| Independently Powered Energy News

Every society is captive of language that defines how we perceive and understand the world around us. At its best, language illuminates and adds to our understanding. At its worst, it obfuscates and blinds us from seeing what’s before our very eyes. In California, the terms “cap-and-trade” and “market-based regulation” have become deeply ingrained in our energy vocabulary. This is particularly the case in our capital city, where they’ve become a matter of pride for leading legislators and agency administrators. California is the world capital of cap-and-trade. No matter what happens, it persistently pursues a market-based approach to reducing global warming. Meanwhile, other states across the country and nations around the world have taken a look at cap-and-trade and dismissed it. California’s green leaders say their rejection of cap-and-trade is largely a convenient way of avoiding action on greenhouse gases. This amounts to only a half truth. The bigger truth is that California’s environmental policy establishment has become captive of language increasingly dominated by notions of the “market” at a time of massive market failure at home and abroad. It remains to be seen if over the next year-and-a-half the state can find other ways besides cap-and-trade to achieve emissions reductions after announcing a delay of until 2013 in enforcing the program. Options include a combination of getting more cogeneration plants online, replacing remaining coal plants serving the state with cleaner natural gas and renewable plants, and increasing public transit service to help cities remake themselves into more livable, walk-able, communities under SB 375. That law envisions better land-use and transportation planning to cut greenhouse gases. Devoting more attention, effort, money, and staff time to such steps could pay off more than pursuing a flawed cap-and-trade program the Legislative Analyst’s Office warns opens the door to financial fraud. It also eliminates the problem of policing offset projects in remote areas--from the jungles of Brazil to the forests of Indonesia. The Air Board is ill-prepared for either job, lacking the economists, accountants, lawyers, and examiners needed to police a carbon market that’s run akin to other financial instrument markets. Meanwhile, federal financial regulatory agencies may view a California-only carbon market as a backwater not worthy of their attention. When it comes to international offsets, if state employees can’t even travel to conferences or use cell phones, how are they going to fly to Latin America or Indonesia to track tree growth in carbon sequestration projects or count hog heads at agricultural methane-to-energy projects. Even if they could, these offset projects won’t benefit Californians in any way. So instead, how about using state resources to secure more services, like transit, and to create calmer neighborhoods where pedestrians aren’t routinely hit by speeding motorists behaving like rats in an overcrowded cage? How about leveraging more greenhouse gas reductions here that also clean up smog-forming pollutants? Let’s make the benefits of state efforts accrue to the many Californians, instead of to a narrow band of traders, financiers, and offset project developers. Let’s devise a Main Street climate change plan instead of another Wall Street con. Yet, California remains stubborn, captive of its language. That’s seemingly why Senator Fran Pavley (D-Santa Monica) last week insisted the California Air Resources Board’s plan not to enforce its cap-and-trade program until 2013 instead of 2012 is not a “delay,” but instead a “transition.” State leaders also seem blind to the fact that in the years since enactment of the state’s global warming law, AB 32, in 2006 cap-and-trade has largely been overtaken by other developments. Consider, for instance, the new 33 percent renewable energy standard and the continued march toward energy efficiency, not to mention the Air Board’s own success in spurring improved auto mileage. Even the Air Board itself has downsized its expectations for emissions reductions under a cap-and-trade market, cutting the goal by almost half from 34.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide/year by 2020 to 18 million metric tons. So, let’s call what was announced in Sacramento on cap-and-trade last week what it is. It’s a delay due to the fundamental unpopularity of a program that’s become outmoded and unnecessary, but remains a “sacred cow.” California must do better. Policy makers must escape the blinders of narrow vocabulary and focus on what they can do for the vast majority of citizens and businesses, rather than just the few.

No Result