Sensible Advice On A Global Global Warming Pact

Former Secretary of State George Schultz has some sensible advice in today's Post on how to achieve a viable global warming pact amongst all the countries of the world.

In "How To Gain A Climate Consensus," Schultz draws on experience with the Montreal Protocol, successfully used to address the ozone depletion issue. There's no rocket science here. Achieving a meaningful consensus on climate change will require some give and take, some compromise, and some hard bargaining.

No treaty will be perfect--we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We need to get something started, and over time we can make it better.

Incidentally, Schultz argues that "a straight-out carbon tax is simpler and likelier to produce the desired result" than a complicated cap and trade system. We've previously argued for cap and trade, but mainly on political grounds--that irresponsible Republicans in the U.S. will argue for political gain against anything that is labelled a "tax." We do agree, however, that a carbon tax is far more efficient and likely to be more effective.

It would be nice to see the U.S. take the lead on climate change, rather than be dragged along kicking and screaming. For that to happen, however, we'll have to wait about another year and a half.

What Type of Green Will Your Car Be?

Will you be driving a super-clean, green, hydrogen-powered fuel cell car in the future? Or a lithium-ion battery powered electric car? What about a low-emission bio-diesel? Perhaps an efficient compressed natural gas auto? Or maybe something else (hopefully, not a gasoline powered Hummer!).

Last week, we previewed the future of the robo-car--and any of the vehicles we discuss here could also be a robo model sometime down the road. This week, we'll turn to the shade of green you may be driving.

The May edition of Popular Science has an interesting feature in which they handicap the pros and cons of the automotive fuels of the future, predicting the market share each will have twenty years from now, in 2027.

It's a pretty realistic look at the future, although one hopes the timetable can be sped up through some good government policies.

The clear winner in the PopSci sweepstakes is battery propelled vehicles, including hybrids, which obviously are already on the road and making gains. While current hybrids can achieve gas mileage of 45-50 mpg, we can expect to start seeing mass-market plug-in electrics by around 2011, which offer the promise of as much as 100 mpg (of gasoline--you also have to use electricity to charge them). PopSci forecasts a 30% market share for electrics by 2027.

That's some decent news, but of course if all we do is build a bunch of coal-fired generating plants to charge up all those new electric vehicles, we won't make much progress on reducing carbon emissions. (We will, however, be more energy "independent", unless we start importing Chinese coal.)

So what of those fantastic hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that emit only water as their exhaust? The news ain't so good. PopSci forecasts only 2% market share for such cars by 2027. Technological hurdles abound--not only is fuel-cell technology not quite ready for prime-time, but it is very difficult to store and transport hydrogen efficiently, and the needed infrastructure is a long-way off. Also, the current methods for making hydrogen involve using carbon-based fuels, especially natural gas. Hydrogen can be made from water with electricity--that hydrolysis experiment you did in high school--but we'd need a lot of electricity, so once again we're looking at whether we can quickly boost renewable production of all those needed megawatts. Nonetheless, hydrogen fuel cells look like the technology of our grandchildren, something we can look forward to on trips out of the nursing home.

PopSci doesn't see any other technology making a big breakout, either. They put biodiesel at a 4% market share in 2027, with compressed natural gas (CNG) at 3%, and ethanol at 6%. (We think CNG could develop a niche for larger vehicles--trucks and buses--which would make its overall contribution to lower carbon emissions greater.)

PopSci does see big inroads for regular diesel, taking as much as 20% of the market by 2027. So what, you say? Well, modern diesel engines do emit about a third less carbon than a typical gasoline-powered car, getting 20-40% better mileage. That's some progress, but we'd frankly hope to do a lot better in the next 20 years. Also, putting in a diesel infrastructure is the first step toward more bio-diesel use.

What does all this mean? It means we have a long way to go. PopSci's estimates are probably quite realistic--it takes a long time to replace the whole vehicle fleet, and apart from hybrids and diesels, most of these technologies are barely available today. It means in 20 years we'll still be spewing vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere from transportation, and we'll still be pretty dependent on unstable mid-east regimes for fuel.

The best way to speed up the transition is to raise the price of oil, coal and other carbon emitting fuels. The faster the price goes up, the faster our transition, within reason. If the price goes up too fast, however, it will simply harm the economy, especially the poor. What we need is a steady increase, big enough to be noticed. However, we shouldn't simply wait for demand from China and India to drive up our prices. Either a cap and trade system or a carbon tax will raise fuel prices.

It's time to get going!

Time For Cap and Trade

It's time for the U.S. to adopt a cap and trade system on carbon emissions.

Some of our green colleagues argue that we'd be better off with a carbon tax. In a vacuum, we'd agree--a carbon tax is economically more efficient and avoids some of the pitfalls of administering a cap and trade system.

But we don't live in a vacuum, especially politically. For Democrats to take the lead in enacting a massive new tax would be political folly and would lose significant moderate Republican support for a cap and trade system. Besides, a carbon tax would also be difficult to administer and is susceptible to many of the same problems--or different ones--as cap and trade. One particular pitfall is the notable tendency of Congress to enact exceptions to taxes. You can bet we'd never actually get a "flat" carbon tax. (Cap and trade is, of course, a hidden tax.)

The time to act is NOW (i.e., this legislative session of Congress). A broad consensus has finally formed in the U.S. that we need to take aggressive steps to combat global climate change. Many business entities, anticipating regulation and fearing a patchwork of state laws, now favor a national cap and trade system. Few Republicans are "climate deniers" anymore: in what was to have been a "debate" between John Kerry and Newt Gingrich on global warming recently, Gingrich surprised Kerry and a lot of other folks by freely conceding warming and agreeing we need to do something about it. Most moderate Republicans--feeling heat from their constituents--also support legislation.

It would be a grave mistake for congressional Democrats to stall legislation in the hopes of making it an issue in the '08 presidential contest. It is likely that the GOP nominee--whoever it is--will be far greener than W. Bush. We'd expect to see Guiliani, McCain, Romney, Gingrich or Thomspson push some kind of green legislative package if Congress hasn't already acted. The issue among Republicans today is not whether warming is happening, but rather what to do about it, and they're generally open to moderate looking solutions, especially ones supported by business.

The issue is also sufficiently complicated that most Americans won't be able to parse subtle differences between say a weak Guiliani cap and trade system with loopholes for coal and oil, versus a strong cap and trade system proposed by Clinton or Obama. If anything, Democrats could get outflanked--their biggest ally now is that Bush stands for nothing. The next GOP candidate won't make that mistake.

Indeed, if congressional Democrats haven't passed a bill by '08, their presidential nominee may find herself or himself under attack from the GOP nominee for their failure of action. If Democrats pass legislation and Bush vetoes it (which we doubt will happen), or if Senate Republicans filibuster a vote, then that's a different story. But voters now expect Congress to act, so it is imperative for Democrats to agree on a bill--a cap and trade bill--and bring it to a vote. Doing so will help convince voters that putting Dems back in power was a good idea, and should help increase Democratic majorities in the next election.