Like sparring siblings, China and the United States — the world’s two biggest carbon dioxide emitters — keep passing the climate-action buck back and forth: “Why should I cut emissions if they don’t have to?” Well, China is either the more mature of the pair, or just majorly sucking up to Mama Earth. The country is reportedly gearing up to set firm limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, seriously weakening one of the U.S.’s go-to excuses for climate inaction.
China’s powerful National Development and Reform Commission has proposed an absolute cap on emissions starting in 2016. The proposal still needs to be accepted by the Chinese cabinet, but experts say the commission’s influence makes it likely to pass. China today also announced the details of trial carbon-trading programs that will roll out in seven regions by 2014. In February, the country had said it would implement a carbon tax, but backed off a few weeks later, saying it will wait until early next year to get started on that.
The commission’s carbon-cap proposal calls for Chinese emissions to peak in 2025, five years earlier than previously planned. RenewEconomy explains:
China has already pledged to cut its emissions intensity – the amount of Co2 it emits per economic unit – by up to 45 per cent by 2020. The significance of an absolute cap is that it promises to rein in emissions even if the economy grows faster than expected.
A Chinese carbon cap could shake up future international climate negotiations, The Independent reports:
It marks a dramatic change in China’s approach to climate change that experts say will make countries around the world more likely to agree to stringent cuts to their carbon emissions in a co-ordinated effort to tackle global warming. …
“Such an important move should encourage all countries, and particularly the other large emitters such as the United States, to take stronger action on climate change. And it improves the prospects for a strong international treaty being agreed at the United Nations climate change summit in 2015,” added Lord [Nicholas] Stern, [chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics.]
The 2015 summit will take place in Paris. Previous U.N. climate talks have played out according to a familiar pattern: high hopes giving way to deadlock and failure. When the world’s largest emitters refuse to agree to limits on emissions, it makes the commitments of smaller countries somewhat pointless. U.K. Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey told The Independent:
I’m really much more confident than many people about our ability to get an ambitious climate change deal done in 2015. Obama in his second term clearly wants to act on this and there has been a fantastic and dramatic change in America’s position. Taken together with China’s change, the tectonic plates of global climate change negotiations are really shifting.
Located in Emeryville, CA, scsglobalservices is a global leader in third-party environmental, sustainability and food quality certification, auditing, testing and standards development. We are positioned for growth and are looking for a positive, energetic and organized individual who is excited about being a part of our team and looking for an opportunity to help us promote sustainability.
Roles and Responsibilities
• Communicate professionally with existing, new, and potential U.S. and international clients about the certification process and requirements;
• Assist with preparation of proposals for certification evaluations;
• Manage a consistent work flow of scheduling, written notifications, and record-keeping;
• Maintain well-organized filing systems (both paper and electronic) and databases;
• Perform quality control activities to assure database accuracy and consistency;
• Communicate with international representatives and partners
• Participate in planning and implementation of programmatic initiatives especially in regards to record-keeping and compliance with SCS quality management systems and the rules of the FSC;
• Ensure documentation related to auditing (e.g., work orders, contracts, reports) is properly executed and maintained;
• Assist Program Managers with invoicing, budgeting and book-keeping
• Communicate with stakeholders regarding upcoming audits, complaints, and other issues
• Other duties and responsibilities as assigned.
•
• Minimum Qualifications
• Bachelor’s Degree in relevant field;
• Ability to work well independently or in team-oriented situations 5 days per week at our Emeryville office;
• High degree of computer skills and proficiency with Outlook, Word, Excel and basic database management;
• Complete fluency in English with high level of proficiency in written & verbal communications;
• Superlative organizational skills, ability to prioritize numerous tasks effectively;
• Accuracy, attention to detail, and the ability to proof your own work; Personal characteristics/abilities if required (e.g. Strong initiative and ability to work independently)
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office including Microsoft Word and Excel
Additional Preferred Skills
• Proficiency of a second language, especially Spanish, Portuguese, German, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, or Indonesian.
• Experience with ISO standards, supply chains and/or the certified products industry;
• Demonstrated commitment to SCS’s mission (environmental sustainability, natural resource conservation);
• Previous pricing/cost analysis experience;
SCS recently earned B Corporation Certification. Being a B Corp allows SCS to be publicly recognized for our efforts to incorporate environmental, social and employee benefits into our mission. SCS currently provides services under 16 internationally recognized accreditations. In addition, SCS was named in both 2010 and 2011 as one of Inc. Magazine's 5000 fastest growing companies in the US.
Politicians, lobbyists, and tourists alike can ride bicycles along a specially marked lane between the White House and the U.S. Capitol, part of the 115 miles of bicycle lanes and paths that now crisscross Washington, D.C. In Copenhagen, commuters can ride to work following a “green wave” of signal lights timed for bikers. Residents in China’s “happiest city,” Hangzhou, can move easily from public transit onto physically separated bike tracks that have been carved out of the vast majority of roadways. And on any given Sunday in Mexico City, some 15,000 cyclists join together on a circuit of major thoroughfares closed to motorized traffic. What is even more exciting is that in each of these locations, people can jump right into cycling without even owning a bicycle. Welcome to the era of the bikeshare.
