Carbon Copy

Copenhagen Consensus - four years on

Four years ago, academic Bjørn Lomborg put together a panel of economists under the banner of the Copenhagen Consensus Center to come up with a prioritised list of projects to address a selection of the world's great contemporary challenges. Lomborg's assumption was that money allocated to address climate change, communicable diseases, conflicts, education, financial instability, governance and corruption, malnutrition and hunger, migration, sanitation and water, and subsidies and trade barriers could be most effectively spent if priorities were based on rational economic assessment. The resulting list put climate change strategies down at the bottom of the pile.

Lomborg's panel is meeting again this month for a fourth anniversary update, so it's worth considering why climate change fared so badly last time, and what might be different now. SourceWatch has noted that the Copenhagen Consensus "has been strongly criticised by NGOs such as Oxfam for drawing attention away from the existing consensus built up over several years and codified in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals." Given the political will needed to put significant resources towards any of these development challenges, this is a serious charge.

role of cement in carbon emissions

The cement industry is responsible for 5% of all carbon dioxide released globally as a result of human activities, according to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. In each country, the volume of emissions depends on the sources of electricity, since a large portion of emissions is related to the power used in cement manufacture. In South Africa, where most electricity comes from coal-fired plants, each ton of cement produced releases 750kg of carbon dioxide. Last year, the country consumed 14.1 million tons of cement, 89% of which was produced locally.

In response to the South African government's support of emissions targets for developing countries, the local cement industry, represented by ACMP, has warned that carbon emissions caps would lead to higher volumes of imports. The assumption is that growth in cement use (forecast to be 24 million tons a year by 2014) is the only way to feed economic growth.

There are two flaws to this argument.

First, caps would not be imposed without the option to trade carbon credits, so if the industry does grow, cement will simply become more expensive as a result of internalising the cost of carbon emissions. And since the UN negotiations that are expected to lead to a renogotiated climate change treaty by next year will include limits and trading for many more countries than at present, cement prices will increase everywhere and imports won't necessarily be cheaper than the local product.

Second, there are perfectly viable alternatives to cement in the construction industry. Cement quantities in concrete can be reduced by substituting with flyash, for instance. (And flyash is a readily available by-product of coal-fired electricity production.) The building industry could also put much more effort into designing buildings to use less concrete.

There needs to be greater awareness of the options and of the carbon implications of design decisions, then we can begin to decouple economic growth from emissions growth.

Once the Green Building Council of South Africa starts using a local version of Green Star - the Australian system for rating the sustainability performance of buildings - choices will be much smarter in terms of energy efficiency overall. The next step will be to establish building codes that address carbon intensity explicitly, as is already happening in the UK.

For more information on the cap-and-trade concept, and variations on the theme, have a look at this recent WorldChanging article.

BC takes the lead with carbon tax

From July this year, the Canadian province of British Columbia will charge a tax on fossil fuels, gradually increasing the rate each year as an incentive for reducing carbon emissions. The government's strategy for reducing the impact on the economy is to reduce other taxes:

Corporate and personal income tax rates will drop to help make the tax revenue neutral, and lower-income British Columbians will receive an annual climate action credit of $100 per adult and $30 per child.

British Columbia will be the first jurisdiction in North America to introduce a consumer-based carbon tax.

development equity is key to climate negotiations

One of the sticking points in the Bali COP 13 climate talks is the impact of agreements on trade, and how climate mitigation strategies affect economic and social challenges particularly in developing countries.

A press release was issued on Thursday last week about the Nairobi Agreement, which is an attempt to spread the benefits of CDM across Africa, where only 2.6% of all CDM projects are located. (CDM is the carbon trade mechanism by which heavy emitters in developed countries can offset their emissions by investing in clean projects in the developing world.) The press release points out that much still needs to be done to spread benefits around. It's going to be tough getting political agreement on a workable solution at the global scale. The issues are complex, and the definition of fair and equitable depends on your political perspective.

A draft proposal tabled on Saturday at the Bali talks asks for deeper cuts in emissions by developed nations, but addresses other countries too:

The four-page draft, written by delegates from Indonesia, Australia and South Africa as an unofficial guide for delegates, said developing nations should at least brake rising emissions as part of a new pact.

But developed countries are living off the accumulated benefits of past carbon-intensive industrial activity, and with the extent of socio-economic catching up required by developing countries, any deal that is limited to current emission levels is not going to cut it. So far, there is no sign of changes that will address the exploitative aspects of global trade. The outsourcing of carbon-intensive industries to China and India is just another form of imperialism. The US, Canada and others are changing their economies to be less energy-intensive, but somebody has to make the products that the developed world buys. And now they turn around and tell China and India to clean up: Washington is presently considering legislation that will bar carbon-intensive imports.

Even South Africa, which is a relatively heavy emitter, is unlikely to agree to binding emissions targets in the short term - as suggested by countries like Canada, Australia and Japan - unless there is a clear path to addressing poverty and social development issues.

