Jonathan Pershing, the U.S. deputy special envoy for climate change, said the Obama administration will bring a “much more detailed set of policies” to the next round of negotiations beginning June 1.

He said the plan would require all countries, including developing nations like China and India, to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

He also said it will focus on long-range goals for greenhouse gas emissions–as distant as 2050. This is undoubtedly because the Obama administration’s midterm goals do not match those being called for by the international community.

Obama wants the U.S. to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and reduce levels progressively to 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. The European Union has proposed reductions of 25% to 35% compared with 1990 levels by 2020.

An alliance of small island states, backed by a dozen African and Latin American nations, urged developed nations to reduce emissions by at least 45% below 1990 levels by the year 2020.

Pershing said that for the U.S. “Those numbers will be determined by Congress,” which is currently debating climate change and energy legislation.

Delegates reportedly also discussed whether or not a new climate treaty should resemble the Kyoto Protocol and whether it should include a cap-and-trade framework modeled on the European Union’s trading system.

Annie Petsonk, international counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, told the New York Times that while this approach seemed likely, one difficult question remains: Which countries will be required to cap emissions?

http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/17972

“Now, the experience of a cap-and-trade system thus far is that if you’re giving away carbon permits for free, then basically you’re not really pricing the thing and it doesn’t work, or people can game the system in so many ways that it’s not creating the incentive structures that we’re looking for,” Obama said.

“The way that the allowances are distributed matters hugely for the success of the program,” Burtraw said. “But for the most part, it does not matter directly for the kinds of emission reductions you’re going to see. The primary influence is the existence of an emissions cap.”

President Obama’s comments yesterday in support of climate change legislation included two errors on the fundamental design and history of the cap-and-trade approach that his new administration intends as the centerpiece of its global warming policy, according to several experts tracking the Capitol Hill debate.

Appearing before CEOs at the Business Roundtable in Washington, Obama fielded a question about his campaign pledge to distribute allowances for emissions of greenhouse gases via a 100 percent auction.

The president replied with a warning against giving away too many free allowances to industry for compliance with a cap-and-trade system.

“Now, the experience of a cap-and-trade system thus far is that if you’re giving away carbon permits for free, then basically you’re not really pricing the thing and it doesn’t work, or people can game the system in so many ways that it’s not creating the incentive structures that we’re looking for,” Obama said.

A pair of leading climate economists say the president’s comments glossed over a key point in the cap-and-trade debate.

So long as the government caps emissions, companies will see a price signal and be forced to act, Harvard University’s Robert Stavins said.

“If you give permits away for free or sell them, either way, allowances will be priced and the system will work,” Stavins said in an interview. “There may be sound arguments that the administration wishes to make for auctioning allowances, but the functioning of the price mechanism and the environmental performance of the system is not one of them.”

Dallas Burtraw, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Resources for the Future think tank, agreed with Stavins’ assessment.

“The way that the allowances are distributed matters hugely for the success of the program,” Burtraw said. “But for the most part, it does not matter directly for the kinds of emission reductions you’re going to see. The primary influence is the existence of an emissions cap.”

Obama also erred in overstating the role of emissions auctions during the implementation of the sulfur dioxide trading program created through the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.

“We put in an auction system and a trading mechanism and, lo and behold, American ingenuity and American entrepreneurship and inventiveness created options that ended up being much cheaper than anybody had imagined — much cheaper than anybody had imagined,” the president said.

But the 1990 law signed by President George H.W. Bush required U.S. EPA to auction about 3 percent of the cap-and-trade credits. Electric utilities got the rest for free based on their historical emission levels.

“I’m not sure that’s the example one wants to give,” Stavins said, citing instead the Northeastern states’ Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which so far has required electric utilities to purchase credits via auction.

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/03/13/13climatewire-obama-erred-on-key-capandtrade-features-econ-10134.html?pagewanted=print

One environmentalist tracking the debate says Waxman “is making a gamble that he can get this done quickly while Obama’s popularity is high.”

A cap-and-trade system would involve the federal government setting yearly limits on total greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide. Washington would then allocate emission credits that could be traded, banked, or sold to meet the cap. Each credit would allow a factory or coal-fueled power plant to emit 1 ton of greenhouse gases.

Henry Arnold Waxman, 69, is a Democrat from California who has called Congress home for half his life. He has long inspired strong views on Capitol Hill, where some regard him as one of his generation’s great lawmakers and a relentless champion for the common good, even as others dismiss him as a partisan pit bull with an insatiable appetite for headlines.

