This is a Wonk Room repost.
On the final day of the Clinton Global Initiative, the Wonk Room caught up with Ira Magaziner, the senior advisor for policy development in the Clinton White House and now the chairman of the William J. Clinton Foundation’s Climate Initiative. We discussed the Clinton Climate Initiative‘s approach to the challenge of global warming, including its work to advance energy efficiency projects in the world’s cities from the Empire State Building to Lagos, Nigeria. Magaziner also directly addressed why critics argue that advocacy of clean energy is a socialistic economy killer, citing Adam Smith’s recognition of the need for governmental action to address market externalities. As we neared the conclusion of the interview, Magaziner tied all the threads of the conversation together into one impressive discourse on building a clean-energy economy:
CREATIVE DESTRUCTION “” PAST VS. THE FUTURE
MAGAZINER: Schumpeter “” yet another capitalist economist “” talked about creative destruction. Periodically, as new technologies develop and new needs arise, business systems and economic systems need to be remade “” creatively destroyed and remade. We don’t need a buggy whip industry any more. We’ve got automobiles. And the buggy whip guys may not like it, but they ought to switch to making automobiles if they’re going to have a future.
What always happens in those periods of transformation is that some people oppose and some people see the future. We went from mainframe computers to minicomputers to PCs. And as we went through those transformations, different companies succeeded. DEC and Wang and companies that were the minicomputer companies didn’t understand the potential of the PC. So you had the Dells and others who developed them. In some cases, companies do make the transformation and they go with the future instead of the past.
We have a similar situation with clean energy and energy efficiency. You have some companies now, like GE, and there’s a bunch of others, who are saying, “I want to go with the future, and I’m going to invest in wind, I’m going to invest in solar. I’m going to invest in these things that I know are going to eventually be the future.” And you’ve got others who say, “I’m going to defend the past and stick with what I’ve got,” and fight Congress to prevent the future from coming.
BRINGING THE FUTURE FASTER
MAGAZINER: I think, in this case, in the case of clean energy, we have a public interest in bringing the future faster, because of global warming. We know that if we don’t bring the future faster with clean energy and with energy efficiency, that it’s going to have a tremendous economic and social cost. Therefore, we have to accelerate the process of that future coming.
That’s why government has to especially play a role in this revolution. I mean, it played a stimulative role in the Internet revolution, but in this revolution it has to play a much more active role. Because the negative consequences of not doing so are going to cause governments and people and economies tremendous unhappiness.
There have been so many reports written. The thousands of scientists in the International Panel on Climate Change established that the world is warming, they’ve established what the impacts can be, and there’s only now a few dissident scientists left. The overwhelming 99.9 percent opinion is very clear on this.
Economists like Nicholas Stern who have done serious work on this have said we can lose 5 to 10 percent of GDP in the next ten years, fifteen years if we don’t act, because of all the major dislocations. And if we spend one percent of our GDP to bring the transformation faster, we’ll save ten percent or 15 percent of our GDP. So there are enough studies out there.
THE CLINTON CLIMATE INITIATIVE
MAGAZINER: What we’re trying to do with the Clinton Climate Initiative is to make it real.
It’s very important that global leaders, the political leaders agree to set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s very important they pass legislation to put a price on carbon “” because it does have a price for society “” to help speed the transformation.
What we’ve said, what we’re doing, is say, even after that’s done, what you’re going to still need projects that demonstrate in large scale how to do this, what the business models are what the government models should be, so that government money gets spent well, carbon credit money gets spent well, and ultimately businesses can move into this in an accelerated way to make this happen. And so that’s why we’ve focused on these projects.
We’ve worked on energy efficiency, clean energy, and the third area we’re working on is forests, preserving forests around the world. What we as a human race have been doing is at the same time we’re putting all this CO2 into the air “” which is poisoning the atmosphere “” we’re cutting down the forests “” which are nature’s way of taking carbon dioxide out of the air. We’re making the problem worse on both ends.
So we have major projects that we’re doing in Indonesia, and Cambodia, Guyana “” Africa and the tropical countries “” to help preserve forests and create economic value in preserving forests.
So that’s what we’re up to and we’re trying to make our contribution. That’s going to require a lot of different groups working in a lot of different ways to make a contribution.
