Hi Oliver,
I have read your book. It took me about a day. I borrowed it from a contact of mine.
You saw fit to furnish my contact with a couple of "complimentary" (sic) copies through Zed
Books. I shall not question your judgement/judgment as to why him, but not me...
Although much of your writing is admirable, and your rosy-glow summary shows that your
intentions are earnest, your publication contains some errors, not typographical but factual.
Alas, you are deeply mistaken in thinking that the relevant constituencies will sign up to
your proposal for Kyoto2.
Your premise that what effectively amounts to a "windfall tax" will be acceptable to Big Carbon
is sorely awry, particularly since the proceeds would become international property to spend
on things that Big Carbon will not own or control.
Big Carbon will pay for their Carbon Rights, claim that they have fulfilled their duties under the
"Polluter Pays" principle, and then omit the vital next step : de-Carbonising. Why should they
be expected to pay twice for Carbon (even though they will pass on as much of the Carbon cost
to their customers as possible) ?
They will half-Nelson the international fund to finance their de-Carbonising, if they can. Green
Energy will be financed by the Auction Fund, and the new Green Energy infrastructure and
plant will become the property of Big Carbon. They will then hold all the reins again, and
continue to dictate their own terms of engagement.
A few corrections to get you started :-
p110, p237 etc Nation-based arguments
For all your talk early on in the book of taking the Mitigation issue out of the realm of
inter-national negotiations, you slip right back into discussion of national issues. In my mind,
if you auction Carbon Rights to corporations, but assign Carbon Fund benefits to nations,
you will slip up pretty early on.
p159 The Carbon Capture and Storage price myth
You rehearse the argument that CCS is much cheaper to install at the time of new build than
retrofitting. However, a great deal of pipework and other infrastructure will be needed for any
new CCS-fitted plant, wherever that is, and coal-fired power plants are widely distributed, and
invariably far from where CO2 could be buried, so each new installation will need "fresh"
CCS infrastructure.
p161 : The algae myth of Carbon Sequestration
You perpetuate a myth "...to cut deeply into CO2 emissions...fertilize the growth of algae,
which can then be dried and converted into fuel." Sadly, this process, once completed, will
not sequester Carbon, as by burning the algoil, you release the Carbon Dioxide back into
the atmosphere. Basic chemistry.
p245 : The myth of "intermittent" supplies of Renewable Energy
If we can muster a diverse range of Renewable Energy technologies, supply will not be
"intermittent". For tidal energy, it will be highly predictable, for marine energy, almost
constant, and with a wide enough wind power grid, variable, but never silent.
The basic problem for Big Carbon is this : they shall not be able to de-Carbonise sufficiently
and their businesses should be buried. However, a Carbon Rights Auction will keep them in
the ring to fight another round. An Auction of Carbon Rights will ringfence Carbon business,
for a good while longer, which is not what we need.
Setting a price for Carbon is just inventing a new commodity, but not solving the problem.
Let's take the example of the British Government (for once). They insisted that new Nuclear
plant constructors should bear the cost of clean-up, the full cost. This is possibly the most
important idea going forward - the regulation to clean up - giving responsibility to those who
are the source of the pollution. This is "Polluter Pays" in action, not the system you propose,
where there is the usual passing-the-costs-on of a Carbon Auction to end consumers.
The other very important thing that can be done is to move away from "Lowest Cost" contracts
at all levels of national and local government, to "Lowest Carbon" contracts and procurement.
These two things would guarantee de-Carbonisation, Energy Efficiency and a host of new
Renewables, without having to consider a blanket "marketisation" of Carbon.
p97 : You puncture your own argument "Auction - provided the mechanism is well designed
and the auction is open to many bidders - is also the optimal system for securing the full
market price for the permits." But you yourself argue for reducing the number of players in
the Auction, as a means to make it simpler, going "upstream" p90/91
As for the units, I think you'll find that James Hansen et alia specify the safe zone as centred
on 350 ppmv CO2, not CO2 eq (or CO2e) as you state in several places p27 and other pages.
My reference is here :-
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080407.pdf
"If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed
and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change
suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."
See also here :-
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/co2-equivalents/
http://jebin08.blogspot.com/2007/02/21st-century-greenhouse-gas-budget.html
"Sunday, February 04, 2007
Stern uses 450 ppm for all greenhouse gases (carbon equivalent) in his projections...430ppm
(current CO2e)..."
[log in to unmask]" target="_blank">http:[log in to unmask]
"Sat, 30 Jun 2007 06:18:43 -0700
...current atmospheric concentration at ~430 CO2e..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/10/carbonemissions
I have more to say, but I'm tired now, so it shall have to be another day.
I will try to find the time to re-read your tome, in order to get more intimate with your trains
of thought. There is some genuinely new stuff in there, but mostly on the lines of the science
and technology. All the stuff about taxation options and capping options is 20 years old...
jo.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RE: Kyoto2 : Systems Analysis?