Either way, one thing is certain: One of his top concerns has long been global warming, and after dethroning a fellow Democrat to win the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he’s vowing quick action on comprehensive energy legislation containing provisions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

If America doesn’t act, Waxman warns, the country will pay a hefty price in terms of health, the environment, national security, and global instability. “We’re more and more suffering the consequences of global warming and climate change, which scientists tell us could be irreversible if we don’t take very serious action now,” he says.

Waxman wants his new committee to have a bill to curb carbon emissions prepared by April so that it can be approved by the panel before Memorial Day. President Barack Obama, he says, “has called upon us to move forward in this area. It’s something that we can no longer neglect.”

Opponents, starting with the top Republican on the committee, argue that the science isn’t proved and the timing, with countries around the world mired in recession, isn’t right. House Republican Joe Barton of Texas, a former chair of the panel and now its ranking member, says a sure way to turn a severe economic downturn into a depression is to pass a “cockamamie climate change bill” that includes mandatory cap-and-trade provisions.

A cap-and-trade system would involve the federal government setting yearly limits on total greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide. Washington would then allocate emission credits that could be traded, banked, or sold to meet the cap. Each credit would allow a factory or coal-fueled power plant to emit 1 ton of greenhouse gases.

Advocates believe the provisions would spur private-sector innovations, keeping the United States at the cutting edge of new energy technology and energy efficiency. Opponents envision industrial jobs going overseas. Waxman, addressing critics who warn about the risk of outsourcing, says doing nothing about global warning would result in an economy worse off than it is now, with damage to public health, the environment, “even our cities, our agriculture, our forests, and our national security.”

As draft legislation is hammered out and congressional hearings are underway, Waxman is showing few of his cards, careful to avoid being pinned down on exactly what he’d like in a bill or how much he’d concede. Whether the full House and Senate would approve climate legislation is also unclear, particularly in an area where Democrats, some from manufacturing bases or coal-producing regions, tend to be divided by regional interests.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/energy/2009/03/11/on-climate-change-henry-waxman-wants-congress-to-act-now.html

Although U.S. business leaders say they support a national carbon-capping program to tackle global warming, disagreement over the details bodes poorly for the plan President Obama aims to push through Congress this year.

Building consensus around cap and trade in the business community is still “a work in progress,” Mulcahy said, adding that the issue of how emissions permits are distributed was critical.

The chief executives of some of the biggest U.S. companies, at a Wall Street Journal conference in Santa Barbara this week, said they generally support a plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions and require companies that emit more than the limit to buy emissions permits.

But many said they had trouble with the specific plan laid out by the Obama administration last month. Others said they doubted whether legislators would pass such a measure during a deep economic downturn.

Obama has said he wants a so-called cap-and-trade system that would put a price on emissions of climate-warming carbon. Companies that emit more than the limit would have to buy emission permits; companies that emit less could sell emission credits.

In the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme, emissions credits were given away to polluters at first.

The head of the United States’ largest burner of coal for power generation said he was disappointed by Obama’s proposal even though he supports cap and trade in principle.

The debate over whether the U.S. should scrap the cap-and-trade plan altogether and simply tax carbon dioxide emissions is still alive.

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0636301320090306

In proposing mandatory caps on the greenhouse gases linked to global warming and a system for auctioning permits to companies that emit them, President Obama is taking on a huge political and economic challenge.

And while a cap-and-trade approach bears substantial cost, it also brings a benefit whose value is incalculable — a steady decrease in emissions that scientists say will over time reduce the risk of climate catastrophe.

Business lobbies and many Republicans raised loud objections to the cap-and-trade program Mr. Obama proposed as part of his budget this week, saying the plan amounted to a gigantic and permanent tax on oil, electricity and manufactured goods, a shock they said the country could not handle during economic distress.

Green groups and supportive members of Congress applauded, saying the proposal was long overdue after eight years of inaction on climate change under President George W. Bush. The costs, they said, would not begin to bite until at least 2012.

But the full costs and benefits of controlling greenhouse gas emissions remain unknown, and perhaps unknowable. While there is rough consensus on the science of global warming — with some notable and vocal objectors — there is less agreement on the economics of the problem and very little on the policy prescriptions to address it. And while a cap-and-trade approach bears substantial cost, it also brings a benefit whose value is incalculable — a steady decrease in emissions that scientists say will over time reduce the risk of climate catastrophe.

Mr. Obama’s budget estimates $645 billion in cap-and-trade revenue over the next 10 years that will largely be paid by oil, electric power and heavy industries that produce the majority of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for the warming of the planet. Many of these costs are expected to be passed on to consumers.

