"Region Forward" was just issued by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Goverments. This plan has been pushed out for comment before formal adoption. It's a plan for our growing region, in terms of land use, transportation, environmental practices, climate and energy, housing health, education, and economic and public safety. As spotlighted in the Washington Business Journal, "Regional planners want every Washington-area jurisdiction to sign on to a growth vision that could dramatically change the way the capital region grows through 2050 — if everyone sticks to it. And that’s a big if. The ambitious 60-plus page plan sets smart growth benchmarks for land use, transportation, environmental practices, climate and energy, housing, health, education, economic and public safety that will affect how Washington does business." Take a peek at the plan and share your thoughts.
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November 25, 2009
November 20, 2009
Fight...for the right...to hang laundry?
Yup...that's right! A recent article popped up in Yahoo News about this. A Pennsylvania resident has been contacted not only by neighbors, but local officials, requesting that she stop the practice. Her opponents claim it makes the neighborhood look like "trailer trash." So, it's all about aesthetics? Nevermind the fact that hanging laundry to dry saves substantial dollars and energy! That's what it's all about!! I'm hanging (no pun intended) on to the hope that as more people come to better understand the financial and environmental benefits of laundry hanging, the less we will have to fight...for the right...to hang laundry.
November 09, 2009
Cap and Trade is No Mirage: Post 2
Last week 
I posted in response to an article in the Washington Post by Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel entitled Cap-and-Trade Mirage.
I countered their contention that employing cap and trade would not result in the required emissions reductions to get us started down the path to a low-carbon economy.
They opined that cap and trade would not jumpstart a revolution in renewable energy; I countered that it would spur efforts in energy efficiency, which represent a significant untapped opportunity.
The larger point they made in the op-ed was that the inclusion of carbon offsets in the proposed climate legislation in both the House and Senate would "guarantee failure" of the bills. That's a pretty strong contention: "guarantee failure." I could not disagree more, and I am supported in this opinion by Dan Lashof, director of the climate center of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Here's a quick primer on carbon offsets:
Carbon offsets represent emission reductions that occur in one place but are credited somewhere else, generally because they are paid for by the entity in the "somewhere else." 
For instance, landfills that are not required to capture the methane their waste produces as it decomposes generally will vent that methane (a potent greenhouse gas), because it's cheaper than putting in place the technology to capture it. However, an outside investor could help finance that technology in exchange for the emissions reductions that will result. Those emissions are "carbon offsets," and they can be used to "offset" emissions reductions that would otherwise be required by the financing entity.
It is easy to find criticisms of carbon offsets. Some people have compared them to Medieval Indulgences--just a way to assuage guilt. Others, including Williams and Zabel, claim that they don't actually result in any emissions reductions because of "additionality" problems or poorly designed or regulated projects. Both of these are issues worth addressing, but they are wrong that these issues will result in failure. On the contrary, by instituting strong offset provisions, these bills will accomplish more emissions reductions faster while potentially helping to build momentum for greenhouse gas reductions across the economy.
Let's take "additionality" first. What is "additionality?" Simply, it's the term used to describe whether a project would have happened anyway. . ."additional." This is a simple idea, but fairly difficult to pin down in any particular circumstance, since it requires the ability to know what would have happened instead. In many cases, that might require mind reading. The fact that additionality is difficult to know perfectly does not mean that every project is worthless or that it's not possible to make intelligent judgments. Quite the opposite, in fact. Every carbon offset certification organization has well thought out additionality requirements.
While I was at Carbonfund.org we partnered with a not-for-profit organization called Paso Pacifico on a project that was certified by the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA), called Return to Forest. 
This project is about as additional as one can imagine. Former pastureland that was lying fallow was restored to forest through carbon offset financing from Carbonfund.org's donors. Without this funding, the forests that are growing there now would not exist. They are "additional;" they could not have possibly occurred otherwise. Better even is that CCBA has additional requirements to benefit local communities and biodiversity. So this project, which was financed through carbon offsets, provides significant ancillary benefits at no additional costs. CCBA, as well as other certifying organizations, also has strict requirements to make sure plans and finances are in place to manage projects for decades into the future.