Cyclists have long entreated drivers to “share the road.” Now what is being shared is not only the road but the bicycle itself. Forward-thinking cities are turning back to the humble bicycle as a way to enhance mobility, alleviate automotive congestion, reduce air pollution, boost health, support local businesses, and attract more young people. Bike-sharing systems — distributed networks of public bicycles used for short trips — that integrate into robust transit networks are being embraced by a growing number of people in the urbanizing world who are starting to view car ownership as more of a hassle than a rite of passage.
Today more than 500 cities in 49 countries host advanced bike-sharing programs, with a combined fleet of over 500,000 bicycles. Urban transport adviser Peter Midgley notes that “bike sharing has experienced the fastest growth of any mode of transport in the history of the planet.” It certainly has come a long way since 1965, when 50 bicycles were painted white and scattered around Amsterdam for anyone to pick up and use free of charge. Unfortunately, many of those bikes quickly disappeared or were damaged. In the 1990s, several Danish cities began more formal systems, with designated racks and coin deposits to check out bicycles. Copenhagen’s famed Bycyklen (“City Bike”) program, which has been an inspiration to many cities, finally closed at the end of 2012 after operating for 17 years with more than 1,000 bicycles. It is set to be replaced by a modern system in 2013, which could help Copenhagen meet its goal of increasing the share of commuting trips on bike from an already impressive 36 percent to 50 percent.
Modern bike-sharing systems have greatly reduced the theft and vandalism that hindered earlier programs by using easily identified specialty bicycles with unique parts that would have little value to a thief, by monitoring the cycles’ locations with radio frequency or GPS, and by requiring credit card payment or smart-card-based membership in order to check out bikes. In most systems, after paying a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual membership fee, riders can pick up a bicycle locked to a well-marked bike rack or electronic docking station for a short ride (typically an hour or less) at no additional cost and return it to any station within the system. Riding longer than the program’s specified amount of time generally incurs additional fees to maximize the number of bikes available.
Although the Netherlands and Denmark had far more pervasive cycling cultures, it was France that ushered the world into the third generation of bike sharing in 1998, when advertising company Clear Channel began the world’s first public computerized program with 200 bikes in the city of Rennes. The country moved into the big leagues in 2005 when Lyon, France’s third largest city, opened its Vélo’v program with 1,500 bikes at some 100 automated self-service docking stations. Its success — an apparent 44 percent increase in bicycle ridership in the first year — paved the way for large-scale bike sharing’s early shining star: the Vélib’ in Paris.
Vélib’ was launched in 2007 with 10,000 bicycles at 750 stations, and it quickly doubled in size. By the end of 2012, Vélib’, which is funded in a 10-year contract with advertising firm JCDecaux in exchange for street-side ad space, could claim more than 224,000 annual members and had surpassed 130 million trips. Since the system’s launch, the number of cyclists on the streets has risen 41 percent, with more than one out of every three bicycles on Paris streets being a shared bike. With bikes accounting for just 3 percent of traffic, though, there is still room for growth, and that is the plan. Bike sharing is part of a broader initiative to reduce automotive traffic and pollution in Paris, which includes closing prominent streets to cars on weekends, reducing speed limits, marking dedicated bus lanes to help move people en masse more efficiently, and extending the bike-lanes network to 430 miles (700 kilometers) by 2014 — all championed by Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, who has said that “automobiles no longer have a place in the big cities of our times.”
Meanwhile, programs were popping up throughout Italy and Spain like mushrooms after a rainfall. According to figures maintained by Peter Midgley, Italy had 47 bike-sharing programs in 2007, Spain had 36, and France had 18. Many were smaller scale, with tens of bikes rather than thousands. But a few stand out. Spain’s signature program in Barcelona became so popular soon after its launch in 2007 — getting many new riders to try bike commuting for the first time — that by 2008 it had quadrupled its fleet to 6,000 bikes and planned extensions to the surrounding communities. Seville also began bike sharing in 2007 as part of a rapid transformation to make the central city more accommodating to people, not just cars. In less than five years, cycling leapt from close to nothing to cover 6 percent of trips. As of late 2012, Spain leads the world with 132 separate bikeshare programs. Italy has 104, and France, 37. With a wave of new openings in 2009 and 2010, Germany joined the group of leading countries and now has 43 programs, including some with stationless bikes that can be located and accessed by mobile phone.
Other European countries have fewer programs, but some are very active. Dublin’s 550-bike system boasts a high membership and frequent rides on each bike. London’s Barclays Cycle Hire system launched in 2010 with 6,000 bikes and has grown beyond 8,000. As part of Mayor Boris Johnson’s “cycling revolution,” London is introducing several new cycle paths and “superhighways” in hopes of doubling the number of cycling trips within the next decade. In the Netherlands, a different breed of bike sharing run by the national railroad makes some 5,000 bikes available at more than 240 rail stations and other popular commuting spots. In Eastern Europe, which appears to be on the brink of a bike-sharing bonanza, Warsaw opened a program in August 2012 with 1,000 bikes that were ridden 130,000 times in that first month. The city now has some 2,500 shared bikes.