But Mr. Obama offered a sweetener in the form of tax relief for lower- and middle-income families and billions of dollars in new spending for renewable sources of power to cut emissions and ultimately, it is hoped, bring down the cost of energy. He also plans to spend billions to weatherize homes to bring down heating costs for the poor.

Congress has debated versions of a cap-and-trade regime for years but never enacted one, in part because it would become so complex. The House is working on such legislation now; Senate leaders promise action later this year. Mr. Obama laid out only broad principles and targets, and his aides admit that revenue estimates are only a rough guess and will depend on whatever emerges from Congress. The White House projects the program to be in place starting in 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/science/earth/28capntrade.html

Economic pressure is changing the climate-change policy debate around the world—except maybe in the United States. President Barack Obama came out of his Feb. 19 meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper sounding remarkably similar to his predecessor. Obama resolved to pursue carbon-capture technology, a system that would allow industry to avoid cutbacks in energy use. He also stated that the participation of China and India are “absolutely critical” for the success of any worldwide energy pact, a position that echoes the Bush administration if not the existing Kyoto Protocol. Sagging markets are leaving large Kyoto-adhering European companies with loads of carbon credits to sell off without any need to alter their emitting practices. And the UN has warned that the global credit crunch threatens to dry up funds pledged from wealthy nations.

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/15081

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs sought to downplay expectations among environmentalists and green businesses stating that the White House would support legislative moves to cut carbon emissions “whether that’s this year or next year”.

Obama is also reported to have sought to downplay expectations of rapid progress at a meeting this weekend with a group of US state governors. He said that getting proposals for a cap-and-trade regime through Congress would be harder than previously anticipated following the opposition the Republicans mounted against the stimulus package.

Just a week after President Obama signed into law around $100bn in green investment as part of his economic stimulus package, the White House has moved to downplay expectation its planned climate change bill will be passed by the end of the year.

Democratic leaders had signaled that they wanted the bill – which will include Obama’s plans for binding emission targets as part of a nationwide cap-and-trade scheme – in place ahead of the UN’s climate change conference in Copenhagen at the end of the year.

But following the staunch Republican opposition that dogged the passage of the economic stimulus bill, White House officials now openly accept that timetable could be beyond them.

Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives had said legislation would be in place by May, while senators have also promised to introduce legislation before the end of the year.

But speaking to reporters yesterday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs sought to downplay expectations among environmentalists and green businesses stating that the White House would support legislative moves to cut carbon emissions “whether that’s this year or next year”.

His comments were echoed by Nancy Sutley, the chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, who said that while the US was still committed to playing a leading role at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, its leadership would not be dependent on climate change legislation being passed at home.

Under proposals set out on the campaign trail, Obama is aiming to introduce a nationwide cap-and-trade scheme modeled on that pioneered in the EU and designed to cut emissions from heavy polluters by 80 per cent by 2050.

In related developments, new research from HSBC’s Centre for Climate Change has found that despite widespread talk in political circles of Green New Deals, the vast majority of economic stimulus plans that have either been approved or are currently pending are failing to earmark enough investment for low carbon projects.

According to Lord Nicholas Stern, the author of the influential Stern Review, at least 20 per cent of stimulus packages should be targeted at green initiatives if long-term international emission targets are to be met.

However, only South Korea and China have so far exceeded that target with 69 per cent of South Korea’s $38bn package and 34 per cent of China’s $581bn spending plan earmarked for environmental projects.

In contrast, only 13 per cent of President Obama’s stimulus plan, 14 per cent of the EU recovery program, and two per cent of Japan’s package will focus on low carbon initiatives.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2237125/team-obama-hints-delay-climate

Dr. Chu said a “revolution” in science and technology would be required if the world is to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and curb the emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.

He said that while President Obama and Congressional Democratic leaders had endorsed a so-called cap-and-trade system to control global warming pollutants, there were alternatives that could emerge, including a tax on carbon emissions or a modified version of cap-and-trade.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/us/politics/12chu.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print

Steven Chu, the new secretary of energy, said Wednesday that solving the world’s energy and environment problems would require Nobel-level breakthroughs in three areas: electric batteries, solar power and the development of new crops that can be turned into fuel.

Dr. Chu, a physicist, spoke during a wide-ranging interview in his office, where his own framed Nobel Prize lay flat on a bookcase, a Post-it note indicating where it should be hung on the wall.

He addressed topics that included global warming, renewable energy sources like solar and wind power, the use of coal and a proposed repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Dr. Chu said a “revolution” in science and technology would be required if the world is to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and curb the emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.

Solar technology, he said, will have to get five times better than it is today, and scientists will need to find new types of plants that require little energy to grow and that can be converted to clean and cheap alternatives to fossil fuels.

