global climate change Archives - An Economic View of the Environment

Can Europe Decarbonize in the Midst of a Geopolitical Crisis?

Is the geopolitical crisis due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine likely to accelerate or retard the energy transformation in the European Union? This and related topics on decarbonizing Europe were central to the most recent webinar in our series, Conversations on Climate Change and Energy Policy, sponsored by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements (HPCA). This time, we featured a conversation with Dan Jørgensen, the Danish Minister of Climate, Energy, and Utilities, who expressed his hope (if not expectation) that the tragic war in Ukraine will help accelerate the clean energy transformation by weaning Europe off Russian gas. A video recording (and transcript) of the entire webinar is available here.

As many readers of this blog know, in this webinar series I feature leading authorities on climate change policy, whether from academia, the private sector, NGOs, or government. In this most recent Conversation, I was fortunate to engage with someone who has had solid and important experience in government.

Dan Jørgensen, who played a significant role in maintaining the focus on reducing the rise of global temperatures during the 26^th Conference of the Parties (COP-26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Glasgow last November, lauded the efforts of European countries like Greece that are proclaiming their intent to reduce their use of Russian gas in favor of other energy sources, although Greece has simultaneously announced that it will therefore have to increase its use of coal for electricity generation.

“One of the few positive things that might come out of a terrible situation is that we will now be forced to speed up the green transformation away from fossils in Europe,” Jørgensen says. “It has opened the eyes… I think, for decision makers all over Europe to ramp up the replacement of fossils – that’s gas, that’s oil, that’s coal, with renewables. And we have a lot of potential for that in Europe.”

Jørgensen talks about important legislation being negotiated in the European Union which would create new directives on energy efficiency and renewable energy that could, he states, help EU countries greatly reduce their dependency on Russian fossil fuel.

Much of the discussion also focuses on COP-26 and the decision by participating countries to agree on language calling for a “phase down” of unabated coal and to reduce inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.

“On one hand, I’m disappointed that the text is not stronger than it is on those issues. On the other hand, it is really huge progress that it’s now in the text, meaning that…[it will be] the starting point for the next negotiations [at COP-27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt],” Jørgensen remarks. “The overall result was a positive one. There was some real progress. But first and foremost, the aim of the COP-26 meeting was to keep 1.5 alive, so to speak. What does that mean? It means that if we hadn’t made the decisions that we actually made then…it would be almost impossible for us to keep the promise of staying below 1.5 alive, and it wouldn’t be credible.”

Looking ahead to COP-27, Jørgensen says negotiators will focus on the promise of more ambitious nationally determined contributions (NDCs) as well as questions surrounding finance for developing countries requiring short-term assistance to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels and adapt to climate change.

“I do understand how some of the growing economies of this planet that are also now amongst the biggest emitters, why they think it’s only fair that the richer countries of the planet help them in the transformation,” he states. “We have a climate problem because rich countries have been polluting for more than 100 years. Now, some countries are raising their standard of living and…starting to pollute more. But I don’t really think it would be fair for us to say, ‘You cannot have the same standard of living as we do.’ That would not be legitimate, in my point of view. And it wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t also offer help to mitigate the problem. So, we need to have a clear focus on the financing part.”

Jørgensen also shares his thoughts on the potential for carbon trading systems to reduce global emissions, arguing that pricing can be complicated but is absolutely necessary.

“We need clear price signals in the market,” he says. “It needs to be more expensive to produce in a way where you’re dependent on fossil fuels and less expensive to do the opposite.”

I ask Jørgensen about the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), established in 2005 as the first large greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme in the world, and which now covers more than 11,000 factories, power stations, and other installations in 31 countries, including all 27 EU countries.

“It is actually pretty incredible that we have this well-functioning system with 27 countries that is economically rational, that works, that cuts emissions, even in times of crisis where normally many countries will probably say, ‘Okay, well, we want to save the climate, but we need to get through this crisis first,’” he says. “In times of crisis like that, it’s extremely important that we have these systems. And what I like especially about it is that it’s a win-win. I mean, it is the cheapest, most efficient way of making a transformation.”

