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40 countries are making polluters pay for carbon pollution. Guess who's not.
Most people who have given climate change policy any thought agree that it is important to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions. They are a form of harmful waste; those producing the waste should pay for the harms.
40 countries are making polluters pay for carbon pollution. Guess who's not.
This map shows the steady, inexorable spread of carbon pricing.
Updated by David Roberts@drvox Jun 15, 2017, 9:00am EDT
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Most people who have given climate change policy any thought agree that it is important to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions. They are a form of harmful waste; those producing the waste should pay for the harms. (There’s plenty of debate over just how central pricing is to a serious climate strategy, but very little debate that it should play some role.)
That policy consensus has been in place for quite a while. It seems the political world is beginning to catch up.
The sustainability think tank Sightline has just updated its map of carbon pricing systems across the world. Things have gotten quite lively. Here’s an animated version:
The size of the bubbles correspond to the amount of carbon covered. New systems are outlined in orange in their first year. (Sightline)
Carbon pricing through 2018
The big recent news is China, of course. In July, its carbon cap-and-trade system — which has been tested in nine provinces for several years — will go national, effectively doubling the world’s priced carbon. (That’s the giant bubble on the map above.) At that point, fully a quarter of the world’s carbon emissions will be priced at one level or another. A quarter!
Action in the past few years has been fast and furious. Sightline’s Kristin Eberhard summarizes:
In 2015, Portugal launched a carbon tax, and South Korea implemented a cap-and-trade program. California expanded its cap-and-trade program, initially launched in 2012, to cover 85 percent of it GHG emissions.
After abolishing its carbon price in 2014, Australia launched a new “safeguard mechanism”—a modified form of cap-and-trade—in 2016. In addition to its carbon tax, which has been in place since 2008, in 2016, British Columbia put a limit and price on pollution from industrial facilities (especially targeting coal-fired power plants and liquefied natural gas facilities). In 2018, BC will expand its carbon tax to cover fugitive emissions and forest slash-pile burning and raise the tax by $5 per year.
The United States-shaped hole in the fight against climate change is increasingly conspicuous. In 2017, Ontario, Canada, launched a cap-and-trade program, and Alberta, Canada, launched a new carbon tax for transportation and heating fuel emissions. Canada’s federalist experiment around carbon pricing paid off: four different provinces are running four different programs, and now the federal government is ready to implement a national price in 2018. But the federal requirements leave plenty of room for each province to tailor its own solution. Mexico will also launch a national carbon price in 2018.
Chile’s carbon tax, in the works since 2014, took effect in 2017. South Africa expected to launch a carbon tax in 2017, but delayed the implementation.
And of course, there’s China. That’s a lot of bubbles, and they’re adding up.
Carbon pricing in the US
As Eberhard notes, Canada is leaving the US in the dust, and Mexico is about to do the same. That leaves the US isolated in North America (not to say the world).
But California is currently working to extend and expand its system to meet its ambitious new goals. The states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) are in the midst of a program review, which could involve boosting its ambition.
And Trump’s evident disdain for climate change has galvanized a range of states to speak up and vow action. At least five states have bills in play that would implement some form of carbon tax or fee. Gov. Terry McAuliffe is talking about a carbon cap in Virginia. Hawaii just passed a law committing to the Paris climate targets. Some 34 states now have climate action plans. (More on states rallying in a subsequent post.)
The point is, while Trump and the GOP have taken the US federal government out of the carbon pricing game (not that it was ever in the game), the policy is still very much alive in the US, buzzing around in states and cities, finally getting some varied real-world testing. Even grid operators and utilities are talking about it.
Carbon pricing in the future
The Paris climate agreement — which Trump intends to pull the US out of, but which 194 countries remain committed to — contains (somewhat miraculously, in Article 6) explicit provision for countries to meet their emission targets (NDCs) by cooperating in cross-border carbon markets, through a common cap-and-trade program or carbon tax.
Almost 100 countries have indicated in their NDCs that they are interested in joining up with an international carbon pricing system as a way to meet their targets. If all those countries actually take steps to price carbon — a huge if, obviously! — the map starts to look quite interesting:
(Sightline)
It is early days yet, and carbon prices remain too low even in places where they exist. But if you squint just right, you can see the fuzzy outlines of a truly global response to climate change beginning to come into focus. That’s why the Paris process was so important.
One other thing about the map above.
It’s notable that three of the biggest remaining blank areas are the US, Russia, and the Middle East. Call it the Axis of Unpriced Carbon. Perhaps, in the 2020 presidential election, the question of whether and how long America intends to remain in that club might finally become a salient political issue.
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Environmentalists are playing defense in Raleigh.
Environmentalists say they are fighting a defensive battle this session of the North Carolina General Assembly, hoping to fend off changes in state law that they believe threaten the state’s air, water and other natural resources.
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Environmentalists are playing defense in Raleigh
By Taft Wireback taft.wireback@greensboro.com 18 hrs ago (0)
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Environmentalists say they are fighting a defensive battle this session of the North Carolina General Assembly, hoping to fend off changes in state law that they believe threaten the state’s air, water and other natural resources.