Dr. Chu, who once called coal “a nightmare” in the way it is currently used, said the United States must also lead the world in finding a way to burn the fuel cleanly, because other countries with big coal reserves, like India and China, will not turn away from coal.

But Dr. Chu said such developments were not impossible. At the turn of the last century, he noted, scientists like Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch made Nobel-winning discoveries that allowed the development of cheap nitrogen fertilizers, saving Europe from starvation.

“I think science and technology can generate much better choices,” Dr. Chu said. “It has, consistently, over hundreds and hundreds of years.”

Dr. Chu said members of Congress who are drafting legislation to limit emissions of global warming gases had not yet sought his advice, although he added, “I would expect that they might.”

He said that while President Obama and Congressional Democratic leaders had endorsed a so-called cap-and-trade system to control global warming pollutants, there were alternatives that could emerge, including a tax on carbon emissions or a modified version of cap-and-trade.

Dr. Chu said reaching agreement on legislation to combat climate change would be difficult in the current recession because any scheme to regulate greenhouse gas emissions would probably cause energy prices to rise and drive manufacturing jobs to countries where energy is cheaper.

“The concern about cap-and-trade in today’s economic climate,” Dr. Chu said, “is that a lot of money might flow to developing countries in a way that might not be completely politically sellable.”

But, he said, he supports putting a price on carbon emissions to begin to address climate change.

On September 18-19, 2008, the Belfer Center’s Energy Technology Innovation Policy (ETIP) research group convened leaders from academia, research centers, government, business, and non-governmental organizations for a major conference on U.S. energy policy, titled Acting in Time on Energy Policy. The conference was co-sponsored by the Consortium for Energy Policy Research at Harvard and the Harvard University Center for the Environment. Conference attendees discussed future energy policy directions in six main areas: global climate change, carbon capture and storage technology, oil and transportation, energy technology innovation, electricity, and leadership.

This seven-minute video captures the essence of the event and highlights recommendations given by participants during each of the six panels. A book, also titled Acting in Time on Energy Policy, edited by Kelly Sims Gallagher, Director of ETIP, and to be published by Brookings Institution Press this spring, will offer readers a comprehensive summary of the conference and versions of the presented papers. More information about the book can be found on the Brookings Institution Press website at: http://www.brookings.edu/press/Books/…

For more information and press inquiries, please visit the Belfer Center website: http://belfercenter.org

Holdren may push for the U.S. to be part of a carbon- curbing treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, said Epstein, associate director of the Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, who has consulted Holdren on research.

Holdren will counsel Obama on how to cut carbon dioxide emissions. The gas has risen to a concentration of about 385 parts per million in the atmosphere, from about 275 parts per million in the early 1700s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=awOp50bE4Tko&refer=exclusive

John Holdren’s predictions about global warming, illustrated in riveting charts and graphs, helped ex-Vice President Gore win an Oscar for his 2006 documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”.” Holdren also helped persuade Ford Motor Co. and ConocoPhillips Co. executives to accept that climate change caused by gas emissions threatened to raise sea levels and harm crops. His slides pop up frequently in other people’s speeches.At age 64, Holdren now is taking on his toughest assignment: getting the American public and Congress to curb fossil fuel use. Barack Obama has named Holdren as assistant to the president for science and technology as well as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, a post for which he will face a Senate confirmation hearing on Feb 12.

The White House “is the place where he ought to be right now, trying to save the world,” said Paul Ehrlich, author of “The Population Bomb” (Ballantine, 1968), a manifesto that predicted disaster from depletion of the Earth’s resources. Holdren is “absolutely brilliant,” Ehrlich said.

Holdren may push for the U.S. to be part of a carbon- curbing treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, said Epstein, associate director of the Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, who has consulted Holdren on research.

Holdren will counsel Obama on how to cut carbon dioxide emissions. The gas has risen to a concentration of about 385 parts per million in the atmosphere, from about 275 parts per million in the early 1700s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Studies have suggested that halting levels at 550 particles per million by the year 2050 would avoid the worst effects of global warming and help avoid flooding and major crop losses. Holdren may aim for even bigger reductions, said Graham Allison, director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

‘Genius Grant’

“He believes at this stage that the world’s got to get down to no more than 550 parts per million and may have to get lower than 450 parts per million,” Allison said.

Holdren first gained public attention in December 1981, at age 37, when he won a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, or “genius” grant, for analyses of energy and arms control. He joined the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an organization focused on limiting nuclear weapons, and gave an acceptance speech in Oslo in December 1995 after Pugwash shared the Nobel Peace Prize. He later served for 14 years on the MacArthur board.