Bike-sharing enthusiasm has spread to Eastern Asia, Australia, and the Americas as well. Russell Meddin, who along with Paul DeMaio has chronicled and mapped the world’s bike-sharing programs, reports that even Dubai launched a program in February 2013.
In the Americas, where the car has long been king, the first big third-generation bike-sharing program opened in Montreal in 2009. It now has 5,120 bicycles and over 400 stations, facilitating use of the city’s robust network of bike lanes and paths. Toronto plans to expand its 1,000-bike scheme, and Vancouver and Calgary, along with several other Canadian cities, are expecting to start programs in the next couple of years.
When Mexico City launched its Ecobici program with some 1,000 bikes in 2010, it quickly reached its limit of 30,000 annual members and started a waiting list of eager would-be cyclists. The program has since quadrupled in size and remains the largest of Latin America’s dozen or so programs. Most of these are in Brazil; in fact, São Paulo even hosts multiple bike-sharing ventures. In Argentina, Buenos Aires opened a pilot program in 2010 and currently has 1,200 shared bikes, allowing more two-wheelers to brave the traffic, even crossing what is known as the world’s widest street. Santiago, Chile, currently has a program operating with 180 bikes at 18 manned stations in one city neighborhood, but later this year plans to roll out a larger automated system that could grow to 3,000 bikes at 300 stations within four years.
Throughout the United States bike-sharing programs are springing up at a fast clip; in fact it is hard to find a sizable U.S. city that is not at least exploring the bike-sharing option. As of April 2013, there were 26 active modern public programs in the United States, a number poised to double within the next year or two.
The largest U.S. program in early 2013 was Capital Bikeshare, with more than 1,800 bicycles spread across 200 stations in Washington, D.C., and neighboring communities. Nice Ride Minnesota, which covers the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, was second, with 1,550 bikes at 170 stations. The Boston metropolitan area is home to 1,100 shared bikes. Miami Beach is planning to add 500 bikes to its current fleet of 1,000 as it extends into Miami this year. And Denver, which is looking to grow from near 500 to 700 bikes in 2013, is one of more than 15 public systems in the B-cycle family that give members access to bikes when they travel to different cities, including Madison, Wis.; Fort Worth, Texas; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; San Antonio; Charlotte, N.C.; and Kansas City, Mo.
Several of the new players coming online in 2013 will dwarf the existing American field. New York’s highly anticipated Citi Bike program is poised to roll out 5,500 bicycles at 293 stations in Manhattan and Brooklyn in May, with the ultimate goal of reaching 10,000 bikes. Chicago plans to start in June, ramping up to 4,000 bikes at 400 stations in 2014. Southern California will be rolling into bike sharing in a big way with programs opening in Los Angeles (4,000 cycles), Long Beach (2,500), and San Diego (1,800). In northern California, a pilot project of up to 1,000 bikes in San Francisco and Bay Area cities south along the rail line hopes to begin what could ultimately be a 10,000-bike program.
Impressive as these additions are, they are hard-pressed to hold a candle to some of Asia’s massive developments. According to Susan Shaheen and colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley, Asia got into the game in 1999 with a program in Singapore that lasted until 2007. The city now has two bike-sharing systems: one conventional and one run by a car-sharing company offering electric bikes. South Korea rolled out six programs between 2008 and 2010, including one in Changwon that now has 4,600 bikes and one in Goyang with 3,000. Japan, where commuters have a long history of using bikes to get to train stations (witness the 2.1 million bicycle parking spaces in the Greater Tokyo metropolitan area), has nine bike-sharing programs that began between 2009 and 2012. Taiwan, a high-grossing bicycle exporter, has two bike-sharing programs as well. But it is the “bicycle kingdom” of China that is showing the world how big bike sharing can get.
In early 2013, China was home to 79 bike-sharing programs, with a whopping combined fleet of some 358,000 bicycles. According to a paper prepared in late 2012 for the Transportation Research Board’s 92nd annual meeting by Yang Tang and colleagues at Tongji University, expansions and new projects could soon balloon China’s public bike fleet to just under 1 million cycles.
The world’s largest bike-sharing program is in Wuhan, China’s sixth largest city, with 9 million people and 90,000 shared bikes. Wuhan recently claimed the No. 1 spot from Hangzhou, which has 69,750 bikes in its bikeshare scheme. Hangzhou launched mainland China’s first computerized bikeshare system in 2008, integrating stations with bus and subway networks, allowing the same transit card to be used across all modes and granting extra free bike-riding time with a bus transfer. By 2020, Hangzhou’s system could grow to 175,000 bikes.
The growth in bike sharing and bike infrastructure may help buck the pervasive motorization that has turned rush-hour roadways in China’s fast-growing cities into virtual parking lots. In Zhuzhou, after a program of 20,000 bikes opened in 2011, the share of trips made by bicycle — which had slipped to a meager (by Chinese standards) 5 percent — reportedly jumped to 10 percent. An estimated 70 percent of the bike trips were made on shared cycles. In Hangzhou, the cycling share dropped from 43 percent in 2000 to 34 percent in 2007, but then it rebounded to 37 percent by 2009 after bike sharing was introduced. In Beijing in the 1980s, more than half of all trips were made by bicycle; by 2007 this had fallen to 23 percent. Yet as more cars and trucks filled Beijing’s roads, the average car speed fell to less than 8 miles per hour in 2003, down from 28 in 1994. It is too early to gauge the impact of Beijing’s municipal bike-share program, which opened in 2012 with 2,000 cycles and plans to jump to 50,000 by 2015.
