Presented before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation by David Hawkins, director of NRDC's climate center.
My name is David Hawkins, and I am the Director of the Climate
Center at the Natural Resources Defense Council. I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you today on the issues of policies to
combat the threat posed by climate change or global warming. The
Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, non-profit
organization of scientists, lawyers, and environmental specialists,
dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded
in 1970, NRDC serves more than 500,000 members from offices in New
York, Washington, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
My message today is a simple one: the United States should no
longer delay the adoption of effective policies to limit emissions
of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollution. Nearly a
decade ago, the United States and more than 100 other countries
ratified a global climate change treaty that should have spurred
adoption of serious policies to combat global warming. Instead, we
have had a decade of delay, during which U.S. greenhouse emissions
have increased by about 14 percent. Rather than adopt meaningful
policies that would have sent an effective signal to the private
sector that constraining carbon emissions was a sound course for
business planning, we have relied on voluntary pledge programs that
have been effective only in communicating to business leaders that
the government is not yet serious about limiting global warming
pollution.
Mr. Chairman, the first rule for getting out of a hole is to stop
digging. Every year that we delay adoption of real global warming
policies, we dig ourselves deeper and make our ultimate response
programs more costly, disruptive, and risky. The United States is
better positioned than any other country in the world to lead the
way in showing that economic progress can go hand in hand with
controlling global warming pollution. The time for us to exercise
that leadership is now.
Global warming is a problem that becomes more difficult to manage
the longer we wait to start. Let's review some basic information.
Starting about 300 million years ago, for a period spanning about 75
million years, our planet transferred, through geologic processes,
vast amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and living organisms to
immense underground reserves, producing what we call fossil fuels.
Estimates are that some 5 trillion tonnes (metric tons) of carbon
were stored in this way. Imagine a 75 million year video documenting
the removal of 5 trillion tonnes of material from our global living
room and its storage in a remote subterranean repository. Now,
imagine running this video in reverse and at hyper speed. That is
what we have been doing for the past 150 years.
Since the Industrial Revolution, we have been putting these
immense underground carbon stores back into the atmosphere by
burning these fuels and we are doing so at ever increasing speed. At
current consumption rates, we put back in the air each year about
100,000 years of stored carbon. In the last 150 years we have put
about 290 billion tonnes (gigatonnes or Gt) into the air. Amidst the
claimed uncertainties about the climate change phenomenon, there is
no dispute that these emissions have caused significant increases in
atmospheric concentrations of CO2. Today's
CO2 levels are about 370 parts per million
(ppm), about 30 percent higher than the pre-industrial level of 280
ppm.
Nor is there any dispute that continued emissions of CO2 from fossil burning will cause concentrations to go
still higher. The latest forecasts for global carbon emissions in
the 21st century are sobering. The IPCC's most recent report
estimates emissions of between 1000 and 2100 Gt of carbon in the
next 100 years -- or about 3 to 7 times more than we released in the
last 150 years. With cumulative emissions in these ranges,
atmospheric CO2 would build up to between 540
and 970 ppm by the year 2100 and continue to increase unless
emissions were cut. Several of the plausible emission scenarios
would lead to doubled CO2 concentrations before
a child born today would be eligible for social security.
A final undisputed fact is that once a certain atmospheric
concentration is reached, it cannot be significantly reduced for
hundreds of years, no matter how drastic a "response program"
policymakers decide to put in place. Unfortunately, carbon dioxide's
lifetime in the atmosphere is a long one: of each 1000 tons we emit
today, 400 of those tons will still be in the air 100 years from now
and 150 tons will remain 1000 years from now. So the bed we are
making is a procrustean one that we and generations to come must lie
on.
As a result of fossil fuel combustion, we already have increased
atmospheric CO2 to levels greater than "at any
time during the past 400,000 years," notes the recent National
Academy of Sciences report to President Bush. And we are on a path
to dramatically higher concentrations in the coming decades. The
policy questions this Committee and this Congress must address are
whether and when to act to reduce the buildup of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. In NRDC's view the
answers are, yes we must act and we should start now.
