Daily Score Blog

In spite of what you may have heard, Europe's carbon market is working beautifully. The EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has been operational since 2005 and we're now getting a good look at how it functions. It turns out, it's a remarkable success story, both environmentally and economically.

Let's briefly review the major pieces of evidence.

1. European Environment Agency. A November 2009 report finds that the continent is well on its way to meeting its Kyoto targets thanks in large part to its cap-and-trade program. In fact, by 2007,14 countries had already exceeded their reduction goals, including the wealthy industrial giants of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. To wit:

EU‑wide policies are expected to contribute towards most of the planned emissions savings by the end of the period 2008–2012, in particular the European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS), the promotion of renewable energy sources, policies targeting the energy performance of buildings and internal energy market policies. 

Here's a nickel summary from Joe Romm:

...the Europeans are poised to surpass their targets under the terms of the Protocol. It is no longer plausible for those who don’t want a U.S. cap-and-trade system to point to the European Trading System (ETS) as a failure. Quite the reverse.

...the EEA analysis concludes the EU-15 will not need to rely on offsets to meet their Kyoto target

(There's more good stuff at Treehugger.) Importantly, the reductions analyzed in the EEA report do not include the effects of the global economic downturn, which has unintentionally provided much steeper reductions.

2. The German Marshall Fund of the United States. A July 2009 report is a goldmine of valuable lessons from the European experience, but for now I'm going to focus just on the carbon market aspects.

A remarkably prescient photo from 1891:

No further comment needed, I think.

Hat tip to Nancy Hirsh. Image is used in accordance with the Washington State Historical Society's fair use policy.

Editor's Note: Alex Steffen, the editor and cofounder of Worldchanging-a global network of independent journalists, designers and thinkers--sat down with writer Emily Knudsen to discuss some of the topics he’ll be covering in his upcoming talks at Town Hall. The first part of the interview discussed Worldchanging's role in the sustainability movement. This second discusses what Seattle can do to become a more sustainable city.

What can Seattle learn from cities like Copenhagen and London that are now leading the green movement?

There are two big lessons. One is that there are amazing policy and design innovations out there that we ought be just stealing outright. People are doing things elsewhere in the world much better than we are. And we need to catch up or exceed them. So that’s part of what I’ll be talking about (at Town Hall on Nov. 11 and 12)—trying to help people implement that range of really cool innovations out there.

The second part of it is that we really need to redefine realism, especially in Seattle. We have convinced ourselves that there are certain kinds of approaches to solving these problems that are unrealistic.

Editor's Note: Alex Steffen, the editor and cofounder of Worldchanging-a global network of independent journalists, designers and thinkers--sat down with writer Emily Knudsen to discuss some of the topics he’ll be covering in his upcoming talks at Town Hall . The first part of the interview (below) discusses Worldchanging's role in the sustainability movement. The second discusses what Seattle can do to become a more sustainable city.

What inspired you to establish Worldchanging?

In the late 1990s, I was working as a consultant doing strategic communications work with environmental groups and other NGOs. One of the questions I would often ask the people I worked with was “What’s your win scenario? If you win, how is the world going to improve?” In essence, “What’s in it for me to believe in your change?” I was really amazed by how many people didn’t really have an answer to that.

More and more cities in our region—and in the world—are developing plans to reduce carbon emissions. Both Vancouver and Seattle have plans, and Portland just passed the latest version of their plan last week.

To me the importance of these moves lies more in the substance of the plans than in their passage. Portland’s plan is big (literally), with 93 specific actions on 70 printed pages. It’s worth highlighting its focus on the importance of pedestrian infrastructure to curb climate change. Portland’s plan weaves them together into a strategy that will pay off in more ways than one.

Take walking. The Portland Daily Journal of Commerce recently highlighted one neighborhood, Powellhurst-Gilbert, as a place where a higher incidence of obesity correlates with lack of sidewalks. The Northwest Health Foundation has given a grant to the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability to further study the link and to work on improving pedestrian infrastructure, making it easier to walk rather than drive. This pushes the climate reduction agenda while at the same time promoting health.

An interesting piece in the Christian Science Monitor yesterday by Robert Dujarric (who heads the Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies at Temple University) makes the case that Americans can be motivated to act on climate measures by rousing their sense of patriotism.

I've written before about the powerful terminology of war in this context. But this is a new take. Dujarric recommends taking aim at particular targets. Namely, the sinister foreign oil barons who are getting rich and powerful thanks to  our oil addiction.

