Health Care Legislation > Climate Change Legislation > Copenhagen Agreement on Emission Limits
President Obama's address on health care reform to joint session of Congress, as well as the rancorous reactions by some Republicans, leads me to the following inescapable conclusion: the chances of Congress passing climate change legislation in 2009 just got a lot dimmer. The President has essentially thrown down the gauntlet and staked his reputation -- indeed perhaps even his presidency -- on succeeding in passing comprehensive health care reform. We can expect a full court press by the White House to get a bill passed and signed into law. And given the obvious level of rancor and opposition, you can expect this to be an all-out brawl. That means that few resources will be diverted from this battle to pass climate change legislation. Senate leaders have already laid the groundwork for a hiatus on climate change legislation. Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) had been slated to introduce the bill after returning from the August recess. In a joint statement with Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), she said the bill is now expected “later in September.”
The senators cited several reasons why the bill is taking longer than expected, including the battle over health care legislation, which is expected to last well into the fall. Members of the Senate Finance Committee are deeply involved in health care talks but will also share jurisdiction over the climate change bill.
“Because of Senator Kennedy’s recent passing, Senator Kerry’s August hip surgery, and the intensive work on health care legislation particularly on the Finance Committee where Senator Kerry serves, Majority Leader Reid has agreed to provide some additional time to work on the final details of our bill, and to reach out to colleagues and important stakeholders,” the senators said.
Given that President Obama has now committed himself to getting health care passed this year, and the White House signaling financial regulation reform to be next in line for Congress after that, the earliest a floor vote on climate legislation could happen is November. In the interim, it remains to be seen how much prioritization towards that vote will be provided by Obama. Thus, rather than fail, it is quite likely the Obama administration will seek to have the debate put off until 2010.
In fact, as I've been writing this post, Inside EPA reports ("Senators Offer No Firm Plan For Passing Cap-And-Trade This Year")...
Senate leaders have set no firm deadline for committees to finish work on climate change legislation, Senate Environment & Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said September 9, a revelation that comes amid increasing talk that the chamber may be unable or unwilling to act on a controversial cap-and-trade plan before the end of the year given the host of other competing concerns vying for lawmakers’ attention, such as health care and pending foreign policy concerns.
What does this mean for the December meeting of the Conference of Parties in Copenhagen? Everyone should focus on Plan B. Without a US commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which India and China would agree to their own nationally appropriate GHG reduction commitments. And without China and India, a global agreement is not possible. Thus, the delegations meeting in Copenhagen should quickly consider other approaches that might make meaningful inroads into climate change. For example, a framework for negotiating mid-term emission limits within various sectors could be an outcome of this round, coupled with broad agreements aimed at reducing deforestation, reducing emission of black carbon, and carbon sequestration via conversion of crop stubble and dying trees to biochar. These techniques -- which have been discussed at length in prior postings -- would do more to reverse climate change than even the strongest emission limits could achieve. (“Why we need fast regulatory actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions,” Durwood Zaelke, April 21, 2009). They will be needed regardless of whether emission limits are adopted. I say focus on developing Plan B.
The Importance of Incentivizing the Agricultural Industry to Participate in Climate Change Response (and How Did We Forget About Biochar)?
There has been plenty of criticism - some warranted, some not - of new language, pushed by the farm lobby, governing carbon offsets in the climate change legislation. Prior to this amendment, precisely what qualified as an offset was unstated. EPA would be given responsibility for promulgating rules that would define offsets, within broad parameters set forth in the legislation. By contrast, Title V - "Agricultural and Forestry Related Offsets" - identifies an "initial list" of specific types of agricultural and forestry practices that would qualify as offsets, and gives the Department of Agriculture authority to establish a program governing the generation of offset credits from agricultural and forestry-based sources.
One critic asserts that the farming lobby is overreaching. Having already gotten a "free pass" as the "one major source" of carbon emissions not covered by the House climate bill, this critic chastises the farm lobby for demanding another "that they be allowed to earn some extra cash by reducing their carbon footprint on their farms and selling these 'offsets' to factories and power plants unlucky enough to be subject to the carbon cap regime." This is the classic example of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Offsets represent a critical tool in our arsenal for battling climate change. Thankfully, the climate change bill already recognizes that by expressly authorizing regulated entities to reduce their emission allowance requirements through development or acquisition of offsets. The new language simply clarifies that if farms invest in carbon-reducing activities, the resulting carbon offsets could be sold to regulated entities for use in meeting GHG emission obligations under the climate bill. This is precisely what we should be doing - facilitating achievement of the GHG reduction targets specified in the bill.