Changes afoot in the Republican-controlled legislature would limit local governments’ power to create buffer zones beside streams, shield agribusinesses from high damage awards in certain types of lawsuits and fully endorse a new landfill technology that some consider iffy.
Other proposals still under consideration as the session moves into its second half include restrictions on wind-farm development, efforts to roll back state support for solar power and the repeal of a regional ban on plastic grocery bags aimed at protecting sea turtles.
“We would definitely like to see more pro-environmental legislation,” said Dan Crawford of the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters. “If you take a quick look at the score card, you see that there is not a lot of positive, environmental legislation being considered right now.”
The clash between environmental advocates and conservative legislators stems from deep-seated convictions on both sides. Activists see right-of-center legislators as beholden to business interests and too willing to sacrifice natural resources for commercial ends.
Business-oriented partisans counter that environmentalists are too quick to sacrifice individual property rights and free enterprise to trendy ecological concerns.
Critics on the environmental side say that the state Senate has been the more tone deaf chamber in Raleigh this session when it comes to the environment. That’s where the measure that many environmentalists see as the worst so far this session, Senate Bill 434, emerged.
Entitled “Amend Environmental Laws-2,” the bill would repeal buffers along the Catawba River, delay the cleanup of Falls Lake in the Triangle region and prohibit local governments from establishing waterside buffers on private lands any wider than the minimum required by state or federal rules — thereby limiting one of the more effective ways to prevent erosion and other pollution.
The measure also would lift the Outer Banks’ plastic bag ban that was intended both to curtail litter and to save turtles that are endangered when they consume waterborne plastic bags they mistake for jellyfish.
The bill — sponsored by state Sens. Norm Sanderson (R-Arapahoe), Bill Cook (R-Chocowinity) and Andy Wells (R-Hickory) — passed the Senate last week and was sent to the House for additional scrutiny.
“I just hope that the House shows leadership and values water quality and local government control more than the Senate did,” said Cassie Gavin, legislative lobbyist for the North Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club.
Landfill pollution
The landfill technology at issue this session involves “leachate aerosolization,“ a fancy name for the process of dredging up the contaminated water that collects under a landfill and using specialized equipment to spray it into the air within a confined sector of the landfill.
The mist separates into water that evaporates and various pollutants that fall back onto the landfill surface.
The House approved a proposed aerosolization bill last week that would require state environmental officials to approve the relatively new technology at landfills under conditions where pollutants presumably would not migrate off site.
State environmental regulators have said that they are OK with that. But environmentalists would like those regulators to have more of a say in whether a particular landfill is suitable for a technology about which many questions remain, said Grady McCallie, policy director of the North Carolina Conservation Network.
Among other things, they worry about making sure pathogens and other contaminants sprayed into the air actually would remain on landfill grounds and not threaten surrounding property owners.
“In our view, that bill still has some serious problems,” McCallie said.
Renewable power
Measures to restrict or roll back renewable energy are particularly disconcerting to environmentalists this session because North Carolina has made steady progress in recent years in expanding both technologies, but especially solar.
Several bills in both houses include such provisions as retreating from North Carolina’s goal to derive 12.5 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2021, making wind farms more difficult to site and approve, and studying the decommissioning of solar installations to understand better their impact on the land.
“It’s a study of something that has already been studied to death,” said Crawford of the solar inquiry. “I know we live in world of alternative facts these days, but the real facts don’t show any need for this.”
‘Smell’ bill vetoed
Environmental groups also are critical of the nuisance-suit bill that would shelter agricultural and forestry operations from high damage awards in that singular type of case, which routinely is brought against farming conglomerates by neighbors who are not wealthy and who contend their lives are being made miserable by the odor of hog waste and other intrusive smells, noises or distractions.
If enacted, the measure — House Bill 467 — would limit damages in such cases to the rental or resale values of the neighbors’ property, meaning that winners in a nuisance lawsuit could not be compensated for such other impacts as pain and suffering or for wages that have been lost to poor health linked to the nuisance.
Supporters assert that the measure would apply only to nuisance suits, leaving the way open for other types of civil lawsuits that could seek compensation for those additional kinds of damage.
Critics said the bill was made only slightly more tolerable by an amendment introduced by state Rep. John Blust (R-Greensboro) that exempted cases currently underway from the proposed cap, meaning that it would not apply to a series of high-profile nuisance cases currently underway against corporate hog farms run in eastern North Carolina by a massive Chinese corporation.
But they say the bill is still unfair because it would apply to future cases only after a farming or forestry operation has been found guilty of causing problems for its neighbors, McCallie said: “So the judge and jury already would have found that they were harmed. In our view, that’s just wrong.”
Both state House and Senate approved the nuisance-suit measure in its amended form last week and sent it to Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, who vetoed the bill on Friday. The bill will return to a General Assembly containing large enough GOP majorities to override.
