PrintPolicy Options and Regulations
Short Version:
A huge range of policy options is available, and many regulations likely would be required to implement some of them. Or, a price on carbon, such as a carbon tax, could be used to get the whole economy working on the problem. If paired with a tax swap to reduce more-intrusive taxes, this would have little impact on the economy and might cause growth, even if the benefits of avoiding global warming are ignored. International harmonization of carbon taxes could be used, with econometric and geophysical verification. Such an approach is likely to have collateral benefits through avoiding negative externalities of some fossil-fuel use, improving national security through avoided environmental problems, reducing rapid changes in energy prices, and possibly increasing employment. Current policy positions probably are serving to accelerate global warming, so a neutral stance or reduction in global warming would require policy actions. Clearly, effective responses require well-designed and implemented policies; it is possible to mess things up with poor policies.
Longer, but friendlier version:
On June 25, 2013, US President Barack Obama made a major speech introducing his administration’s Climate Action Plan.
The 21-page document that accompanied the speech sketched a series of policy actions proposed for the remaining years of the president’s term in office. By the time you read this, that speech will be old news. But, it is instructive even as it becomes history because despite the sheer number of proposals, and their great breadth and depth, this plan did not even mention the most commonly discussed policy option.
Consider some of the proposals. (Many of the words that follow are directly from the Plan, but some are paraphrased.) Don’t try to learn or memorize these; just notice how many there are:
Cut Carbon Pollution in America by:
- Completing carbon-pollution standards for new and existing power plants;
- Promoting renewable energy, including accelerating clean energy permitting, developing hydroelectric power at existing dams, deploying renewable energy through the Department of Defense, increasing federally installed renewable energy, and expanding and modernizing the electric grid, including streamlining transmission projects;
- Unlocking long-term investment in clean energy innovation, including increasing funding for areas ranging from advanced biofuels to emerging nuclear technologies such as modular reactors to clean coal, guaranteeing loans for projects to avoid, reduce or sequester human-produced greenhouse gases, and instituting a Federal Quadrennial Energy Review to assess and guide actions;
- Advancing transportation, including fuel-economy standards for heavy-duty trucks, buses, and vans, improving biofuels, and leveraging public-private partnerships to deploy cleaner fuels such as advanced batteries and fuel cell technologies;
- Reducing energy bills by increasing energy efficiency standards, reducing barriers to investment in energy efficiency by financing efficiency investments in rural America, and developing a new fund to allow testing of novel approaches to cost-effective residential electricity, and expanding programs for better buildings;
- Reducing emissions of other greenhouse gases, including various programs to curb emissions of hydrofluorocarbons and methane, and preserving forests;
- Providing federal leadership, including consumption of clean energy and energy efficiency, with initiatives such as (quoting from the bottom of p. 11 in the plan)
In the report, these proposals to cut carbon pollution were followed by proposals to Prepare the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change, and to Lead International Efforts to Address Global Climate Change, with similar detail.
Many people provided opinions about the plan in the days after it was released, but among those experts who favored policy actions to address climate change, there was widespread acceptance that these proposals were serious and moving in a useful direction. Standard contracts, synchronized building codes, and access to capital markets for investments are indeed important, as are many more policy options.
But recognize that 21 pages of this sort of text were needed just to sketch a suite of policy responses—the rules and regulations were not in the document, just statements committing the administration to working on those rules and regulations. And, this is just one level of government in just one country in a very big world. Furthermore, a price on carbon emissions was not even discussed (see below).
So, if you expect a truly comprehensive discussion of policy options in this chapter, you will be disappointed. The energy system is so huge and pervasive in our lives, and so strongly linked to release of CO2, that almost everything we do, publicly or in private, can be changed to influence global warming.
Instead, we’ll look at a few of the most frequently discussed options. We’ll also look at additional motivations, and effects of policy actions.
Dr. Alley, your tour guide here, is a geologist by training, and a recognized expert on some aspects of glaciers and ice sheets. This does NOT make him a policy expert. Furthermore, a lot of what follows could be misinterpreted as an endorsement of some particular policy or policies. So, let’s get it out in the open right now: We are NOT endorsing any particular policy here. It is up to you to make up your own mind. We do hope that the evidence and reasoning presented here will help you with this. We are NOT telling you how to vote about issues such as synchronized building codes to reduce carbon pollution. But, we are trying to show you what the best understanding says about motivations and options for this often-contentious and very important topic. And again, because the topic is so vast, we will hit only a few of the high points.