I posted an additional critique, focused on the fatal cap-and-trade scheme of ACESA, here.

December 2009 is only 6 months away, and many know that whether the world will arrive at a strong climate treaty after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, hinges predominantly on whether the world's largest per capita emitter, the country most responsible for the greenhouse gases currently in the air, and one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the USA, passes a strong domestic climate bill beforehand.

On May 21, 2009, the American Clean Energy & Security Act of 2009 (ACESA), a.k.a. H.R. 2454, originally proposed by Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA), after weeks of closed door negotiations and compromises, passed the House Energy & Commerce Committee, and is now moving through other committees, and expected to be voted on the House floor within a couple of weeks.

This committee has been historically dominated by those with close ties to the oil, coal, and other polluting industries, small wonder how this already extremely weak bill when it first came out as a discussion draft, could possibly still be further watered down (revised H.R. 2454 summary, full text) so much by the time it passed out of the Committee, and yet hailed as "the best we've got".  What's incredible is that, the carbon lobbyists are all out to kill even this!

Carbon lobbyists now out-number those lobbyists on the green side of the climate issue by 7-to-1, and the pro-carbon interests are out-spending the enviros 10-to-1, running to hundreds of millions of dollars and involves industry front groups, lobbying firms, television, print and radio advertising, and donations to pivotal members of Congress.

Even though the Waxman-Markey bill has some good elements such as in energy efficiency policies, and in formally working with developing countries to share low-carbon technologies, overall it does NOT heed the dire warnings from current climate science, and if enacted in its present form, will only dangerously create the public illusion and political rhetoric of a strong climate legislation while cementing pollution rights into law, through extremey weak emission reduction targets, extremely coal friendly policies, and multitudes of loopholes, while impeding a truly strong legislation to be put into place, and guaranteeing failure of a strong enough international agreement to be reached in Copenhagen this December.

Extremely Weak Targets

First off, the emissions reduction targets in this proposal is extremely weak compared to the speed the climate science outlook is deteriorating, and compared to what is achievable with already existing technology.  The emissions caps (there are two) plans for aggregate emissions from the covered sources (gradually expanding to cover 87% of US emissions in 2016) to be reduced by 3% below 2005 levels in 2012, 17% below 2005 levels in 2020, and 83% below 2005 levels in 2050.  As discussed later, even these weak caps exist mostly only on paper.

The use of 2005 as the reference year is a fig.  When translated to 1990 reference year, on the entire US emissions (not just covered sectors), the emission caps in this bill only correspond to a 1.4% reduction from 1990 levels in 2020.^[1]  For reference, the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)^[2] asserted that Annex I (developed) countries need to reduce emissions 25% - 40% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80-95% below 1990 levels by 2050, in order to stabilize below 450 ppm carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq) concentration, after a temporary overshoot by 50 ppm.  Such a stabilization concentration was said to provide a "reasonable chance" of averting warming beyond 2˚C above pre-industrial levels that would lead to catastrophic consequences on human and ecological systems.  But, as my previous post detailed, even such a stabilization concentration still carries 26–78% probability of exceeding 2˚C relative to pre-industrial, odds that could hardly be considered "reasonable", and that itself didn't take into account powerful climate feedback mechanisms, and are therefore much too optimistic.

The Waxman-Markey bill's emission reduction targets is more in line with a 650 ppm "stabilization" target^[14], but of course, at this high of a concentration level, the climate system will almost certainly have proceeded far beyond our control, so in reality we will not be able to "stabilize" at any concentration at all.

And, much higher emissions from fast developing countries in the last few years way exceeded IPCC projections, meaning that much faster global emission reductions are now necessary even just to keep the same cumulative emissions targets used to model CO2-eq concentrations considered by the IPCC report, which were based on studies done 3 years ago.

But multiple lines of evidence are now pointing to the fact that the safe upper limit of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) is somewhere between 300-350 ppm CO2-eq (see my previous post here).  Since we are already at 387 ppm, we need to mobilize all our resources to achieve net negative emissions A.S.A.P. (think of opening the plug to the tub of bath water, not just turning down the faucet to reduce the flow of incoming water, in order to achieve a net reduction of the total volume in the tub - or the GHG concentration in the air).  The Waxman-Markey bill does nothing of the sorts.