Environmental pros
The nonprofit groups that advocate for the environment say there are several bills in the General Assembly’s hopper this session that they rate highly and think would be helpful.
They include a proposal to require schools and child care facilities to test their water supplies for lead and to respond properly if too much of the metal is found. Another sponsored by state Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Greensboro) would give taxpayers the option of sending some or all of their annual state tax refunds to a grant program for conservation projects.
In fact, Harrison has sponsored a number of bills this session that environmental groups applaud, including one that would forbid Duke Energy from recovering coal-ash cleanup costs by hiking customer rates and another that would encourage conservation by letting state agencies keep in their budgets whatever money they save by cutting energy usage.
But as a member of the minority party, Harrison has limited ability to make things happen in a General Assembly.
Also popular with environmentalists are several bills that would expand the state parks and trails system, including a new Black River State Park in Bladen, Pender and Sampson counties, and additional natural areas in Bertie, McDowell and Robeson counties.
More to come?
Overall, it’s too early to say with any certainty how many pluses and minuses the opening year of the 2017-18 session will end up delivering to environmentalists.
The new budget looms, and legislators can make sweeping changes to state environmental policy depending upon where they ultimately decide to put taxpayer money, said the Sierra Club’s Gavin.
“We always see budget provisions added that don’t have anything to do with budget matters. So there’s more to come, I’m sure,” she said.
McCallie agreed, noting that “we’re only part way through the session.”
“A lot depends,” he said, “on the legislature making good choices in the budget.”
Contact Taft Wireback at 336-373-7100 and follow @TaftWirebackNR on Twitter.
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Groups seek end to factory farm pollution loopholes dating back to 1970s.
In a petition, 35 organizations urge the EPA to fix rules that they claim have allowed massive factory farms to continue polluting waterways with animal waste.
Nearly three dozen advocacy groups are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to close loopholes that they say have allowed massive factory farms to continue polluting waterways with animal waste.
The groups are asking the agency to fix its rules for permitting Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, which can house tens of thousands of animals and have become one of the most significant sources of water pollution in the nation. The effort is part of a broader one aimed at forcing stronger oversight of CAFOs, including their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions.
In a petition filed this week, 35 groups led by Food & Water Watch, maintain that EPA has the authority to require more CAFOs to seek permits that would limit the amount of animal waste that ends up on farm fields and in waterways. Among other things, the groups are asking that the agency rely on more current rainfall data that reflects extreme weather events fueled by climate change.
"The current rules have failed to prevent pollution," said Tarah Heinzen, an attorney with Food & Water Watch. "So we're urging EPA to adopt rules that require more CAFOs to get permits and to make those permits more stringent."
The petition likely will open up an ongoing legal battle that stretches back nearly two decades in which courts have consistently sided with the livestock industry and against the agency.
The Clean Water Act defines CAFOs as "point sources" of pollution—much like factories or municipal sewage systems. But the farming industry has fought against that definition and won exemptions from regulation.
In the 1990s, at least a dozen CAFOs spilled liquid waste into lakes and streams, prompting environmental groups to sue the agency to impose stronger regulations. The EPA responded, saying for the first time that all CAFOs would be required to get permits under the Clean Water Act—unless they could prove they didn't have the potential to pollute. The livestock industry fought back, saying that the agency couldn't require permits unless facilities were actually discharging waste into waterways.
Ultimately, after a series of lawsuits, a federal appeals courts said that the agency couldn't require permits, unless a facility was discharging. Without permits, the agency doesn't know where these farming operations are located, or, in some cases, if they even exist, and has no way of monitoring if they mishandle waste or pollute waterways, environmental groups say.
The new petition, though, challenges EPA to require that any livestock facility that has certain characteristics—that it houses a certain number of animals, for instance, or has a certain kind of manure management system—obtain a permit.
The agency has said as many as 75 percent of CAFOs need permits because they discharge based on these characteristics, but only 40 percent actually have them.
"We're saying EPA had enough information to establish a presumption that certain facilities, with certain characteristics, actually discharge and require permits," Heinzen said.
The groups are also asking the agency to close a loophole that excludes these facilities from permitting requirements under an "agricultural stormwater exemption." That means, the groups say, that CAFOs are getting around permitting requirements. The Clean Water Act doesn't clearly outline what qualifies as an agricultural stormwater, leaving much room for legal interpretation, but the agency has authority to define it, the groups say.
The petition also points out that extreme weather events—including the storms that swept across North Carolina last year, spilling massive amounts of liquid waste into the state's waters—are becoming more common.
Under the current rules, EPA allows CAFOs to discharge pollutants when they're hit with severe storms—those that are categorized as "25-year, 24-hour" storms, meaning a storm lasting 24 hours that has a chance of recurring once in 25 years.
"If there's a massive storm event, it hasn't violated its permit," Heinzen said. "But the way that EPA determines what storm events triggers that exemption is really outdated. It's based on a rainwater atlas from 1961."
Neither the EPA or the American Farm Bureau Federation, which represents the livestock industries that sued the agency over the permitting rules, immediately responded to requests for comment.
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