350 Goal Will Never Be Achieved With Kerry-Lieberman

The
details have finally emerged on the American Power Act, the climate and
energy legislation rolled out Wednesday by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and
Joe Lieberman (I-CT). More telling than the details, however, is a
number not mentioned in the bill - 350.

You remember 350, don't you?

Environmental activist Bill McKibben and thousands of volunteers
organized events last fall calling attention to this number. It
represents the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- in parts
per million -- that leading scientists now say is safe and sustainable.
We know this because we've already crossed that line - 390 ppm and
climbing - and the Earth is telling us to go back. Most of the world's
glaciers are in retreat, ice shelves in polar regions are shrinking,
and the seas are encroaching on islands and coasts.

Any legislation to address climate change needs to have the
overarching goal of getting us back to 350 ppm of CO2 and keeping us
there. But you'll find no mention of this in the Kerry-Lieberman bill
for one simple reason: There's no way in hell their bill can achieve
this goal. What's really scary, however, is that most of the
politicians in Washington are operating under the assumption that we
don't need to get to 350. The real eye-opener for me came last fall
when a Senate aide I met with said we just need to keep CO2 under 450
ppm.

I have the greatest admiration for Sen. Kerry and the
now-off-the-bus Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for their tireless efforts
to craft this legislation. But the flaws in this bill will prevent it
from achieving its most important objective - stopping the worst
effects of climate change.

In a statement issued Wednesday, several members of the Price Carbon Campaign weighed in on those flaws.

"The Kerry-Lieberman bill fails the acid test of climate
legislation, which is to provide clear signals on emission prices,"
said Charles Komanoff, co-founder of the Carbon Tax Center.
"Investors, entrepreneurs and households all need certainty in future
fuel and energy prices, but Kerry-Lieberman hides these crucial price
signals behind a curtain of cap-and-trade."

The American Power Act tries to limit the price volatility by
establishing a price collar that starts with a floor of $12 and a
ceiling of $25. The floor price would increase 3 percent a year while
the ceiling would rise 5 percent. Even with the collar, though, there
would be enough uncertainty in prices to discourage long-term
investments in clean energy.

As Komanoff also points out, the pricing proposed in Kerry-Lieberman
would produce meager reductions in CO2 emissions. Based on his
carbon-pricing model, Komanoff estimates that by 2020 the bill would
reduce CO2 by only 3 percent over 2009 emissions.

More damaging, perhaps, than the pricing mechanism, is the inclusion
of carbon offsets, which could delay by decades America's conversion to
clean energy.

"Instead of making needed investments in renewable energy, utilities
will have the much cheaper option of investing in third-world projects
aimed at cutting carbon," said Tom Stokes, Coordinator of the Climate Crisis Coalition,
another member of the Price Carbon Campaign. "Most of these offsets do
nothing to reduce current emissions, and they allow polluters in the
U.S. to keep burning coal and other dirty fuels."

In his post
Wednesday, Kerry said, "Half measures won't cut it," but that's
precisely what's been delivered in this bill, which was thoroughly
vetted by big coal and big oil.

He also mentioned the Senate hearing he convened with Al Gore back
in 1988 that first called attention to the emerging crisis of global
warming. Those hearings introduced the nation and the world to climate
scientist Dr. James Hansen, whose dire predictions have proven correct
in the years since.

When Bill McKibben asked what the target should be for CO2 in the
atmosphere, it was Hansen who said we must get back to 350 ppm. Hence, 350.org was born.

It's time for decision-makers in Washington to listen to Hansen
again. At the Climate Rally in Washington on April 25, he proposed the "People's Climate Stewardship Act."
It's a simple plan to put a steadily-increasing fee on carbon that will
make clean energy competitive with fossil fuels within a decade. It
also returns all the revenue to households so that families won't bear
the economic impact of rising energy costs.

Granted, I'm not a senator, and I don't have to deal with Supreme
Court decisions that allow corporations to play kingmaker. But if I'm
trying to save the world, James Hansen is the guy I'd want to talk to,
not the president of the American Petroleum Institute.