U.S. Senate votes on climate change

On January 21, 2015, the U.S. Senate voted 98-1 to pass an amendment to S. 1, its Keystone XL Pipeline bill, stating that "climate change is real and not a hoax." A further amendment, stating that "it is the sense of the Congress that--(1) climate change is real; and (2) human activity significantly contributes to climate change" and citing the scientific consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the National Research Council, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), failed by a vote of 50-49. 

It is worth noting a few points regarding these votes. First, it is historic that a Republican controlled Senate would agree that "climate change is real and is not a hoax." This is a far cry from the rhetoric many Republican senators employed during the election cycle, where many of them either flatly denied climate change is occurring or made statements such as "I'm not a scientist" as if to suggest they shouldn't be asked such questions. That said, this vote shows the evolving position of congressional Republicans on the issue.

Second, this amendment was clearly a political calculation aimed at securing the necessary Democratic support for the Keystone XL Pipeline bill to pass a vote. As Republicans do not currently benefit from a supermajority in the Senate, getting any legislation through a vote requires at least some bipartisan support.

Third, the language of the amendment that passed is the minimum language required to secure Democratic support.

Fourth, and perhaps most significantly, in rejecting the second proposed amendment, nearly half the members of the U.S. Senate voted to reject a statement consistent with overwhelming empirical observation and that reflects the prevailing opinions of experts across multiple scientific disciplines. 

In the first place, it is curious that the Senate would take any position on a matter of empirical observation. It is not as if, simply by voting, the Senate can change reality, creating a world where humans are not "extremely likely" (borrowing a phrase from the IPCC) to be significantly responsible for observed changes in our climate since the industrial revolution.

What would it hurt the Senate to agree with the overwhelming consensus of observation? As the Senator (Brian Schatz, D-HI) who proposed the rejected amendment pointed out in his testimony on the floor of the Senate, "The purpose of this amendment is simply to acknowledge and restate a set of observable facts. It is not intended to place a value judgment on those facts or to suggest a specific course of action in response to those facts. It is just a set of facts derived from decades of careful study of our land, air, and water."

The Senate's rejection of Senator Schatz's amendment provides cause for concern with our political system: if our elected officials aren't basing decisions affecting our nation and our planet on empirical observation, on what are they basing their decisions?

Resolving to live sustainably

The Guardian's Lucy Siegle writes a column on Ethical and Green Living. In her December 28 piece, she responds to the question: "How can I go green in 2015?"

She writes:

2015 is all about self-reliance. More dynamic than the downshifting trend (work fewer hours, move to the countryside, keep bees), self-reliance is about actively claiming ownership of our lives and wresting supply chains from global corporations. So from food to finance, watch out for local organisations which offer alternative ways of doing things and systems that are not reliant on the whims of big business or local government.

In 2015 there are no extra points for recycling, saving energy or using the bus, not the car – these are settled behaviours that you should be doing automatically.

It is always worth considering ways we can reduce our environmental impact (and there's no better time than New Year's Day to set goals). In many instances, the recommendation to go local is an environmentally sound one. However, reducing one's impact can be more complicated than simply buying the version of what you're looking for that was made closest to where you live. As an example, Mike Berners-Lee points out in How Bad Are Bananas? that, depending on where you live, what time of year it is, and what you're buying, local produce might have a bigger carbon footprint than buying a similar product that was shipped halfway around the world.

How is this possible? Well, if you live in New England and buy strawberries in the winter, anything produced locally at that time would have to be produced in a greenhouse. The emissions of heating the greenhouse are actually greater than the emissions of shipping from Mexico on a boat on a berry-for-berry basis. If you were really concerned about reducing the environmental impact of your food choices, though, then you'd know better than to buy strawberries in New England in the winter. When it comes to food, reaping the environmental benefits of going local also requires going seasonal. (Sustainable Table's online tool can help identify what's in season where you live (in the US). Alternatively, a quick Google search will provide ample seasonal food calendars by location.)