During the forum, Jørgensen also responds to questions from attendees from around the world, including questions focusing on carbon capture and sequestration, solar radiation management, methane, nuclear power, and the youth climate movement.

All of this and much more can be seen and heard in our full Conversation here. I hope you will check it out.

Previous episodes in this series – Conversations on Climate Change and Energy Policy – have featured Meghan O’Sullivan’s thoughts on Geopolitics and Upheaval in Oil Markets, Jake Werksman’s assessment of the European Union’s Green New Deal, Rachel Kyte’s examination of “Using the Pandemic Recovery to Spur the Clean Transition,” Joseph Stiglitz’s reflections on “Carbon Pricing, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and Green Economic Recovery,” Joe Aldy describing “Lessons from Experience for Greening an Economic Stimulus,” Jason Bordoff commenting on “Prospects for Energy and Climate Change Policy under the New U.S. Administration,” Ottmar Edenhofer talking about “The Future of European Climate Change Policy,” Nathaniel Keohane reflecting on “The Path Ahead for Climate Change Policy,” Valerie Karplus talking about “The Future of China’s National Carbon Market,” Laurence Tubiana reflecting on “A European Perspective on COP26,” and Congressman Garret Graves on “U.S. Climate Change Policy in an Era of Political Polarization.”

Watch for an announcement about our next webinar. You will be able to register in advance for the event on the website of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements.

Prospects for Energy and Climate Change Policy under the New U.S. Administration

In my previous blog post, earlier this week, I offered my personal views regarding “What Do the 2020 U.S. Election Results Portend for Climate Change Policy?” Today, I’m pleased to turn to the views of someone else, Jason Bordoff, a well-informed academic lawyer, who spent considerable time in important climate-policy positions in the Obama administration, and who I assume (and hope, but no hints have been forthcoming from him) will be a candidate for key energy-climate-policy positions in the Biden-Harris administration.

My conversation (interview) with Jason is the most recent webinar in our series, Conversations on Climate Change and Energy Policy, sponsored by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements (HPCA). As you know, in this webinar series we feature leading authorities on climate change policy, whether from academia, the private sector, NGOs, or government. Jason Bordoff has had significant experience in three of those realms: academia, government, and NGOs. A video recording and transcript of the webinar are available here.

The ultimate professional compliment that I can offer someone after having read something they’ve written is to think to myself, “Gosh, I wish I had written that.” There are two people about whose work I’ve thought that regularly, and neither is an economist like me. One is a political scientist – David Victor at the University of California, San Diego, with whom I engaged recently in my podcast, as described in a previous post at this blog. The other is a lawyer, Jason Bordoff, my guest in yesterday’s webinar

Jason is the Founding Director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where he is Professor of Professional Practice. In the Obama administration, from 2009 to 2013, he served as Special Assistant to the President, and Director for Energy and Climate Change at the National Security Council, and before that, he was at the National Economic Council and the Council on Environmental Quality. Prior to joining the administration, he was the Policy Director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, which is where, I believe, we originally met, when I was commissioned to write a proposal – intended for the incoming Obama administration – for a U.S. cap-and-trade system to address climate change. So, it was a great pleasure for me to welcome Jason to our series, “Conversation on Climate Change and Energy Policy” (with both of us displaying our relatively recent COVID beards).

In our discussion, Jason maintains that the incoming Biden-Harris Administration will have the opportunity to both lift the nation out of recession and combat global climate change by crafting a thoughtful economic stimulus plan containing a significant green energy investment component.

“There is a need for fiscal stimulus and smart government investments that help the economy recover, particularly when the cost of government borrowing is so low. Now is the time to make investments that both help the economy today and help to deliver economic returns in future investments in infrastructure.”

He uses the metaphor of a Venn diagram to illustrate the way he looks at the new administration’s challenge when it assumes power in January.

“If you take a circle of things that are good fiscal stimulus to support economic recovery and a circle of things that are good to advance clean energy, there is certainly overlap with, for example, investment and support for renewable energy, and building infrastructure that will support a transition toward electrification of the transport sector.”

