Breakthrough: The New Climate Debate

The New York Times' Andy Revkin has been one of the few reporters writing on global warming to point out what every serious energy expert in the U.S. has long known: new regulations alone won't do nearly enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In a 2002 Science article by New York University physicist Martin Hoffert and 16 other leading energy experts, Hoffert et. al argued that, "although regulation can play a role, the fossil fuel greenhouse effect is an energy problem that cannot be simply regulated away." It is a conclusion overwhelmingly echoed by other leading analysts, including the UN IPCC and the Stern Review.

What's required, energy experts agree, is not just a price for carbon, but also massive public investments to deploy clean energy technologies so we can achieve the performance and price breakthroughs needed for these new technologies to be picked up worldwide, including in places like China and India whose development is being fueled by cheap coal and oil.

Indeed, given how quickly China is bringing new coal plants on line, the most important thing we can do is bring down the price of new clean energy sources as quickly as possible. Direct public investment in innovation is a faster means to this end than gradually making dirty energy sources expensive so that clean energy sources gradually become cost-competitive.

In a forthcoming paper for the Harvard Law and Policy Review, "Fast Clean Cheap," we argue that a regulation-centered approach would only achieve 10 - 30 percent emissions reductions in the U.S. by 2050, whereas we need 80 percent emissions reductions in the U.S. and 50 percent emissions reductions worldwide by then if we are to avoid catastrophic global warming.

Revkin understands this, which is why he writes on his blog:

All the slow gains from market forces quite clearly… don't get the energy system out of fossil mode in time to avoid serious climate consequences.

Stuck in the older pollution paradigm, the environmental lobby has long put virtually all of its political eggs in the regulatory basket. Environmental groups like Environmental Defense, NRDC, the Sierra Club, and UCS -- the groups with the most influence (with Democrats) in Washington -- have simply never seriously lobbied for a massive investment in clean energy.

Joe Romm, Arthur Smith, and David Roberts claim that this isn't the case, that the environmental movement has always advocated for big investments. But they make this assertion without offering a whit of evidence to back up their claim.

That's because they have no evidence. The top priorities of environmental groups have for two decades been higher fuel economy standards, new efficiency regulations, renewable portfolio standards, and greenhouse gas limits. Major public investments on the order of $30 to $80 billion a year have never been a priority for environmental groups.

Here's Revkin:

You do need an energy revolution to empower something like 9 billion people by mid-century, all of whom want out of poverty. That has not been a forefront message of any environmental group I know of.

It's not only not the their message, it's not their policy priority.

It's not enough to blame the carbon lobby for political inaction. In the 30 years since Amory Lovins wrote his seminal piece on clean energy in Foreign Affairs, in the 20 years since James Hansen declared that global warming had arrived, and during all of Joe Romm's tenure at the Department of Energy, greenhouse gas emissions and our oil addiction have increased.

An investment-centered agenda is the right policy and the best politics. Romm and the rest of the environmental lobby have failed to enact transformational action in Washington, and rather than acknowledge their failures, and reconsider their approach, they are calling for more of the same.

The good news is that there is a new generation of thinkers who recognize that global warming is an urgent priority and that the regulation-centered agenda can't get us where we need to go.

The old global warming debate was between those who thought global warming was serious, human-caused, and requiring action and those who didn't. That debate is coming to an end.

In its place is being born a new debate, one centrally focused on solutions. Revkin's new blog has provided a place for thoughtful discussion about new ideas -- and it has arrived just in time.

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for your comments.

Yes, the response from the True Believers -- Dave Roberts, Joe Romm, et al. -- was to be expected. They don't strike me as very interested in having this debate, but rather in shutting it down. It's telling that neither Romm nor Roberts appears to have read the book -- Romm actually bragged that he didn't read the book before attacking us, saying, "I won't be reading their instant best-seller, and neither should you."

Nor have they responded to "Fast Clean Cheap." Nor have they provided any evidence to back their claim that the environmental lobby has long lobbied for massive investments into clean energy (because they can't -- there isn't any).

I think the fact that so many people have commented on Andy Revkin's story -- people who aren't True Believers and likely feel alienated by Grist's shrill tone -- is perhaps a sign that this debate is moving on.