The Climate Change Performance Index ranks the 56 worst greenhouse gas emitters (where position 1 is the best). In the just-released 2008 index, South Africa is at position 33. Canada, Australia and the US are at the bottom of the heap, at positions 53, 54 and 55 respectively.

Reuters reports:

"Canada and Japan are saying nothing about legally binding emission reductions for themselves after 2012," said Steven Guilbeault of environmental group Equiterre. "They are trying to shift the burden to China and India."

This is a bit rich, considering Canada's poor carbon record and the fact that their commitment to the Kyoto Protocol has steadily disintegrated. The country started the Protocol period with good intentions, but Ottawa's strategies to reach emissions targets were all voluntary and achieved little. Now Ottawa simply doesn't have a meaningful plan, and puts the climate change blame elsewhere.

Political solutions tend to be based on simplified versions of reality. One of the realities that needs to be addressed with a post-2012 successor to the Kyoto Protocol is that carbon emissions are not the only issue. There are alternative ways to set targets, and these need to address developmental concerns.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, has acknowledged:

...the two-week conference needs to deliver on ongoing issues of particular importance to developing countries. This means moving forward on adapation, transfer of technology and deforestation, as well as strengthening capacity-building.

Let's see if Bali produces the goods. But don't hold your breath - this is just the opening play in what will be a drawn-out series of negotiations.

buy nothing day

I spent most of yesterday in meetings that had a lot to do with sustainability and how it can be achieved through good planning and design. The discussions related to a particular development project I am working on as a transport planning consultant. Working for developers sometimes makes me squirm, because my view of an appropriate design solution is not always aligned with that of the client paying my bills; but in this case, the match is a good one.

What is even more satisfying is that the people who attended yesterday's meetings (people who are not involved in the project but have an indirect stake in its outcome) are generally supportive and are keen to see it succeed. As a result, they asked incisive questions and offered constructive criticism. They are concerned about its potential impacts - not only on themselves, but on culture and the environment, on social structures and on economic livelihoods - and they are looking for reassurance that the broader challenges will be considered and addressed, and that the potential positive spinoffs will be realised. The best kind of meeting.

In discussion afterwards with a colleague who also attended, our conversation turned to questions about why sustainability is such a Big Deal. It's all about greed, she suggested. If we lived simpler lifestyles that met our physical, emotional and spiritual needs, we would automatically be living sustainably. My colleague had clearly been thinking of spiritual matters, as she had been out the previous night to hear Tenzin Palmo, a Tibetan nun who secluded herself in a remote cave 13 000 feet up in the Himalayas for 12 years of Buddhist meditation. I'm not advocating cutting ourselves off from the material world, but if we were more aware of ourselves and our social interactions, we would know what to do, and we might even do it.

So here's something to do. On Saturday, 24 November, buy nothing. Join international Buy Nothing Day as a reminder of our wasteful, consumptive lifestyles. It’s about reminding ourselves to really think about what we are buying‚ why we are buying it‚ and whether we really need it at all. Consuming at the level we do is unsustainable and is directly responsible for many of the world's environmental and economic problems. Waste, pollution, climate change, and many other topical and important issues are all fueled by consumerism.

I'll leave the last word to A.A. Milne, writing about Winnie-the-Pooh and the episode In which Christopher Robin leads an expotition to the North Pole:

"I think," said Christopher Robin, "that we ought to eat all our provisions now, so that we shan't have so much to carry."

"Eat all our what?" said Pooh.

"All that we've brought," said Piglet, getting to work.

"That's a good idea," said Pooh, and he got to work too.

"Have you all got something?" asked Christopher Robin with his mouth full.

"All except me, said Eeyore. "As usual." He looked around at them in his melancholy way. "I suppose none of you are sitting on a thistle by any chance?"

"I believe I am," said Pooh. "Ow!" He got up, and looked behind him. "Yes, I was. I thought so."

"Thank you, Pooh. If you've quite finished with it." He moved across to Pooh's place, and began to eat.

"It doesn't do them any Good, you know, sitting on them," he went on, as he looked up munching. "Takes all the Life out of them. Remember that another time, all of you. A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference."

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Nothing_Day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumerism

http://www.ecoplan.org/ibnd/ib_index.htm

http://www.verdant.net/society.htm

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Consumption.asp

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0111_040112_consumerism.html

economics and environmental protection

Here's a brief discussion - based on recent comments by 2007 Nobel economics prize winner Professor Eric Maskin - on why we need a combination of good governance and markets with externalities thrown in to deal with goods like the environment. Pure capitalism has never existed, anyway, so it beats me why some economists think everything should be left to the markets to sort out. There has always been some level of government intervention, for better or worse, and there have always been externalities ignored by the market: from slavery to carbon impacts.

