Climate Change Weight-Lifting Raises the Bar set by Schwarzenegger’s Global Warming Solutions Act
Are we ready, as individuals and as a society, to do what it takes to transform ourselves into atmospherically-balanced citizens? And if not, what will it take to get us there? That sums up the questions that speakers attempted to answer in the John Muir Institute’s 2008 climate change speaker series. It concluded in May with a panel discussion, “A Climate for Shared Solutions.” The panel and John Muir’s director Deb Niemeier attempted to bring six months of solutions to common ground.
The series audience learned a lot about the “official” state process for creating climate change policy—a Golden West bar raising event that would not disappoint anyone except the most ardent environmental advocates. The Governor’s top interagency Climate Action Team (CAT) has had a solid year to contemplate implementation of the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB32), and stakeholders have been queried to the extent that they can respond.
Farmers, entrepreneurs and the private sector are eager and ready to start trading carbon as soon as the regulatory oversight provides rules and assurances. Cap and trade is the common ground for incentive programs that balance the carbon cycle. And at this budget-sensitive juncture, even money does not seem to be the major obstacle. Becoming more efficient, whether it is water, energy, transportation or land use, has been argued by experts to be less expensive than the old fashioned, old school, old technology way of doing things.
Certainly, this governor has stepped forward to where the federal government has feared to advance. It was only after AB32 was passed that Mary Nichols, Chairman of the Air Resources Board (ARB), could lead her agency to determine how much greenhouse gas (GHG) must be avoided by 2020, through the arduous task of first determining California’s 1990 GHG emissions. Nichols is acutely aware of the importance of personal buy-in; she talks about California greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as “per capita” emissions. She speaks not about what the automakers or utilities must do, but what Californians must do to reduce their “average” personal share of GHG from 14 metric tons per year to ten, thereby achieving the 28% reduction that speakers remind the audience “won’t be easy.” As it stands, California is a whopping 173 million metric tons per year of carbon dioxide away from its 2020 goal. However the consensus was that the goal is attainable as each sector begins tallying their anticipated carbon savings on paper.
Slide courtesy of Richard Haberman, California Department of Public Health.
Planning for Change
Is it feasible for California to plan forty two years in advance and maintain a steady course all the way to 2050? Not since the water infrastructure plans of the 1950s has the state maintained statewide long-term goals. And until climate change forced the issue, the long-range plan was overwhelmingly successful, notwithstanding the loss of species. California has enjoyed a reliable source of affordable water upon which to float urban development, agriculture and abundant economic growth. A heavyweight outcome of climate change will be losses of water resources due to reductions in the Sierra snow pack, and the equally painful prediction that sea level rise threatens the scenic California coastline.
Slide courtesy of Tim Quinn, Association of California Water Agencies.
Tim Quinn, formerly of Metropolitan Water Agency and currently director of the Association of California Water Agencies, views climate change as one of many inputs into the complex water transfer economy, where water battles are fought using any and all available means. Water storage is water insurance, and when storage capacity becomes exhausted, there will be other technologies waiting in the wings. Reclaiming water is largely a matter of water and energy prices, as Richard Haberman, Department of Public Health, pointed out. The prices of energy for purifying wastewater and salt water to drinking water may be justified by rising water prices. Another operational cost of water, however, is the GHG generated to power these energy-intensive processes. Today, 19% of the state’s electricity and 30% of the state’s natural gas is used for delivery, treatment or disposal of water. The true cost of water is becoming more evident.
After water, transportation is the weighty issue. Gas prices have recently decreased single occupancy vehicle miles, but the transportation slice of the GHG pie chart is still the biggest slice that Californians must reduce to meet AB32 goals. As 32% of the GHG emissions in 1990 and 40% today, transportation targets require agencies to collaborate, even though state agencies are known for their lack of collaboration. Several of agencies were represented in the series: ARB, California Energy Commission (CEC), California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), California Department of Public Health, California Environmental Protection Agency, California Parks and Recreation and Caltrans.
The State Resources Agency has adopted a three-pronged approach to reducing transportation GHG: 1) reduce vehicle usage, 2) reduce carbon in fuels and 3) improve vehicle efficiency over the vehicle lifecycle. California agencies are determined to mandate improvements or encourage voluntary reductions while they wait for regulations from the anticipated turnover in the federal administration. Climate Action Team member Gregg Albright, Caltrans, pointed out that while Caltrans can tweak the traffic flow controls to relieve over-congested transportation corridors, adding lanes brings more vehicles and more emissions. Some of the most important aspects of reducing transportation emissions are outside Caltrans’s control. While they shepherd and fund long-term regional blueprint planning, they don’t control outcomes or land use decisions, even if they result in the growth of car-dependent communities. Meanwhile, the private sector largely determines the transport of people and goods, and the fuel markets. California’s climate change regulators hope to implement mechanisms for influence within these markets in the future.
