Is Obama's climate plan missing something?

The Washington Post lamely attacks Obama's climate ideas

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 12:03 PM on 27 Feb 2008

Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby, in an absurdly titled column, "Obama's Missing Ideas," proves once again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Obama's ideas about climate solutions are probably the very last place one can find something missing.

Obama has a terrific climate plan, full of winning ideas, as I have blogged many times. Yet Mallaby claims that "good ideas are actually quite scarce. Just take a look at climate change."

Mallaby's "case" is based on two climate ideas many people have always thought were lame (which he never actually bothers to link to Obama), one climate problem that is pretty straightforward to solve, and one idea Mallaby thinks is new that is in fact quite old, is not really a climate idea, and as such has limited climate benefits.

First he says, "A couple of years back, ethanol was touted as a good answer to global warming." Uh, no. Corn ethanol, which is what he attacks, was not considered a "good answer to global warming" by any energy or climate expert I have ever met. To the extent climate advocates even tolerated the fuel, it was strictly as a bridge to cellulosic ethanol. To the extent that corn ethanol was supported on policy grounds by politicians [as opposed to support for the farmers or a desire not to offend Iowans], it is primarily from people who are concerned about our dependence on imported oil, not global warming.

Does Mallaby even know that Obama supports "a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard," which would block any fuel that increases greenhouse-gas emissions -- or that he supports accelerating the development of cellulosic (i.e., low-carbon) ethanol? These are good ideas.

Next Mallaby complains about "carbon trading with developing countries":

The system developed under the Kyoto Protocol allows companies in the rich world to pay companies in the poor world to reduce emissions. This sounds like another smart idea: Emissions can be cut cheaply in developing countries, so we get to reach our climate goal without too steep a financial penalty. But emissions trading with developing countries has been a bust. China has deliberately designed factories to release prodigious quantities of greenhouse gases, then pocketed billions for redesigning them.

Well, first off. This is not, as Mallaby claims, "carbon trading with developing countries" -- since they don't buy any carbon permits from us. This is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Second, lots of people, including me, always thought this was a dumb idea. I don't know what Obama thinks of the CDM -- among his dozens of climate ideas, he does support "international offsets under the carbon cap to promote the transfer of low carbon energy to developing countries." That is perfectly reasonable.

Mallaby's conclusion: "So two apparently excellent climate-change ideas have been rudely pierced."

My conclusion: "Two lousy/dubious ideas in theory have been shown to be lousy/dubious in practice."

In either case, I don't see how this reflects badly on Obama's climate ideas. As if to underscore my point, Mallaby veers his SUV off the road entirely ...

He points out that "Obama favors a cap-and-trade regime." He then immediately says, "This is indeed a good idea, and the candidates are right to back it." But then he says it has a flaw: It will raise the domestic price of carbon-intensive products but not the imported price from "countries in which carbon isn't taxed or capped." He claims:

... it will push what remains of carbon-intensive U.S. manufacturing to other countries. Given Obama's threats to withhold tax breaks from firms that shift American jobs abroad, he must admit this is a quandary.

Mallaby presents this as some new, unsolvable problem. It isn't. Heck, even the Lieberman-Warner bill, "America's Climate Security Act," authorizes the president to require importers of "GHG-intensive manufactured products from that nation to submit emissions allowances of a value equivalent to that of the allowances that the U.S. system effectively requires of domestic manufacturers" starting in 2020. I have little doubt Obama would endorse that approach or something similar -- so this isn't much of a "quandary" for him. We'll find out this spring, since I assume he'll vote for Lieberman-Warner if it doesn't get too watered down.

Also, Mallaby fails to acknowledge the many climate proposals Obama has that would boost U.S. competitiveness. Finally, I would note that if a President Obama cannot get major developing country manufacturers (i.e., China) to agree to put in place a carbon cap that kicks in by 2020, then the climate problem is essentially unsolvable, and this whole trade "quandary" is moot.