Yet for more than a decade, fossil-fuel dependent industries have
vehemently opposed policies to limit global warming pollution and
governments, including the U.S. government, have declined to adopt
such policies. One can explain the position of the industrial
opponents as driven by the narrow interests of their current
business plans but what explains the compliant position of
governments, which should show at least some signs of support for
the broader public interest. One explanation is the influence of
money on politics and enactment of the McCain-Feingold legislation
would be a salutary development. A second explanation is that
legislators and executive branch officials believe that we can wait
until the emergence of greater consensus on the detailed nature of
the threats we face from global warming and that acting later will
reduce the costs of a response program compared to acting now. NRDC
believes this basic assumption -- that later is cheaper -- is simply
wrong.
The basic fact is that further delay in adopting effective
policies forecloses options for us and for our children. Further
delay will increase the costs of achieving stable atmospheric
concentrations at levels less than double or even triple the
concentrations under which human societies have evolved. How
important is it for us to preserve the option to stabilize
greenhouse gas concentrations at these lower levels? The policy
dilemma is that we may not know the answers in a manner convincing
to all for decades to come. Yet if we delay policy action until we
have amassed a more comprehensive and detailed body of evidence of
the full range of damages that a changed climate will bring, the
planet's growing emissions will have made stabilizing concentrations
at levels anywhere near today's levels very much more expensive, if
not impossible.
Each year of delay in developing an effective global response
program brings us closer to the point of no-return when we lose the
ability to limit the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations to
lower levels. By failing to act, we are passing these points of
no-return without even understanding what we are giving up for
ourselves and our descendants. As I mentioned, pre-industrialization
levels of CO2 did not exceed 280 ppm and we are
now at 370 ppm, the highest level in 400,000 years. Because the way
CO2 builds up in the atmosphere is well
understood, we can determine the cumulative emissions during the
next century that allow us to stabilize the atmosphere at various
levels, such as 350, 450, 550, 650, or even 750 ppm and experts have
done these calculations. The most recent IPCC report summarizes
these 21st century emission budgets as follows:
Stabilization
target (ppm) |
350 |
450 |
550 |
650 |
750 |
Cumulative
emissions in 21st century (GtC) |
280 |
630 |
960 |
1150 |
1300 |
The same report forecasts cumulative global emissions during this
period, in the absence of effective global warming policies, to
range from 1000 to 2100 Gt of carbon. While many members of Congress
don't fancy themselves expert in global warming, most have a good
understanding of budget fundamentals. In budget terms we are
spending at a rate that far exceeds what we can afford if we learn
we need to stabilize CO2 concentrations in the
350 to 550 ppm range. At first glance, these numbers may suggest we
still have lots of time to study this issue but consider that to
keep the next hundred years' emissions under 300 Gt we would need to
cut today's global emissions immediately by more than 60
percent and keep them there while the world grows in population and
affluence. Or we might pursue the cut more gradually but then we
must achieve even deeper cuts later to stay within the same budget.
While this example is for the 350 ppm option, the same dynamic
exists for each of the higher stabilization targets: the longer we
delay adoption of policies that limit business as usual growth in
emissions, the deeper the cuts the planet must achieve to hit any
stabilization target. And if we delay too long, each successive
stabilization target becomes impossible to achieve.