The extremely weak emission reduction targets in this bill seems to go hand-in-hand with the rediculously long intervals (four years) by which EPA is required to submit a report to Congress with climate science updates, GHG monitoring status, and GHG emission reduction progress.  EPA is supposed to commission reports from the National Academy of Sciences by the same interval with clean technology updates among other things.

Astronomical "Offsets"

As if that's not enough, all that "hard cap" turns out to only exist on paper, according to the analysis by International Rivers and Rainforest Action Network.  Below I summarize their report on the offset provisions in the draft bill (which only got more liberally used and business-friendly in the revised version of the bill).  These provisions were included with the express approval of the mainstream green groups Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the big business and industry interests they've joined with in forming the United States Climate Action Partnership.

The Waxman-Markey bill allows the use of a stunningly high level of offsets — up to two billion offset credits, or 2 gigatons carbon dioxide equivalent each year, equaling 28% of the US’s total 2005 emissions, and is greater than the reductions from 2005 emission levels required each year through to 2026.  In other words, using these offsets, these capped emitters would NOT have to cut their emissions back to 2005 levels until 2026, after they increase their emissions by 38% by 2012!

Although the idea is that offset credits are supposed to come from additional, verifiable, and permanent reductions in emissions, they are notoriously known to be riddled with fraud, with estimates of 40% to over 75% of approved offsets actually not meeting those criteria, based on evaluations of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the world's largest carbon offset scheme, used by the Kyoto Protocol, and which the Waxman-Markey offset scheme is largely based upon.^[3]

What's worse, there is no way to supply this huge amount of offsets with any reasonable scrutiny.  Each year, this bill allows nearly 7 times the amount of offsets expected to be approved annually by the Kyoto Protocol's CDM between 2008-2012.  If the market were to meet potential US demand, it would mean a speedy and unrigorous approvals process and an even higher percentage of false offsets.

Further, a Friends of the Earth report, titled "Sub-prime Carbon," concluded that the use of offsets would create a market for "sub-prime" carbon derivatives just as risky as the sub-prime mortgage-backed securities at the heart of the financial meltdown. They said subprime carbon credits are already being securitized and resold in secondary markets.

Although foreign source offset credits from developing countries have been extensively criticized as being particularly riddled with falsehood, domestic offsets in developed countries are by no means reliable either.  Half the offsets in the Waxman-Markey bill are supposed to be from domestic uncapped sectors, mostly from agriculture and forestry sectors (if the domestic offset market fails to generate half the offsets, the shortfall is made up for by even more international offsets!).  Measuring the carbon budgets of forests and farms is notoriously inaccurate, making it extremely difficult to establish how much of a carbon benefit, if any, is being achieved across the sector. US offsets created after January 1, 2001, could be eligible to be used in the scheme, despite the lack of regulation and well known quality problems with current US offset schemes.

Also, offsets from agriculture and forestry sectors has the problem of non-permanence.  The carbon stored in forests, soils, grasslands and other ecosystems is subject to release back into the atmosphere through many disturbances (such as forest fires), including climate change itself.  This is in sharp contrast with the one-way additional emission of fossil carbon into the atmosphere, which the offsets are supposed to counter, and introduces large systemic risks into the overall environmental integrity of climate actions.

Currently about 12-25% of annual anthropogenic GHG emissions result from deforestation and land use changes^[4-7].  The Waxman-Markey bill requires that counties participating in the offset scheme must set deforestation reduction targets with the aim of halting gross deforestation within 20 years and address a set of social and environmental safeguard criteria.  Even so, the IR-RAN report writes that "it is a dubious proposition that an infusion of carbon offset money, despite the support the bill as written would provide, would help these countries overcome their high rates of illegal logging and poor enforcement of environmental and social laws. In fact, the concern is the opposite, that quick profits promised by addressing deforestation through offset mechanisms will undermine other deeper efforts to promote meaningful governance reform and address underlying drivers of deforestation... The draft bill’s fund-based approach, however, which would provide assistance for developing country efforts to reduce emissions from tropical deforestation, provides a much better mechanism for addressing this issue than offsets."

