The Grand Climate Plan

Adam Stein | December 2, 2008

Low-carbon roadmap comes into focus — with some notable gaps.

In a post-election editorial, Al Gore laid out a policy roadmap for addressing climate change. Gore’s plan looks like a bunch of other plans that have recently landed on the president-elect’s doorstep. I will now do you the favor of summarizing reams of policy expertise in five bullet points, henceforth referred to as the Grand Climate Plan:

Carbon pricing
Efficiency standards
Carbon-free electricity
Smart electrical grid
Electric cars

Some heavy caveats are in order: the Grand Climate Plan isn’t meant to be comprehensive or even sufficient to address climate change. Plenty of important stuff falls outside the scope of these five points. Nor is the Grand Climate Plan meant to imply consensus. Every one of these broad-brush categories encompasses a range of policy tools and attendant debates.

Take number 3, for example, carbon-free electricity. The term lumps together everything from offshore wind to clean coal to nuclear power. It also covers policy tools ranging from direct subsidy to cap-and-trade to renewable portfolio standards.

Nevertheless, the “plan” represents, if not consensus, then a sort of policy convergence, a set of interlocking puzzle pieces that, to a good approximation, chart the contours of the big-picture climate-related policy proposals presently on the table. This situation is much changed from just a few years ago, when mainstream wonk types would have been hard-pressed to lay out any sort of coherent climate policy agenda outside maybe pushing for the U.S. to join Kyoto.

I have a feeling I’ll be referring to the Grand Climate Plan a lot in the future, as it provides a fairly handy reference point from which to view competing proposals and legislative efforts. For the moment, though, I thought I’d mention some of the most glaring gaps in the plan, areas where little consensus exists other than the understanding that something needs to be done:

Coal. There are a lot of coal-fired electrical plants out there, and there will be a lot more by the end of the decade. How fast can we get rid of them? How fast do we need to? Are the policies under consideration anywhere near up to the task?
Forests and land use. Probably we’ll eventually see efforts to protect the world’s forests looped into the global carbon market, but a lot of unresolved issues remain. In the meantime, deforestation is still 20% of the global warming problem.
China. And India. And international cooperation in general. I don’t doubt that such cooperation is possible, but I’m not sure that anyone yet knows what it will look like.

Image by Flickr user Matti Mattila.

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Comments

1. By Tom Harrison on December 1, 2008 3:19 PM

Adam --

For a complete and holistic grand plan, see Lester Brown's book "Plan B, 3.0". It addresses coal, forests, land-use, China, as well as population, food, water and education and several other issues.

This is a must-read book. Even if you don't agree with his proposed solutions, his conclusions, or his assumptions, it's the first I have read that ties most of the moving parts together.

Coal is a biggie, especially in the US and China as we could certainly get plenty of energy from it ... as long as we don't mind making climate change even more severe.

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2. By Adam Stein on December 2, 2008 5:20 AM

Thanks for the recommendation, Tom. I should also emphasize that I'm using an idiosyncratic definition of the word "plan" here. Basically, I'm trying to map out the consensus expert opinion, which means I'm only including areas that are very well specified.

For example, pretty much everyone agrees on the need to price carbon, and pretty much everyone knows what the design issues are for a cap-and-trade system. All that's left, really, is for legislators and interest groups to haggle out the particulars.

With China or forestry, there are certainly plenty of ideas floating around out there, but we're still in that early phase in which lots of stuff gets thrown against a wall.

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3. By Tom Harrison on December 2, 2008 6:29 AM

Adam --

I think Brown's "Plan B", in many ways agrees with the others out there. His plan isn't particularly new -- he has been doing this stuff for a long, long time.

My wife and I have consumed many books, blogs, articles, and conferences on various energy, conservation, environmental and political issues around renewable energy and climate change. We thought we had read most of what there was to read.

What we found remarkable about Brown's "Plan B" is that it's the first cogent presentation we have read that weaves together these apparently disparate issues.

We both finished the book feeling as though he has made a strong case not only for dramatic ("bold") change consistent with the other plans, but also that the issues of population, food, water and so on are not separable from climate change and energy. They must be considered if any element of a plan is to be effective.

In some ways this makes the problem seem harder or more politically improbable. But there is also reason to have hope that looking at the bigger picture can simplify the mechanisms, those "particulars" you mention, that actually solve elements of the problem.

It's a must-read book, either way.

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4. By Paul S. on December 3, 2008 6:32 AM

Before anyone argues the point, or a skeptic posts here, please everyone read "Plan B 3.0".

If you are not into reading the whole book, skip the first half. It is complete, fully referenced, and yes even inspiring.

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5. By Jarrett on December 5, 2008 4:28 PM

I realize that the items you list are the primary levers that will drive change most directly. However, there are also secondary levers that operate more gradually but ultimately with greater force. I'm thinking, for example, of investments in public transit and more efficient urban form.

Transit has the virtue of achieving many objectives at once. For example, it supports denser livable cities, hence reduces the literal human footprint, hence reduces the development pressure on natural lands. It's always been at a policy disadvantage because to a bureaucrat who's been charged with solving only one problem, it's usually not the best solution. Its real value is its ability to address multiple problems.

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