Comments Tom Athanasiou has made

Steve;

Great post.  I want to particularly commend you for your explanation of why cutting consumption subsides -- which generally serve to improve that access of the poor to energy services -- is "not the place to start." 

I also want to support your caution against getting this wrong, in terms of taking something that should be brilliant -- the elimination of fossil subsides -- and turning it into a device for pressuring the South in the Copenhagen negotiations.

"a negotiating tactic designed to show that the developing world has plenty of funds available to adapt to climate change and invest in clean energy, if only they would stop making energy affordable for their populations"

Personally, I'm living in hope, and betting that things don't get that bad.  I mean, damn, would that be stupid!

-- toma

All very interest, but ...

Tom A here.  

Thanks for all the attention, Gar, and I feel that I should weigh in, but this innovation debate is getting a bit specialized for me.

Let me just make two points.

First, as I said in response to your last posting, we see a role for trading, but

We do not dismiss fund based system, or taxes.   Indeed we think they're going to be essential, and that the most viable mix of financial institutions will almost certainly include both, as well as taxes, regulation in great heaping gobs, mandated civil-society participation, and much else.  

Second, I do want to say that there are lots of reasons to oppose trading that have quite vanished from this conversation.  One of them is that trading is typically (but not necessarily) something that happens between private actors.  Which is, of course, code for "corporations."  And particularly with regard to activities that involve weak local communities -- eg forest communities -- this can be a very bad idea.

Anyway, there's a lot going on here, and I don't really have much to add.  Except the belief that we have got to find a fair, efficient, institutionally and politically viable means of moving lots of money around the planet.  My sense is that there is not going to be one such solution, but rather a kind of mixed economy that involves cap and auction, trading, levies on trading, development funds, tech transfer deals, a layered system of regulations, carbon taxes and so on.  And my interest is in making sure the whole mess, taken together, is capable of supporting an emergency transition.

So, sure, trading is a problem.  But we are running out of time folks.  And it's not the only problem.  

As a friend of mine just said, "The politics of emergency are the politics of solidarity."  In that context, we can solve these problems.  At least that's what I choose to believe.

-- toma

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

Here's the real link

Sorry.  My bad.  The link the version of the article that is not behind a paywall is http://www.ippr.org/articles/?id=3022

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

So, how do we do this thing?

Jon;

In terms of "how to do this" thing, well that is the question isn't it?   I'm a bit tired at the moment (maybe I should get some of those chocolates that keep Dave going), so I'll only say a few brief things.

1. I do not believe the problem is fundamentally a technological one.  Which is not to say that we've already invented / innovated all the stuff we need, but we can.  We are clever.  

2. That said, the emissions reductions that we now need are so daunting that the techies and modelers among us need to do some "existence proofs."  Just so we know for sure that we can, say, do this w/o nukes.

3. The real problems, though, are political and, more to the point, social.  The only way we're going to rise to this occasion is by acting, really acting, like we're in it together.  If we do so, the regulatory and institutional problems can be solved.  At least this is my belief.  In this sense the real key words in my new essay are the ones that Jon skipped over:

Politically this can only happen in a progressive manner (not in the sense of "progressive politics" but in the sense of "progressive tax") as part of a package that mobilizes the longing for economic justice as well as the drive for climate stabilization. In other words, we need a new deal that's not limited to climate protection, but also reforms "development" and drives poverty alleviation in the wealthy world as well as the poor.

Maybe I'm a fool but I really believe this.  We're not going to get out of here without a global New Deal.  And we're not going to get one unless we get one here in the US as well.  

But we already know that, don't we?

-- toma

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

Yes, yes, yes...

And don't forget to draw the larger conclusion as well, one that should be, but is not, obvious -- the urgent condition of rich/poor politics in the US will make it quite impossible for us, as a nation, to rise to the climate challenge unless progressive (as in "progressive taxation") approaches come to take center stage.  

-- toma

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

Reply to easterbunny

Actually, it wouldn't cost that much, not as a percentage of Gross World Product.  In fact there is  good reason to think that an investment about the same size as the global military budget -- which is about 2.5% of GWP, would do the job.  