THE MULTIPLIER EFFECT
MAGAZINER: What we do is: we do these projects and can measure the direct impact, and say there’s this many millions of tons less of CO2 going into the air because of the projects we have done. And then we’re creating these models which we can spread to others, so that we can have a multiplier effect that multiplies the impact of what the direct projects we’re doing can accomplish.
That’s why when we show that we can do an integrated waste management project in Delhi “” in a very complicated, large city that’s never had integrated waste management “” what we did in Delhi is the first integrated waste management project in the whole of southern Asia. We showed that it can work, it’s actually returning a profit to the commercial developers, it’s saving the city money, and it’s working in terms of making Delhi a cleaner place.
And now there are ten other cities that are ready to do it. As soon as we finish the project in Lagos “” Lagos, Nigeria is a place with 21 million people in that city, growing a million and a half people per year “” and they had no waste system. We’re putting the first integrated waste system there. We’re now doing it in Dar Es Salaam and Tanzania. We have requests from a number of other African cities. So our goal is to create these models and then spread them, because that’s really where we’re going to get at the problem.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Depending on how Co2 increases in the atmosphere but I read it as 50 ppmv for every 200 billion tonnes emitted then come 2045 with a 2% increase in CO2 emissions every year we will have emitted another 1.6 trillon tonnes of which half might be absorbed vis sinks leaving 800 billion tonnes which equates to a 200 ppmv increase in atmoospheric Co2 or around 600 ppmv in total. This is enough to really hurt us.
if we decrease by 2% (4% in real terms to offset 2% growth) however per annum we will have released 750 billion tonnes or around an additional 75 ppmv making a total of 460 ppmv which although not as bad is still not what we would like as it most likely takes us over 2C.
Hence a 5% decrease (7% in real terms) is needed and for the USA that is just vast amounts of carbon cutback. The USA probably has the resources and the technology to do it but does it have the political will and the ability to afford it. I really hope so.
The USA is climate illiterate!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/28/us-climate-change-copenhagen-schnellnhuber
Or so a top climate scientists says. He actually states that Obama is not that likely to get an agreement in the senate. Hmmmm, quite worrying.
pete best — Advocate this:
Recently a utility in South Carolina decided to convert a coal burner to a wood burner, avoiding the costly pollution abatement equipment otherwise required for relicensing. Even more recenty TVA decided to shut down four coal plants and convert a fifth to a wood burner for the same reasons. (Is this an EPA requirement or are these state requirements?) Probably TVA will replace the shut down plants with combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs), producing the same electricity with only 40% of the carbon dioxide emissions. Of coure the wood burners have no fossil carbon dioxide emissions. Just replacing all the USA’s about 670 coal burners by CCGTs would lower the nation’s excess carbon dioxide emissions by 24%; converting some to burn wood lowers the total even more.
Here is an alternative, distributed and retail, worthy of considering right away:
Biomass Task Force Report
http://www.westgov.org/wga/initiatives/cdeac/Biomass-full.pdf
What dent in the nations overall emissions of 8 billion tonnes would that reduce?
I know it can be done, the USA has the knowledge but large swathes in the USA political system want nothing done.
pete best (4) — Burning coal generates about 40% of the 8 billion tonnes of emissions. Just replacing coal burners by natural gas burners would elimiate 24% of the emissions, 1.92 billion tonnes, leaving only 6.08 billion tonnes to go…
Sounds good, but the carrying-capacity of the planet seems to be coming to an end. The convergence of catastrophic climate change, population growth (from around 4 or 5 billion now to around 9 billion by the middle of the century) and having to share dwindling supplies of natural resources with all those extra people– may bring everything to a halt.
I don’t think we have enough time… too many problems and not enough people who know what’s happening. There’s catastrophic climate change, fossil fuel depletion, population growth of almost twice what it is now, and natural resources failing us… all due to occur in the next couple decades. And don’t we need fossil fuels to convert to alternative energy? That would give us until around 2020 to get it done! Peak in petroleum doesn’t mean gradual cessation; it’s pretty abrupt!
If we could somehow INFORM people about the REALITY of climate change, then we might have a chance. But the people I talk to seem to have no idea what’s coming toward them! No GW groups in my town, except groups formed by “deniers”. And presentations at the local library… by deniers! Seems like environmental groups would publish mass pamphlets on GW to distribute all over the place like “Why Vegan?” does. It’s amazing how little time we have left and how little attention is given to the subject except over the Internet.
