The future will be green or not at all. ~ Bob Brown
Getting to #2d5a27 refers to the web color for leaf green that is the natural green color I associate with net-zero atmospheric emissions from greenhouse gases (GHG).
Leaf
green - #2d5a27 - net zero
emissions
The UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) has 197 members who are each a “Party” to its annual conference.[1] The
upcoming 26th Conference of Parties (COP) will gauge the Parties’ progress in
dealing with climate change. This COP, like every previous one, has been pronounced
“vital for Earth’s future.”
COP26 will highlight the status of
many nations’ getting-to-zero pronouncements. Special attention will be paid to
President Biden because his initial plans for getting to zero got hijacked last
week in West Virginia.
The quasi-belligerent Dems moderate
and Prog caucuses (who have been called the “never-enough caucus” by their Dem
critics) are continuing to squabble about the final climate deal. If he’s
lucky, I expect the president’s initial speech before the COP26 World Leaders
Summit on Monday won’t be finalized until one minute before he actually addresses
the delegates.
Long ago (meaning 7 days ago), his
original plan was to spend $619 trillion (T) on environmental/climate benefits
as part of his multi-faceted $3.5T American Family Plan (AFP). Adding to the already-sizeable
public confusion, the AFP has now been relabeled the Build Back Better (BBB) Plan.
This hefty sum represented about 17% of total AFP expenditures. Those spending
numbers are now historical dust. They remain huge, but have considerably
shrunk.
The final BBB budget will likely
end up at about $1.75T. Ages ago, the Dems unfortunately choose to publicly reference
their “infrastructure” programs by their Georges (their dollar value). Dollars
are always important, but $1,750,000,000,000 of them far surpasses anyone’s
sense of value; it just seems gargantuan.
The shrunken BBB/AFP will now
provide $555B for environmental climate change restoration. Environmental
advocates should count themselves as clear winners. This sum represents the single largest
support for environmental benefit that the US government has ever proffered.
If this funding level holds, it
represents a disproportionately large fraction (32%) of the latest, smaller BBB
budget, almost doubling the environmental programs’ relative backing. Sure,
some environmental activists are already complaining about the lost funding. That’s
their job, I guess. But can’t they see their glass is fuller than anyone else's? It
represents a gigantic six (6) times as much as the entire FY2021 EPA
budget, assuming the $555B gets spent evenly across the next 10 years.
Activists mentioned that the
lower environmental budget is unlikely to allow the nation to meet the
president’s goal of cutting GHG emissions in half by 2030. I take such
statements as probably true, but mainly offered as a place-marker for demanding
additional funds in the future.
The most important piece in these
climate expenditures is the Renewable Energy Tax Credits. These credits are expected
to have far more beneficial climate effects than the other pieces, including
the Clean Electricity Performance Program that Sen. Manchin specifically
denigrated, and thus bit the fiscal dust.
The US vows to get roughly
halfway to net zero by 2030 (is that 0.5-to-zero?), which seems optimistic
given what’s happened so far with other GHG emission reduction efforts. Getting
halfway to zero in just nine (9) years will require herculean efforts in
virtually every sector of our economy and every neighborhood. These efforts will
directly affect everyone’s lives. Given the decidedly non-warp speed of
government, don’t hold your breath for anything happening immediately.
The US won’t be alone in confronting such trials. Every COP26 Party will face abundant ordeals in getting to net zero emissions. Nations and subnational government entities have selected various years for achieving full or partial zero net emissions. Zero emissions dates range from 2030 to 2050, the target zero-year for the largest number of nations, including the US. The 2050 date is the zero year for the IPCC’s directive to keep global temperature rises below 1.5°C relative to pre-industrial era levels. The Chinese have belatedly stated they will tardily get to zero by 2060. Better late than never? Perhaps, because China has been the world’s largest CO2 polluter since 2006. India, the world's 3rd largest carbon emitter, has yet to update its Paris emissions-reduction pledge.
Unsurprisingly, many
environmentalists believe our world is already far behind schedule in getting
to zero. The annual UN Emissions Gap Report, released last week, stated we
need to cut emissions seven times faster than we already have to attain the 2015 Paris
Agreement’s allegedly-binding climate goals.