From: Oliver Tickell ([log in to unmask])
Sent: 25 July 2008 11:15:42
To: 'jo abbess' ([log in to unmask])
Hi Jo, under my contract I only get 6 copies, so if I give you one it would be at my personal
expense. And sorry to say this, but that is not how I would choose to spend my money.
But good luck with your library! Oliver.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RE: Kyoto2 : Systems Analysis?
From: jo abbess ([log in to unmask])
Sent: 24 July 2008 18:08:25
To: Oliver Tickell ([log in to unmask])
Hi Oliver,
Maybe you would be gracious and collaborative and send me a
copy of your new book for review without me needing to wait
for it to be ordered through the library.
I like positive engagement which results in cooperative outcomes.
My address is :-
Ms J. Abbess
10 Beech Hall Road
Highams Park
London
E4 9NX
jo.
+44 77 17 22 13 96
http://www.changecollege.org.uk
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RE: Kyoto2 : Systems Analysis?
From: Oliver Tickell ([log in to unmask])
Sent: 24 July 2008 16:48:17
To: 'jo abbess' ([log in to unmask])
Hi Jo, the book is now printed and should be in the shops, Amazon, etc, very
soon.
I would suggest that you devote your energies to attacking (or perhaps even
supporting) K2 based on the "real thing" rather than at second hand or based
on pre-conceptions and misunderstandings.
Oliver, K2.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of jo abbess
Sent: 17 July 2008 01:07
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Kyoto2 : Systems Analysis
System Analysis
Carbon Framework Proposal : Kyoto2
System Failure : Corporates are not Governments
Upon re-reading this "green grid" from the New Statesman care of Mark Lynas
:- http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2007/12/lynas-global-warming-climate
http://www.newstatesman.com/greengrid
"Political realism : Kyoto2 is a new idea. Its market-based approach might
be attractive to many world leaders. Rather than aiming for
country-by-country limits, the auctioning of permits takes place at
international level, removing responsibility for implementation from
individual governments. The money generated could be a big incentive for
developing countries, which need cash now to adapt to climate-change
impacts. But distributing the revenue could be a source of disagreement."
"Fairness : While C&C [Contraction and Convergence] addresses the moral
question head-on by asserting that each of us has an equal right to the use
of the atmosphere (and dividing up usage rights accordingly), Kyoto2 avoids
this by selling credits to the highest bidder and funnelling the cash to the
most needy. By auctioning credits it does recognise the atmosphere as a
shared resource. An analogy might be the auctioning of digital frequencies
to mobile-phone companies by governments."
The idea of "upstream" control of environmental bads is not in any way "new"
as this "green grid" document claims.
There is an entire history of antecedence in the form of the proposed
implementations of the Montreal Protocol. We are having the same discussions
about corporate responsibilities and rights now as we did then. Here is a
little reminder of how similar the scenarios for Ozone and Climate
protection are :-
http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/Benedickcasestudy_000.pdf
The fact is that the most speedy and the most effective approach turned out
to be based on strong regulation by a cooperation between national
governments : creating a list of "banned" or "controlled substances", under
which the world's corporates and citizens were obliged to conform.
This was not "upstream" but "side swipe", and there are good reasons why
this worked. You can know from the current Climate news that Economics, or
rather, Growth Economics (is there any other kind ?) dictates that
corporates act with undue anti-haste, trying to protect profit whilst
eschewing extra costs.
The main problem with the Kyoto2 idea is however, not the reluctance of
international companies to play ball. The problem lies in the cracks in
these two quoted paragraphs from the "green grid". These two paragraphs
confuse and conflate the idea of "government" with "corporate".
For example, "the auctioning of permits takes place at international level,
removing responsibility for implementation from individual governments" :
but this imposes a hefty inequality on everything from the very outset : the
large corporates will be able to out-compete smaller corporates to buy the
Carbon Permits, and the large corporates who win the Carbon Auction will
have their capital/assets bases tied mostly to industrialised countries, so
the Auction will not be fair for everyone, and the resulting Carbon Rights
will not be distributed according to national boundaries.
There is therefore no guarantee that the proceeds of the Auction of Carbon
Permits will be "funnelling the cash to the most needy".
Corporates are not Governments, and to create property out of the atmosphere
and sell it back to those who have been appropriating it already is not
going to produce a net positive. It is going to privatise Carbon Rights and
deter those who should have been de-Carbonising with their Carbon-based
wealth from doing so.
We had all these arguments in the 1980s, so why has everyone forgotten ? We
worked out that Chemical Caps can only be implemented under firm
governmental regulation, and strong international cooperation, so that's
what we did. Carbon is more serious than CFCs, and more prevalent. Even more
reason to have more regulation and less market.
jo.
+44 77 17 22 13 96
http://www.changecollege.org.uk
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