Dr. James E. Edmonds of the Department of Energy's Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory and colleagues have estimated
least-abatement cost schedules for reducing emissions to meet these
stabilization targets. He points out that these schedules require
global emissions to drop below business as usual paths in the very
near future. Here is a summary of this information as he presented
it to the Senate Energy Committee on June 28, 2001:
CO2 Concentration (ppmv) |
350 |
450 |
550 |
650 |
750 |
Maximum
Global CO2 Emissions (billions of tonnes
carbon per year) |
8.5 |
9.5 |
11.2 |
12.9 |
14.0 |
Year in which
Global Emissions Must Break from Present Trends |
Today |
2007 |
2013 |
2018 |
2023 |
As can be seen, for the lower targets, the dates for achieving
significant global emission reductions are upon us now and the dates
for preserving even the higher targets are very close. To appreciate
that these dates do not allow time for further delay in adopting
policies, consider the sequence of events that must occur to
actually succeed in reducing global emissions. Clear public policies
must be debated and adopted, not just in the United States but in
other countries too. The private sector must develop strategies for
response to those policies. The strategies must be translated into
specific investment decisions needed to carry out the strategies,
most likely involving additional development work for certain
technologies. The investment decisions must be followed with
detailed engineering and planning work. And this work must be
followed by deployment of lower-carbon technologies in the field on
a sufficient scale to actually reduce global emissions below current
forecasted increases. Thus, to reduce global emissions by dates like
2007-2020, we must start today with adoption of effective
policies.
Stated another way, further delay in adopting policies to limit
global warming pollution means we are discarding the options of
stabilizing concentrations at levels closer to the lower end of the
range of targets. I cannot prove today that stabilizing CO2 at 350 ppm is essential for our well-being. But I
think it is self-evident that it is not responsible to eliminate
this option without any assurance that we can live well with the
resulting future. As the National Academy of Sciences panel noted in
its report to President Bush, "risk increases with increases in both
the rate and the magnitude of climate change." By committing
ourselves to ever-higher CO2 concentrations, we
are committing to higher rates and magnitudes of climate change for
our descendants and ourselves.
Fortunately, there are no technical or economic impediments to
adopting policies today that will restore U.S. leadership on
fighting global warming and send important signals to the private
sector and to other countries that the time for effective action has
arrived. Congress has before it a number of major legislative
initiatives that will address the principal sources of global
warming pollution in the United States in a way that will stimulate
the new technology that is essential to meeting the challenges of
limiting these emissions during the remainder of this century.
Near-Term Domestic Policies to Address Global Warming
A.
COMPREHENSIVE POWER PLANT CLEAN-UP LEGISLATION
NRDC supports comprehensive legislation to reduce all four major
pollutants from electric generation -- sulfur oxides, nitrogen
oxides, mercury and carbon dioxide. Electric generation is
responsible for 40 percent of total U.S. CO2
emissions. We have the technology to make significant reductions in
CO2 from this sector though a combination of
efficiency measures on the supply and the demand side, and through
increased reliance on cleaner fuels. Enactment of a cap and trade
program for CO2 from the electric sector would
produce the needed market signal to all the players in the electric
production and consumption sectors that there is value in reducing
carbon emissions. The bipartisan bill, S. 556, the "Clean Power
Act," sponsored by Senators Kerry, Lieberman, Collins, Jeffords and
Snowe would accomplish this objective and NRDC strongly supports
it.
Complementary policies to reduce emissions from electric
generation include renewable portfolio standards proposed in the
last Congress in S. 1369, to facilitate the deployment of renewable
energy resources, a public benefits fund as proposed in last year's
S. 1369 and this year's S. 597, to promote continued investments in
demand side management programs and net metering provisions (as
found in both bills), to promote clean and efficient distributed
generation.
B. POLICIES TO REDUCE PETROLEUM DEPENDENCE AND PROTECT
THE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC HEALTH
1. Close the Light
Truck Loophole and Raise Fuel Economy Standards to 40 Miles per
Gallon
Incentives for advanced technology vehicles will be most
effective if enacted in combination with updated fuel economy
standards. This can be accomplished in two steps. First, congress
should quickly eliminate the light truck loophole in the current
fuel economy standards. The share of new vehicles that are
classified as light trucks (SUVs, minivans, and pickups) has
increased dramatically from 20 percent of sales when the CAFE law
was first enacted in 1975 to nearly 50 percent of the market today.
Yet the vast majority of vehicles currently regulated as light
trucks are in fact used in exactly the same way as passenger cars.
