The only hope for substantially reducing\u00a0greenhouse gas emissions is to ensure that\u00a0the atmosphere is no longer treated as a free\u00a0waste receptacle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Scope of the Challenge<\/h2>\n
Global average temperatures are expected to increase by\u00a0between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius over the coming century.\u00a0Rising temperatures will continue to increase the rate of\u00a0evaporation and precipitation, reducing water availability in\u00a0many areas already facing potable water shortages. Melting\u00a0glaciers and the thermal expansion of seawater are expected\u00a0to gradually raise sea levels and potentially damage cities,\u00a0infrastructure and populations worldwide. Rapid changes in\u00a0temperature are also expected to significantly affect biological\u00a0diversity and distribution, with as many as 20 to 50 percent of\u00a0all species potentially facing extinction.<\/p>\n
Canada is not immune to the direct impacts of climate\u00a0change. Temperature change is likely to be most significant at the\u00a0earth’s poles, which are predicted to warm at about double the\u00a0average rate. This will have dramatic effects on natural systems\u00a0and on the human inhabitants of Canada’s North. Higher temperatures in urban areas could exacerbate smog, and some pests,\u00a0like the mountain pine beetle, could become endemic.<\/p>\n
Stabilizing climate change is a truly daunting, long-term\u00a0energy technology challenge. Because such large quantities of\u00a0GHGs have already been released, the planet will be subjected to\u00a0significant climate warming over the coming century absent\u00a0technological advances to extract GHGs from the atmosphere.\u00a0Jaccard and Rivers state that to stabilize at 550 parts per million\u00a0\u2013 roughly double the earth’s pre-industrial concentration, and\u00a0at the upper end of what most scientists consider acceptable \u2013\u00a0global GHG emissions would have to peak by 2020 to 2030 and decline quickly thereafter.<\/p>\n
Politically, Canada is in a difficult situation in that jurisdiction over environmental problems is ambiguously divided\u00a0between the provinces and the federal government. As an\u00a0export-driven economy, Canada also faces pressure from business not to adopt environmental regulations that will place itscompanies at a competitive disadvantage compared with foreign producers.<\/p>\n
Finally, climate change is the ultimate public-good problem. While costs of climate change abatement are borne today by\u00a0whatever party undertakes an action, most benefits of abatement are far in the future and would be spread throughout the entire world. Despite the challenges of global collective action, the authors assert that industrialized countries such as Canada must take decisive measures now; otherwise, it will be impossible to convince large developing-country emitters like China to do so.<\/p>\n
Options for Addressing the Challenge<\/h2>\n
To date, Canada’s GHG policy approach has been dominated by voluntarism and subsidies. The authors and commentators agree that these policy tools, while politically attractive\u00a0and administratively feasible, are largely ineffective at achieving the long-term GHG reductions necessary to combat climate change. Voluntary programs allow individual companies\u00a0and consumers to determine their own level of environmental\u00a0effort, and cast government in the role of information\u00a0provider, facilitator, role model and award giver. Subsidies \u2013\u00a0such as rebates for the purchase of hybrid cars and grants and\u00a0tax credits for low-GHG technology development \u2013 have\u00a0more ability to change behaviour than moral suasion. However, the authors conclude that the subsidies needed simply to stabilize GHG emissions are not within the fiscal means\u00a0of governments. More importantly, because many subsidy\u00a0recipients would have undertaken the desired action in the\u00a0absence of the subsidy, such programs can prove to be much\u00a0more expensive than anticipated.<\/p>\n
Command-and-control regulations, common in the 1970s\u00a0and still in use today, are detailed technology or performance\u00a0standards imposed on specific emitters. Regulatory instruments\u00a0are effective at meeting set objectives because of strict enforcement through financial or legal penalties; however, they do not\u00a0fare as well when it comes to economic efficiency. Emitters\u00a0must adopt the same technologies and practices, despite havingwidely different costs of compliance. Furthermore, technology\u00a0standards discourage the development of newer, and possibly\u00a0lower-cost, ways to reduce emissions.<\/p>\n
Market-oriented regulations allow individual actors to\u00a0decide whether to take action to meet the standard or pay\u00a0others to do so.The familiar \u201ccap and trade\u201d\u009d emission standard\u00a0places a global cap on emissions and distributes permits to\u00a0firms, giving them the \u201cright\u201d\u009d to produce a certain amount of\u00a0emissions. Companies whose emissions risk exceeding their\u00a0allocation of permits can choose either to reduce their own\u00a0emissions or to buy additional permits from another company\u00a0that has a surplus.This built-in market mechanism encourages\u00a0emission reductions by those firms that can do it at the lowest\u00a0cost.The authors conclude that such market-oriented regulations are generally superior to command-and-control regulations in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.<\/p>\n
