05/06/2020

Climate Change: How A Green New Deal Really Could Go Global

BBC - Justin Rowlatt

The big attraction for politicians at this time of crisis is jobs. Getty Images

Justin Rowlatt is the BBC's Chief Environment correspondent.
Good news is in short supply at the moment, so brace yourself for a rare burst of optimism about climate change.

World leaders know their countries face one of the most severe recessions in history thanks to the coronavirus restrictions.

That presents a unique challenge, but also a massive opportunity.

Politicians know they are going to need to spend huge amounts of money to kick-start economic activity as the threat of coronavirus finally recedes.

It is a one-off, never-to-be-repeated chance to transform their economies. So the question is, what will they spend it on?

'Europe's moment'

 This week the European Union put its cards on the table. On Wednesday it unveiled what it is billing as the biggest "green" stimulus package in history.

"This is about all of us and it is way bigger than any one of us," announced Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, when she told European Parliament members what was planned. "This is Europe's moment," she said.

As well as being a big step towards federalism, the recovery package puts fighting climate change at the heart of the bloc's recovery from the pandemic.

The scale of what is being proposed is mind-boggling. The headline figure is €750bn, but add in spending from future budgets and the total financial firepower the European Commission says it will be wielding is almost €2tn ($2.2tn).

There will be tens of billions of euros to make homes more energy efficient, to decarbonise electricity and phase out petrol and diesel vehicles.

The idea is to turbo-charge the European effort to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.

"If we do not do it we will be taking much more risk," Teresa Ribera, the deputy Prime Minister of Spain told me.

"The recovery should be green or it will not be a recovery, it will just be a short-cut into the kind of problems we are facing right now."

Ursula von der Leyen: The numbers she announced are huge. Getty Images

A Green New Deal

 If you are thinking this is just something that sandal-wearing European liberals might get behind, think again.

Donald Trump may be an avowed supporter of fossil fuels, but his Democratic opponent in the November presidential election is not.

Joe Biden is reckoned to be planning a similarly huge green stimulus package for the US.

The model is the vast investment projects of the New Deal that helped lift America out of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

That was the defining policy of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Biden is reportedly preparing for his own "FDR-size presidency", according to New York magazine.

"He knows he needs youth enthusiasm, he knows he needs the left, he knows he needs the core democratic base, and he knows climate is probably the best issue to get that," explains energy and climate analyst David Roberts of the US website Vox.

"Climate polls the best across all those groups, climate even polls pretty well among wavering Trump voters," he says.

This is not just about rallying voters. There are sound economic reasons why politicians see green technology as a prudent investment.

First off, renewables are now often cheaper than fossil fuels in large parts of the world.

The technologies are proven and can be built at scale today.

And most importantly, their cost follows the logic of all manufacturing - the more you produce, the cheaper it gets.

The same logic applies to hydrogen and to electric vehicles. But it does not apply to fossil fuels, whose cost ultimately relies on mining ever more difficult and dwindling resources.

And that contains the seductive promise that a huge government push to scale up solar and wind will make them even more affordable compared with coal, oil and gas - not just in the US, but globally.

So the argument goes that renewables provide a pathway for clean growth in the future.

Develop innovative new electric vehicles, wind turbines, ways of making homes energy-efficient, energy storage technologies or even new ways of configuring electricity grids and you are likely to find ready markets around the world in coming years.

Equally importantly, renewable technologies offer something else that will be needed in the years to come: the potential to create huge numbers of new jobs.

The Covid-19 crisis has driven joblessness to near Great Depression levels around the world - worse even than in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Around 40 million Americans are unemployed.

Worldwide, 1.6 billion people are reckoned to be in immediate danger of losing their livelihoods, according to the International Labour Organisation.

That means governments need to find ways to employ lots and lots of people.

Renewable technologies offer precisely the kind of "shovel-ready", large-scale and labour-intensive infrastructure projects politicians are looking for.

There is the obvious stuff - building wind turbines, solar farms and the foundations of a hydrogen economy - but think also about installing networks of charging points for electric vehicles, the need to insulate homes or revamp urban transport systems.

Just like the road and dam building of the American New Deal, projects like these could employ tens of thousands of people in high-skilled and - crucially - local jobs.

China ramped up coal-fired power stations after the 2008 crash. Getty Images

The China question

 But here's the rub. China currently looks set to take a very different route to recovery.

It remains the biggest piece of the climate change puzzle. China produces almost a third of the world's emissions, as much as the US and the EU combined.