EPA recognized the need to eliminate the light truck loophole in its
Tier II tailpipe standards beginning in 2004. Congress should follow
this lead and eliminate the light truck loophole in fuel economy
regulations in the same time frame. Congress should raise the
overall fuel economy standard for the entire light vehicle fleet
over a longer time period. A recent report by the Union of Concerned
Scientists shows that the fleet average efficiency could be
increased to 40 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2012 and 55 miles per
gallon by 2020. The 40 mpg standard could be achieved through
incremental improvements to vehicles with conventional drive trains,
although hybrid and fuel cell vehicles would likely contribute to
achieving this efficiency level. The 55 mpg standard could be most
easily achieved by applying hybrid technology throughout the vehicle
fleet.1
Congress should also set standards for replacement tires. It is a
little known fact that auto manufacturers use highly efficient tires
to comply with current CAFE requirements, but comparable tires are
not available to the consumers as replacements. Congress should
require replacement tires to meet the same specifications as those
sold on new cars. This measure alone would save over 70 percent more
oil than is likely to be found if drilling were permitted in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
2. Pass the CLEAR Act: Tax Incentives for Advanced
Technology Vehicles and Alternative Fuels
The CLEAR Act (S. 760) provides a comprehensive set of
performance-based tax incentives to accelerate the commercialization
of advanced technology vehicles and alternative fuels. This bill is
a major advance over previous vehicle tax credit proposals because
it is the first proposal to link publicly-funded incentives directly
to the public benefits provided by the vehicles that get the
incentive, in this case the amount of petroleum and carbon dioxide
displaced. This is accomplished by linking the amount of the tax
credit it offers in part to the actual fuel economy of the
qualifying vehicles. The bill also includes important provisions to
ensure that public support only goes to truly advanced vehicles that
reduce local air pollution as well as global warming pollution and
petroleum consumption.
The policy advances incorporated into CLEAR reflect the
collective advice of a unique coalition of environmental advocates
and automakers. Public interest organizations that have joined NRDC
in endorsing the CLEAR Act include the Union of Concerned
Scientists, Environmental Defense, the American Council for an
Energy-Efficient Economy, the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor, Michigan
and the Michigan Environmental Council.
3. Establish Incentives to Promote Smart Growth
Development Patterns
Gasoline use also can be reduced by directing real estate
development away from urban sprawl and toward "smart growth."
Smart-growth suburbs reduce the need to drive by 30 percent or more,
cutting household expenditures on transportation.2 An important incentive for smart
growth is to establish mortgage qualification rules that recognize
the increased affordability of homes that have low transportation
costs because they are located in areas with good access to public
transportation.
4. Modify the Ethanol Tax Credit to Make it
Performance-Based
The largest incentive currently going to alternative fuels is the
excise tax credit provided for ethanol. Unfortunately, the
environmental benefits generated by this tax credit are limited
because it does not currently incorporate performance criteria. Most
ethanol is currently produced from corn and requires high levels of
chemical and fossil fuel inputs that are almost as great as those
for conventional gasoline over the full fuel cycle of production and
use. The existing tax incentive for ethanol could be made much more
effective by linking the amount of the credit to the net reduction
in global warming pollution or fossil fuel consumption achieved by
the ethanol producer. This would encourage ethanol producers to
shift to less energy intensive feedstocks, such as agricultural
wastes and perennial crops, and to improve the efficiency of their
conversion processes.
C. BENEFITS OF A COMPREHENSIVE POLICIES TO PROMOTE
ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY VEHICLES AND ALTERNATIVE FUELS
The economic and environmental benefits of enacting the
comprehensive set of policies described here would be profound. EPA
estimates that the average light truck on the road today produces
164 pounds of smog-forming pollution (hydrocarbons plus nitrogen
oxides) and 8.0 tons of global warming pollution in traveling 14,000
miles each year. This does not include upstream emissions associated
with producing the fuel, which would add about 11 pounds of
smog-forming pollution and 2 tons of global warming pollution, bring
the totals to 175 pounds of smog-forming pollution and 10 tons of
global warming pollution. Conventional new vehicles are
substantially cleaner than this average with respect to smog-forming
pollution, but have roughly the same fuel economy and therefore the
same global warming pollution emissions as the vehicle existing
vehicle it is likely to replace. For example, a vehicle meeting the
National Low Emission Vehicle standard would emit only 12 pounds of
smog-forming pollution from its tailpipe, but upstream emissions
would still add 11 pounds, bringing its total impact to 23 pounds of
smog-forming pollution and 10 tons of global warming pollution. In
contrast, a hybrid vehicle qualifying for a $3000 tax credit under
the CLEAR Act would emit less than 1 pound of smog-forming pollution
from its tailpipe and would use only half as much fuel. As a result,
its total impact would be only 6 pounds of smog-forming pollution
and 5 tons of global warming pollution.
