If I Were the Climate Czar . . .
March 18th, 2009Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Over at Energy Tribune they have posted up an interview with me. One question that I answer is what I’d do if I were climate czar. Here is what I said:
1. A carbon tax at the highest level politically possible. I’d guess that this is about $5 per ton of carbon dioxide but perhaps it could be higher. The only way to know would be to have the political debate. With Exxon Mobil calling for such a tax, I think that the claims that it would be unsellable are unfounded.
2. A national (and indeed global) industrial policy focused on decarbonization of the global economy with three elements:
a. A commitment to rapid increases in energy efficiency, perhaps following the Japanese model of benchmarking industry leaders and then implementing policies to bring other industry performers to the benchmarked standard.
b. A commitment to decarbonizing energy supply, by removing incentives for fossil fuels and creating incentives for carbon neutral sources, including both nuclear and renewable.
c. A massive commitment to research, development, deployment and the entire “ecosystem” of activities associated with transformation of the global energy system. Such a system has technical, social, and political elements. Good models for what it might take are the efforts spent fighting the Cold War or improving public health over many decades. The point of such investments would be to creating an ever-advancing frontier of energy efficiency, leading to a virtuous circle with (a) above, and also to accelerate advances in carbon neutral energy supply, supporting (b) above.
3. A focus on adaptation to the combined effects of climate and society, particularly in the developing world, with a goal of making societies more resilient and less vulnerable.
4. A major investment in the air capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide as a backstop technology, in case other forms of mitigation don’t succeed. All forms of capture should be explored including chemical, geological, and biological.
5. A commitment to the sustainability of science and expertise in support of climate policy making. This would mean the institutionalization of more honest brokers (as described in my book by this title) and less stealth advocacy by experts. We are going to need climate science for many decades, so we should take care that it maintains its credibility.
The rest of the Q&A is here.
March 18th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Roger, can you elaborate on point 1, please. What’s the purpose of the carbon tax? Where should the money go, what for? How will the tax reduce CO2 emissions? How will it change the climate?
March 18th, 2009 at 8:01 am
Roger I second that. After what’s been written on this Blog about the enormous challenge of decarbonizing society a carbon tax seems only a punitive measure.
March 18th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Grrrrr. I cannot support any new taxes when the whole system is in such dire straights. I don’t care what Exxon Mobil says, since they won’t pay anything, anyway. Any governmental push to increase the use of alternative energy will simply decrease our standard of living; let the free market take care of that. What’s wrong with you, anyway?
March 18th, 2009 at 8:39 am
jae,
We tax many things for arbitrary reasons. For example, gasoline and booze have always had special excise taxes applied. A modest carbon tax should be viewed as nothing more than one of those ’sin taxes’.
The real problem will be the regulatory framework designed to penalize “undesirable” energy sources like coal. These bureaucratic obstructionism which can be manipulated by environmentalists will do more to trigger higher energy costs than any carbon tax imposed by politicians.
March 18th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Aerosols clearly are effective in reduction of global warming. If you were climate Czar, would you consider climate control through intentional addition of aerosols or something equivalent as a way to assure that earth doesn’t overheat?
March 18th, 2009 at 9:18 am
5: Good grief, the Earth is cooling; why would we add aerosols? Oh, and by the same token, why would we tax carbon?
March 18th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Roger:
Please elaborate again on a carbon tax. I agree with your general position visa vis cap and trade.
But, to work, a carbon tax would have to be applied broadly, not only to fossil fuels, but to biofuels as well,, taking CO2 footprints of all kinds of biofuels also into account;
1. The net yearly footprint resulting from changing particular land use to create the biofuel;
2. The ‘one-time’ footprint associated with any new infrastructure to accommodate the use of biofuels;
3. Any extra (or reduced) footprint to transport biofuels longer (shorter) distances than the fossil fuels they replace (which may, or may not be taken care of by the footprint tax on the transportation fuel); etc.
Lacking such details (see below) – and effective ‘policing’, assures gaming of the carbon tax system leading to even more rapid deforestation and rape of the planet.
Such issues are what’s also missing in Jim Hansen’s otherwise very simple “tax and refund” proposal.
______
It seems there is considerable confusion, at least among public policy makers and the general public, regarding under what conditions, and by what amounts, crops and forests and/or fuels derived from them, might contribute
to drawdown in the amount of CO2 injected into the atmosphere.
• When land is cleared and a new crop is established, the old-cover carbon is usually released, through decay or burning, as CO2, as a ‘one-time-event’ (cl1 tC/ha). In addition, there will be a one-time releases of CO2 (cl2 tC/ha) from the energy expended to clear the land. The continuing previous NPP of the old cover (nppo tC/ha/yr) is eliminated. The new crop has a different continuing NPP (nppn
tC/ha/yr). If nppn is less than nppo, there is already a net, permanent increase in annual release of CO2 into the atmosphere, as is typical of deforestation. The maintenance of the crop (cultivation, irrigation, fertilization, harvest, transportation, and so on) contribute an additional (m tC/ha/yr). The total impact (CO2-footprint) is approximately [(nppo+m–nppn) tC/ha/yr]+[(cl1+cl2) tC/ha] .