Of course you would have to raise that money in a "progressive" fashion so as to not hurt the poor. But a carbon stabilization regime with progressive financing mechanisms is hardly the same as the end of capitalism.

-- toma

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

Yes but ...

Ross, I agree with most all of what you say, but, for me, the necessary punchline never quite came.  

The closest you got was when you said:

The only antidote to that kind of future is a revitalization of government -- an elevation of public mission above private interest and an end to the free-market fundamentalism that has blinded much of the American public with its mindless belief in the divine power of markets.

You almost do this, too, when you say:

Fortuitously, the timing of the climate crisis does coincide with other worldwide trends. Like it or not, the economy is becoming globalized. The globalization of communications now makes it possible for anyone to communicate with anyone else anywhere else in the world. And, since it is no respecter of national boundaries, the global climate makes us one.

Sitting here in Bali, waiting to go home to my wife and son (and yes, it's a real  problem knowing what to say and not say in front of him) it's painful to read anything as good as your screed that does not finally get down to geo-economic basics.  Or, for that matter, does not make the essential point that other people are actually trying to do just that.  But that we, in the guise our our government, are still hacking away, pursuing their frankly evil form of slash and burn republicanism.  

Still, once again, the good guys -- and there are so many -- almost outnumber them.  And (my point) we still have a shot at this.  But there's a storm coming.  There damn well better be.  Especially in the US.  We Americans may not, alone, have the power to tip this system into another regime, but we have a good deal of it.  

We need a global new deal.  And it's not going to happen unless Americans step up.  

I still thing that we're going to rise to the occasion.  But it's not going to be easy.  Because we have to start bay paying our share of the bill. Keep that in mind when you real the coming Bali post-morta, and they'll make a whole lot more sense.

-- toma

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

I tried it on my son

Last week I got a call from a journalist who was doing an article on the anxiety and depression problems that she was having because of the climate crisis.  After talking for a while, we agreed that the real reason she was so depressed is that she felt powerless.  In other words, she'd already gotten the memo about building a better future, but was obsessing on the fact that other people (she kept talking about SUVs and styrofoam) seemed to her to be determined to avert their eyes for as long as possible.  

That is to say, it was the everyday denialists surrounding her, as much as the crisis itself, that were freaking her out.  

I filed this as interesting, but it didn't really sink in until a few days later, when I was talking to my 11 year old son.  Climate came up, as it often does around our house.  I gave him a mixed but optimistic rap, focusing on the positive, "we can make a better world: angle.  And he replied in words quite like the journo's.  In effect: "Yeah, sure dad, but most people don't want to change, so what makes you think it's going to happen?"

Stopped me in my tracks a bit.

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

Thanks for this

This made my day.  I'm going to go around saying "bizarre fugue state" for days.

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

This just in, and relevant too

This just in (posted by Larry Lohmann on an anti-trading list) and relevant too:

ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE THROWS IN THE TOWEL ON CDM

Environmental Defense, the corporate-oriented US NGO that was one of the architects of both the US sulfur dioxide trading program and global carbon trading schemes, now admits that the Clean Development Mechanism is "increasingly incompatible with the environmental imperative presented by the latest climate science".

"The CDM simply shifts emissions from one part of the world to another without any net reduction in global emissions," the organization said.

It added that the CDM has also "effectively eliminated any incentive" for less industrialized countries to "generate greater emissions reductions".

Environmental Defense's recantation came in an article by research fellow Kyle Meng in September's Carbon Finance magazine.

The organization puts forward several proposals for "reform" of the CDM. On close examination, however, they are largely proposals to begin phasing out or reducing the role of CDM credits in the market.

The group proposes, for example, a "value-added" CDM involving retiring or withholding a certain proportion of CDM credits from the carbon market, so that they cannot continue to be used to license emissions in the industrialized world.

Environmental Defense also says it will be necessary to "'sunset' access to the CDM for large-emitting developing economies -- that is, to phase out their access to the CDM entirely".