Bike-sharing cities are finding that promoting the bicycle as a transport option can lead to more mobility and safer streets for all. Bike-sharing programs are well positioned to hook people up with a bus or metro system, accommodating the last mile or so between home or work and mass transit. Having bikes ready to go on the streets encourages more people to try out biking, and once they experience its convenience, speed, and lower cost, they then advocate for further improvements to cycling infrastructure — like bike lanes, paths, and parking — making it even easier for more riders to join in. This “virtuous cycle” means that it is increasingly likely that bike sharing could soon show up in a city near you.
Job Overview
The position of Associate, Sustainability, in the Food and Agriculture division involves working directly with client-specific responsible sourcing programs, the C.A.F.E. and Cocoa Practices programs, Fair Trade USA and Veriflora certification (including Certified Greenhouse Farmers) programs, and other programs under development. The primary responsibilities of the Associate are related to auditing, report review, and providing guidance and training to auditors. The Associate is also responsible for development and continual improvement of standards, program materials and procedures related to new and preexisting programs.
Additionally, the Associate collaborates with the Director, Manager and other program personnel to develop new or review preexisting responsible sourcing programs for new and current clients. Further responsibilities may include research and development for new business opportunities and attendance at trade shows, conferences, and trainings.
Relevant Services/Schemes:
• C.A.F.E. and Cocoa Practices
• Fair Trade USA
• Veriflora
Roles and Responsibilities
Technical Support
• Provide support and manage web- and Excel-based reporting systems.
• Provide guidance and support in English, Spanish and/or Portuguese email and telephone correspondence with other third-party organizations and auditors.
• Prepare written guidance updates, letters, and audit reports for distribution to third-party auditing organizations and clients.
• Develop, translate, and edit program materials, reports, and report templates
• Develop and deliver training programs and related materials for third-party auditing organizations.
Auditing
• Conduct review and oversight of audit reports completed by staff auditors and regionally-based auditors.
• Conduct field audits as required.
• Conduct desk audits of submitted applications and follow-up interviews for third-party organizations seeking approved status for conducting audits against responsible sourcing criteria.
Communications
• Ensure communications between SCS auditors, other third-party auditing organizations, and other clients are carried out in a timely fashion.
• Attend trainings, trade shows, conferences, and meetings, as necessary.
Program Development
• Carry out outreach and marketing to recruit new clients and for development of new business areas.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues to develop responsible sourcing programs and CSR strategies for new and prospective clients.
Operations
• Assist Director and Manager with managing the workload for regional Lead Auditors.
• Ensure program compliance with SCS quality system.
• Represent the program for internal SCS initiatives, such as ISO accreditation, etc.
• Additional tasks as requested by the Director and Manager.
Minimum Qualifications
• Bachelors’ Degree in a related field required, graduate degree preferred.
• 3-5 years professional experience in relevant applied social and/or environmental fields; graduate degrees in relevant disciplines may be considered.
• High level of proficiency or fluency in Spanish and/or Portuguese.
• Overseas work or study experience, applied experience in the coffee and cocoa industry, and/or applied experience working with agricultural or manufacturing production systems.
• Excellent technical writing and/or copy editing skills and communication skills.
• Ability to complete time-sensitive projects and to provide realistic deadlines.
• Excellent organizational skills.
• Initiative and ability to work independently; responsive and adaptive personality.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office including Microsoft Word, Excel, and Power Point.
Additional Preferred Skills
• Proficiency in Vizio, FileMaker Pro, Outlook, and database management systems preferred.
• Relevant experience with farming, organic certification, GlobalGAP, grocery, or similar preferred.
• Preference for candidates with additional applicable language skills.
Egill Adalsteinsson/EPAGrimsvotn volcano erupts in Iceland in 2011. Solar radiation management schemes spray particles into the atmosphere to simulate cooling effects of volcanic eruptions.
Controversial geoengineering projects that may be used to cool the planet must be approved by world governments to reduce the danger of catastrophic accidents, British scientists said.
Met Office researchers have called for global oversight of the radical schemes after studies showed they could have huge and unintended impacts on some of the world’s most vulnerable people.
The dangers arose in projects that cooled the planet unevenly. In some cases these caused devastating droughts across Africa; in others they increased rainfall in the region but left huge areas of Brazil parched.
“The massive complexities associated with geoengineering, and the potential for winners and losers, means that some form of global governance is essential,” said Jim Haywood at the Met Office’s Hadley Center in Exeter.
The warning builds on work by scientists and engineers to agree to a regulatory framework that would ban full-scale geoengineering projects, at least temporarily, but allow smaller research projects to go ahead.
Geoengineering comes in many flavors, but among the more plausible are “solar radiation management” (SRM) schemes that would spray huge amounts of sun-reflecting particles high into the atmosphere to simulate the cooling effects of volcanic eruptions.
Volcanoes can blast millions of tons of sulphate particles into the stratosphere, where they stay aloft for years and cool the planet by reflecting some of the sun’s energy back out to space.