Aside from the problems of the offset approach, setting targets to halt gross deforestation in a 20 year time frame is completely ignoring the rampant speed rainforests are being lost.  Less than half of the earth's mature tropical forests - 2.6 million sq mi of the original 6 million sq mi that until 1947 covered the planet - still remain.^[8,9]  Every second, a slice of rainforest the size of a football field is mowed down ^[9].  Some scientists have predicted that unless significant measures (such as seeking out and protecting old growth forests that haven't been disturbed)^[8] are taken on a worldwide basis, by 2030 there will only be 10% remaining,^[10,11] with another 10% in a degraded condition.^[10]  Eighty percent will have been lost, and with them hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable species.^[10]  The great Amazon rainforest, for example, just like the Arctic sea ice cap, are both prominant features of our planet, as well as key regulators and stabilizers of our planet's climate system.  The rapid loss of the Amazon due to illegal logging, converting to cattle farms, soybean farms, etc, together with climate change itself, could lead to the decimation and desertification of the Amazon, throwing the planet's climate into further and utter chaos.

Perpetuating Coal

Besides the weak targets and astronomical number of offsets, H.R. 2454 allows new coal plants to be built without Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) before 2020, as long as there are certain “retrofits” by 2025.  In other words, it will lock in a new generation of dirty coal-fired power plants for years to come.

Further, it puts heavy taxpayer investment into CCS (promoted as "clean coal" technology by the coal industry), which is an unproven technology, particularly when it comes to safe storage options for the captured carbon (in the form of "dry ice"), for which potential leakage and release into the atmosphere is a real concern, which not only could undo the carbon capture, but also poses a public safety hazard (high concentrations of CO2 is lethal, as in the case of "burping" lakes that killed thousands, e.g., Lake Nyos in Cameroon^[12]).  Since the bill does not require public funding for CCS technology to be contingent on a high performance, the bill could funnel public money into large dirty energy projects.

In any case, even the original discussion draft only required new coal plants built after 2015 to sequester at least 50% of their GHGs pollution, and 60% after 2020.  This leaves a very significant portion of emissions from coal that is not required to be captured.  Coal is the most carbon-dense fossil fuel per unit of energy obtained, and ANY continued emission from the large coal reserve on Earth without rapid phase-out is incompatible with any plausible scenario of returning GHG concentration to below 350 ppm CO2-eq, and avoiding dangerous levels of global warming ^[13].

The introduced version of the bill, H.R. 2454, further increased tax subsidies for CCS, enhancing its incentives, and resulting in even higher projected coal use in 2020 and 2025 according to EPA's analysis.

Aside from GHG emissions, continued use of coal also perpetuates the enormous environmental and health destruction associated with coal mining, combustion, and toxic coal ash disposal.  Like other fossil fuels, but more than almost any other, it belongs underground, undisturbed, and has no place in our energy future, if we wish to preserve a livable planet for our children.

Removing Existing EPA Power

The bill actually removes the President’s authority to address global warming pollution using laws already on the books.  In a letter to Rep. Henry Waxman, Friends of the Earth wrote:

"The discussion draft removes greenhouse gas emissions from important provisions of the
Clean Air Act. While the cap is an important mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas
emissions we should not be eliminating existing protections that safeguard against
increases in emissions from new and existing facilities. Just like clean energy policy is an
important compliment to comprehensive global warming legislation, Clean Air Act
regulations are an essential safeguard needed to make sure that we achieve the reductions
required by the cap."

Misc.