Posted by: Michael Shellenberger at November 15, 2007 3:29 AM

Ted and Michael,

this is a response to both of you. Your gripe seems to be with "major environmental organizations". I can't speak for Joe Romm or Dave Roberts, but I am neither part of nor a supporter of any "major environmental organization" and never have been. That does not mean I and many others have not been active on the climate and energy questions for a long time. But your claim is incoherent - at least reading your book and your posts - your evidence comes from the stance of "major environmental organizations", and yet your book attacks scientists, "liberals", and the Democratic party wholesale, all lumped in with "environmentalists". Why?

In fact, most "major environmental organizations" I'm familiar with don't spend a lot of their effort on government legislation; rather they focus on what people can do now. Look at the Earth Day climate change effort for instance. Or Bill McKibben's "Step it Up" campaign. You seem to have praise for Bill - I do too, he's a great enthusiast for the cause. But where's his position on "public investment"?

Clearly those on the science side, from IPCC to people like Marty Hoffert to the DOE folks in the trenches see the need for greatly increased R&D and government investment in the issues. What you are doing is nothing new to them. What's different about your plan?

And have you actually succeeded any better? In all the fuss about your attacks on environmentalists (and half the rest of the country it seems) I haven't seen any media discussion of what you claim to be your main policy proposal, on increased public investment.

By the way I just posted a review of your book:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/14/213541/07
If you want to quote it, I'd suggest: "Maybe this is all part of some secret Machiavellian plan to win over the conservative side to actually doing something about climate change"...

Posted by: Arthur Smith at November 15, 2007 6:06 AM

Dear Arthur,

You keep insisting that environmentalists are for major investment. Revkin and I keep pointing out that this is simply not the case. And, notably, you never respond with any evidence.

The national environmental lobby has never made massive public investment in clean energy a priority. When discussing global warming in Break Through, it's pretty obvious that the "environmentalists" we are talking about are the main environmental groups -- Environmental Defense, NRDC, Sierra Club, UCS, NET -- that have clout in Washington, that write environmental legislation, and that have budgets in the hundreds of millions to run ads, mobilize members, and lobby.

The environmental lobby has resisted a major push for large investments in clean energy for two reasons. First, they think that regulation plus small increases for R&D � on the order of $1 to $3 billion more a year � is all that's needed. (Hence the inadequate increases in R&D proposed by the Democratic Congress.) Our contention -- like that of Hoffert et al. and Rayner et al. (Nature October 2007), and perhaps you as well, is that investments on the order of $30 - $80 billion a year are needed.

Second, the green lobby thinks new regulations are more politically popular than major investments. And on this point they're just wrong, as every serious opinion poll shows.

Yes, various individuals have been calling for major investments for at least the last five years. Having read Hoffert et al. in 2002, I was inspired to co-found the Apollo Alliance. And yes, the expert literature, which we've summarized here, is very clear that big investments are needed.

But guess what: we're not the ones who have influence in Washington. The committee staffers look to the senior attorneys and scientists at the big environmental groups, not to Energize America, Apollo Alliance, or Hoffert et al., for guidance. Sure, we all talk to Hill staffers and media. But unless you have some hidden influence on leaders of Congress that I'm unaware of, you don't drive legislative action like Carl Pope and David Hawkins do.

That's why the parts of Break Through that criticize environmentalists on climate are actually quite pointed at NRDC, Sierra Club, et al., and not at groups and individuals who have very little clout over climate policy matters in Washington.

The good news is that in the debate over Break Through, prominent environmental leaders from Carl Pope (he's quoted in the Wired">http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/15-10/mf_burning">Wired magazine profile about us) and David Hawkins (">http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/28/11254/2676"> see his blog) have insisted that they support big investment.

The time has come for them to put their money where their mouths are. They need to publicly commit to making sure that Lieberman-Warner generates at least $30 billion for clean energy investments every year. A mechanism should be created to insure that the money is well-invested in R&D, demonstration, deployment, and outright procurement and not frittered away into a million little pork projects.

Will you endorse this call?

The opportunity is here to see to it that investment be taken as seriously as regulation. Lieberman-Warner, by auctioning permits, could be a vehicle to make it happen. I hope you'll join us.

Michael

Posted by: Michael Shellenberger at November 15, 2007 4:59 PM

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