Aggregating from the vehicle level to the fleet level, the Union
of Concerned Scientist (UCS) estimates that the combination of tax
incentives and higher fuel economy standards advocated here would
save 540 million barrels of oil in the year 2010, reduce upstream
smog-forming pollution by 320 million pounds, and reduce global
warming pollution by 273 million tons. By 2020 the savings would be
even more dramatic: 1.8 billion barrels of oil, 1000 pounds of
smog-forming pollution, and 890 million tons of global warming
pollution. All of these benefits would be achieved while saving
consumers billions of dollars: nearly $10 billion in 2010 and $28
billion in 2020 according to UCS.
D. LEGISLATION TO PROVIDE ENERGY-EFFICIENCY INCENTIVES
FOR THE BUILDINGS SECTOR
The performance-based approach adopted in the CLEAR Act should
also be applied to the design of tax incentives to promote
efficiency in other energy using sectors of our economy. For
example, "The Energy-efficient Buildings Incentives Act" (S. 207),
introduced by Sens. Robert Smith (R-N.H.) and Diane Feinstein
(D-Calif.), would provide tax breaks for building energy-efficient
commercial buildings, schools, rental housing and new homes, cutting
their energy needs by 30 percent to 50 percent. It also would
provide tax incentives for the purchase of energy-efficient air
conditioners, heating and cooling systems, and solar water heating
and photovoltaic systems.
S. 207 provides tax incentives for energy efficiency in
buildings. Buildings are an often-overlooked source of energy waste.
They consume over a third of U.S. energy use and account for about a
third of total air pollution in the United States. Energy use in
buildings can be cut in half or better using cost-effective
technologies that are available to those consumers that are willing
to search them out.
But in practice most of those technologies simply are not options
for energy users, whether consumers or businesses, because they are
too hard to find. Economic incentives can cause the entire chain of
production and consumption, from the manufacturer to the contractor
or vendor to the consumer, to accept new technologies rapidly. In
the few cases where utility programs have been consistent enough
across the country and long-lasting enough, new products have been
introduced that have become or will become the most common product
in the marketplace, with reductions in energy use of 30 percent-60
percent.
Examples include:
- Refrigerators, where new products that are available this year
consume less than a quarter of the energy of their smaller and
less feature-laden counterparts 30 years ago. The last step
forward, saving 30 percent, resulted from a coordinated incentive
program, the Super Efficient Refrigerator Program (SERP), which
was sponsored by utilities with the advice of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
- Clothes washers, where some 10 percent of the market now
provides cleaner clothes at a reduction in energy use of 60
percent or more. This gain in efficiency resulted from a program
organized by the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) and
supported by Energy Star. New standards adopted by the Department
of Energy -- and supported by the manufacturers -- will bring all
of the market to this level by 2007.
- Fluorescent lighting systems, where new technologies that also
will be required by manufacturer-supported federal standards will
reduce lighting energy consumption by 30 percent compared to
mid-70's practice while improving the performance of the lighting
system.
The policies embodied in S. 207 are built on success stories like
these.
Manufacturers have pointed out that in order to introduce new
technologies that cost more and that are perceived to be risky, they
need the assurance that the same product can be sold throughout the
country and that the financial incentives will be available for
enough time to make it worth investing in production. S. 207 does
this by providing nationally uniform performance targets for
buildings and equipment that will be eligible for tax incentives for
6 full years.