Is it an effective call to arms to remind Americans that the money we spend at gas pump and on our heating bills funds "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nuclear and missile programs, enrich[es] Muammar Qaddafi (while he rants at the UN against the United States, and give[s] assistance to Vladimir Putin as he threatens American interests in the Caucasus and Central Europe?"

Should we start talking about climate policy as a move to "wage war to bankrupt oil tyrants?"

Via Climate Progress, a transcript from Marketplace that is just riveting. It's about the bark beetle infestation and forest die-offs around Helena, Montana. Here's an excerpt:

JIM ROBBINS: This was all forest here. And now it’s a lot of smashed pieces of wood here and pine needles and occasional patches of weed that we’ll have to spray next year.

SAM: So Robbins says when people are faced with these kinds of images daily, in their own backyards, it becomes a lot harder not to believe in climate change.

ROBBINS: There’s a saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. I think there’s something along that line happening here. I mean, there are still some people who refuse to believe it. But I think there’s been an erosion of that disbelief and it’s changed pretty dramatically.

SAM: And a lot of people don’t want to call it global warming simply because it’s such a politically charged term. They basically equate it with Democrats like Al Gore. People they’d never vote for.

Helena’s Mayor Jim Smith definitely falls into that category. But Sarah, he told me something I’d never heard before. He said when your community is threatened, the political debate over climate change no longer matters.

SMITH: Whether this climate change is man caused or just the natural order of things, I don’t know and I don’t have a lot of time to ponder that important question. We just got to deal with the situation on the ground here regardless of what the cause is. So we’re doing that.

As you might expect, Joe Romm has much more to say, connecting the dots between climate change, bark beetles, and threatened forests in the West. And needless to say, this sort of thing stands to worsen if carbon emissions go unchecked.

As the US Senate begins to consider comprehensive climate policy, let's hope that certain powerful western senators -- cough, Max Baucus, cough -- are paying close attention to their home states. Turn your attention away from the airless hyperpolitics of DC lawmaking and you can see that there are serious dangers in failing to reduce emissions very soon.

Over at Grist last week, Dave Roberts blogged about a recent -- and very important -- study by the National Research Council on the enormous hidden costs of energy consumption.

I'm surprised that the study hasn't gotten more press coverage.  It's fact-rich, sober, and completely non-ideological -- and, at the same time, it's an incredibly damning indictment of the nation's energy system.  The report looks at a variety of "external" costs of energy -- that is, the costs that energy consumers themselves don't pay, but pass on to the public at large.  The costs they could pin down were largely related to air pollution, including the impacts on human health, crop and timber yields, and visibility. And the researchers find a big culprit:  coal-fired power.  From the NRC press release:

In 2005 the total annual external damages from sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter created by burning coal at 406 coal-fired power plants, which produce 95 percent of the nation's coal-generated electricity, were about $62 billion; these nonclimate damages average about 3.2 cents for every kilowatt-hour (kwh) of energy produced.  A relatively small number of plants -- 10 percent of the total number -- accounted for 43 percent of the damages.

Based on my awesome powers of multiplication, and a quick trip to the US Energy Information Administration website, these numbers suggest that the "hidden" costs of coal fired power in 2005 were roughly twice as high as the cost of the coal itself.  And those costs, according to the NRC, don't even include "damages from climate change, harm to ecosystems, effects of some air pollutants such as mercury, and risks to national security, which the report examines but does not monetize."

So any time someone tells you that coal is "cheap," just remember that in 2005 the real, comprehensive cost of coal was well over three times as high as the market price. 

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 4 among 1,500 adults (reached on cell phones and landlines) revealed some disheartening trends when it comes to opinions about climate change. At the same time, things are looking decent (if not rosy) for cap and trade policy.

• 57 percent think there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades. In April 2008, 71 percent said there was solid evidence of rising global temperatures.
  
  
• Over the same period, there has been a comparable decline in the proportion of Americans who say global temperatures are rising as a result of human activity, such as burning fossil fuels. Just 36 percent say that currently, down from 47 percent last year.

• The decline in the belief in solid evidence of global warming has come across the political spectrum, but has been particularly pronounced among independents. Pew found that just 53 percent of independents now see solid evidence of global warming, compared with 75 percent who did so in April 2008.
  
  
• Republicans, who already were highly skeptical of the evidence of global warming, have become even more so: just 35 percent of Republicans now see solid evidence of rising global temperatures, down from 49 percent in 2008 and 62 percent in 2007. Fewer Democrats also express this view -- 75 percent today compared with 83 percent last year.