In 2009, a Royal Society report warned that geoengineering was not an alternative to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but conceded the technology might be needed in the event of a climate emergency.
Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, Haywood and others show that moves to cool the climate by spraying sulphate particles into the atmosphere could go spectacularly wrong. They began by looking at the unexpected impacts of volcanic eruptions.
In 1912 and 1982, eruptions first at Katmai in Alaska and then at El Chichón in Mexico blasted millions of tons of sulphate into northern skies. These eruptions preceded major droughts in the Sahel region of Africa. When the scientists recreated the eruptions in climate models, rainfall across the Sahel all but stopped as moisture-carrying air currents were pushed south.
Having established a link between volcanic eruptions in the northern hemisphere and droughts in Africa, the scientists returned to their climate models to simulate SRM projects.
The scientists took a typical project that would inject 5 million tons of sulphate into the stratosphere every year from 2020 to 2070. That amount of sulphate injected into the northern hemisphere caused severe droughts in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Chad, and Sudan, and an almost total loss of vegetation.
The same project had radically different consequences if run from the southern hemisphere. Rather than drying the Sahel, cooling the southern hemisphere brought rains to the Sahel and re-greened the region. But Africa’s benefit came at the cost of slashing rainfall in northeastern Brazil.
The unintended consequences of SRM projects would probably be felt much farther afield. “We have only scratched the surface in looking at the Sahel. If hurricane frequencies changed, that could have an impact on the U.S.,” said Haywood.
Matthew Watson, who leads the Spice project at Bristol University, said the study revealed the “dramatic consequences” of uninformed geoengineering.
“This paper tells us there are consequences for our actions whatever we do. There is no get-out-of-jail-free card,” he told the Guardian. “Whatever we do is a compromise, and that compromise means there will be winners and losers. That opens massive ethical questions: Who gets to decide how we even determine what is a good outcome for different people?
“How do you get a consensus with 7 billion-plus stakeholders? If there was a decision to do geoengineering tomorrow, it would be done by white western men, and that isn’t good.”
The discussion over geoengineering will continue on May 9 in Berkeley, Calif., when Grist co-sponsors a public debate between geogengineering promoter Ken Caldeira and critic Clive Hamilton. More info and tickets here.
A new report [PDF] from the International Monetary Fund tries to tally up fossil fuel subsidies around the world and finds that they add up to an eye-popping $1.9 trillion a year. That’s 2.5 percent of global GDP!
Brad Plumer has a typically lucid summary on the report’s conclusions, but I want to dig in a little on one part, because believe it or not, the IMF’s conclusion may be too conservative. The real truth about global fossil fuel subsidies may be more eye-popping yet.
So, where does that $1.9 trillion come from? Around $480 billion of it comes from direct subsidies, i.e., government handing out money. This is what people usually think of when they hear “subsidies.” Contrary to popular opinion, the developed world does very little of this kind of thing. Direct fossil fuel subsidies (“pre-tax” subsidies) are overwhelmingly concentrated in the developing world and mostly devoted to making petro-products affordable for poor people:
IMFClick to embiggen. (The details of this chart aren’t that important, but just for your edification: Adv. = Advanced, CEE-CIS = Central and Eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States, LAC = Latin America and Caribbean, S.S. Africa = Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA = Middle East and North Africa, and E.D. Asia = Emerging and Developing Asia.)
Those direct subsidies are a) a growing problem for the budgets of those countries, and b) a fraught and delicate political issue. Needless to say, people don’t like suddenly losing a big pot of financial assistance. They often retaliate by rioting or, you know, starving. The report contains a big section on ways that countries can wind back those subsidies without unduly hurting the poor. It’s interesting.
But my focus here is on the other $1.4 trillion, which is IMF’s tally of “the effects of energy consumption on global warming; on public health through the adverse effects on local pollution; on traffic congestion and accidents; and on road damage.” These are the “externalities” you’re always hearing about, and by failing to make fossil fuel companies pay for them, governments are implicitly subsidizing those companies. IMF says calls this under-taxing of fossil fuels “mispricing,” but it’s easier to think of them as indirect subsidies.
Indirect subsidies are much larger than direct subsidies — a point I have made before — and are concentrated in developed countries:
Among these externalities are the damages wrought by climate change. How much damage does a ton of carbon do? How large is that particular indirect subsidy? Climate damages are calculated based on the “social cost of carbon” (SCC). The IMF uses an SCC of $25 per ton, derived from the work of the U.S. Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Carbon [PDF].
So, for every ton of carbon that is emitted but not taxed, there is a $25 implicit subsidy.
However! There are good reasons to think that the real SCC is considerably higher than $25 a ton. I don’t want to bore you, but here are a few nerdy things to read if you want to dive in on the subject:
A white paper [PDF] from Ackerman and Elizabeth A. Stanton explains why the government’s SCC figure is almost certainly too low.
A peer-reviewed paper from Laurie Johnson and Chris Hope argues that a properly assessed SCC would be “2.6 to over 12 times larger” than the U.S. government’s official SCC.
I wrote here about what it would mean to accommodate stochastic change in the SCC (spoiler: it would be higher).