The purpose of bringing up all this, though, is not to discourage people from going local, or even to discourage people from reading and following Siegle's generally good advice. The point is that making the best decisions for the environment can be more complicated than it initially appears. Moreover, taking some pro-environmental actions might encourage falling prey to single-action bias, whereby we feel we're already doing our part for the environment because we [insert favorite pro-environmental behavior here] already, and that's enough, isn't it?

The truth is, individual behavior change alone isn't going to have an effect at the scale necessary to avert many environmental disasters. But that doesn't mean we're powerless and can't work together. So when setting your goals to go green in 2015, by all means set goals to improve your individual behavior. But don't forget to include collective action, political activism, and voting with your dollars.

Emissions reductions targets: signal or noise?

This month, as national delegations meet in Lima, Peru for the UNFCCC's COP20, there will be much discussion of emissions reductions targets, base-year emissions, voluntary contributions, legally binding agreements, and so on. What is to be made of all these goals? What do they all mean? And does any of it matter?

The short answer is no, none of it matters, at least not directly. What does matter? Two things: the carbon budget and the emissions gap.

What is the carbon budget? Fiona Harvey at the Guardian explains:

The IPCC said that in order to stay within the 2C threshold, the total carbon emitted could not exceed 1,000 gigatons of carbon. Of that, more than half – 531 gigatons – had already been emitted by 2011. But it also noted that if other greenhouse gases were also taken into account, the budget would be reduced to 820-880 gigatons. This implies that two thirds of the emissions available have already been used up.

Roughly speaking, the carbon budget is being depleted at an alarming rate, and that rate is only accelerating as more of the world's economies develop. Unless serious changes are made, a "business as usual" emissions would mean exhausting the budget by 2035.

The emissions gap, for its part, is just the difference between the current emissions trajectory and a trajectory that would lead to staying within the budget. Essentially: how far off is the emissions trajectory now, and how far off is it expected to be in the future? A useful way to think about future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is to compare a few different scenarios: 

• The first is the business-as-usual (BAU) case, which projects future emissions levels absent any international agreements or serious coordinated efforts to reduce GHG emissions. Basically, if countries and companies do what they want, as they have been doing up until now, one would expect the BAU-level emissions projections to bear out.
• The second might be called the "pledges" case. Under the current international negotiation efforts, national delegations are making voluntary pledges to reduce future emissions, typically expressed as a percent reduction in GHG emissions compared to emissions in a stated base year (e.g., US President Barack Obama recently announced a target to reduce US GHG emissions by 26-28% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels). What these reductions pledges actually amount to is hard to tell, since each country is free to set its own base year. This makes comparisons between countries difficult as countries are free to choose any previous year that makes their emissions reductions appear the most significant. Moreover, there currently is no penalty in place if a country fails to meet its voluntary pledge. Even under the legally binding Kyoto Protocol, there was nothing to keep countries from withdrawing from or "unsigning" the treaty (e.g., see the US and Canada), effectively exonerating themselves from any sense of wrongdoing.
• The third could be deemed the "scientific" case. The IPCC has established bounds around emissions scenarios that are likely to limit global warming to 2ºC by the end of the twenty-first century. This third case is simply where emissions levels would need to be in order not to exceed the 2ºC warming limit. 

Given these three cases, there are at least two relevant comparisons to be made:

1. What is the gap between current and projected emissions on the one hand (the "where emissions are today / where they are expected to be tomorrow") and the scientific consensus of emissions levels that will limit warming to 2ºC (the "where emissions need to be today and tomorrow")?
2. What is the gap between current pledges and the BAU scenario? Essentially, how good of a job are nations doing at sticking to their pledges? Are nations doing better than, as well as, or worse than pledged?

The first comparison shows how far nations have to go; the second gives at least an initial indication of how good they are at sticking to what they say they're going to do. These are perhaps the two most important questions to ask in establishing a climate action report card.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)'s recently released 2014 Emissions Gap Report addresses both these questions, and the results are not good. Not only is there a sizable gap between what nations have pledged to do and what the science says will be necessary, but there is also a gap between what nations have pledged to do and what they have done. In other words, not only are nations' pledges not ambitious enough to tackle climate change even if they were to achieve their pledged reductions, but nations have been providing reason to believe they will not even meet their pledges.