Jason Bordoff admits that President-elect Biden’s proposed $2 trillion of investments in clean energy won’t be an easy sell, particularly if Republicans hold the Senate. However, he notes that during the campaign, President-Elect Biden called for significant increases in funding for research and development on clean energy technologies including grid-scale energy storage, small modular nuclear reactors, and capturing carbon dioxide from power plants. A number of Senate Republicans, including Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), have called for the same. Indeed, Jason notes, during the past four years, despite Trump administration proposals for deep cuts, federal budgets for clean energy innovation actually increased by 25 percent, due to broad bipartisan support.

“But as difficult as it may be to move forward on climate legislation, I think the economy simply needs a lot of help from Washington, and I think both sides of the aisle are going to have to come together,” he remarks, pointing to likely bipartisan support for wind energy projects in the Midwest, and carbon capture and nuclear power in other parts of the country.

Aside from the stimulus package, Bordoff notes that the Biden-Harris Administration will have a number of other policy tools at their disposal to address climate change, including rolling back some of the Trump Administration’s Executive Orders, issuing new Executive Orders, and promulgating smart and effective regulation of local pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

“There is that executive authority agenda, and still, hope springs eternal that there may be an opportunity at some point to work across the aisle on legislation,” he says, citing recent remarks by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Murkowski in which they spoke about the possibility of establishing a national carbon price as one part of comprehensive energy legislation. “I think a well-designed carbon price can do a lot more than many people appreciate, complemented by a range of other tools, to address our market failures.”

Beyond the domestic climate change agenda, Bordoff also emphasizes the need for the United States to reengage with its allies on climate policy, beginning with Biden’s promise to rejoin the Paris Agreement shortly after he assumes office.

“One of the things that really gets me excited about the potential to make progress on climate in the Biden-Harris Administration is that President-Elect Biden has such deep experience in international affairs and takes so seriously the need to rebuild American leadership and cooperation with our allies in the world. “This is the most global of problems. Every ton [of CO₂ emissions] contributes equally to the problem, and 85 percent of the emissions come from outside the U.S., so we are not going to solve this problem unless we engage in and elevate the importance of climate change in all of our matters of foreign policy and diplomacy.”

Finally, following our one-on-one discussion, Jason Bordoff fielded questions from a number of the 200 participants viewing the Forum, eliciting thoughts on issues ranging from environmental justice to international trade. All of this and more can be seen and heard at this website. I hope you will check it out.

Previous webinar in this series – Conversations on Climate Change and Energy Policy – have featured Meghan O’Sullivan’s thoughts on Geopolitics and Upheaval in Oil Markets, Jake Werksman’s assessment of the European Union’s Green New Deal, Rachel Kyte’s examination of “Using the Pandemic Recovery to Spur the Clean Transition,” Joseph Stiglitz’s reflections on “Carbon Pricing, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and Green Economic Recovery,” and Joe Aldy reflecting on “Lessons from Experience for Greening an Economic Stimulus.”

The next HPCA Conversation on Climate Change and Energy Policy will take place in January. Please register in advance for that event at the HPCA website.

What Can Universities Do About Climate Change?

There has been considerable debate about whether universities – and, for that matter, foundations – should divest fossil-fuel stocks from their investment portfolios as a way to reduce the risk of global climate change. My own institution, Harvard University, decided that such an action was neither warranted nor wise (a position that I have supported in a post at this blog, as well as in a longer essay published by Yale University’s environment360). Our sister institution on the West Coast of the United States, Stanford University, decided to divest coal stocks only, a position that apparently will have trivial implications for that university’s portfolio, partly because it does not affect investments in funds in which coal stocks are commingled, such as exchange-traded and mutual funds.

A broader, more positive, and fundamentally more important question is what role should universities play in addressing the threat of climate change (a topic I have addressed at this blog in the past). Recently, the Presidents of Harvard and Stanford co-authored an op-ed on precisely this topic, and so today I am pleased to reproduce it below. The original version was published in The Huffington Post.