In addition, the group suggests paying off Southern countries for bypassing the CDM and joining a global cap-and-trade scheme instead. The payoff would come in the form of emissions allowances "set slightly above its level of current national emissions". The payoff would supposedly be used to "finance rapid pathways to low-carbon economic growth" and enable participation in global carbon trading, "while saving significantly on transaction costs by avoiding project-level additionality requirements".

I would say that was progress, or "learning by doing" as the (evidently) say at the World Bank.  I would also say that CDM was such a pig that we should have been able to learn more easily, but what do I know?

-- toma

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

Question re: Arctic ice and Greenland

Joe, will Greenland pass its tipping point if the Arctic sea ice went?  I have been told that it is "generally understood" that this is the case.  What say you?

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

Actually, there's another problem too

Gar;

You say that,

The fundamental problem with offset trading is that compliance is less transparent than a tax or auctioned permit system or even old-fashioned, non-market regulation.

To which I have a few immediate replies:

First, it's good to hear this kind of focus in the anti-trading debate.  Often, the critiques of trading cite lots of problem, all at the same time, and all overlapping to boot.  This makes it very difficult to separate out the key issues.

I actually think that there are two fundamental problems.  The one you note is one of them, or part if it, because it leads to the capture of the mechanism by the Cap and Grandfather crowd, i.e, the corps. Though in truth there is more to this capture than a lack of transparency.

The other fundamental problem, I think, is even more fundamental.  And it's not just a problem with trading either.  It's the "buying their way out" problem.  I'm not talking about "indulgences" either. I'm talking about the rich (people or countries) BUYING environmental space from the poor (people or countries) in order to avoid making reductions.

That's the most fundamental danger, here. And it would remain the most fundamental danger even if there was no emissions trading at all.  

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

OK, about Contraction and Convergence...

Bill;

Look, C&C was a good idea.  It got me and lots of other people off their butts and moved them to take "equity for survival" seriously.  And it's still useful in lots of ways, including as a teaching tool.  But there are real reasons why it hasn't taken off, and something about your tone tells me that maybe it's time for you to take a step back and think about them.

Don't mistake me.  I don't mean to be a piss ant.  It's just that I think that we in the "equity party" have got to get serious.  To that end, and in case it helps, here's a link to a little report -- it sports the snappy tile of A Brief, Adequacy and Equity-Based Evaluation of Some Prominent Climate Policy Frameworks and Proposals -- that EcoEquity just wrote for the Heinrich Boell Foundation in Berlin.  HBF, in case you don't know, is the major German Green foundation and has supporters of C&C on its staff.

In this report, we briefly consider six approaches to a post-Kyoto climate regime, all of which claim to be fair.  We evaluate each of them on its own terms, and also in terms of its ability, or potential ability, to deliver the all-important quality that we call "developmental equity."

We say "frameworks and proposals" because one of our six, the Climate Action Network's "Viable Framework for Preventing Dangerous Climate Change," is too general to be a taken as a proposal.  In fact, two of the others, the South-North Dialogue's "Equity in the Greenhouse" proposal and our own "Greenhouse Development Rights," can be considered as attempts to flesh out the CAN framework.

In any case, these six (the others include "Contraction and Convergence" and the Vatttenfall Proposal, which is notable because it was just made by a major European utility) were chosen because they all have something of a political profile, and, of course, because they all claim to be based on explicit equity principles.  In this they're notably different from most other approaches now in play and under development, and considering them as a group turns out be instructive.

And, yes, one of the six is our own Greenhouse Development Rights, but we think that you'll find that, in evaluating it, we've been fair.  I hope that you'll also appreciate the we've tried to be fair to C&C.

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

Best ever?

I would have to say "no."

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

De Facto or De Jure

Bill;

I agree with you that we need a system that takes responsibility and capacity-to-pay properly into account, not as as declaration of culpability and a step towards reparations but as a matter of realism.  

My current one liner on this is that we need to think in terms of an emergency program to stabilize the climate.  Such a program has to take rights, responsibility, and capacity to pay (wealth) properly into account. Obviously, the steps that are possible in the next few years are not going to be explicitly consistent with such an approach.  But we are going to have find our way to one none-the-less.  