Among the liteny of deficiencies of this bill is also the renewable electricity standard it contains, which, if stronger, would have helped generate new jobs and billions of dollars in consumer savings.  But, the current agreement on this standard won't require utilities to use any more renewable electricity than the Energy Information Administration projects would be generated as a result of state renewable electricity standards already in place and the recently enacted stimulus package, according to Union of Concerned Scientists.  In fact, the exemptions in the proposed renewable electricity standard would make the federal requirement less than what states would achieve on their own without it.

Finally, the bill paid special attention to a domestic adaptation section, which is commendable.  But, how could we really prepare for the kinds of disasters that will come, if we are committing ourselves only to such weak GHG abatement targets and allowing such multitudes of loopholes as in this bill in the first place?  What kind of meaningful adaptation/preparation is there, if we are not serious in our attempt to preserve a livable planet for humans and other species to begin with?


Conclusion

The current version of this bill is so weak that many of the mainstream green groups such as Greenpeace and Center for Biological Diversity, who have so far shied away from moving beyond the outdated and anti-precautionary IPCC emission reduction target of "25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020" (see above, and my previous post), have refused to support H.R. 2454 in its current form.

It is time that we DEMAND from our politicians a bill that can really deliver the kinds of last minute bold actions we need to avoid the climate catastrophe iceburg, instead of waiting for miracles to come out of the political negotiations that are dominated by fossil fuel influences.  It is also time that environmental groups really go after targets "guided by best available science", instead of axciously compromising to what might be "politically feasible", because the latter approach has been tried for decades and we are running out of time.  It is time to make the targets we really want "politically feasible" by uniting under what science says is necessary, and give the straight story to the public, because they deserve the information, and their voices will be louder than any special interests, when they really shout!

It is time to demand legislation that will return us to below 350 ppm CO2 equivalent - the safe upper limit in the atmosphere.  As part of the solution, it is time to demand legislation that can achieve 100% renewable electricity in 10 years.

References:

1. See my calculation using data from Table ES-2, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990 – 2006, Published April 15, 2008.  Confirmed by World Resources Institute analysis
2. IPCC AR4 WGIII. Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007), chapter 13, Box 13.7 on page 776
3. See page 4 of the analysis by International Rivers and Rainforest Action Network, and also the references given in Payal Parekh's response to a comment at the bottom of http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/4223
4. Anderson K, Bows A. Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends. Philos Transact R. Soc. A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2008 Nov 13;366(1882):3863-82.
5. IPCC AR4 WGI (2007): Solomon SD, Qin D, Manning M, Chen Z, Marquis M, Averyt KB, Tignor M, and Miller HL (eds), Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007), Chapter 7.3
6. Houghton, R.A., 2003a: Revised estimates of the annual net fl ux of carbon to the atmosphere from changes in land use and land management 1850-2000. Tellus, 55B(2), 378–390.
7. Houghton, R.A., 2003b: Why are estimates of the terrestrial carbon balance so different? Global Change Biol., 9, 500–509.
8. Maycock, Paul F. "Forest." World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia. 2004.
9. Facts about Rainforests  http://www.nature.org/rainforests/explore/facts.html
10. E. O. Wilson, 2002, The Future of Life, Vintage ISBN 0-679-76811-4
11. Ron Nielsen, The Little Green Handbook: Seven Trends Shaping the Future of Our Planet, Picador, New York (2006) ISBN 978-0312425814
12. Burping a Lake, Article #1094, by Carla Helfferich, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks
13. Hansen, J., Mki. Sato, P. Kharecha, D. Beerling, R. Berner, V. Masson-Delmotte, M. Pagani, M. Raymo, D.L. Royer, and J.C. Zachos, 2008: Target atmospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim? Open Atmos. Sci. J., 2, 217-231.
14. Accoring to the same table as reference 2 above, to stabilize at 650 ppm CO2-eq, the emission reduction targets relative to 1990 levels are:
    

    Region: Annex 1 countries
    2020: 0% to -25%
    2050: -30% to -80%

    Region: non-Annex 1 countries
    2020: Baseline
    2050: Deviation from baseline in Latin America and MIddle East, East Asia

    The Waxman-Markey targets fall right in this range, so at best we'll be stabilizing at 650 ppm - or not!