Despite this trend backwards when it comes to skepticism (is it a seasonal thing?), the survey found more support than opposition for a policy to set limits on carbon emissions.

• Half of Americans favor setting limits on carbon emissions and making companies pay for their emissions, even if this may lead to higher energy prices.
  
  
• 39 percent oppose imposing limits on carbon emissions under these circumstances.

Tugboats are in a strange position in the marketplace:  there are enough of them out there to suck down a fair amount of fuel in port cities, and to cause some medium-sized problems for local air quality.  But there aren’t quite enough of them for manufacturers to build engines specially designed for tugs’ needs. 

So tugboat manufacturers typically outfit their ships with maritime versions of locomotive engines:  hulking machines with enough power to pull big loads.  A good-sized harbor tug has two of these massive engines running, along with an auxiliary motor or two to provide power for on-board equipment, even when it’s just tooling around the harbor at the pace of a brisk walk.  Unfortunately, locomotive engines are pretty darn inefficient at slow speeds and light loads—which is precisely how harbor tugs run most of the time. Tugboats wind up wasting a lot of fuel as a result, which boosts their climate-warming emissions while hurting the tugboat operators’ bottom lines.

Enter Foss Maritime. The storied, Seattle-based marine transportation company has figured out a way to adapt off-the-shelf engine and battery technology to create a cleaner, fuel-saving hybrid tug.  The company’s still waiting for data from its lone hybrid--which was constructed in their Rainier, OR shipyard, and is now stationed in L.A./Long Beach--but expects that the hybrid technology will save the company a bundle on fuel.

Seattle always ranks high on lists of US cities with green buildings, with more than 80 large buildings and nearly 50 homes now certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. Since the city began mandating green construction practices in its own buildings a decade ago, the techniques have spread to offices, condos, single family homes, educational centers, even clean-and-sober low-income housing.

Take the Hyatt at Olive 8, which will be hosting our lucky sweepstakes winner for two luxurious nights. It’s the first LEED-certified hotel in the city, with everything from low-flow showerheads to preferred parking spaces for fuel-efficient cars to spa treatments that feature locally-grown ingredients. It’s expected to use 23 percent less energy than a comparable conventional building, and 36 percent less water. Plus, it walked the anti-sprawl walk: by purchasing development rights that allowed it to build higher in the city, the project also helped preserve open space on Sugarloaf Mountain in rural King County.

Here are some other green building projects to check out while you're in town:

Editor's note: The following is a profile from Sightline's green-collar jobs primer. Read more about what makes a green-collar job and how we can create more in the Northwest.

Before Greg Jordan graduated with a degree in environmental sciences from Portland State University, he imagined he might find a job working in stormwater control or restoring wetlands.

Instead, he spent his summer on a weatherization crew doing hands-on labor—slithering through crawl spaces, blowing insulation into wall cavities, sealing up air leaks—and loving it.

Out of a dozen program graduates, he’s only one of two who were able to quickly land a job in a tough economy. It wouldn’t have happened, he said, without a renewed attention and commitment to energy efficiency.

“Without the stimulus and the funding, I don’t think I would have been given this chance,” said Jordan. “The field is really just getting going. It’s been around, but finally people are realizing these little things make a big difference.”

He answered an ad placed by EcoTech LLC, an environmental services company with a background in pollution cleanup. It launched a new a business line in October 2008 in energy efficiency and weatherization.

There have been a couple new developments since I last wrote about the US Chamber of Commerce and its whacked out stance on climate change (basically, denial and roadblocking important legislation):

First, Nike stepped down from the Chamber board of directors while keeping its membership in the group.

Second, Apple split with the Chamber.

And as Grist points out, the Chamber has tried to do damage control, without changing its opposition to clean-energy legislation. And, the New York Times editorial page pronounced that “no organization in this country has done more to undermine [climate] legislation.”

Furthermore, hundreds of business executives descended on Washington this week in support of a clean energy economy, including Starbucks, HP, Ebay, Duke Energy, Levi Strauss, Cliff Bar, Avista, Exelon, PG&E and many others. Calling for investment in American jobs instead of global warming pollution, the CEOs participating in the Business Advocacy Day for Jobs & Competitiveness -- an effort organized by the new We Can Lead coalition -- are telling the Senate to take action with strong climate legislation like the Clean Energy Jobs Act introduced last week by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

So, our question remains...Which Northwest company will be the next to step up and condemn the Chamber's heavy-duty lobbying against smart climate and energy policy? Lobbying being done in members' names?

