Comments Tatrus has made

  • Misunderstanding

    Joe I think you are misunderstanding the point of the article and putting yourself at the opposite extremity, whereas a balanced solution is what is required.  I have been taught by Prof. Green at McGill and argued with him extensively on carbon pricing and trading.  He does firmly believe that a technology focused policy and carbon tax are necessary for reducing the effects of climate change.  The IPCC in their scenarios do include energy efficiency advances and decarbonization that as you have said have been a part of a global trend for decades.  The important point of the article is that this can be misleading to policy makers who see only the difference between the scenarios and a specific ppm target.  Furthermore there are a number of technology breakthroughs that would be required to significantly reduce global emissions by 80% that include more advanced grids that can deal with fluctuating renewable energy sources, better batteries to store solar and wind power during off peak hours, and possibly carbon sequestration technologies that can reverse the damage we have already caused.  To say that we have all of the technologies today to reduce emissions efficiently and economically, I think you would agree is naive.  So technology investment should be a very significant part of any climate policy, and although carbon pricing can help spur such investment it does not place enough emphasis on the need for breakthroughs.  Many policy makers, using the IPCC scenarios are underestimating the amount of technology advancements and current technology deployment that is required. This is the warning that I think should be taken from the article.        On Does the IPCC dangerously assume 'spontaneous' decarbonization? posted 1 year, 7 months ago 6 Responses

  • CDM

    I would just like to comment on your assessment of the CDM.  Projects seeking registration by the Executive Board of the CDM go through a strict process of approval, first by credited organizations such as DNV and then by the Executive Board itself, with the possibility of review and subsequent rejection if they are not deemed registration-worthy.  Furthermore, the validity of the credits are assessed annually before they are granted.  The fact is that a fraudulent CDM is a common misconception, projects go through a rigid approval process and therefore very few if any are fraudulent.  
    It has also been argued that the majority of the projects generated by the CDM have been high value gases with high Global Warming Potentials such as HFCs.  Although this was a trend during the initial stages of the CDM this has now changed with the number of renewable energy and energy efficiency projects rapidly rising. (go to cd4cdm.org it has a database of all of the projects in the pipeline)
    CDM has a number of significant advantages as it enables an international treaty to include the developing world even if they are not required to set actual targets.  The problem with an auction scheme and the lack of a trading system is that it is only based domestically and thus does not take advantage of gains in efficiency through the trade of permits with developing nations where it is cheaper to make reductions.
    One possible way to include developing nations in setting targets is to allow them to set voluntary targets.  If they go beyond these goals they can sell the extra credits on the market.  They are compelled to set aggressive targets in order to attract foreign investment.  This is known as the sector approach as voluntary targets are set for each sector - a comprehensive review is available from the center for clean air policy by Schmidt.
    Furthermore the sheer number of companies in the US would make a bidding scheme very difficult as many of the smaller companies would be unable to compete for credits with the larger players, this would force them to pay significant fines.
    I would personally rather have money in the hands of a few thousand carbon traders that are providing a service than one government.   On The major differences between carbon pricing plans are political posted 1 year, 9 months ago 16 Responses