Finally, a GHG tax, which requires emitters to pay a fixed\u00a0fee per unit of GHG emitted, has the advantage of allowing\u00a0emissions to rise if abatement costs are higher than expected.\u00a0By the same token, a given level of GHG tax cannot guarantee\u00a0a specific emission target, and so it would likely be necessary\u00a0to adjust the rate in order to meet a set target. GHG taxes\u00a0also raise government revenue, which can be used to reduce\u00a0other taxes or fund other environmental initiatives.<\/p>\n
Jaccard and Rivers conclude that the most effective and\u00a0efficient policies are those that prohibit or financially penalize\u00a0technologies and activities that emit GHGs.They note that\u00a0there is virtual unanimity among environmental economists\u00a0that a GHG tax is the lowest-cost and most effective way to\u00a0reduce emissions, and emphasize that, while this is their preferred policy, if political will is lacking, then other things\u00a0must be done.<\/p>\n
Three Preferred Policies<\/h2>\n
A carbon management standard for fossil fuel producers\u00a0and importers \u2013obligation and certificate trading<\/strong><\/p>\n The centrepiece of the authors’ proposal is a market-oriented\u00a0regulation that would require fossil fuel producers and\u00a0importers to certify that a growing fraction of the carbon in\u00a0the fuel they sell does not reach the atmosphere. Firms that are unable to meet the standard must either buy certificates from other firms that exceed the standard or face stiff financial penalties.This proposal differs from conventional capand-trade systems, which issue permits to emit a given amount of greenhouse gases, and then let firms trade the permits among themselves according to their individual emission patterns. Jaccard and Rivers point out that the carbon management standard avoids the politically thorny problem of how to allocate the permits initially. But the commentators had some reservations about the proposal. Christopher Green expressed some concern about the ability of government authorities to hold upstream producers of fossil fuels responsible for their final use by downstream users. James Meadowcroft was concerned that the proposal has never been tried before and would be difficult to coordinate with capand-trade systems prevalent in other countries.<\/p>\n A zero-emission vehicle standard for vehicle manufacturers<\/strong><\/p>\n Jaccard and Rivers’ second proposal would require vehicle\u00a0manufacturers and importers to sell a minimum number of\u00a0zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by a target date as a percentage of total vehicle sales.The minimum market share of ZEVs would rise over time and a per-vehicle penalty would be charged to manufacturers that do not sell the required number of zero-emission vehicles; however, manufacturers could trade among themselves to meet the overall target. Both commentators expressed some reservation about the proposal, noting that \u201czero-emission vehicles\u201d\u009d could be a misnomer if one considers the life-cycle analysis: electric cars, for example, require recharging, which would increase emissions if the power were generated by fossil fuels. Green further suggests that strengthening existing fuel efficiency standards could achieve at a lower cost much of what Jaccard and Rivers hope to accomplish with their ZEV proposal.<\/p>\n Reinforcement of building codes and equipment and appliance standards<\/strong><\/p>\n The third proposal calls for stricter environmental performance standards for new buildings, equipment and appliances,\u00a0and both commentators were essentially unqualified in their\u00a0support of these measures.The authors note that the most\u00a0cost-effective way to lower greenhouse gas emissions in the\u00a0building stock is by means of design and construction, which\u00a0strongly influence energy use over the life of the building.\u00a0Standards would both eliminate the least energy-efficient new\u00a0buildings and encourage retrofitting across the existing stock.<\/p>\n While politically attractive\u00a0and administratively feasible,\u00a0moral suasion and green subsidies are ineffective for\u00a0reducing greenhouse gas\u00a0emissions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If their policy package were implemented, Jaccard and Rivers\u00a0estimate that GHG emissions would drop to 357 million\u00a0tonnes of CO2\u00a0equivalent in 2050 \u2013 50 percent below\u00a0today’s levels and 70 percent below the do-nothing scenario.\u00a0The large bulk of this reduction would be due to carbon capture and storage (driven primarily by the carbon management\u00a0standard) and switching to alternative fuels with lower carbon\u00a0content (driven primarily by the vehicle emission standard).\u00a0Reductions due to improved efficiency are small in relative\u00a0terms, but still amount to an estimated 50-million-tonne\u00a0reduction by 2050. In his comments, Green made the case\u00a0that these estimates are based on overly optimistic assumptions about the development of low-carbon technologies.\u00a0While not disagreeing with the policy directions, he felt that\u00a0the actual emission reductions would be significantly less.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mark Jaccard and Nic Rivers confront a defining issue of\u00a0public policy for the twenty-first century: reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) that contribute to\u00a0global climate change. In the authors’ assessment, \u201cThe\u00a0only hope for substantially reducing GHG emissions in a\u00a0market economy is to ensure that the atmosphere can no\u00a0longer be treated as a free waste […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12043,"template":"","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10280","research-studies","type-research-studies","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\t\n![\"jaccard](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/assets\/Uploads\/jaccard-rivers-sept-2008.PNG\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nConclusion<\/h2>\n