I wrote here about how discount rates shape (and misshape) the SCC. Guess what a more morally defensible discount rate would do to it? Yup, raise it.
I don’t want to pretend this is a settled matter — it is the subject of lively, ongoing academic debate — but I’m pretty convinced that the SCC used in the IMF’s report is hugely, misleadingly conservative. So what would happen if it weren’t?
Ackerman and Stanton write:
In the United Kingdom, which started estimating prices for carbon emissions several years ago, the government’s latest calculation is a range of $41-$124 per ton of CO2, with a central case of $83.
So, just for the sake of argument, say the IMF adopted an SCC of $83 — more than three times the figure it actually used. What would happen?
It’s hard to say precisely, since the IMF paper is not clear what portion of the indirect subsidies are carbon-related. (Or at least, I lack the fortitude to dig that info out.) I suspect it’s well over half, but to be conservative, let’s just say half. Based on my back-of-napkin calculations, if carbon were responsible for half the indirect subsidies, and the SCC were $83 instead of $25, the grand total of annual global fossil fuel subsidies would rise from $1.9 trillion to around $3.5 trillion.
Three and a half trillion dollars a year. That’s about 5 percent of global GDP. Crazy.
As enviro hero Paul Hawken is fond of saying, “we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP.” I can’t think of a better description of these fossil fuel subsidies. And when we use a more realistic cost for carbon damages, we get a better sense of just how much we are stealing from our descendents — trillions and trillions of dollars a year. The heedless radicalism and grotesque immorality of it are breathtaking.
A new report [PDF] from the International Monetary Fund tries to tally up fossil fuel subsidies around the world and finds that they add up to an eye-popping $1.9 trillion a year. That’s 2.5 percent of global GDP!
Brad Plumer has a typically lucid summary on the report’s conclusions, but I want to dig in a little on one part, because believe it or not, the IMF’s conclusion may be too conservative. The real truth about global fossil fuel subsidies may be more eye-popping yet.
So, where does that $1.9 trillion come from? Around $480 billion of it comes from direct subsidies, i.e., government handing out money. This is what people usually think of when they hear “subsidies.” Contrary to popular opinion, the developed world does very little of this kind of thing. Direct fossil fuel subsidies (“pre-tax” subsidies) are overwhelmingly concentrated in the developing world and mostly devoted to making petro-products affordable for poor people:
IMFClick to embiggen. (The details of this chart aren’t that important, but just for your edification: Adv. = Advanced, CEE-CIS = Central and Eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States, LAC = Latin America and Caribbean, S.S. Africa = Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA = Middle East and North Africa, and E.D. Asia = Emerging and Developing Asia.)
Those direct subsidies are a) a growing problem for the budgets of those countries, and b) a fraught and delicate political issue. Needless to say, people don’t like suddenly losing a big pot of financial assistance. They often retaliate by rioting or, you know, starving. The report contains a big section on ways that countries can wind back those subsidies without unduly hurting the poor. It’s interesting.
But my focus here is on the other $1.4 trillion, which is IMF’s tally of “the effects of energy consumption on global warming; on public health through the adverse effects on local pollution; on traffic congestion and accidents; and on road damage.” These are the “externalities” you’re always hearing about, and by failing to make fossil fuel companies pay for them, governments are implicitly subsidizing those companies. IMF says calls this under-taxing of fossil fuels “mispricing,” but it’s easier to think of them as indirect subsidies.
Indirect subsidies are much larger than direct subsidies — a point I have made before — and are concentrated in developed countries:
Among these externalities are the damages wrought by climate change. How much damage does a ton of carbon do? How large is that particular indirect subsidy? Climate damages are calculated based on the “social cost of carbon” (SCC). The IMF uses an SCC of $25 per ton, derived from the work of the U.S. Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Carbon [PDF].
So, for every ton of carbon that is emitted but not taxed, there is a $25 implicit subsidy.
However! There are good reasons to think that the real SCC is considerably higher than $25 a ton. I don’t want to bore you, but here are a few nerdy things to read if you want to dive in on the subject:
A white paper [PDF] from Ackerman and Elizabeth A. Stanton explains why the government’s SCC figure is almost certainly too low.
A peer-reviewed paper from Laurie Johnson and Chris Hope argues that a properly assessed SCC would be “2.6 to over 12 times larger” than the U.S. government’s official SCC.
I wrote here about what it would mean to accommodate stochastic change in the SCC (spoiler: it would be higher).
I wrote here about how discount rates shape (and misshape) the SCC. Guess what a more morally defensible discount rate would do to it? Yup, raise it.
I don’t want to pretend this is a settled matter — it is the subject of lively, ongoing academic debate — but I’m pretty convinced that the SCC used in the IMF’s report is hugely, misleadingly conservative. So what would happen if it weren’t?
Ackerman and Stanton write:
In the United Kingdom, which started estimating prices for carbon emissions several years ago, the government’s latest calculation is a range of $41-$124 per ton of CO2, with a central case of $83.
So, just for the sake of argument, say the IMF adopted an SCC of $83 — more than three times the figure it actually used. What would happen?