That is the extent of Mallaby's evidence: we don't have "all the good ideas we need -- at least not on climate change" and that therefore Obama should not "dismiss the importance of fresh thinking." So what is Mallaby's idea of "fresh thinking"? He offers only one:

As it happens, a publication called Democracy: A Journal of Ideas has a neat climate proposal in its next issue. Instead of charging drivers for car insurance at a fixed rate, why not link the insurance cost to the number of miles driven? That would create a new incentive to drive less, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by around 130 million tons per year, according to author Jason Bordoff. Obama should be celebrating this sort of creative thought, not pretending that we have enough of it already.

[One minute pause to give policy wonks time to finish laughing.]

Mallaby's fresh thinking, is, yes, "Pay-As-You-Drive Car Insurance" or, as it used to be called back in the day -- my old boss Amory Lovins was touting a variation of this in the early 1990s -- "Pay at the pump Auto Insurance" (Here is an RFF Discussion paper on the fresh idea from 1998 (PDF); Andrew Tobias wrote a whole book on this in 1993; and one 1997 paper opposing the idea says it was developed "about twenty years ago.")

"Pay-As-You-Drive" (PAYD -- yes, it is old enough to have its own acronym) works by linking insurance costs to your odometer. The more you drive, the more you pay. Certainly that makes economic sense, but I seriously doubt such a charge would have much impact. The author claims a whopping 2 percent drop in total U.S. emissions, but I think the small price effect on driving is simply too indirect to motivate even that much behavior change. Heck, gasoline prices have almost tripled in the last few years, and the impact has been incredibly minor, even though people saw the price effect directly.

Still, PAYD is not a bad idea, which is why a U.K. insurance company adopted it in 2003 and a number of states have begun experimenting with it. Indeed, in 2005, Congress authorized a small set-aside for such programs, and "Eleven states have already applied for funding to study or pilot PAYD insurance policies," as Environmental Defense noted two years ago.

In any case, this is not either a new idea or a climate idea, it is an old insurance idea, that would have some secondary climate benefits.

What bothers me most about Mallaby's column is that had he spent maybe 15 minutes on Google researching this piece -- reading Obama's plan, the McCain-Lieberman bill, and the vast literature on PAYD insurance -- he would never have written such an uninformed piece. Is that too much to ask of the traditional media?

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

For story: Is Obama's climate plan missing something?
12 Comments | Post a Comment

Simpler answer on the biofuels

All the candidates think that biofuels are the golden answer to our problems.
(Cept for say Kucinich and Gravel)

So while Obama may be wrong, he's no more wrong than any other candidate.

by GreyFlcn at 2:56 PM on 27 Feb 2008

Mallaby has a history of problems

He attempts to be contrarian, even when the evidence doesn't allow it. I see resemblances to John Tierney.

I caught him doing something similar while praising Bush Administration AIDS policies:

http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2006/05/giving-too-mu ...

by BrianSchmidt at 3:09 PM on 27 Feb 2008

Nah...

All the candidates think that biofuels are the golden answer to our problems.

Nah, they just think it's the golden answer to the farm lobbyists/unions official endorsement.

by Tasermons Partner at 3:27 PM on 27 Feb 2008

Is Obama's climate plan missing something?

No, definitely not.

In fact, it's got a lot of stuff I wouldn't mind if it was missing. Like expanding biofuels, and the twin oxymorons of clean coal and safe nuclear.

Still, I guess it could be worse. The rest sounds all right.

If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?

by tico89 at 5:45 PM on 27 Feb 2008

Lame Is As Lame Does

The amazing thing here is that while Greens rail night and day about all the Baddies (corporations, George Bush, Bob Lutz) who take a definite, but contrary to Green Orthodoxy stand, they, at the same time, fail to articulate a clear consistent statement as to what we can do as an alternative.

That is because many Greens, despite their initial childish rantings, are essentially smart wonks themselves and once they delve into the numbers they can see than any plan proposed so far is essentially useless even if they are the truest of true believes of AGW (which many Greens will admit is just a wedge to enact their other proposals).

Make insurance tied to mileage? Why? Is a drunk driver who goes one mile safer than the Little Old Man from Pasedena who still has his wits, drives 10 mph under the speed limit and is super safe? And if you are saying that it's just a way to tax carbon, well, then why not hitch up any other metric possible to get your tax. Why not put a CO2 tax Carls Jr, because a driver who drives more miles is more likely to go to Carls, Jr and order the Famous Star burger with cheese (like I did last night...times 2...with double fries and a vanilla shake thank you very much).