I personally like forestry projects even though there are dissenting views on this subject--even from other environmentalists (like Joe Romm). My reasoning comes down to one simple idea. Half of all the forests that existed 8,000 years ago are gone. We have to put them back as one of the key strategies in our battle against climate disruption. Repeat: we have to put them back. If carbon offset financing helps us do that (and it does), then let's go! If we're worried about permanence (they might burn down or be killed by disease), we can compensate by underestimating the climate benefits for each project such that in total the climate benefits are still better than originally estimated. (Also, project insurance--which doesn't really exist yet--could help overcome this issue.) 
Listen, no one is investing the kind of money needed to reforest the planet on the scale required just through charitable efforts or even national and international government investments. Well designed carbon offset schemes can help.
Return to Forest is just one example of a project that is clearly additional.
Additionality can be somewhat subjective and has been the topic of much debate for years in offset circles. That's why offset certifying organizations have worked so hard to put in place additionality requirements. Perhaps they are not perfect, but by dealing with this issue, they have helped solidify confidence in the markets for carbon offsets.
I used a forestry example, but projects of all types can meet additionality criteria. In fact, Joe Romm himself, who has generally been against most offset schemes, comes out in favor of offsets in Waxman-Markey, because they meet both additionality issues and are fraud resistant. Which is the other issue Williams and Zabel bring up.
They point out a couple of examples of dubious projects that don't actually reduce any emissions or are fraudulent. Well, sure, I can find examples of fraud everywhere, but that doesn't indict the entire system. Just because some bad mortgage loans were made doesn't mean we scrap mortgages entirely as a way of financing homes. No, we just improve our systems to reduce the problems and keep the benefits. Same with offsets.
Williams and Zabel say that these problems "cannot be solved by certification or verification processes." They offer no evidence of that; they just baldly assert it. Well, I can say au contraire--we have the tools to overcome issues of fraud, measurement and additionality, and they are already being used in the offset markets and are continuously being improved.
So I must respectfully disagree with Williams and Zabel. Offsets will help meet our reduction targets at lower costs while also putting money towards a wider variety of projects and strategies than would occur without them. Insomuch as international offsets are also allowed, that will help spur investment in other places in the world, too--which is a good thing for fighting climate change.
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Steve Offutt blogs at www.steveoffutt.com
November 06, 2009
CONNECT WITH US ON FACEBOOK!
Become a Facebook fan of the most dynamic climate action program in Arlington - Fresh AIRE. Click here to stay current with all the latest news and events happening in and around Arlington. The number of fans quadrupled yesterday, don't' be left out! Alright, we launched the page this past week and the number of fans jumped from 3 to 12, but nevertheless this is an important portal that you should connect with.
November 04, 2009
Reduce your Pet’s Carbon Paw Print
Everyone is talking about reducing their carbon footprint but what about our furry friends. According to The Humane Society of the United States American households are home to 78 million dogs and 88 million cats. Here in
Here are some statistics from Stuff Happens with Bill Nye.
- 40% pet owners don’t clean up after dogs
- 30% pollution in typical stream is dog poop
- It takes 100yrs for plastic bag to degrade
- 1 dog + 1 bag per poop = about 1000 dog bags per year
In
Cat litter
- 1947 litter invented
- Most commercial litters are made of clay or sodium bentonite which soaks up 10xs its weight in water.
- It doesn’t biodegrade.
- 2 billion tons per year goes to the landfill.
- The process starts with strip mining for kitty litter.
There are alternative and environmentally friendly options for cat litter out there and you can always attempt toilet training your cat, I haven’t been successful yet. But it sure would be funny to come home and see one of my boys sitting on the toilet reading the latest issue of Cat Fancy. Here are some other tips to Green Your Pet .