Last week, the country's top legislative body, the annual National People's Congress, was in full session.

The country already has a big expansion of coal-fired electricity generation underway. There was no suggestion this would be reversed.

After the financial crisis in 2008, China ramped up coal-fired power stations as a key part of its stimulus package. But there is still a lot to play for this time round, says Li Shuo, an energy expert with Greenpeace East Asia in Beijing.

Few details of the Covid recovery plan were announced at the NPC, and he says much will depend on what American voters decide in November.

"The US position looms very large in China's political calculus," explains Mr Li.

He believes President Trump's energy policies are one of the major barriers to China raising its climate ambitions.

"I think there is a feeling here in China that it is unfair for Beijing to move forward with its climate agenda at the same time as the US is moving backwards."

That said, the Chinese public certainly seems to support measures to decarbonise the economy.

Eighty-seven percent of Chinese people see climate change as serious a threat as Covid-19, according to a poll conducted in 14 countries by Ipsos MORI in April.

Even in America, where support was lowest, 59% of people agreed that the risks of climate change matched those of the coronavirus in the long term.

Nearly two-thirds of all respondents and 57% of Americans said it was important that government actions aimed at economic recovery prioritised action on climate change.

A green deal could create a momentum that's hard to resist. Getty Images

Knock on effects

 And once big economies like Europe and the US adopt policies like these, there is good reason to think other countries will follow suit.

One of the most striking - and controversial - aspects of the European plan is that it will be funded in large part by debt raised by the European Commission itself.

That represents a significant deepening or European integration that some member states have already signalled they will resist.

Under the proposal the hundreds of billions of euros of debt would be serviced by new EU-wide taxes.

One option being discussed is a carbon tax that would include levies on imported goods with a high carbon footprint.

Think about what that means.

Countries that want to sell into the largest economy in the world would now face penalties unless they make efforts to clean up their energy systems.

Now imagine that America embarks on a Green New Deal. It might choose to introduce a similar tariff.

But I opened this piece offering optimism, so let me present an alternative path.
The countries that decarbonise first could lead by example. Remember, the more renewables you produce, the cheaper they get.

As low carbon technologies increasingly undercut the fossil fuel alternatives, you won't need a stick to beat other countries into changing their ways - they will just follow the money.

You see where this is headed.? Maybe we are not as far away from widespread coordinated action on climate change as many people fear.

As I said at the start, a rare opportunity for optimism amongst the gloom of this present crisis.

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(AU) Climate Change Is The Most Important Mission For Universities Of The 21st Century

The Conversation -  | 

Smoke haze in Canberra city centre, January 5, 2020. LUKAS COCH/AAP

Authors
  • Lauren Rickards is Associate Professor, Sustainability and Urban Planning, School of Global Urban and Social Studies; Co-leader, Climate Change and Resilience Research Program, Centre for Urban Studies, RMIT University.
  • Tamson Pietsch is Associate Professor, Social & Political Sciences, University of Technology Sydney.
Universities are confronting the possibility of profound sector-wide transformation due to the continuing effects of COVID-19.

It is prompting much needed debate about what such transformation should look like and what kind of system is in the public interest.

This is now an urgent conversation. If universities want a say in what the future of higher education will look like, they will need to generate ideas quickly and in a way that attracts wide public support.

This will involve articulating their unique role as embedded, future-regarding, ethical generators of crucial knowledge and skills, well-equipped to handle coming contingencies and helping others do the same.

And this means higher education changes are entangled with another major force for transformation – climate change.

How can universities credibly claim to be preparing young people for their futures, or to be working with employers, if they do not take into account the kind of world they are helping to bring about?

A vital role in a climate changed world

Whether indexed by the continual climb in extreme heat and humidity, the melting of Arctic ice, the eruption of unprecedented mega-fire events or the rapid degradation of ecosystems and disruption of human settlements, climate change is here.

It is rapidly exacerbating environmental and social stress across the globe, as well as directly and indirectly impacting all institutions and areas of life. And worse still, global greenhouse gas concentrations are moving in exactly the opposite direction to what we need, with carbon emissions growing by 2.0% in 2019, the fastest growth for seven years.

Much-needed transitions towards low carbon and well-adapted systems are emerging. But they are too piecemeal and slow relative to what is needed to avoid large scale cascading and compounding impacts to our planet.

Universities, along with all other parts of our society, will feel the effects of climate change. The cost of the devastation at the Australian National University due to the summer’s fires and hailstorm, for instance, is estimated to be A$75 million dollars.

