Hard Choices, Sacrifices Ahead on Global Warming - Including Higher Costs By Frank Davies The San Jose Mercury News Sunday 22 April 2007 Washington - It's Earth Day today, and the great green stampede just keeps getting bigger. Everyone wants to fight global warming, save the planet and feel good while doing it. The events of the past week illustrate the depth and range of activity. Religious leaders, including evangelicals, sermonized about good stewardship of God's Earth. Military leaders warned that unchecked global warming is a national security threat. Britain prodded the U.N. Security Council to discuss the issue, as scientists released new details on the impact of climate change. Insurance giant AIG and the ConocoPhillips oil company joined an unlikely coalition of corporations, investment funds and environmental groups pressing the U.S. government to enact tough reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is now a central part of pop culture, from Oscar-winner Al Gore's ongoing crusade to Vanity Fair's current "green issue," with Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover, and Newsweek's "save the planet" issue featuring Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger balancing the earth on his finger. Here in Washington, politicians know a trend when they see it. What had been billed as a major "debate" between John Kerry and Newt Gingrich over how to deal with global warming ended up demonstrating broad agreement when Gingrich called it an urgent problem. More Republicans in the Senate now say they will support emissions controls in some form. A socialist - Sen. Bernard Sanders, the Vermont independent - and snowmobilers meet and find themselves agreeing that the situation is dire. But there's something missing from much of the clamor for action: a recognition that sacrifices and hard choices lie ahead if the United States and other major emitters are going to seriously reduce the amount of carbon dioxide spewing into the atmosphere. In Congress, members like to talk about "low-hanging fruit." In the case of global warming, that means the relatively painless ways to reduce emissions - make federal buildings more energy efficient, promote compact fluorescent light bulbs, approve modest increases in spending to develop clean technologies. By Washington standards, doing something daring this year would be raising fuel efficiency standards on vehicles, and that's such a no-brainer that even auto manufacturers see some increase as inevitable. But what about the hard part? The United States still leads the world in greenhouse gas emissions, although China and its exploding economy will soon catch up. About 70percent of U.S. carbon emissions come from two big sources - power plants and motor vehicles. Last week, Chris Field, a Stanford University ecologist, told senators on Capitol Hill that a serious effort to reduce greenhouse gases requires a "portfolio" of four interlocking parts: advances in new technologies; major conservation; energy efficiency; and some capture and storage of carbon from coal-fired power plants. As long as coal and oil are significantly cheaper than alternative fuels, weaning ourselves from fossil fuels won't be easy. The government could intervene with a carbon tax and a gas tax that would accelerate that shift, creating more marketplace demand for alternative fuels. But members of Congress fear that any tax - even if offset by other tax reductions - is political suicide. Instead, the bills in Congress that may go somewhere - and are supported by several presidential candidates - would set up a "cap and trade" program to cap emissions and allow the trading of carbon permits in open markets. Utilities that stay under the cap could profit by selling permits to inefficient producers. Economists believe that any of these plans could mean higher energy costs, which will spur conservation until alternative fuels become more affordable. "You're going to pay one way or another, whether it's a tax or a permit program," William Pizer, a fellow with the centrist think tank Resources for the Future, told the Washington Post. So far, the presidential candidates haven't really discussed the difficult decisions ahead on global warming. John McCain favors a "cap and trade" plan but is vague on what it might cost. Hillary Clinton said her solution comes down to "two words - innovation and efficiency." Barack Obama even found a rhetorical trifecta, describing how tackling global warming is a "win-win-win" because it would protect the environment, boost the economy and enhance national security. And don't forget Schwarzenegger's feel-good assurance that reducing emissions doesn't mean giving up Hummers and SUVs, just refitting them to use biofuels. David Rothkopf, who worked on energy issues in the Clinton administration, says no one should expect candidates to discuss sacrifices or changing lifestyles - yet. "You won't hear a lot about taxes or meaty solutions prior to the 2008 election, although the next administration will have to deal with that," he predicts. Rothkopf, a Carnegie fellow, should know. He has spoken with candidates and their staffs about tough energy choices, and he says their reaction often is, "Do we really have to grapple with this right now?" While many leaders are largely ducking these discussions, the good news may be that once again, the public is ahead of the politicians. Recent polls show broad support for curbing emissions, even if it means paying a little more to do it. Two-thirds of those responding to a GreenbergQuinlan poll last week said they would favor requiring 25 percent of all electricity to come from alternative sources by 2025 - and that was after they were told that critics warn that this would result in higher rates. And California, once again, may lead the way here. From the 1970s on, Californians have made a conscious decision to pay more for electricity. Utilities rely on natural gas and renewables, not cheap coal, and the result is rates double that of many states. But the benefits are profound. Through mandated efficiencies, the average Californian burns about 7,000 kilowatt hours a year of electricity - compared to 12,000 for the average American. Analysts agree that cost drives conservation, whether it's $3 a gallon of gas or California's per-kilowatt-hour rate of almost 13 cents (it's 5 to 7 cents in many other states). "California has been the test tube, and that's the way the nation is heading," Rothkopf said. 'We're entering an age of limitations, where you can't have everything you want, and people are ready to change in some serious ways." California is leading in another way - the accelerated development, fueled by growing investment, in clean technologies. It's possible that breakthroughs could soon make alternative fuels much more affordable, and make it cheaper to capture and store carbon emissions from coal plants. Maybe some Bay Area whiz kid will win Richard Branson's $25 million prize by finding a way to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. But as we mark Earth Day and celebrate the many efforts we are making to pass on the planet in decent shape to future generations, it's important to be honest. There are sacrifices and choices ahead that will require leadership and long-term thinking. Many analysts have compared all the efforts to tackle global warming, and the urgency of the task, with the Manhattan Project to produce the atomic bomb or the Apollo Project to land a man on the moon. But those massive efforts had one goal in mind. The current challenge has multiple fronts, some extremely complex, and require global cooperation on a scale we have never seen. It's worth remembering that when President John F. Kennedy announced the Apollo Project in 1961, he did not mince words about the obstacles or costs: "No single space project will be more impressive to mankind - and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish." We should go to the moon, he said, "not because it is easy, but because it is hard." ------- ---------------------------------------------------- Gay Nicholson, Ph.D.
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