To be fair, we can't give capitalism all the blame or all the credit (depending on our point of view), but we are clearly in a mess. In the space of a few decades the industrial complex has used up the energy stored over millennia in earth's solar-charged batteries - coal and oil - and those babies ain't gonna be recharged anytime soon. We have gone into planetary debt. On top of that, we've overloaded ecological systems beyond their capacity to recover. Witness loss of biodiversity, loss of habitat, increased vulnerability to disease, global warming... Something's gotta give.

For a more specific discussion, here is an article on carbon trading and the limits of free-market logic.

And, to come round to today's business news in South Africa, Pick 'n Pay is following the lead set by Wal-Mart in the US and Tesco in the UK in reducing the carbon footprint of their operations. Except the Business Report article doesn't mention what measures the South African retailer is planning to take to actually reduce emissions (although it briefly mentions that there will be "measures to cut out wasteful water usage and reduce electricity consumption"). Rather, the company is planning to offset carbon emissions by planting trees in Soweto.

I am sure the trees will be a welcome addition to the sprawling township, but let's get real here. Planting trees is not the answer to excessive consumption and waste, it's just putting a green sheen on the flagship Hypermarket. Can we see some targets, please? How much energy reduction through improved design and operational efficiency; on-site renewable energy generation; reduced packaging; diverting waste to other uses; recycling greywater?

half a story

Here's an interesting critique of the Al Gore approach to addressing climate change. This is not another argument about whether the "hockey stick" record of historic global temperatures is correct or not. Quite the contrary. It's saying that Big Al is not big enough - he's only telling half the story, and the missing half says we have to take a more radical approach to change, essentially  because there is more that needs fixing than just our carbon-rich lifestyles. [Thanks, Katie!]

While we're on the topic of former US politicians, The Economist reports on the Clinton brand in the world of philanthropy. Apparently Billy Boy is making moves to do for renewable energy technologies what he did with antiretrovirals for HIV in Africa: make them cheaper by cajoling industry players and creating bigger markets by encouraging countries to buy in quantity.

incremental infrastructure

On a tour of Philippi railway station in Cape Town last week, architect Mokena Makeka explained how a new bridge over the railway line has been designed as an elevated street. More than just a utilitarian structure linking the station on one side with the Kosovo* squatter camp on the other, the bridge incorporates secure spaces for traders selling everything from food to clothes. One entrepreneur even had a sewing machine to make and repair clothes on the bridge. At midday on a Friday, the bridge was comfortably busy.

Down on the street, outside the ground-level station entrance, the amaRastas were selling fruit and vegetables, other vendors were selling a variety of sweets and small items, butchers were selling meat, and others were cooking and selling lunch at braai stands. More informal businesses lined Ingulufe Street on the approach to the station - some operating from homes, others in converted shipping containers, and still others under makeshift shelter or out in the open.

Many of these businesses appeared to be thriving, but there was a building next to the station providing rented space for small businesses, and only a few of the rolldown doors were open. It wasn't clear whether the others were vacant, or only operating during busy commuter periods, but the contrast of this underutilised building with the thriving informal businesses a few metres away highlighted the difficulties faced by planners trying to support the informal economy by providing infrastructure.

One of the biggest challenges lies in the need to provide a means for entry-level informal businesses to grow into something bigger. Many other stations across Cape Town and South Africa face the same situation, and there is no clear model in place for giving these street hawkers a leg up the economic ladder. So I was interested to come across Ethan Zuckerman's post [via Global Voices] about incremental infrastructure. He talks of regulating intelligently to provide an environment that allows for "self-provisioning":

...where you’re building a network to meet your own needs because no one else has built that infrastructure. Where self-provisioning meets incremental infrastructure, I think, is where you overbuild for your personal needs with the goal of selling that capacity to your neighbors... A farmer investing in water pumping equipment that could irrigate both his fields and neighboring fields might be builting pico-level incremental infrastructure, while a mobile phone company that built power plants to provide energy to mobile phone base stations, and used excess capacity to run irrigation pumps might be working on a micro or mini scale.

An example of self-provisioning in the housing sector that is widespread throughout South Africa, in both low-income formal housing settlements and in squatter areas, is the building of shacks or other structures in backyards to provide rental income. In many cases this is illegal, and in squatter settlements it is clearly completely unregulated, but nevertheless appears to be a significant part of the hidden economy. Government-provided low-cost housing often prevents this activity by positioning houses on plots in a way that renders the unbuilt space completely unusable.

Another possibility is in energy supply. Some squatter camps illegally tap electricity from the national grid, with cables running on the ground and propped in the air with Heath Robinson contraptions. While this is patently dangerous, using paraffin for cooking and lighting in shacks made of plastic, cardboard and wood is no better. If government provided the means for legal installation of solar electricity systems and local distribution networks, this would be a perfect opportunity for self-provisioning. Some residents could install a system and sell electricity to their neighbours. And there is a way to address solar affordability.

*Kosovo is one of Cape Town's most unfortunate squatter settlements. In 2005 the camp burned to the ground, and the area is frequently subjected to flooding. Improvement of the area with better social facilities and integration with the transport system is a high priority for government planners.