November 01, 2009
Cap and Trade is No Mirage
On
Halloween, the Washington Post published an op-ed article by Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel entitled Cap-and-Trade Mirage. Williams and Zabel are EPA employees, as I once was, too. The article made a couple of assertions about strategies for addressing climate change that are, in my opinion, wrong. The major point they attempt to make is that our cap-and-trade legislation is doomed to failure because it includes carbon offsets. I will counter their assertions about offsets in an upcoming post, but today I will address an earlier point they make in their article.
Here's a quote:
"Confidence in the certainty of declining caps is based on the mistaken assumption that cap-and trade was proven in the EPA's acid rain program. In fact, addressing acid rain required relatively minor modifications to coal-fired power plants... In contrast, the issues presented by climate change cannot be solved by tweaks to facilities; it requires an energy revolution through investments in building clean-energy facilities. The biggest obstacle to this revolution is that uncontrolled fossil fuel energy remains much cheaper than clean energy.
Cap-and-trade alone will not create confidence that clean energy will become profitable within a known time frame and so will not ignite the huge shift in investment needed to begin the clean-energy revolution."
The energy revolution they claim is needed is required--eventually (and, I would agree, the sooner the better). But right now we already possess the tools and technologies to reduce our carbon emissions by up to 40%--and at a profit. It's called energy efficiency. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, has reduced the energy use in his house by almost 50% with relatively small effort (as he blogged on Huffpost). 
Similarly, with a lesser effort than he, I have reduced the energy use in my house by an estimated 20-30% with relatively minor investments. And there's lots more I can and should do. Most buildings can reduce their energy use by 30% or more at a net-zero cost. Buildings alone account for 40% of our greenhouse gas emissions, so we can get 12% reductions in total emissions without doing anything else than profitably improving efficiency in buildings. 
California has held emissions per person constant for almost 30 years while it's rising everywhere else in the US.
The United States emits about double the greenhouse gases per dollar of GDP as Japan. That's not because Japan is a generation ahead of us in clean energy generation. It's because they are a generation ahead of us in using the currently existing energy efficiency opportunities that are right in front of us. Because energy is more expensive there, they have learned to be more judicious and smarter with it.
Cap and trade will make energy more expensive here--although probably not by as much as Williams and Zabel (and I for that matter) would like it to be to force a truly rapid revolution. However, the cap will compel companies to find ways to reduce their emissions. It's true that if the cap were declining rapidly and the only solution were renewable energy, that the concept might fail, but that's not the case; renewable energy is not the only solution. We can easily meet the emissions targets in Waxman-Markey or Kerry-Boxer with technologies and practices that are already widely available. At the same time, these bills contain additional incentives to help push investment towards the development of more renewable energy above and beyond what the cap-and-trade component of the bills might drive by themselves.
So Williams and Zabel are wrong that we cannot take the lessons from Acid Rain and apply it to carbon emissions. In fact, at the time the Acid Rain Program was put in place, many industry studies assumed that it would require very expensive scrubber technology to meet the emissions targets required. The power plant owners discovered that, in many cases, they could meet those targets more economically by switching to a different fuel, or shutting down the dirtiest plants. The costs, it turned out, were much lower than even the most optimistic predictions of environmentalists and only 10% the costs that the industry had predicted. Not only that, but for much of the history of the program, the utilities have actually emitted far less than the cap required, because they were able to find other ways to do so that were cheap.
Williams and Zabel are similarly assuming that there is only one solution and that solution is untenable. The beauty of using cap and trade is that other solutions will also be found, in many cases ones we may not have thought of. In this case, we don't even have to be surprised, though, because the most obvious and cheapest solution is already staring us in the face. Put the cap and trade in place so we can unleash the energy efficiency revolution.
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Steve Offutt of Arlington is working on a book on Cap and Trade