At the minimum, we need a place to stand, a place from which to judge what is actually taking place around us.  More particularly, it will not be possible sustain the emergency program that we need unless it is widely (globally) seen as being "fair enough."

As a slogan, we advocate climate justice as a matter of realism.

I disagree, by the way, that Contraction and Convergence is the right model for such a program, but I don't want to sound like a broken record, so I won't give you the Greenhouse Development Rights rap.  You can check the EcoEquity website for more info if you like.

Be well, toma

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

My letter to the editor

Don't know if they'll print it; it's probably too long.  So what the hell.  Here it is.

First up, great job. I hope it's the beginning of a new engagement, by The Nation, with the "climate issue."

I only have one criticism, and it's mostly by way of noting an omission. It would have been good to have one more article, focused on the battles raging within and around the international climate negotiations themselves, as we gear up for the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol (2012) and the shaping of the "post Kyoto" regime. This battle, rarely foregrounded by the US movement, has to be understood if climate politics as a whole is to be intelligible, or to understand the significance and limits of our own national responses. This is, moreover, true for that very interesting reason that the international climate policy impasse is, fundamentally, an impasse between the rich and the poor worlds.

Mark Hertsgaard got closest to this territory with his talk about "climate change reparations" and his discussion of the all important matter of responsibility. But he only began to follow the thread. Yes, it's true that climate change will be a humanitarian catastrophe, and that the rich world will be largely responsible for the poor world's adaptation, to the extent that such adaptation is even possible. But the rich world will, by any reasonable calculus, also be responsible for most of the necessary mitigation, and not just within its own territories. This for the bone-crushingly obvious reason that the global carbon budget is just about exhausted, and that the "development" it purchased is, by and large, ours to enjoy.

Within the negotiations, with their unenviable mandate to contrive a "global burden sharing" scheme that might actually work, the logic of international obligation is so well known as to be axiomatic. The pragmatists, of course, do their best to ignore it, but it's really not possible. When we signed and ratified the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change, we accepted an obligation to prevent "dangerous climate change," one in which the United States, like all nations, would act "on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities." That last word, "capabilities," is of course code for wealth, and everyone knows it.

There's lots of talk in climate circles about how post-Bush America will bring "US leadership" back onto the international stage. In fact, such leadership will only be accepted when the US begins to meet its true obligations. When it stands to advocate a global climate regime that is actually fair, or at least fair enough. And it's past time for us to talk about just what such a regime would entail.

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

Monbiot

I haven't read HEAT yet, though I do have it in my stack.  But I've been reading Monbiot for a while now, and I think the problem might be that he secretly, in his heart of hearts, thinks that we are doomed.

If I was a catholic, I might say that this was a sin.

I tend to agree with you, but I'm hoping you don't overstate you case.  This is not going to be easy.

-- toma

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

Hold on a minute

Let's just be clear about one thing, ok.  All you foks who are so attentive to the need for nice positive framing are RIGHT, but so is Ben Pearson from Greenpace.

This is not going to be easy.  And not because we can't afford to save the world or any crap like that. It's not going to be easy because there are going to be what economists call "distributional" problems.  

Two quick points:

1. The right "framing" is that saving the world is going to cost maybe 1% of Gross World Product, or maybe 2%, and that it's cheap at twice the price!

2. The problem is that this is a GLOBAL problem, and that the people in the rich world -- or more precisely the rich people -- are going to have to pay the bulk of the cost.  

-- toma

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

Clauswitz called it "friction"

I once thought a lot about this.  What I figure Amory is missing is an appreciation for what Karl Von Clauswitz (in "On War") called "friction."  That is to say, things just don't work out, in practice, not in the smooth way you think they're going to.  Reality is to multivarient, too contradictory, too ornery.

Thus the general, dreaming over his charts, does not consider muddy tracks, missed rendevous, divided loyalies.

Also, you gotta think that Lovins, just because he is so bright, might be particularly prone to this sort of error.

On the other hand, he might just be doing what he does best.  After all, he has his greatest impact by stayone on message.

-- toma

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org