The chart below comes from the executive summary of the 2014 Emissions Gap Report, page xx, and shows the three different scenarios discussed in the bullet points above:

The Emissions Gap 

In light of the discussion above, barring significant coordinated action by governments around the world, a "likely" emissions path might fall somewhere between the gray "pledges" and blue "BAU" paths, significantly off course from the tan "scientific" path. However, even if new, more significant pledges are made that are in line with the "scientific" path, skepticism might still be warranted if nations fail to provide concrete, achievable plans for meeting their pledges that leave room for unforeseen challenges. 

Thus, to the extent targets and voluntary emissions reductions pledges contribute to staying within the carbon budget, they are useful. But if setting relative emissions reductions or carbon intensity goals distracts from the overall carbon budget and the emissions gap, then these goals are counterproductive. If, as a global society, nations are serious about limiting global warming to no more than 2ºC (the globally agreed goal at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009), they need to keep their eye on the prize. And that prize is staying within the carbon budget. The carbon budget is the only relevant starting point for policy discussions and decisions.

Working backward from the budget, a few things become apparent. First, barring a major technological breakthrough in scaling carbon capture and storage (CCS), it won't be possible to burn even half the fossil fuels we already know exist (i.e., fossil fuel companies' proven reserves, which are already factored into their market valuations) and remain within the 2ºC limit. This has serious financial implications for fossil fuel companies, which means staunch opposition from them is to be expected. But it also means significant investment in clean energy technology will be required to meet global energy demand, which continues to grow.

And so whenever nations and negotiators talk about an X% reduction over year Y emissions levels by year Z, it is important not forget what matters: is such a goal in line with the types of reductions that are necessary to meet the 2ºC limit? Whenever goals fall short, leaders of nations, as well as businesses, should be held to account. This might mean a serious conversation about whether current lifestyles and economic styles are compatible with meeting the 2ºC limit.

And if global society decides it can't or doesn't want to adjust its lifestyles and economic structures to meet that limit, it must be honest with the current and future generations that it was a decision taken knowingly. The science explains what will happen if the BAU path is pursued, or even if a half-witted effort at reducing emissions is made. Political destabilizations, mass migrations, disastrous storms, droughts, conflicts are all expected. There's even the potential for out-of-control temperature increases, which would occur tipping points in climate stability are passed, creating feedback loops that result in more and more warming (e.g., the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the thawing of permafrost in the arctic, albedo effects from settling black carbon in the arctic associated with burning coal, etc.). And so even if the decision is taken to "do nothing" for now, society at a minimum needs to prepare to cope with the ramifications of its inaction.

The knowledge to mitigate climate change is available, but whether global society will decide to act on that knowledge remains to be seen.

The corporation: social enemy or advocate?

What is the purpose of a corporation? Looking at corporations today, one might conclude: “To make money.” But this wasn’t always the case. As Janine Hiller pointed out in the Journal of Business Ethics in 2013, the corporation as a legal entity was originally established as a way to create a social benefit:

Based on individual petitions, legislatures granted state approval for independent corporate status in order that the entity might perform public functions such as building roads, providing water, and the like. There was a close connection between corporate purpose and societal purpose, and because the corporation was performing a quasi-governmental role, limited liability accompanied the corporate form. (Hiller, 2013: 288)

In other words, corporations originated to serve the public. Yet today, they are often criticized for thinking only of profit. Indeed, the notion of shareholder primacy—the idea that profits must be maximized for shareholder benefit above all else—has been invoked as justification for acting first and foremost to increase profits, even when doing so comes with social and environmental costs.

And yet at the same time, corporations (particularly the larger ones) are under public pressure not to cause societal harms. So how can these competing pressures—shareholder primacy and public benefit—be balanced? Furthermore, how can corporations wishing to be leaders in promoting social and environmental sustainability avoid challenges on grounds of shareholder primacy?

