Changing Our Ways or Changing the Earth's Climate

Claudine Schneider

Rep. Claudine Schneider (R-RI) is the co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Competitiveness Caucus. She is Ranking Minority Member of the Subcommittee on Natural Resources, Agriculture Research, and Environment, of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

[19 ELR 10208]

Last summer, in the midst of a searing heat wave that gripped the nation's capital, the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, upon which I sit, was trying to get a grip on the threat posed by a much larger kind of heat wave, global warming. The testifying scientists asked us to imagine 90-100 degree summer days running nearly three months, triple the current number of days that are this warm. Air quality would deteriorate as the heat wave progressed, since the higher temperatures would cook up a chemical soup of irritating pollutants.

Global warming, commonly referred to as the "greenhouse effect," results from the increasing concentration of some gases and particles in the atmosphere allowing sunlight tofilter through to the surface of the planet, but preventing the sunlight's radiant infrared energy from escaping back into space. Carbon dioxide releases from the burning of fossil fuels and tropical forests currently account for half of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Other major infrared-trapping gases include methane, chlorofluorocarbons, and nitrous oxide. The greater the concentration of these gases, the less infrared energy that can escape. The resulting climate changes may be extremely significant.

Consequences of Global Warming

Rising discomfort and health risks constitute just one small aspect of the changes that are likely to occur from the continued rise in greenhouse gases. There will also be massive economic dislocations, according to a recent report prepared for Congress by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).¹ EPA found that the impact on the United States from the 3-9 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature that has been postulated by scientists could include: the destruction of one-fourth to two-thirds of coastal wetlands from rising sea levels; danger to U.S. shellfish and finfish supplies; the dieback of southern forests, which now supply 50 percent of the nation's softwood and hardwood timber; the loss of 7,000 square miles of shoreline; $ 100 billion in costs to erect coastline barriers and sea walls; and a need for more than 400,000 megawatts of electricity — the equivalent of 400 large powerplants — for increased air conditioning, raising rates by as much as $ 75 billion per year.

EPA did not study all possible consequences. A recent conference of eminent ecologists and biologists sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund concluded that global warming will cause profound and widespread biological disruption in the coming decades.² According to Dr. George Woodwell, director of the Woods Hole Research Center, "Rapid change is the enemy of life." If the warming is not stopped, he noted, the changes will be "open-ended, rapid and accelerating."³ Species extinction, already occurring at a higher rate than experienced by dinosaurs 60 million years ago, will be accelerated.

These are dire consequences, and demand our utmost attention. Clearly, we need to continue a vigorous research effort, both to better predict the likely impacts of rising concentrations of infrared-trapping aerosols and to identify ways to eliminate our dependency on these gases. However, we already have a considerable amount of knowledge that can be used. We know that combustion of fossil fuels contributes to over half the problem. Dr. T. Nejat Veziroglu, director of the Clean Energy Institute, which promotes the use of the carbon-free fuel hydrogen, testified at last summer's committee hearing that fossil fuels exact a tremendous cost to society far beyond their market price. By his estimate, the environmental destruction, public health impacts, and economic losses to property and commodities due to fossil fuel combustioncost the nation several hundred billion dollars per year.⁴

Whether or not one ascribes to this particular estimate, the evidence is mounting that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Extensive testimony before Congress in recent years has made it clear that there are energy options available that emit little or none of the greenhouse gases. These options include improved energy efficiency and increases in solar/renewable resources, nuclear power, and various strategies for controlling or offsetting fossil fuel emissions.

These options, however, differ in cost by several orders of magnitude. This makes it imperative that whichever strategy the federal government promotes, it should, through market incentives and regulation, avoid imposing needless and wasteful costs on the nation's taxpayers, ratepayers, and stockholders. Dr. William Keepin with the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit research organization, forcefully made this point during last summer's hearing. His research found that a dollar invested in energy efficiency reduced nearly seven times more carbon emissions than a dollar invested in nuclear power.⁵

Other studies have come to similar conclusions. Numerous renewable resources such as daylighting (using sunlight for lighting buildings), wind and hydro power, solar water and space heating, landscaping for passive cooling, biomass fuels, geothermal power, and even some photovoltaic applications, reduce more carbon per invested dollar than nuclear power. In fact, separate estimates by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Lawrence [19 ELR 10209] Berkeley National Laboratory indicate that the cost of offsetting the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from a coal-fired power plant by planting trees (to uptake an equivalent amount of CO₂) would increase the cost of electricity by only five percent.⁶