My only criticism is that sponsors of the ag offset amendment omitted from the list of qualifying offsets a very important one: biochar. Biochar is a charcoal-like product that is produced by heating crop residues, animal manure and many other organic wastes in an oxygen-depleted environment. Heating agricultural wastes in this manner generates an off-gas, which can be used for fuel, and a solid -- biochar -- which effectively sequesters carbon. If biochar is placed in soil, the carbon it contains will remain in place for hundreds of years without releasing carbon dioxide (CO2). Thus, instead of the crop residues and animal manure being broken down by biological processes that release CO2 into the atmosphere immediately or within a matter of weeks, the carbon is sequestered and will not be released into the atmosphere for centuries. As a result of this practice, agriculture can become "carbon negative" -- which is better than "carbon neutral." Acknowledged experts such as Durwood Zaelke have demonstrated that widespread adoption of this practice by agriculture could as big an impact on reducing atmospheric CO2 levels as renewable energy. Let's hope the Senate corrects the omission of biochar from the list of accepted agricultural offsets.
Is Bio-Char the Next Great Hope?
Never heard of bio-char? I was only vaguely familiar with ituntil this Tuesday. That's when McKenna Long & Aldridge's DC office played host to this year's EPA Climate Leaders award winners in a program co-sponsored by the firm and the Association of Climate Change Officers.
The event brought together some of the foremost thought leaders on climate change science andfeatured several enlightening presentations, including one by Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development.
He described the dramatic effects on climate change of acting to control "non-CO2 climate forcers" such as black carbon (which we've written about) and bio-char.
Zaelke believes bio-char could play a significant role in reversing levels of carbon in the atmosphere.
In a nutshell, we can "cook" agricultural wastes (corn stalks, crop stubble, etc.) and generate a gas that can be used as a fuel, plus a solid material -- bio-char. If you bury the bio-char the entrained carbon remains fixed for hundreds of years. This leads to dramatic reduction of carbon emissions associated with otherwise normal biological processes breaking down agricultural biomass.
According to Dr. Zaelke if we were to encourage this practice we could return to healthy CO2 levels in the atmosphere within several decades. If you would like to receive a copy of Dr. Zaelke's presentation, please contact me.
The Montreal Protocol Out-Kyotos Kyoto
The Montreal Protocol Parties agreed in September of 2007 to speed the phase-out of hydroclorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), the gases which are used in a variety of equipment and fire fighting foams, by providing up to 16 billion tons or more of CO2-equivalent (CO2e) in climate mitigation by the year 2040. What is so striking about this agreement is that it will achieve significantly more than the Kyoto Protocol sought to achieve during its entire first commitment period. Moreover, in July of this year, less than a year later, the leaders of the world’s 17 major economies pledged to continue these Montreal Protocol-based efforts, recognizing the need for urgent action and committing to act without delay to strengthen the Montreal Protocol for climate benefits. At about the same time, the Montreal Protocol parties met in Bangkok to follow on the major economies' endorsement of Montreal as, in effect, a “climate treaty” while still furthering the ozone layer protection goals of the original Montreal agreement. At the July meeting, Argentina, Micronesia, and Mauritius proposed strengthening the Protocol to reduce the 7.4 billion tons of CO2e that will be emitted by 2015 from discarded products and equipment if not properly recovered and destroyed.
Just two months from now, in November, critical negotiations on Montreal Protocol climate actions will take place in Doha, Qatar (November 16-20). In connection with these upcoming negotiations, Durwood Zaelke, the President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, whose board I chair, stated that “the world’s leaders ... understand that the Montreal Protocol can deliver immediate climate benefits as it has been doing for the past 20 years.” For once we would do well to follow our leaders. The chief Montreal negotiator for Mauritius went further. Sateeaved Seebaluck said that the Montreal Protocol has been “the world’s life-preserver,” keeping us from passing tipping points for abrupt and irreversible climate change.
The Montreal Protocol story is instructive for other climate initiatives. For example, it sheds a different light on the much-maligned idea of using the Clean Air Act for climate protection purposes. Implementation of the stratospheric ozone protection provisions of the CAA pursuant to the Montreal Protocol contributed to the global Montreal climate agreement in 2007. Global emissions of fine particulate black carbon or elemental carbon, which scientists are now saying is second only to CO2 as a global warming source, dramatically alters the reflectivity (albedo) of the earth, particularly its ice and snowfields. Black carbon is not covered by either the Kyoto or the Montreal Protocol. But according to EPA and the Office of Management and Budget, fine particulates, PM 2.5, are the Clean Air Act's most damaging criteria pollutant, and EPA estimates that over 5 percent of US fine particulate emissions are black carbon. (Black carbon will be the subject of a future blog). The CAA may be an appropriate vehicle for controlling black carbon emissions, with Montreal-like payoffs for greenhouse effect reduction.
How to add hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs), both potent non-ODS families of Kyoto gases, to the Montreal regime is a topic for another day.
For more information see:
19th MOP HCFC Adjustments to Enter into Force May 2008
UNEP DTIE OzonAction Branch HCFCsNews
EPA Honors Montreal Protocol Champions for Protection of Climate