It's worth mentioning that S. 207 and other policies improving
efficiency of electricity and natural gas use have immediate
benefits for consumers and the economy. Let's start with the problem
of electric reliability. Not only in California and the West, but in
other parts of the country, we are facing the risk of electrical
blackouts and/or excessively high electricity prices this summer and
next. Regions that are confronting these problems are trying to move
forward aggressively both on energy efficiency programs and on power
plant construction. But the lead times for most actions on the
supply side are far too long to provide a solution. And demand-side
approaches attempted on a state-by-state level are much less
effective than coordinated national activities.
Here, S. 207 could be a critical piece of a national solution.
Air conditioners, for example, represent about 30 percent of
summertime peak electric loads. Air conditioners that use a third
less power can be purchased today, but they are not produced in
large enough quantities to make a difference to peak load. If
incentives are made available, manufacturers could begin to
mass-produce these products in a matter of months, not years. Mass
production and increased competition for tax incentives will drive
prices sharply lower, so the incentives will be self-sustaining in
the long-term. And with 5 million air conditioners being sold every
year, a sudden increase in energy efficiency could have a
significant effect in balancing electricity supply and demand even
after less than a year.
Another peak power efficiency measure with a very short lead-time
is installing energy-efficient lighting systems -- either new or
retrofit -- in commercial buildings. Some 15 percent of electrical
peak power results from lighting in commercial buildings. Efficient
installations, such as those NRDC designed and installed in our own
four offices, can cut peak power demand by over two-thirds while
improving lighting quality. Lighting systems are designed and
installed with a lead time of months, so incentives for efficient
lightings as provided in S. 207 could begin to mitigate electric
reliability problems as soon as next summer.
The second major new problem is the skyrocketing cost of natural
gas, which caused heating bills throughout the country to increase
last winter. Improved energy efficiency can cut gas use for the
major uses -- heating and water heating -- by 30 percent-50 percent.
Much of this potential could be achieved in the short term, because
water heaters need replacement about every ten years, and are the
second largest user of natural gas in a typical household (and
largest gas user in households living in efficient homes or in warm
areas).
These types of quick-acting incentives help consumers in two
different ways: first, they provide new choices that are not now
available in practice for families and businesses that want to cut
their own energy costs while obtaining tax relief. But they also
help the non-participants, because reduced demand cuts prices for
everyone.
E. BENEFITS OF INTEGRATED POLICIES TO PROMOTE
EFFICIENCY, RENEWABLE ENERGY AND LIMIT CARBON EMISSIONS
The beneficial impacts of policies like those described above are
magnified when assembled into an integrated program that combines
incentives for energy efficiency and renewable energy and explicit
measures to limit carbon emissions. An example of such an integrated
program can be found in the November 2000, Department of Energy
Report, "Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future." The policies
described in the Clean Energy Future report include greatly expanded
research and development funding for energy efficiency and renewable
energy breakthroughs, a renewable energy portfolio standard,
incentives for renewable energy production and suites of performance
standards and incentives for the vehicles, buildings, and industrial
sectors. DOE's report forecasts that together, these policies would
avoid the need for construction of over 60 percent of the nation's
base-case predicted need for new electric power plants over the next
20 years. The policies also would lower Americans' electric bills by
over $120 billion per year, cut CO2 pollution by
one-third, and slash emissions of other pollutants in half. These
policies are not the imaginings of wild-eyed dreamers. In many cases
they amount to expanding programs that have proven to work well
already: cap and trade emissions programs; tax incentives; appliance
standards; targeted research and development programs; and
well-structured voluntary performance commitment programs. Adoption
of such programs now is feasible and we urge members of the
Committee to lend their support to early enactment of each of these
measures.
Notes
1. Union of Concerned Scientists, Drilling in Detroit:
Tapping Automaker Ingenuity to Build Safe and Efficient
Automobiles.(June 2001). Available from
http://www.ucsusa.org/
2. David Goldstein, "Mortgages Can Remove the Incentive for
Sprawl," Earthword: The Journal of Environmental and Social
Responsibility, Issue #4.
last revised 7.23.01