Least-Cost Energy Planning

A comprehensive "least-cost" planning process that ranks energy options in order of their cost-effectiveness is long overdue. This process should factor in as much as possible the societal costs due to environmental externalities such as global warming, acid rain, and urban smog. This is the basis of the Global Warming Prevention Act (H.R. 1078),⁷ which I recently introduced along with 95 of my House colleagues and which has been endorsed by numerous national consumer, environmental, scientific, and trade organizations. The bill would change the existing National Energy Policy Plan, currently incorporated in the Department of Energy's (DOE's) biannual report to Congress, into the National Least-Cost Energy Policy Plan, and mandate the DOE to re-prioritize its policies in accordance with the identified least-cost options. The least-cost language adopts the process Congress mandated in the Pacific Northwest Electric Power Planning and Conservation Act,⁸ one of the most successful applications of comprehensive least-cost planning in the nation to date.

A wealth of analysis strongly indicates that vigorously pursuing a least-cost energy strategy would achieve the bill's national goal of cutting this country's CO₂ emissions by 20 percent by 2000 and at the same time cut consumers' energy bills by billions of dollars per year. This is possible because of the enormous pool of currently available energy-efficient opportunities that are 2-10 times cheaper than fossil or nuclear options. It is not often acknowledged that over the past 15 years improved efficiency in America's stock of buildings, appliances, vehicles, and industrial equipment has cut the country's energy consumption by one-third, reduced carbon emissions 40 percent below what they otherwise would have been, and trimmed the U.S. energy bill by a phenomenal $ 160 billion per year.⁹

The pace of technological advancements in using energy more efficiently shows no signs of slowing. Detailed studies find that continued investment in highly efficient energy-consuming devices would enable the United States to maintain robust economic growth while achieving upwards of $ 200 billion per year in energy savings.

Let me illustrate with two examples: lighting and vehicles. Lighting and the associated air conditioning needed to remove the heat generated by lights consume the equivalent of roughly half of all coal burned by utilities. Yet, a wide variety of highly efficient lighting products now make it possible to deliver the same lighting services with one-fourth the electricity. Full use of these products would save consumers more than $ 25 billion per year and reduce annual carbon emissions by tens of millions of tons.

Transportation accounts for one-third of the nation's carbon emissions; the 130 million light cars and trucks on the road account for most of these emissions. New cars average 27 miles per gallon (mpg), and new light trucks 19 mpg, nearly twice the fleet average when the national fuel economy standards were enacted in the mid-1970s. It is cost-effective, however, to build 60 mpg cars and 45 mpg light trucks. These improvements would not only save consumers tens of billions of dollars at the gas pump but, according to an analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council, would prevent the combustion of 22 billion barrels of oil over the next 30 years.¹⁰ This is far more oil than could be extracted from offshore the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, Alaska, and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Removing Barriers to Efficiency

Unfortunately, a variety of market imperfections and institutional barriers inhibit the timely capture of these and other low-cost efficiency options. Quite simply, public policymaking has failed to keep pace with technological innovations. For example, under traditional regulatory procedures, utilities are rewarded for selling more electricity, while suffering an erosion of cash earnings if they promote energy-saving investments.

In the case of vehicles, consumers have little incentive to purchase vehicles much more efficient than 30-35 mpg, since fuel is less than a fifth of total driving cost. This remains the case even when fuel prices are two to four times the U.S. pump price, as found in most European nations. This explains in large part why prototype cars operating between 65 and 135 mpg are not being manufactured.

Obviously, from a societal and global perspective, these efficiency investments are extremely valuable. The Global Warming Prevention Act proposes a number of policy measures to overcome current barriers. These include: helping states adopt least-cost planning methods and performance-incentive regulations that make it profitable for utilities to save energy; requiring the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to adopt least-cost planning procedures that include energy efficiency options; requiring federal lending institutions to mandate that all home loans include an energy audit and ample funds to make cost-effective efficiency improvements at the time of application; implementing vehicle energy efficiency performance standards so that new light cars and trucks achieve 45 and 35 mpg, respectively, within the next decade; increase the gas tax on inefficient vehicles; and provide a tax rebate of up to $ 2,000 for consumers who purchase fuel-efficient vehicles.