Oops! I meant “Peak in Global Petroleum production” (not “fossi fuel depletion!”) Guess it’s not good to write when you’re half asleep!!
Cynthia -
World leaders are pretty aware of the problem. And it seems that global climate change is pretty commonly mentioned in the media.
Population is on target to top out at around 9 billion, up 50% of today’s ~6 billion. Birth rates have greatly dropped in most of the world.
Oil may or may not have peaked. But following the peak we are almost certainly see a period that’s something like a plateau and following that a gradual decline.
Here in the US we’re getting about 16% of our power from renewables so one could easily make the case that we are already using renewable power to make new renewables.
Over the last couple of years the percentage of people who are absolute deniers has been dropping. Gallup polls find the percentage of deniers to be between 10% and 15%. A poll from another company found only 5%.
Now, I didn’t post all that in an attempt to take away any of the seriousness of global climate change. It appears to be a very serious danger that we are facing.
The reason for posting is to help focus on the most critical elements. Mainly, IMO, getting our energy usage down (via conservation) and installing more renewable energy systems (to allow us to cut our fossil fuel use).
We need to tighten up our homes and commercial buildings. We need to switch to efficient lighting and efficient appliances/machines.
We need to keep building wind farms and installing both PV and thermal solar. Those are things that work and are cost efficient.
We need to switch over to plug-in hybrid and electric cars as rapidly as possible. That will cut back on our use of petroleum, cutting our CO2 emissions and stretching the petroleum plateau.
I think we can get there. Probably what we can do as “simple individuals” is cut our own energy use, try to educate those around us, and help good people get elected to positions where they can help bring about large scale change.
Bob, replacing coal with gas is not a viable propsect as gas is set to peak around a decade after oil. Does the USA have enough natural gas to replace coal for any length of time? I doubt it.
To eliminate coal you need wind, CSP, and natural gas to function when renewables cannot always meet demand. That I could agree with for the USA has a nice desert or two, plenty of wind capability and the technology to mesh it all together but do they have the will power in their ignorance.
Bob, I respectfully disagree with some of your statements.
If leaders were truly aware of the situation they would take drastic action to reduce fossil fuel emissions immediately. Either that or they simply don’t care. Australia is especially hard hit by GW; yet their leader proposed only a 5% reduction in emissions by 2020; the citizens were outraged. Here in the U.S., Obama is more concerned about Health Care Reform than he is about the fate of the planet. How can he propose trillions of dollars(?) for health care reform when the arctic and antarctic regions are melting??!!
True– population is supposed to level off the middle of this century. The point, however, was that it’s the combination of all these events: peak oil, huge population increase (close to 50%), Catastrophic Climate Change, and scarcity of water all occurring around the same time. That’s pretty upsetting!
As for Peak Oil, according to the book, “The Long Emergency”, peak oil doesn’t mean that oil production gradually levels off. According to the author, it means that suddenly there’s no more oil left except the oil that is hard to reach and costly to extract. The author points out that these countries will most likely keep what little is left for their own citizens and not be willing to do much sharing!
The only relief I’ve found recently concerning GW is that I think I read that because of la nina, scientist are predicting the summer sea ice may not disappear as early as expected. Have you heard anything about that? I’d really be interested in hearing any news about that. The last I heard, Jay Wally, glaciologist at NASA, said the ice could disappear as early as the end of summer in 2012!!!
Pete Best, according to the book, “The Long Emergency” what you said is correct. The author states that oil won’t last much longer either. As for alternative energy, the author states that we need fossil fuels in order to switch over to alternatives. We can replace some thing by using other forms of energy, however, petroleum is unique in that it’s easy to transport, cheap, and is used for almost everything in modern civilization, from pharmaceuticals, to corporate farming, to heat, gas for our cars, you name it! It’s IRREPLACEABLE. Nothing can ever take it’s place because it’s used for so many things.
I read that peak oil is supposed to occur around 2020. Not much time to switch to alternatives, unless the author is wrong. Maybe.
Cynthia,
We can electricify car transport and possibly vans and even trucks but aircraft and shipping is not so easy to do but its not beyond the our means to get enough lqiuid fuel from other means to power Aircraft and shipping. We need to expand railways to, the USA especially as presently its a wreck.