It’s hard to say precisely, since the IMF paper is not clear what portion of the indirect subsidies are carbon-related. (Or at least, I lack the fortitude to dig that info out.) I suspect it’s well over half, but to be conservative, let’s just say half. Based on my back-of-napkin calculations, if carbon were responsible for half the indirect subsidies, and the SCC were $83 instead of $25, the grand total of annual global fossil fuel subsidies would rise from $1.9 trillion to around $3.5 trillion.
Three and a half trillion dollars a year. That’s about 5 percent of global GDP. Crazy.
As enviro hero Paul Hawken is fond of saying, “we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP.” I can’t think of a better description of these fossil fuel subsidies. And when we use a more realistic cost for carbon damages, we get a better sense of just how much we are stealing from our descendents — trillions and trillions of dollars a year. The heedless radicalism and grotesque immorality of it are breathtaking.
A new report [PDF] from the International Monetary Fund tries to tally up fossil fuel subsidies around the world and finds that they add up to an eye-popping $1.9 trillion a year. That’s 2.5 percent of global GDP!
Brad Plumer has a typically lucid summary on the report’s conclusions, but I want to dig in a little on one part, because believe it or not, the IMF’s conclusion may be too conservative. The real truth about global fossil fuel subsidies may be more eye-popping yet.
So, where does that $1.9 trillion come from? Around $480 billion of it comes from direct subsidies, i.e., government handing out money. This is what people usually think of when they hear “subsidies.” Contrary to popular opinion, the developed world does very little of this kind of thing. Direct fossil fuel subsidies (“pre-tax” subsidies) are overwhelmingly concentrated in the developing world and mostly devoted to making petro-products affordable for poor people:
IMFClick to embiggen. (The details of this chart aren’t that important, but just for your edification: Adv. = Advanced, CEE-CIS = Central and Eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States, LAC = Latin America and Caribbean, S.S. Africa = Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA = Middle East and North Africa, and E.D. Asia = Emerging and Developing Asia.)
Those direct subsidies are a) a growing problem for the budgets of those countries, and b) a fraught and delicate political issue. Needless to say, people don’t like suddenly losing a big pot of financial assistance. They often retaliate by rioting or, you know, starving. The report contains a big section on ways that countries can wind back those subsidies without unduly hurting the poor. It’s interesting.
But my focus here is on the other $1.4 trillion, which is IMF’s tally of “the effects of energy consumption on global warming; on public health through the adverse effects on local pollution; on traffic congestion and accidents; and on road damage.” These are the “externalities” you’re always hearing about, and by failing to make fossil fuel companies pay for them, governments are implicitly subsidizing those companies. IMF says calls this under-taxing of fossil fuels “mispricing,” but it’s easier to think of them as indirect subsidies.
Indirect subsidies are much larger than direct subsidies — a point I have made before — and are concentrated in developed countries:
Among these externalities are the damages wrought by climate change. How much damage does a ton of carbon do? How large is that particular indirect subsidy? Climate damages are calculated based on the “social cost of carbon” (SCC). The IMF uses an SCC of $25 per ton, derived from the work of the U.S. Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Carbon [PDF].
So, for every ton of carbon that is emitted but not taxed, there is a $25 implicit subsidy.
However! There are good reasons to think that the real SCC is considerably higher than $25 a ton. I don’t want to bore you, but here are a few nerdy things to read if you want to dive in on the subject:
A white paper [PDF] from Ackerman and Elizabeth A. Stanton explains why the government’s SCC figure is almost certainly too low.
A peer-reviewed paper from Laurie Johnson and Chris Hope argues that a properly assessed SCC would be “2.6 to over 12 times larger” than the U.S. government’s official SCC.
I wrote here about what it would mean to accommodate stochastic change in the SCC (spoiler: it would be higher).
I wrote here about how discount rates shape (and misshape) the SCC. Guess what a more morally defensible discount rate would do to it? Yup, raise it.
I don’t want to pretend this is a settled matter — it is the subject of lively, ongoing academic debate — but I’m pretty convinced that the SCC used in the IMF’s report is hugely, misleadingly conservative. So what would happen if it weren’t?
Ackerman and Stanton write:
In the United Kingdom, which started estimating prices for carbon emissions several years ago, the government’s latest calculation is a range of $41-$124 per ton of CO2, with a central case of $83.
So, just for the sake of argument, say the IMF adopted an SCC of $83 — more than three times the figure it actually used. What would happen?
It’s hard to say precisely, since the IMF paper is not clear what portion of the indirect subsidies are carbon-related. (Or at least, I lack the fortitude to dig that info out.) I suspect it’s well over half, but to be conservative, let’s just say half. Based on my back-of-napkin calculations, if carbon were responsible for half the indirect subsidies, and the SCC were $83 instead of $25, the grand total of annual global fossil fuel subsidies would rise from $1.9 trillion to around $3.5 trillion.
Three and a half trillion dollars a year. That’s about 5 percent of global GDP. Crazy.
As enviro hero Paul Hawken is fond of saying, “we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP.” I can’t think of a better description of these fossil fuel subsidies. And when we use a more realistic cost for carbon damages, we get a better sense of just how much we are stealing from our descendents — trillions and trillions of dollars a year. The heedless radicalism and grotesque immorality of it are breathtaking.
The difficulties in debunking blatant anti-reality are legion. You can make up any old nonsense and state it in a few seconds, but it takes much longer to show why it’s wrong and how things really are.