Other Alternatives

Efficiency is not a panacea to the global warming problem, but it represents the most important first step this and other nations can take in reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases in a cost-minimizing manner. Energy savings may offer one of the few sources of investment capital for undertaking additional steps to control emissions. According to a recent study, it is technologically feasible and economically compelling to maintain a three percent per [19 ELR 10210] year improvement in energy efficiency for several decades to come.¹¹ This will result in a reduction in today's carbon emissions instead of the projected tripling by 2020, and energy savings would eventually exceed a staggering $ 500 billion per year worldwide.

Milking this cash cow is imperative, given the equally staggering debt and deficits that the United States and many other countries face. Without these relatively easy savings it may well be impossible to finance the billions of dollars of additional research and steps that must be undertaken.

Other vital steps that need to be taken include: faster development of ecologically sustainable renewable energy resources; reduction and recycling of America's vast waste stream; prevention of deforestation and promotion of reforestation and agroforestry worldwide; elimination of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons by 1995, and reduction of other greenhouse gases (e.g. methane, nitrous oxides); promotion of universal family planning services to achieve population stabilization; and development of adaptative measures for agriculture and other affected parts of the economy that will be affected by changing climate patterns and sea level rise as global warming takes its course.

Renewable energy sources currently provide close to 10 percent of total U.S. energy needs. Yet, according to a 1985 report by the DOE, an adequately funded research and development program could enable us to economically extract enough renewables over a period of 25 years to provide over three-fourths of total U.S. energy needs.¹² Unfortunately, the research budget in this area has been cut 75 percent over the past eight years. H.R. 1078 attempts to put research and development back on track.

International Measures

The international section of H.R. 1078 calls for a combination of carrot and stick measures to spur ecologically sustainable economic development. Least-cost energy planning would become an integral part of bilateral and multilateral assistance programs. The bill would require recipient countries to implement tropical forestry and agroforestry programs to slow forest destruction, impose a five percent levy on specific imported tree species with the funds to be recycled into tropical forest conservation programs, and encourage the use of debt swaps, restructuring, and forgiveness to promote conservation and habitat preservation efforts.

The bill would double current funding levels for international family planning services. As World Bank President Barber Conable has repeatedly noted,¹³ the current addition of nearly one billion births each decade, mostly in the developing countries, threatens to overwhelm even the best of development assistance programs.

Conclusion

Ultimately, preventing serious economic disruption from occurring as a result of changes in the world's climate will turn on the commitment of individuals to take personal responsibility. This includes becoming informed consumers; buying products that do not contribute significantly to greenhouse emissions; and advocating policy changes that spur needed international treaties, national least-cost policies and fuel economy standards, changes in state utility regulations, and community efforts such as recycling and urban reforestation to reduce summer heat island effects.

Without a doubt, never before in history have individual actions come to play so great a role on the course of human events. Prevention pays, and it is incumbent upon each one of us to tap its benefits. Failure to do so will be a terrible squandering of our natural endowment.

1. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, OFFICE OF POLICY, PLANNING AND EVALUATION, THE POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE UNITED STATES (Oct. 1988).

2. World Wildlife Fund, Conference on Consequences of the Greenhouse Effect for Biological Diversity, Washington, D.C. (Oct. 4-6, 1988) (proceedings forthcoming from Yale Press) [hereinafter World Wildlife Fund Conference].

3. G. Woodell, Remarks at World Wildlife Fund Conference, supra note 2.

4. HOUSE COMM. ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, SUBCOMM. ON NATURAL RESOURCES, AGRICULTURE RESEARCH, AND THE ENVIRONMENT, AND SUBCOMM. ON SCIENCE, RESEARCH, AND TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGIES FOR REMEDIATING GLOBAL WARMING, H.R. Doc. No. 137, 100th Cong., 2d Sess. (1988).

5. Id.

6. DUDEK, D., OFFSETTING NEW CO₂ EMISSIONS (ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND 1988); personal communication with Dr. Arthur Rosenfeld, Director of the Center for Building Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Dec. 1988).

7. 135 CONG. REC. H370 (daily ed. Feb. 22, 1989).

8. 16 U.S.C. §§ 837, 838i, 838k, 839-839h.

9. Personal communication with Dr. Arthur Rosenfeld, Director of the Center for Building Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Dec. 1988).

10. Natural Resources Defense Council, Fact Sheet on Oil and Conservation Resources (Sept. 1988).

11. GOLDEMBERG, J., ET AL., ENERGY FOR A SUSTAINABLE WORLD (1988).

12. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, OFFICE OF RENEWABLE ENERGY PROGRAMS, RENEWABLE ENERGY R&D OUTLOOK (1985).

13. See, e.g., B. Conable, Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, West Berlin (Sept. 27, 1988).