will require more regulatory resources and streamlining. The administration, Congress, industry and stakeholder will have to work closely together to properly define tax incentives, fiscal stimulus, and tariff policies to ensure investments will lead to measurable benefits.

Second, natural gas is key to any solution. The numbers speak for themselves: between 2005 and 2019, emissions went down steeply while natural gas use doubled to 38 percent of the nation’s generation. Looking forward, the gas sector similarly can help reduce emissions by strictly controlling methane. The country can also switch from coal to natural gas, providing a baseload that serves as a force multiplier for more renewables. Under the IEA’s projections, power emission reductions will surpass 50 percent and reach 53 percent (vs. 2005) while gas grows to 42 percent of generation in 2030. Looking beyond this scenario, more switching from coal to gas can drive emissions down further, at least 65 percent, with reductions of 70-plus percent with more renewables.

Third, reducing emissions is not enough. The grid is confronting growing risks in extreme weather events, increasing demand, more variable energy, and cyber security. Modernizing the grid, including physical infrastructure and digital upgrades, to make it more resilient while reducing emissions are mutually achievable goals.

Although power can over-perform this decade, innovation is the most important element of longer-term success. Innovating breakthrough technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration, hydrogen as a fuel, and small modular nuclear reactors will be key to realizing the next tier of decarbonization goals while ensuring a resilient energy ecosystem.

At the outset, there is reason for optimism about the success of these goals regardless of legal regimes. The IEA scenario above shows the power sector realized significant reductions during an era without comprehensive regulation. This is due to innovation, corporate social responsibility initiatives, subnational regulations including renewable energy standards, and the impact of NGOs.

Having said that, well designed law and policy can bring more certainty to outcomes. With a closely divided Congress, piecemeal approaches are more likely than a comprehensive package for climate generally or power specifically. On the Hill, it will be key for Congress to create the right reforms for streamlining renewable approvals while creating financial incentives for renewables, grid improvements, and breakthrough technologies and pilot projects. These concepts warrant bipartisan support.

The Environmental Protection Agency is likely to complement this approach with a focus on emissions from new and existing coal plants and gas turbines. Regulatory efforts to focus on technology-based standards “inside the fenceline” will help avoid the legal controversies and delays of the Clean Power Plan.

There are also other policy and legislative proposals, including clean energy standards and carbon prices. These warrant study for creating ground-up solutions that can be more efficient than piecemeal approaches. While proposals differ in design and details, key to success will be technology-neutral policies that focus on achieving emission reduction goals and letting technology and innovation achieve those goals, as opposed to prejudging technologies at the outset of these paths to deep decarbonization.

Finally, the Biden administration has been right to elevate the role of environmental justice, focused on ensuring that disadvantaged and disproportionately impacted communities avoid harms and realize benefits from clean energy opportunities. The power sector should partner with the administration and local communities to consider EJ issues in the siting and permitting of energy facilities and infrastructure, as well as opportunities to develop jobs and to ensure affordable and reliable electricity for all communities.

Roger Martella is vice president, chief sustainability officer, at General Electric. The opinions are the author’s and not any employer.

The Debate: Net-Zero by 2050: How Should We Achieve a Carbon-Free U.S. Economy?
Author
Rachel Fakhry - Natural Resource Defense Council
Kelly Sims Gallagher - Fletcher School, Tufts University
Michael B. Gerrard - Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
Roger Martella - General Electric
Natural Resource Defense Council
Fletcher School, Tufts University
Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
General Electric
Current Issue
September-October 2021
Issue
5
The Debate: Net-Zero by 2050: How Should We Achieve a Carbon-Free U.S. Economy?

President Biden has called for the United States to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with interim targets of 50-52 percent reduction by 2030 and an entirely carbon-free power sector by 2035.

Just two years prior, ELI Press published Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States, a compendium of over a thousand legal options for the United States to rapidly reduce emissions. This “legal playbook” outlines many of the actions needed to achieve the president’s ambitious climate action goals.

All but eliminating the use of fossil fuels will require transitioning the nation’s vehicle fleets from internal combustion engines to electric motors; heating buildings with electricity rather than oil or gas; slashing industrial emissions; and eliminating the use of coal and perhaps natural gas to generate electricity. The demand for electricity would soar while most existing supplies would be cut. Biden wants to achieve this transformation in the context of racial equity and good-paying union jobs. This is a huge undertaking, requiring excellent governance going forward.

While Legal Pathways serves as a useful starting point for discussions on achieving net-zero emissions, by no means is it exhaustive. We invite back one of the book’s editors, Michael Gerrard, along with three other expert commentators, to weigh in on Biden’s goals.

We are asking these experts, What policy mix would be the best at achieving the administration’s many and diverse goals? What tools do we have at hand? What tools do we need to create — and how?

Many policies have been proposed — carbon taxes, cap and trade, technology or performance standards, research and development, carbon capture and sequestration, public works programs, planting forests. There are no doubt other approaches as well. Which make sense in the quest to efficiently and equitably reach a zero-carbon future and achieve the president’s other climate change goals?

President Biden has called for the United States to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid century. That will require all but eliminating the use of fossil fuels and transitioning the nation’s vehicle fleets, buildings, factories, work places, and businesses to electricity for all energy needs. This is a huge undertaking, requiring excellent governance going forward. Our panel points to the big issues at stake.

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