Possibly the best Alternative Energy blog I read: New Energy and Fuel

by jabailo at 6:31 PM on 27 Feb 2008

thanks

Thanks Joseph,

I certainly hope the author of the WaPo article reads your post. Climate policy is a difficult enough issue without shoddy journalism getting people confused and discouraged.

I think Obama's climate plan is top notch, and I sincerely hope we get to see it in action.

by el mono at 8:09 PM on 27 Feb 2008

Whoops

You (and others here)are harming your credibility in your bias towards Barack. No need for that, we all can still support him for prez while still trying to get him to back plugin hybrids and a renewable smart grid, instead of fuel farming and flex fuel vehicles, a dead end greenwash that increases GHG.

"Corn ethanol, which is what he attacks, was not considered a "good answer to global warming" by any energy or climate expert I have ever met."

Corn ethanol has been touted by all kinds of experts and endless agribizz commercials as carbon neutral, that fake carbon cycle argument cycles over and over, your statements here imply that you believe it too Joe.

The cO2 that is released is recaptured by crops, thusly the fake cycle is explained. Somehow research will make it carbon neutral? No way.

"Obama supports "a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard," which would block any fuel that increases greenhouse-gas emissions"

Cellulosic ethanol increases GHG by 50% over gasoline. Because it's a farmed fuel that stops soil carbon sink activity. The only fuel that does not increase GHG is renewable kwh charging a plugin hybrid.

" -- or that he supports accelerating the development of cellulosic (i.e., low-carbon) ethanol? These are good ideas."

No, cellulosic ethanol is not a good idea.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 10:24 PM on 27 Feb 2008

Just scientific validity.

Proposing a plan that can't actually meet your goals for goals that won't actually reduce climate change seems to be the norm.

The amount of GHG's we can afford to add to the atmosphere is zero. Already feedback mechanisms that will cause climate forcing are in play. Siberian permafrost is full of organic matter that turns to methane when the permafrost melts. The permafrost melts as reduced arctic ice coverage allows the sun to warm the ocean there. The warmer ocean heats the atmosphere further melting more permafrost and releasing more methane. And away we go.

As far as Obama's environment plan having little to do with reality that is no different than anybody else's climate plan. Judging by the political fates of Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards I would suspect truth telling on the environment is no way to get elected in the US.

The question that really is relevent is "is Obama smart enough to know the difference between the politically correct environmental plan and a real plan that will make peace with the biosphere?" I'm not sure how I would find the answer to that question.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 12:58 AM on 28 Feb 2008

Vinod timely

The Vinod Khosla presentation here certainly was timely, because of something not widely reported.

Bill Clinton has been in on the ethanol bidness, with Khosla, Branson, and big investment firms, just like the bush family is in on the oil bidness. Barack is a minor player, only in respect to his corn ethanol state representation.

And they are ALL touting cellulosic ethanol as the new green direction, corn ethanol having failed the GHG test now officially.

It is truly hard to believe that Romm is touting cellulosic ethanol here too now. Since the same studies that claimed corn ethanol doubled GHG, claims that cellulosic ethanol increaes GHG by 50% over simply burning oil based fuel.

DR is clearly now in the cellulosic camp, but that is no surprise. His technical knowledge is obviously extremely limited. And his support for Barack seemingly trumps all other considerations lately.

When bio-d gave in on it, and said give cellulosic a chance? That's it, this publication has changed it's opinion on ethanol too. The distinction between corn, sugar cane, and cellulosic makes no sense from a GHG increase perspective. All forms of fuel farming are a GHG disaster.

Completely disregarding the science recently revealed, but long suspected. As Romm says "...(it)was not considered a "good answer to global warming" by any energy or climate expert I have ever met."

This is a very bad sign, this publication was the last hold out on endorsing fuel farming. I am also seeing zero support for organic ag and biodigestion as a source for organic fertilzer.

