A friend asked me about the Climate Interactive Scoreboard, and Bill McKibben's interpretation of its predictions that commitments made by countries will lead to 770 ppm (of CO2 or CO2e? That's not clear either).

I responded with this:

I think that we'll avoid those levels - or at least, if we reach those levels, it'll be because of positive feedback loops (e.g. release of methane from permafrost and gas hydrates), not because of anthropogenic emissions.

Here's why:

1) There aren't enough fossil fuels to get there. While natural gas reserves are up in North America, and quite dramatically, oil reserves show no sign of increasing sufficiently. The 10 billion barrels we've found in 2009 (highest this decade)? Humanity runs through that in four months. We're probably looking at only enough resources to get to doubling of CO2. If that.

2) The 770 ppm number is likely misleading, and I hope Bill McKibben would know better. I went to the site and see only their temperature target for the weakest targets - and perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but I think we'll do better than our weakest targets globally (except for maybe Canada, we're a bunch of climate knuckle draggers with our collective heads in the oil sands). It assumes nothing about the long-term targets. We won't get to 770 ppm.

3) Confusion between metrics. I don't know if their 770 ppm refers to CO2 or CO2e. Probably the latter. 350 refers to CO2. That is equal to about 445 ppm CO2e, given methane, nitrous oxide and other non-CO2 GHGs.

4) I really believe we're not that stupid. Except maybe in North America and China, and perhaps India (oops). But the impacts are being felt and they point to anthropogenic climate change. We know better. The costs are not high, and will largely come back to us, in a large measure. Just like it would likely be with health care - the costs of insuring all Americans is probably equal to the way the system works now, because it would drop insurance costs.

I think that, at some point, trade protectionism in the US will line up with climate protection. People will decide that, between spending $X dollars on importing fuel from Saudi Arabia, or Algeria, or those frozen bastards in Alberta (shit - a lot of those companies are based in the US, that might not be a good example), they'd rather spend it on American companies who build insulation, wind turbines, solar collectors and cells, and construction companies building more sustainable communities. All of these are domestic jobs that can be difficult (though not impossible) to outsource. The language of the Kerry-Boxer bill (Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act) might indicate that the discussion is shifting.

I hope.

Had to park this somewhere...

I just wrote this on a friend's Facebook wall, but need a more permanent place to store it. Someone was badmouthing carbon taxes.

Here's what I was responding to:

"A carbon tax as a way for the government to enforce environmental policy is a bullshit idea.

Do we need a carbon tax or do we need more stringent environmental laws, enforcement of those laws and much stiffer penalties for companies that break the laws? I would think so.... See More

A carbon tax is the government attempting to create a new industry, new jobs and increase their own tax base. It does not solve the climate situation nor does it influence corporations to take real steps to build more sustainable business practices.

Carbon sequestration in underground cavities does not push businesses to create less carbon, now does it?

It's in the nature of big business to find loopholes like that and they're most adept at finding loopholes in tax structures. In the end, a carbon tax will be passed on to the consumers anyway so why not just tax the end user on their income and use that to enforce environmental law? Go give someone in Ft Mac a billion dollar fine for dumping crude in the river and see how every producer all across Canada suddenly finds the money and energy to change how they produce oil.

A carbon tax will not give you that kind of result, if you get any result at all."

And here's my response:

'I disagree with your carbon tax assessments, however. Sweden has a carbon tax of $150/tonne. Biogas is now being used to fuel fleet vehicles and provide cooking fuel; waste products from the forestry industry and landfill gas have replaced oil in district heating systems. It's incredible the changes you'll see with the right incentives... The tax has made the local energy options cheaper (the carbon tax also keeps money inside the country, as Sweden doesn't have domestic fossil fuel reserves - kind of like us Eastern bastards ;) ).

Sweden's economy is up about 48% since 1990 while its emissions are down 9%.

Carbon taxes are not like income taxes - they dissuade consumption of polluting goods, which is soemthing I believe we all agree is something that we'd prefer to see less of, and they do it cheaply and efficiently. They don't drive CCS, because it's still too expensive a technology.

A carbon tax can't be done in isolation - it needs other policies to ensure there's also a cap on emissions- but it can change the way people look at technological options. Because money talks.

Finally, isn't creating the incentives to move an economy and society towards something better part of government's job? If not, what is government's job? One of the huge questions.'

I want to come back to these ideas. What's the role of government? What is the best way to constrain emissions? Which levels of government are best placed to achieve this, and how do we get them to collaborate?