Long before AB32, farmers and foresters were keen on supplying crops, crop residues and fire-prone underbrush for production of fuel ethanol. Steve Shaffer, CDFA, sees the solutions as regional, in which “energysheds” (the energy equivalent of watersheds) devise solutions that makes sense for their climate, resources and economy. In animal production, feed is required, so why not convert corn to ethanol and use the leftover wet byproducts for feed? This eliminates some of the costs for transport and processing wet feed while providing a compatible regional fuel. In Southern California, sugar cane might offer a better crop for regional biofuel production.
Cynthia Cory, California Farm Bureau, observed that agriculture is eager to turn an odorous nuisance—animal manure—into a fuel source. Methane emissions from manure represents one fourth of the GHG from California agriculture. Technology exists to recover methane and use it, or pipe it to potential users as a source of farm income. The 2007 Farm Bill provides $15 million to share costs of installing methane bioreactors on or near agricultural operations. Clever and enterprising farmers, seasoned by the ups and downs of the farm economy, are learning the complexities of how these reactors are built, shared and operated. In California’s San Joaquin Valley, air quality permits to burn methane as a fuel may be slower to issue than other regions. The Valley faces a classic dilemma, recovery and burning of methane can’t be allowed to add unhealthful ozone to the region. The academic audience especially appreciates the concern for regulations that might fix one problem while causing another. The lessons of MTBE have not been forgotten.
While the state can mandate low carbon fuels and possibly someday high mileage vehicles, they can’t manufacture them, so this is where the private sector is welcomed into the discussions. Hal LaFlash, Pacific Gas and Electric, procures clean power for PG&E customers. With 1000 megawatts in their alternative energy portfolio in 2007, 50% of their power became carbon free. They invest in solar, wind, wave—whatever shows economic promise. They will help the state fund solar projects at energy efficient commercial sites until 2016 or until the state goal of 3,000 megawatts of solar power is achieved. LaFlash is acutely aware of the funding gaps in technology development. Until technologies are proven, investors hesitate, creating the need for more funding of early stage technology demonstration and proof of concept. Universities can serve as the incubators for early stages in innovation.
Another weighty topic is the green building sector, which has its own high profile team called the “Governors Green Team.” California is busy getting their own houses in order, planning LEED-certify state building projects and retrofitting existing facilities. New housing will be required to meet Title 24 building codes which are revamped every three years. Judi Schweitzer explained that raising the bar for new homes represents only a tiny fraction of the state’s 13 million homes. The state green building initiative has yet to address residential retrofit; however cities, such as Berkeley, are taking the lead in considering options to provide financing and incentives to pay for installing solar power retrofits on existing homes.
A Climate for Shared Solutions
Did the shared solutions panel discover common ground within AB32? Panelists were well-seasoned on the topic, especially Anthony Eggert, a UC Davis graduate and science and policy advisor to the ARB.
CAT member Ruth Coleman, director of State Parks and Recreation, has the largest land management responsibilities in the state and has embraced her agency’s role in climate change “house cleaning” and public education through the “Cool Parks” program.
Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, California Energy Commissioner and chair of the subgroup called Land Use CAT, knows that weaning the world off coal won’t be free or easy, and carbon taxes might provide funds for investment in new technologies. She knows that better regional land use planning could reduce vehicle use but that it is difficult to implement. Do you link access to state transportation funds to the regional blueprint? The idea has been proposed more than once.
Technology entrepreneur Bob Epstein, founder of five companies and trustee at the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), and his NRDC colleague, Ann Notthoff, state advocacy director, offered private sector expertise. Epstein reminded the audience that the nation has exceeded the price of gasoline that was formerly predicted to change behavior, but an estimated quarter trillion dollars of oil profits continue to flow to countries that he described as “unfriendly” to the U.S. For some environmental organizations, California can’t move fast enough. Notthoff suggested that turning up the state capitol thermostat might induce legislators to put a price on carbon, since that strategy worked in Japan to get buy-in for the Kyoto Protocol. She believes that the time has come for building global climate change common ground with Asia. NRDC has an office in China.
If the panel found common ground, it was the shared acknowledgment that as the process continues in the CATs, a similar process has to occur among the citizens. A bevy of Hollywood celebrities, Oprah and publisher Vanity Fair are jumping on the climate change wave and riding it into a new level of awareness. The time is ripe for the change-makers to follow this trend and plant seeds that grow into cultural values for climate consciousness. Climate change awareness has provided the springboard to differentiate and distinguish businesses, civic leadership, and politics. Eggert’s assessment summed up the tone of the series when he said “We can’t fool ourselves into thinking this will be easy. We must engage with all parts of society to create behavioral change. Meanwhile, policymakers have to write rules that adapt to changing conditions.”