Failure to appropriately adapt to the increasing likelihood of such events threatens to undermine research of all sorts.

The bushfires cost the ANU millions. Xinhua/AAP

Whether due to climate impacts (such as the effects of sea level rise on coastal laboratories) or policy and market shifts away from carbon-intensive activities (such as coal powered energy), research investments face the risk of becoming stranded assets. Not only could expensive infrastructure and equipment be rendered redundant, but certain skills, capabilities and projects could too.

Universities are key to enabling Australian society to transition to a safer and lower emissions pathway. They are needed to provide the knowledge, skills and technologies for this positive transition. And they are also needed to foster the social dialogue and build the broad public mandate to get there.

This means old ideas of universities as isolated and values-free zones, and newer notions of them as cheap consultants to the private sector, fundamentally fail to fulfil the role universities now need to play.

They must become public good, mission-driven organisations devoted to rapidly progressing human understanding and action on the largest threat there has ever been, to what they are taken to represent and advance – human civilisation.



Universities must become more sustainable…

Inaction will erode the trust on which universities rely, especially among the key constituencies universities are meant to serve – young people and the private, community and public sectors.

Students, businesses, not-for-profit organisations and certain governments are already acting far more forcefully than universities, even as the latter claim to be intellectual leaders.

Who universities invest in, fund, partner with and teach, and how, will increasingly be judged through a climate change lens. All actors in the fossil fuel value chain – including insurance brokers and researchers – are coming under pressure to stop facilitating a form of production that enriches a few while endangering all.

Networks such as the International Universities Climate Alliance, the Global Alliance of Universities on Climate and Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability are pushing for change in and by the sector.

In 2019, three global university networks organised an open letter signed by more than 7,000 higher and further education institutions. It called for the sector to reduce emissions and invest in climate change research, teaching and outreach. Even more have signed the SDG (sustainable development goals) Accord’s climate emergency declaration, which calls for:

  • mobilising more resources for action-oriented climate change research and skills creation
  • committing to going carbon neutral by 2030 or 2050 at the very latest
  • increasing the delivery of environmental and sustainability education across curriculum, campus and community outreach programs.
Some universities are already starting to build aspects of climate change into their operations. Most prominent have been efforts to divest university finances from direct support of fossil fuels. While some institutions are still dragging their feet, the University of California has announced it will fully divest its US$126 billion endowment from fossil fuels.

Pressure is similarly growing for Unisuper to stop investing Australian university staff superannuation into corporations that endanger the very future staff are saving for.

University campuses are being refigured as sites of energy production and consumption. Strathmore University in Kenya and RMIT University in Australia are among those who produce their own renewable energy.

RMIT university produces its own renewable energy. Shutterstock

Although few universities are working towards absolute reductions in emissions, or have appropriate climate adaptation plans, initiatives such as the Times Higher Education Impact Index are increasing interest in visible climate action.

… and they must change teaching and research

Teaching and research too must change. University students can choose programs and optional modules dedicated to climate change. But this isn’t enough. Climate change has to be integrated in all disciplines.

It is essential universities do not quarantine climate change as some kind of specialist topic. A recent analysis of management studies found a profound lack of engagement across the discipline with the implications of climate change.

As Cornell University’s Professor of Engineering Anthony Ingraffea argues, when it comes to educating the future generation, “doing the right thing on climate change should be baked into an engineer’s DNA”.

This means recognising the strong overlap between work that has instrumental value for climate change action and work that celebrates the intrinsic value of human understanding. The intellectual and social challenges presented by climate change are perhaps the greatest justification yet for why we need open-minded, open-ended exploration and dialogue of the sort universities can provide.

Universities produce the knowledge galvanising others to act. It is time for them to act too. It is time for all of us who work in or with universities to reappraise our institutions in light of the changes needed, the changes coming, and the changes already here.

This is the public mission of universities in the 21st century. And it is the most pressing mission there is.

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A 5 Trillion Dollar US Subsidy: How We All Pay For Fossil Fuels

Forbes - David Carlin

Up in smoke? Fossil fuel subsidies cost the world five trillion dollars each year. Getty

You have probably heard that we are facing a climate crisis. You probably also know that burning fossil fuels significantly contributes to global warming and air pollution. Given these dangers, you might find it hard to believe that fossil fuel companies receive a staggering $5 trillion in subsidies annually, equivalent to over 6% of global GDP.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which calculated the size of the subsidies, explained that without them global deaths from air pollution would fall by nearly half and total carbon emissions would drop by almost 30%. Those reductions mean nearly four million fewer deaths and over ten billion fewer tons of CO2 each year.