Evidently organic ag is just too far oput for the engineering or think tank mindset. In fairness they do let others talk about it in vague terms.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 4:16 AM on 28 Feb 2008

some good points

The OP (Romm) makes some good points about the WaPo writer Mallaby glossing over and missing the subtlety of some of these matters. Such as the Clean Development Mechanism vs. carbon trading between developed and undeveloped countries. In a nutshell we must agree that if China and India are not brought into the fold we are all likely toast. Carbon neutrality at the global level needs to be the practical goal.

Pay as You Drive (along with a carbon tax on fuels and probably appropriately low emissions caps) has to be a partial solution to resolving the present externalities of the environmental costs of driving. As a bike and bus commuter who owns a few cars for occasional use (camping trips, hauling bikes and canoes, etc.) it continues to steam me that my insurance rates are so high for leaving my car parked out in front of my house 28 days a month. Yes PAYD is an old concept, amazing how little traction it has had in the political arenas where we need change to enable such progress.

I have no doubt that Obama as the next President will be "smart enough" to craft a solution that is workable, and which does not sell out to corporate interests that have dominated the current W administration. He's come too far based on support from the grassroots people, to do otherwise now.

The points being made above re: all forms of ethanol being bad for atmospheric carbon, are still not widely known and must be publicized if we are to undo the damaging decisions to invest so heavily and mandate domestic production in that sector. We need to focus on things that work, to reduce our carbon footprints right away rather than such distractions.

Moving toward sustainability with hopefulness, one revolution at a time.

by 2wheeler at 11:24 AM on 28 Feb 2008

RE to Lame Is As Lame Does

It is a bit unfair to brush of PAYD with the comparison of a drunk driver and a little old man driving. You may as well compare night to day because there is a huge difference between the two as it pertains to safety. Why do insurance companies constantly want to know how much driving you do and, gasp, your driving record? Duh, it is because they are indicators of risk which impact price. Anyway, PAYD, may not be the "saviour" of the carbon world, but why should innovative products that will have a positive effect be brushed aside because it may only be a small portion of the public that will drive less as a result? I drive how I drive, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have a product to meet my needs should I feel the desire to change my habits. Consumers deservie choices.

by strong like bull at 5:37 AM on 29 Feb 2008

Why Biofuels?

Biofuels and discussion of GHG can open a door to establishing World Government, via agreements and taxes foisted on us by the people who have done us no favors in the past.

I personally do not think this is a good reason to have another layer of administration above us all, due to the fact that We cannot control the amount of Federal Government we have now.

Why anyone but a Trans National Energy Giant or a Large Banking Institution would want such a mechanism like a World Government is beyond me.

Think You would have a voice in a world Government?

I say, lets read "Alcohol Can Be A Gas" Learn about Permaculture and cut the subsidies to alternative energy and also the ten to twenty times more subsidy to Big Oil.

Let us clean up our environment by taking personal responsibility for our actions. Let's bring suit against Polluters with real evidence of damage and can the EPA that is shielding Corporate Polluters.

As far as GHG, GW, and CO2 goes,,,

As R. Buckminster Fuller said, Man has used energy, in total, from day one up to 1980, 1/500,000 of our daily energy income from the sun.

If anyone can convince a Jury that Man's contribution to GHG warming has had any damaging effect I would love to see proof.

BTW, the sun's output has drastically fallen off this current cycle. We might need a way to warm things up if this trend continues...

I am far more worried about Big Oil and the pollutants left behind by drilling, refining, and release of toxic leftovers from burning waste products in our cars that we mistake is 100% Gasoline. Cancer rates are now about 1 in 3.

Ethanol Engines are 46% efficient, while engines designed for pump gas are only 20% efficient.

Land to make Ethanol can be empty gravel pits or even waste lands unfit to grow grass. google "Ten sections per county" There need not be any food vs. fuel debate.

Is health, efficiency, self and local empowerment, local jobs, economy, no pesticides, and no commercial fertilizers, even increased sequestration of CO2 when Permaculture is employed a good reason to look at Ethanol?

I think so.

http://roberto-de-sonora.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html

by Doctor No at 7:23 PM on 02 Mar 2008

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