• When a ‘natural’ cover (prairie, savanna, forest, etc.) is itself harvested sustainably, the total will be about (m–nppo fraction harvested) tC/ha/yr.
• When a previously barren area (nppo = 0, cl1 = 0, cl2 = 0) is afforested or put into sustainable agricultural production, the total CO2-footprint will be about (m–nppn) tC/ha/yr, because all net production is above the barren baseline. So long as m is small, this is a substantial improvement. cl1, is very large when forest is cleared, whereas cl2 usually is relatively small. For crops like corn, m is often a substantial proportion of nppo, but for forests, it is usually a very small fraction.
Fossil fuel contributes to its CO2-footprint in proportion to p tC. Extracting and transporting it adds a small q tC/tfuel for most coal, gas and oil, but larger for oil tars and much larger for shale. Permanently replacing fossil fuel with biofuel often means that the annual new CO2-footprint of an existing power plant depends upon the relationship of (nppo+m–nppn) to a f(p+q). When nppn is smaller than (nppo+m), the CO2-footprint often is not reduced when biofuel substitutes for fossil fuel.
March 18th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Yesterday Energy Secretary Steven Chu acknowledged that a US carbon tax would make the country less competitive in the global market. Then he proposed a carbon tariff on imports as a weapon to “level the playing field”.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123733297926563315.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
If there’s one thing that the country needs less than a new trillion dollar tax it’s a trade war during a global recession.
At least the tax and trade war will be based on “settled science”. We wouldn’t want to blame politicians for the resulting disaster.
March 18th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
A bit more on a carbon tax and its purpose:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2712-2008.21.pdf
March 18th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Hi Roger,
OK, strike one.
Don’t worry, you’ve got two more. 
Here’s what to say next time (now that you’ve had time to think)…
You could say, “I have one one for you: ‘Technology Prizes.’”
“As Climate Czar, I’d push for the following technology prizes (plus whatever other good ones that my peasant/minions can dig up). The prizes would be arranged that no single entity could collect more than 2 prizes of the same type. In other words, a company could only collect 2 prizes of the same type.”
1) Ten prizes of $50 million each for the first 10 U.S. plants that produce at least 60,000 Megawatt-hours of electricity in a year using a liquid fluoride thorium reactor. (That’s roughly 10 Megawatts at 80% capacity for a year.)
2) Ten prizes of $50 million each for the first 10 U.S. plants that produce at least 60,000 Megawatt-hours of electricity in a year using a “traveling wave” reactor that uses depleted uranium.
3) Ten prizes of $50 million each for the first 10 U.S. plants that produce 60,000 watt-hours (that’s right, watt-hours, not megawatt hours) of net energy (energy out greater than excess of energy in) in a year using a non-tokamak fusion device.
4) Ten prizes of $50 million each for the first 10 U.S. plants that produce 200 MW (peak sun) of photovoltaic panels in a year.
5) Ten prizes of $50 million each for the first 10 U.S. plants that produce at least 10 million gallons of diesel fuel in a year using algae as a feedstock.
6) Ten prizes of $50 million each for the first 10 plants that produce in one year batteries for 10,000 cars capable of…(hmmm…performance capabilities to be filled in by peasant flunkies).
Again, a company could be awarded no more than 2 of the 10 prizes in any category.
For a piddling $3 billion (if ALL prizes were awarded) the U.S. and the world would be on the way to significantly more environmentally friendly energy. You’d be the first rock star Climate Czar.
March 18th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Oops. Blew the punch line. That should have been:
“I have one word for you: ‘Technology Prizes.’”
March 18th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Roger,
I’m glad you aren’t climate czar. And I’m even happier that no one else is.
March 18th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Stan- I think we are safe from such a fate
March 18th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I agree with Roger. The $5/ton approach is about a practical start to a percieved problem. Whether real or not, starting small with a policy composed of what is doable is a good start. It has the advantage of flexibility; a much needed attribute when addressing difficult problems, or problems with little proven technology. It provides a basis for realistic policy discussions. It defines the policy in the “doable” such that future discussions will tend to proceed from this original platform. By applying the monies to provide what is needed, it reduces the likelihood of pirating by other programs. Contrast this with a very large tax which could mean political failure, wasted monies going to pirated programs and not the problems, wasted monies on failed technology, and eventual political failure.
March 18th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Len,
I have a hard time with the use of the term “rape” to describe human intervention on the earth, as the key difference
between the sexual act, a sacred procreative act, and “rape” is mutual concurrence. At this point in human and earth development, I am not sure we can listen to the earth and hear it say, “No.” By using that term for the earth- that can’t say no, it seems to me that it demeans the term itself, which should remain powerful and specific to the deep violation (a desecration of the above sacred act) that the word “rape” was originally intended to convey. Since castration is generally thought to be a bad thing regardless of whether it is voluntary or not, I suggest that each person who feels the urge to use sexual analogies for destructive acts by humans on the land substitute the term “castration” for “rape” at least half the time.
As in “rapid deforestation and castration” of the planet.
But my preference would be to not use sexual analogies at all.
March 19th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
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