This report stressed that the
dozens of countries that have pledged to reach zero emissions by 2050 is reassuring
and could certainly limit future warming. However, many of those long-term,
macro-level plans remain “vague” and “incomplete.” In addition, these plans fail
to itemize near-term actions that would put nations on a track to realistically
achieve the promised, longer-term goals.
More detailed plans are certainly
needed, but politicians fear their public reception. More specific plans will
require confronting and resolving torturous trade-offs. Transitioning to a leaf
green future will make or break whether these political plans gain public
support and success.
This is why politicians simply
want to go on record saying, “I’m in favor of saving the Earth by achieving net
zero emissions by year X,” with that date futuristic enough so they’ll be
comfortably retired by year X, out of the public’s eyes.
Getting to leaf green zero
emissions will be a disruptive, divisive and costly process. Fundamentally, it
means ending the fossil-fuel era that began more than 250 years ago during the
Industrial Revolution. Getting to net zero emissions will suffer from the abiding
problem of archetypal technologic policy-making. Specifically, offering
everyone far-off future rewards (leaf green grandeur in 2050), in return for soon paying sizeable expenditures with socially-uneven costs. It’s
naïve to assume everybody will accede to such government plans and mandates;
their social discount rates aren’t low enough. Many Dems, with nary a Repub, thus
are warily proclaiming a net-zero emissions victory by 2050.
NOAA announced in June that
atmospheric CO2
concentration has reached its highest level ever, 419 ppm. Corroborating this
finding, the International Energy Agency (IAE) predicts that CO2 emissions will swell 4.8% in
2021, as energy-related demand rebounds across our planet.
Numerous non-leaf green legacy
technologies will have to be discarded, soon. Regrettably, the IEA has shown many essential
technologies for getting to decarbonization – expanded electrification, large-scale
energy storage, carbon capture, biomass and low-carbon hydrogen fuels – are
currently nowhere near market-ready. Thus, there is a stark divide between the
politicians’ stated climate goals and the availability of proven, reliable,
cost-effective technologies to actually realize these needed goals.
In addition to very rapid technological
change, changes in people’s behavioral choices will be required to achieve
getting-to-zero goals. Understandably, such needed behavioral modifications pointedly
have not been meaningfully discussed.
California has been on the
leading edge of decarbonization policy. The Golden State has now banned the
sale of internal-combustion engine (ICE) cars by 2035[2]
as well as the use of ICE lawn mowers and leaf blowers. [I have a mature, hand-push
rotary lawn mower for a cut-rate price, in case you’re interested.]
Public officials have failed to
state that getting-to-zero will involve changing every citizen’s life in small
and not-so-small ways. For example, politicians are assuming that 14 years from
now (2035) every adult in California and beyond will eagerly buy only a new
electric vehicle for their personal transport and a new heat pump (or hydrogen
furnace) for their home’s space conditioning. Electric vehicles, including
plug-in hybrids, now account for 1.8% of 2020 US auto sales; 4.9% of households
have chosen to purchase a heat pump for their heating-cooling and/or water
heating.
The BBB/AFC programs’
legislation, now 1,684 pages long and counting, is being written hurriedly, with much
midnight oil being proverbially burned. This legislation has been subject to vigorous
lobbying efforts, but few public committee meetings. The Biden administration
has been desperately seeking new means to control GHG emissions and pay for
their curtailment that are copesetic with Sens. Mansema. Cooler heads prevailed
when the Dems wisely torpedoed a brief resurrection of Sen. Warren’s wealth tax
as a funding mechanism.
One observer stated that there’s no
dimension of life that will be untouched by California’s and other regions' decarbonization
agendas. Recent laws that Governor Newsom has signed, and President Biden hopes
to sign, in this realm contain acres of small print that focus on GHG emission
reductions as well as a plethora of unintended consequences. Let’s hope
citizens believe in these efforts’ value and support them 373 days from now.
Here’s to achieving a leaf-green
future as coolly as possible.
[1] The
UNFCCC includes all UN member states, plus the UN observer State of Palestine,
UN non-member states Niue and the Cook Islands in the South Pacific Ocean and
the supranational European Union. In addition, the Holy See is an observer
state. Will the Pope bless this COP’s efforts? Hopefully.
[2] In
2020, California sold 1.64 million light-duty vehicles, the largest of any
state; including 8.1% plug-in EVs, which includes EV hybrids as well as solely
battery-powered EVs.
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