What Universities Can Do About Climate Change

Drew Gilpin Faust, President, Harvard University

John L. Hennessy, President, Stanford University

September 24, 2014

This week’s UN Climate Summit calls upon people and institutions around the world to consider how they can become active leaders in combating climate change. What is the role of our colleges and universities in this effort? Those of us in the academy should be asking ourselves what more can we do to confront one of the most urgent and consequential challenges facing our civilization.Among those advocating for action in New York are many thousands of students, from our institutions and others. We are inspired by the passion and purpose they bring to this issue. We applaud and encourage the dedication of students who are determined to translate passion into action, to invest themselves in a cause that reaches far beyond themselves and their lifetimes and to remind us that the future of our planet is our collective, immediate responsibility, not something to leave to others for another day.

Educating informed, effective citizens of the world is a central part of the mission of our universities. Today’s students will lead our world in what will be a most critical era for assuring our planet’s health. We must continue working to provide innovative academic pathways that will equip them for that responsibility, along with leadership opportunities that build the skills they will need to be effective influencers, consensus builders and decision makers. We must intensify and expand our courses and programs focused on energy and environment, educating our students even as they educate us.In addition to their educational objectives, universities must continue to do even more in the research arena to provide actionable solutions for mitigating and adapting to climate change.

University scientists play crucial roles in investigating the origins and trajectory of climate change, in gauging its present and prospective consequences and in devising the new technologies that will accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources. Whether through breakthroughs on battery technology that will make energy storage more reliable and economical, or improvements in efficiency and production costs for solar systems and hydrogen fuel, a wide span of university research both fundamental and applied will drive many of the solutions to climate change.

The effort must go well beyond our scientists and engineers. University scholars across fields are vital actors in efforts to shape policy, organizational practices and wider attitudes regarding climate change and the grave risks it poses. This week, Rob Stavins and his team at the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements released new research that centers on aligning national and regional climate policies through a new international framework. Stanford faculty have been leaders in the international UN effort to document the scientific consensus on the state of the world’s climate and the impacts of climate change in fields ranging from human health to food security. Economists and lawyers, architects and ethicists, political scientists and experts in organizational behavior and finance, sociologists and humanists — all have essential parts in envisioning and spurring creative, pragmatic strategies to align governments, businesses and others in a shared quest for solutions.

A third area for university leadership is in piloting and modeling effective operational practices. Stanford has dramatically reduced employee drive-alone rates to work and is building a new campus energy system that will substantially reduce water use and carbon emission on campus. Harvard has implemented initiatives that have already resulted in a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 21 percent, when we include the effects of growth and renovation in our physical plant (31 percent excluding growth), and has joined forces with other universities and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to develop the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, which uses state-of-the-art approaches to reduce energy consumption by minimizing cooling needs. Universities must “walk the walk,” acting as pioneers in embracing the new technologies and policies that will be needed to sustain our ecosystem.

The work of universities alone will not be sufficient, of course. We agree that — in the words of United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon — ‘everyone must step up and become a leader on climate change’. Nations — including the largest emitters of greenhouse gases — must step up and play a collaborative role in shaping new international agreements if we are to make meaningful progress. Local governments must also step up, as they shape regulations and infrastructure that will guide development and growth in cities around the world. Industry must step up, accelerating the development and deployment of alternative and affordable sources of energy while committing to greater energy efficiency.

But we in higher education must continue to step up, as well. Universities have the opportunity and obligation to look toward the long term. Uniquely, they bring together a wealth of intellectual resources across fields, an abundance of creativity and collaborative energy across generations, an opportunity to convene key actors on neutral ground, a commitment to serving society in ways that privilege objective evidence and rigorous analysis and the dedication to pursuing powerful long-term solutions without becoming subservient to near-term economic interests or partisan political concerns.

Universities must use these inherent strengths to make the most potent possible contribution on climate change. There is no challenge facing the world today whose effective redress depends more on the capacity and commitment of every part of society — governments, industry, universities, nonprofits and each one of us as citizens. Whether we rise to that challenge, with the urgency it demands, will largely determine what sort of world we leave for the generations to come.