Ahem, Microsoft...? Grist's Jonathan Hiskes met with Microsoft’s chief environmental strategist, Rob Bernard.

Microsoft has never been considered an environmental leader, but it’s got a decent climate policy on paper. It opened an energy-efficient data center this summer that could lead to significant energy savings, particularly if the company finds ways to use the innovations in larger server labs.

Given all this, why is Microsoft a Chamber member? Bernard told me Microsoft takes climate change very seriously and tried to distance the company from the Chamber’s climate shenanigans. “The views expressed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce do not reflect Microsoft’s position on climate change and we are not participating in their climate initiatives,” he said in a followup email.

Kudos to Hiskes for asking the tough questions. I would think Microsoft employees would be asking those too--or employees at Amazon, Boeing, or Costco for that matter.

Meanwhile, as part of SEIU’s ongoing campaign to shed light on the extreme positions of the US Chamber of Commerce, they put together this video highlighting the recent high-profile exodus for the Chamber’s "backwards position on climate change."

We'd like to see some Northwest business leaders willing to leave the Chamber with an achy breaky heart too.

*** This is a preliminary summary of a huge bill, so it's not Sightline's final answer. Look for a more thorough and polished analysis next week. ***

Weighing in at 821 pages, the Kerry-Boxer climate bill introduced into the US Senate yesterday is officially a whopper, though it's certainly more svelte than the companion House bill that it substantially mirrors. (Apparently, it's Kerry-Boxer, not Boxer-Kerry, despite what you may have heard.)

Update, 1:20: quick aside on the price ceiling: Lots of folks asking what I think about the "price collar" approach in this bill, especially the price ceiling that appears to be a cap buster. In a nutshell: the price ceiling ends up being no worse than the quality of the program's offsets. (By analogy, however, getting hit by a bus is no worse than getting hit by a truck!)

I'm officially not a fan of the price ceiling, but it could wind up being okay. The program would sell whatever permits are sold at the price ceiling (i.e. above the cap) by using the reserve account -- and the reserve account is initially stocked with permits from the cap's pool. In other words, the existence of the reserve account means that there's a slight tightening of the cap in early years, which means no real cap busting. 

If the reserve is depleted then it is re-stocked by selling more offsets to create new permits. And because offsets will almost certainly be cheaper than the ceiling price, subsequent permits sold in excess of the cap will effectively get offset-plus. 

There's more explanation of these features below the jump.

Okay, now let's dig in.

Today, Sightline released a primer on green jobs called Green-Collar Jobs: Realizing the Promise. Green jobs have been a much-discussed topic here and elsewhere. But what are they? Who has them? And how do we get more for Northwest workers?

A follow up to our popular Cap and Trade 101, Sightline's new primer explains what makes a green job, how investment in clean energy creates those jobs, and how Northwest leaders can build a green-collar workforce in our region.

Included in the primer:

Green-collar jobs are those held by employees who devote a substantial share of their work hours to activities that boost energy efficiency, increase the supply of renewable energy, or prevent, reduce, or clean up pollution.

The Promise

Green jobs can speed progress on three important challenges at once: economic recovery, job creation, and climate change. This is an enormous opportunity to ease our dependence on climate-warming fossil fuels while fostering lasting, broadly shared economic prosperity for local families.

The Plan

The biggest chance in the near term for green-collar job creation is in boosting energy efficiency in buildings. This is local work that saves energy. These are jobs that cannot be outsourced. Focusing on training programs for workers that lead to credentials or certifications and factoring training, employment, and formal education into career ladders will help grow a green-collar workforce that gets Northwest families on a track to prosperity in the clean energy economy.

Combining work training programs in fields like efficiency retrofitting or renewable energy with innovative financing programs will supply the workers, stoke demand, and secure funding for the green-collar economy--right here in our communities.

The Prize

Applying a comprehensive set of solutions can help the Northwest lead a green-collar economic recovery. Success won't be fully captured in higher quarterly earnings or a lower unemployment rate; it will be measured by whether the Northwest increasingly offers its residents a more sustainable way to live, with greater energy independence, fewer greenhouse-gas emissions, cozier buildings with lower operating costs, and good-paying jobs that provide paychecks with a purpose for local families.

Read more about the green jobs primer; check out profiles of northwesterners joining the green workforce; or DOWNLOAD the primer now.