Gotta act, gotta act, gotta act right now

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Julia Slingo from the UK's Met Office this week. She was in Washington for a couple of days on business. I participated in only a couple of her meetings but walked away with a renewed sense of purpose. It's always good to talk with an expert who can communicate lastest developments in climate science so effectively. It's also a reminder that, despite all the political distractions and white noise that tends to consume an outsized portion of the policy debate, we need to act urgently before we reach a breaking point.

More on pricing carbon

So the week started with a speech by the President and ended with an apology to BP. It felt like the Twilight Zone. But after all the hoopla, it still looks as if the Senate has no interest in putting a price on carbon. I've written about the need to do so here and here. One more time can't hurt. This is another great primer on what it means to charge for something that has, to date, been free. I'm not a fan of his analogy about capping how many miles you can drive, but that's just a personal preference. Better to stick with the open bar reference.

So what happens if we don't do anything?

The debate around climate change and clean energy has focused largely on the cost of taking action. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released its analysis of a bill introduced by Sens. Kerry (D-MA) and Lieberman (I-CT). It found the cost to average consumers to be fairly negligible. But as the Economist points out, the analysis misses a critical element - the cost of inaction.

More and more we are seeing the real time impacts of climate change. Companies are already being encouraged to adopt relevant adaptation policies they will need in order to cope with an unpredictable and shifting climate in the coming decades. It's absolutely critical that while we debate various policy options moving forward we never lose sight of the fact that the cost of inaction will far outweigh the cost of action.

As many of you will know I'm a big fan of placing a price on carbon. Right now we get to emit greenhouse gases (GHGs) for free when we know their effect on the environment comes with a cost. Ezra Klein recently posted an excellent piece which focused on pricing externalities. In this case it was specific to oil but you only need to replace that term with CO2 or GHGs and you've got a strong argument for taking into account the full cost of carbon.

Without doing something now, we place ourselves at much greater risk to weather extremes. We're already committed to a certain amount of exposure, but why push the envelope further?

How are we going to pay for that?

When I was a kid, I would always pester my mom about buying Oreos, Cocoa Puffs, Cheetos and whatever other deliciously unhealthy products spoke to me from the grocery store shelves. And her response was always "how are we going to pay for that?" Seeing as the money in my pockets was being set aside for important things like Star Wars figures, I just shrugged my shoulders and moved on.

Now, while still setting aside some cash for Oreos (me) and Star Wars (my kids), my main focus these days is how the US pays for a transition to a low carbon 21st Century economy. Funny how priorities change over the course of 20 years, but I digress.

In my post from Friday I wrote about how the status quo is no longer an option. In his article, Browstein referenced a recent report issued by the American Energy Innovation Council. It's fairly brief as reports go. The key recommendations:

- create an idependent national Energy Strategy Board
- invest $16 billion per year in clean energy innovation
- Create Centers of Excellence with strong domain expertise
- Fund ARPA-E at $1 billion per year
- Establish and fund a New Energy Challenge Program to build large-scale pilot projects

It's an excellent report and obviously has the backing of some of America's biggest brains. But "how are we going to pay for that?" So much effort is being put into comprehensive strategies or various legislative proposals for clean energy, but so few Members of Congress are willing to accept the fact that in order to pay for these initiatives we need a price on carbon.

The House has come up with a mechanism to do so in the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act and the Senate has the American Power Act (APA). If Congress decides to bail on these proposals and go with energy only, there is no way it will find the money to pay for the significant changes we need to make. I hope Members don't just shrugg their shoulders and move on to the next cool toy.

Busy Week

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) offered a Resolution of Disapproval this week which, if successful, likely would have signalled the death knell for climate change and energy legislation in the Senate. Fortunately the resolution, which would have removed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) ability to regulate carbon dioxide, failed.

Not that it stood much of chance of going anywhere beyond the Senate had it passed. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wouldn't have allowed it to come to a vote in the House, and President Obama would have vetoed the resolution if it had arrived on his desk.

This is a good thing. The fact is the US needs a new, 21st Century approach to climate change and clean energy policy - the status quo is no longer an option. The science demands it, our economy needs it, technology exists to enable it, and our national security depends on it.

And Americans know there is a problem despite the best efforts of very well funded backers who have one overarching objective - sow doubt and confusion. So what are we waiting for?

Will he? Won't he?

Oh the drama. There was a bit of a lull on the Hill after Sen. Graham pulled his support for climate legislation. But now Sen. Reid (D-NV)appears to be moving things forward according to Roll Call. Key takeaway from this article - even if everything falls into place, the calendar is conspiring against full success.

It's electric

Boogie, woogie, woogie. Interesting blog post on Nissan's push for increased production of electric vehicles. The author links this effort to the BP oil spill and China's recent announcement of significant electric vehicle subsidies.

Skeptics will argue that a massive shift away from oil is a pipe dream. But I always remind those folks that the "The Stone Age didn't end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil." (A quote from Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the Saudi oil minister during the 1970's.)

There are so many reasons to act now and none that justify delay.

Is this the "big push"?

President Obama delivered a speech today at Carnegie Mellon University which covered a number of topics including a significant focus on the need for comprehensive climate and energy legislation. Is this speech the beginning of a "big push" to deliver a bill? We'll see how things play out in the Senate next week but I remain so cautiously optimistic that it borders on pessimism.

Wind and the West

I just came across this article from the NY Times on a recent study published by the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). Essentially it debunks the notion that renewables can not significantly displace conventional power sources.

It's also interesting to note that a record breaking amount of wind energy capacity was installed last year in the US. And while a recent industry study projects a positive mid-term outlook, "2010 marks the first time since 2004 that the U.S. wind industry will not surpass the previous year's growth level."

It makes you wonder what's needed to increase and sustain long-term growth? Hmmm, right, regulatory certainty and significant financial flows.

In case you missed it . . .

. . . the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that April 2010 was the hottest year on record. Be sure to think about this when anyone talks about the bad winter we just had or that global warming has stopped.