Climate Change Topping Concerns in Economics, Security, Law

Building the Green Economy, Crisis Policy Forum ::

10 June 2008 :: by jr3o

On the same day that oil futures jumped a record $10.75/barrel, gaining 8% in one day, the US Senate voted on major carbon-capping legislation that would reduce US carbon by 66% by the year 2050, the International Energy Agency proposed drastic increases in the cost of carbon offsets, designed to reduce the overall amount of carbon emissions in a given market, through trading.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, also said on Friday that the UN would hold a major climate change planning session on 24 September, in anticipation of the next round of global negotiations on the issue climate change and greenhouse emissions, to be held in Bali, Indonesia, this December. As many as 100 heads of state are expected to attend the meeting, to be held the day before the annual General Assembly meeting opens at UN headquarters in New York City

The IEA on Friday called for a daunting increase in the cost of carbon offsets, part of the trading regimen that allows entities with high emissions to offset their activities by paying for the pollution. The recommendation was that offsets should be set at $200 per ton, while in the EU, they currently stand closer to $43 per ton. According to the Financial Times report:

Nobuo Tanaka, IEA executive director, said the world needed a “technology revolution” to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, which would “completely transform the way we produce and use energy”.

The wave of headlines related to the climate crisis demonstrates the growing sense of urgency among leaders in politics and commerce, regarding the potential consequences of inaction. Ban, for his part, called for “concrete actions” from wealthy industrialized nations to cut emissions.

Senegal’s president, Abdoulaye Wade, said that “another round of G8 promises” [on climate change, but similar to those made on poverty and national debt of poor nations], must be followed with practical policies. He specified that “If our partners really want to fight, for instance, the rise of sea levels then they should fund practical projects, such as coastal protection”.

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican party nominee for the US presidency, has said he views the issue of global climate change as an issue central to national security. This view echoes a strategic outlook report issued by top military officers in the US Dept. of Defense, last year. The US has previously resisted global protocols, demanding that booming developing economies, like China and India, also act to limit and scale back emissions.

Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic party nominee for the US presidency, has called for a new industrial-technological revolution that would blend the mass creation of new jobs and a major economic transition with the potential to implement policies that would “slow the rise of the oceans” and usher in a time when “the planet [begins] to heal”.

According to CBS News:

The Democrat favors what science says is necessary: an 80 percent cut in emissions by 2050. As President, Obama would achieve this through a “cap and trade” system that sells corporations permits to emit greenhouse gases and then invests the resulting revenue in green energy development and rebates to Americans hit by higher energy prices.

His policy proposals are bolder than McCain’s, but observers believe a major climate-change policy will be come law in the US in 2009, with a new president in office. And McCain is not shy about emissions reductions, calling for an overall 60% reduction by 2050, short of what the recently contested Liebermann-Warner Climate Security Act (CSA), which aimed for 71% reduction by 2050. (HotSpring’s Crisis Policy Forum published an rough-sketch action-plan last year suggesting 90% reduction by 2050.)

Also pushing US political debate on the subject is a report from NASA climate scientist, James Hansen, and colleagues, calling for an end to burning coal as fuel. CBS reports the study’s most significant data as follows:

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth’s [sic] atmosphere in 2007 was 385 parts per million and climbing 2 ppm a year. Alarmingly, Hansen’s study concluded that 350 ppm is the maximum level compatible with a livable planet. In other words, humanity is already in the danger zone and must reverse course rapidly.

If action were not taken to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, NASA’s scientists found, it would be impossible to stop the melting of polar ice, which would eventually drive a sea-level rise of up to 25 meters, inundating most of human civilization, over time.