This is coupled with how sticky bunk can be. Once uttered, it’s out there, bootstrapping its own reality, getting repeated by the usual suspects.
Case in point: The claim that there’s been no global warming for the past 16 years. This is blatantly untrue, a ridiculous and obviously false statement. But I see it over and again online, in op-eds, and in comments to climate change posts.
The good news is, Kevin C. from Skeptical Science has created a nice, short video showing just why this claim is such a whopper.
I like this: clear, to the point, and easy to understand. The bottom line is that temperatures continue to rise, and that human-caused greenhouse gas forcing of the climate has not even slowed, let alone stopped.
I’ll note that climate change deniers are still going on about climate scientists manipulating data. They’re even trying to cast doubt on the measurements showing 2012 is the hottest year on record in the U.S.! Which it was. The irony is rich; it’s a common tactic for deniers to accuse actual scientists of the very tactics the denialists use. It’s a level of chutzpah so high that even Yiddish can’t do it justice.
You want to hear about real manipulation? Media Matters reports that for the past four years, not once was a scientist on a Sunday morning news show to talk climate change. Those discussions were dominated by politicians or media people. Sauce for the goose: Media Matters found that every politician interviewed was a Republican. And since I’m at it, please, don’t bother with false equivalencies.
By the way, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is a climate change denier. And he’s taking over the congressional House Science Committee.
It’s more than incredible; it makes Orwell look like a piker.
Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings (GISR)/Boston, MA (Possibility for DC or negotiable)
Technical Programs Associate
The Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings (GISR – www.ratesustainability.org) is a joint project of Ceres and Tellus Institute, the organizations that co-founded the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The Technical Programs Associate is a new contract-based position that will be based in Boston, MA (preferred) or Washington, DC.
GISR’s mission is to create a world class corporate sustainability ratings standard as an instrument for transforming the definition of value and value creation by business in the 21st century in a way that aligns with the global sustainability agenda. Presently over 100 sustainability raters administer hundreds of questionnaires to thousands of companies worldwide. A single large company may receive 50 or more questionnaires annually, often seeking often duplicative information. This proliferation has confounded companies, created survey fatigue, and led to inconsistency and divergence in ratings outcomes among users of ratings. GISR and our partners have come together to address this challenge.
You can be part of a vibrant start-up workplace that welcomes diverse perspectives, independent work and follow through, analytical acumen, where a ‘can do’ attitude, innovation, technical rigor and a focus on results are rewarded.
Role
The Technical Programs Associate will support program staff on the US team based in Boston, MA and Washington DC and will provide technical support to GISR’s Technical Review Committee (TRC – http://ratesustainability.org/about/governance/).
The Technical Programs Associate plays a key role by supporting the TRC and the Secretariat with the goal of ensuring rigorous and timely inputs to decision-making and smooth operation of day-to-day activities. In addition, logistical support to GISR committees forms part of the Associate’s responsibilities. Work involves a diverse group of internal and external contacts, independent judgment, and effective time budgeting and diligent management of multi-tasks in a dynamic work environment.
Key Responsibilities
Technical and administrative activities include:
• Support Technical Review Committee (TRC) of GISR
• Technical tasks including:
- Mapping, research, analytical spreadsheet and database work in support of GISR Principles, Issues and Indicators
- Research and categorization of sustainability-related certification programs
- Research and database entry of sustainability ratings, rankings and indices
- Drafting technical memos for TRC and Secretariat
• Coordination of information requests from Program Manager and Co-Chair to ensure requests are met according to deadlines.
• Ensure regular TRC meetings are maintained and consistent.
• Ensure timeliness, consistency and quality in all work products.
• Work with Program Director and Co-Chair to track status of all pertinent projects and programs, including proposals, reports and meeting minutes.
Qualifications
• 3-5 five years working for a senior-level executive.
• BA/BS in a relevant field, with strong analytical/quantitative experience
• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to interface well with the various GISR committees, and staff from Ceres and Tellus Institute
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Well organized, motivated, and detail-oriented.
• Demonstrated poise, tact, and consistent follow through on assignments.
• Comfortable handling confidential information.
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision.
• Highly proficient in MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other software applications and willingness to learn others. Experience with SQL database development a plus.
• Initiative and problem solving skills.
• Native/Fluent English speaking and writing.
• Interest and/or experience in sustainability (ESG) ratings, research or analysis preferred.
Compensation: Low to mid US 40’s
Start date: February 2013
To apply, please email your cover letter, resume and a brief writing sample by January 15, 2013 to Kate Robinson, krobinson@tellus.org.
Due to the volume of employment applications and queries received, GISR is unable to respond to each application individually. Applicants will be contacted directly if selected as a candidate.
Like sparring siblings, China and the United States — the world’s two biggest carbon dioxide emitters — keep passing the climate-action buck back and forth: “Why should I cut emissions if they don’t have to?” Well, China is either the more mature of the pair, or just majorly sucking up to Mama Earth. The country is reportedly gearing up to set firm limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, seriously weakening one of the U.S.’s go-to excuses for climate inaction.
Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings (GISR)/Boston, MA (Possibility for DC or negotiable)