Fossil fuel subsidies take many forms. Many governments around the world provide direct incentives for exploration and production. In the United States, deductions for well-drilling allow companies to reduce their tax burdens by nearly $2 billion a year. Until recently, coal companies benefitted from the nonconventional fuels tax credit, which paid the industry over $12 billion from 2002-2010. Numerous other incentives and generous accounting treatments represent billions more in giveaways.

While these direct subsidies are massive, the largest gift to fossil fuel companies comes from allowing them to use our atmosphere as a waste dump. Fossil fuel pollution continues to sicken and kill millions each year and is likely making the Covid-19 pandemic worse. The greenhouse gases released during combustion are driving climate change.

Despite the growing harms to public and environmental health, fossil fuel companies rarely pay for the damage their products cause. Instead, the entire planet pays for these mounting costs. The renowned British economist Sir Nicholas Stern rightly declared that “climate change is a result of the greatest market failure that the world has seen.”

A simple analogy can explain why Stern and other leading economists believe that the climate crisis represents a colossal market failure. Imagine we have a park in our town. We can consider the park a “public good” because we cannot exclude people from using the park and your enjoyment of the park does not diminish my enjoyment of the park. Similarly, our atmosphere is a public good. We all benefit from a stable climate and clean air, and you enjoying these benefits does not limit my ability to do so as well.

Now, imagine a clothing factory opens next to the park. They produce clothes for stores in town, but they also create waste that spreads into the park. Soon the pond is a sludgy mess and joggers on the trails are struggling to catch their breath. The waste is called an “externality” because we have no control over the waste, but we suffer from its effects.

Additionally, the negative effects we experience are not reflected in the price of the clothing. Likewise, fossil fuels create dangerous pollutants and greenhouse gases whose harms are not reflected in the price of fuel. As a result, fossil fuels are overproduced relative to their true cost to society.

Fortunately, there is a solution to this market failure. Once we estimate the damages to the park, the clothing manufacturer can be made to clean up the mess. Then, going forward, the manufacturer would pay a fee for its waste equal to the harm that waste causes. This is called a “Pigouvian tax,” and it removes the externality by shifting the payment of the social costs onto the manufacturer.

The manufacturer can then decide to upgrade to cleaner processes to eliminate the pollution or put the money towards maintaining the health of the park. Either way, we end up with a clean park. Unfortunately, with fossil fuels, we are not charging the producers for the social costs but incentivizing them to produce more. This is almost akin to paying the clothing factory to dump waste in our park.

The polluter pays

A simple yet powerful philosophy can guide global emissions reductions efforts: the “polluter pays” principle. As in our park example, those who produce harmful pollution should bear the costs of its clean-up. “Polluter pays” is both morally equitable and economically efficient.

In order to determine the appropriate costs for pollution, we need to have a price on carbon. As carbon dioxide is the most important human-produced greenhouse gas, other pollutants can be converted into a carbon dioxide equivalent. Then, a business’s total emissions can be calculated. With this information, businesses can be held responsible for their impacts on global warming and public health.

Although there are many proposals for carbon pricing, two stand out for their comprehensiveness and economic soundness: a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system. Both methods have ardent defenders, but a study by the World Resources Institute determined that, if designed well, both can be effective.

Today’s global landscape for carbon pricing is a fractured one. There are 40 countries and 20 states with carbon pricing mechanisms, but these only represent 13% of global emissions. Most prices are too low compared to the impacts of fossil fuel emissions, meaning that the negative externality remains. Fortunately, World Bank analysis indicates that more nations are exploring carbon pricing and those with prices are looking at increasing them.

The path forward

The legendary environmentalist Bill McKibben once stated that his goal was to “revoke the social license of the fossil fuel industry.” While that may sound radical to some, McKibben makes an astute point. Fossil fuel companies retain the social license to pollute our shared atmosphere and pass along the costs to the rest of us. Now, more than ever, individuals are fed-up with this unfair and unsustainable arrangement and are actively working to change it.

Covid-19 has thrown the global economy into turmoil, with the fossil fuel industry being particularly affected. Simultaneous supply and demand shocks have put many firms in dire straits. Since the Financial Crisis, fossil fuel valuations have been falling and their political influence has been diminishing. The pandemic has accelerated the industry’s decline.

Today, we have a unique opportunity to redefine our energy systems and correct a $5 trillion market failure. The health of our planet depends on us doing so.

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