In part as a way to help corporations fulfill their original mandate to provide a public benefit, new corporate forms, such as “Benefit Corporations” (BCs) and “community interest companies” are emerging. B Lab, the nonprofit that certifies BCs and advocates for their legal recognition, has registered more than 1000 such corporations to date, including many household names. Such legal forms allow corporations that were founded with a social mission in mind to balance pursuit of that mission with pursuing profit, allowing the companies to provide societal, environmental, and economic benefit. BCs register their social and environmental goals and then include in their annual reporting their progress towards achieving those goals.

For companies that haven’t historically been focused on providing a social benefit but that are keen to start, looking into becoming a benefit corporation or a community interest company could facilitate identifying opportunities for the company to benefit society. It’s also potentially a way for companies to differentiate themselves from their competitors and engage with their community.

Regardless of their legal structure, all corporations have some leeway to prioritize and promote social benefits. Realistically, addressing social and environmental challenges like workers' rights and climate change will often involve civil society's working with corporations rather than against them. While this might not always be possible or appropriate, in many cases it just might produce the best results socially, environmentally, and economically.

SOURCES

Hiller, J. S. (2013). The Benefit Corporation and Corporate Social Responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 118(2), 287–301. doi:10.1007/s10551-012-1580-3

For more information on benefit corporations, check out B Lab's website at http://www.bcorporation.net/

For more information on socially responsible corporations, check out http://www.mikeathay.com/corporate-social-responsibility

This post also appears on the Carbon Analytics blog: http://www.co2analytics.com/blog/

President Obama's G20 remarks and the Keystone XL Pipeline

US President Barack Obama at the G20 summit in Australia on Saturday built on the momentum of a recent surprise announcement of a deal between China and the US to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. News outlets (e.g., see here, here, and here) report that President Obama brought the issue of climate change back to the fore, despite the efforts of host nation Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott to leave climate change out of the summit altogether. As the Guardian reports:

...in a one-two manoeuvre that caught Australia off guard, Obama upstaged Abbott and made certain it was the talk of the conference anyway. First came the joint US/China post-2020 greenhouse emission reduction targets announced in Beijing on the eve of the summit and then the $3bn Green Climate Fund pledge made in a keynote speech as Abbott was greeting other world leaders across town.

It will be interesting to see what effect, if any, President Obama's recent outspokenness on climate change might have on his decision on whether to approve TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, which would be used to ship bituminous crude oil from Alberta's burgeoning tar sands developments to refineries along the US Gulf Coast. On the one hand, the US agreement with China, along with President Obama's remarks in Australia, have been praised by the president's environmentalist supporters. These efforts might grant the president leeway to approve the pipeline without entirely losing their support. On the other hand, environmentalists might accuse the president of only paying lip service to climate change mitigation efforts while failing to take a stand when given a "real" opportunity.

How "real" an opportunity to take a stand rejecting the pipeline would be is a subject of debate among industry supporters, environmentalists, the US Department of State, and the White House. Industry supporters back the pipeline and point to the jobs it will create and the reduced dependence on foreign oil it will enable. Environmentalists contend the pipeline will lock in the full development of Alberta's tar sands, for which energy-intensive production methods are required to produce crude oil. The US Department of State, for its part, has claimed in its environmental impact assessments that building the pipeline will have a negligible effect on climate change since Alberta's tar sands are likely to be fully developed anyway. And the White House has hinted recently that President Obama might veto the pipeline even if the House of Representatives and Senate both approve of constructing it. Moreover, the White House has contended in the past that approving the pipeline is the president's decision alone to make since the proposed route crosses an international border.

The failure of the recent Keystone XL Pipeline bill to pass a Senate vote is likely only a temporary reprieve for the White House. When Republicans take control of the Senate in January, President Obama is likely to see another bill pass in both houses of congress. The question is, what will the president decide: to reject the pipeline proposal and appease his environmentalist backers, or to approve it in exchange with congressional Republicans for concessions on other aspects of his policy agenda? Only time will tell. Whatever the president decides, environmentalists can already claim a small victory: delays in the approval process have nearly doubled the cost of the pipeline, raising overall project costs and making Alberta tar sands oil less competitive with alternative and renewable energy sources.