Brookings: Topics - Clean Energy

A Grand Bargain on Fracking? Lessons from Springfield, Illinois

Barry Rabe — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 11:54:00 -0400

Editor’s Note: A new Illinois statewide policy on shale development and the possible use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) procedures was just passed with overwhelming majorities in both legislative chambers. Barry Rabe explains the significance of this legislation and how this aspect of the Illinois experience is worthy of national attention.

Paul Simon would likely be very proud. Throughout his long and distinguished service to Illinois in both state government and in Congress, he understood the complexities of combining energy development with environmental protection. This reflected his home base in downstate Illinois, with its significant fossil fuel deposits and extensive environmental treasures.

Simon died a decade ago and so never lived to address the issue of shale development and the possible use of hydraulic fracturing procedures in the very sections of Southern Illinois that he dearly loved. But he clearly would have applauded the type of multi-year effort that brought very diverse stakeholders together to develop a comprehensive new statewide policy on this issue. Indeed, that legislation was just passed with overwhelming majorities in both legislative chambers and was signed into law by Governor Patrick Quinn.

This law neither bans fracking nor tips the scales in favor of development with only modest restrictions. Instead, it reflects some extended and careful elements not found in most other states that have moved more rapidly into shale development. In particular, the new Illinois legislative package includes far more extensive chemical disclosure provisions than are common elsewhere, a severance tax mechanism designed to return some revenues to affected local communities, and expansive citizen participation mechanisms.

Perhaps most significantly, Illinois now will also require water testing before and after any drilling occurs, allowing for careful comparison that is simply not possible in most other states and drilling cases. This testing is coupled with a presumption of liability in the event that water contamination is detected after drilling. The widespread lack of such testing has led to huge uncertainty and controversy around the nation.

This approach secured buy-in from a remarkably diverse, albeit not unanimous, set of stakeholders across Illinois. It reflected significant legislative leadership and endured a number of challenges, including proposed amendments that might have crushed any compromise. And it is designed to provide an overarching governance mechanism for future shale drilling that can simultaneously allow development while going far beyond most states in providing important environmental protections.

Formal restrictions on the application of existing federal statutes for drinking water and waste management to shale drilling have essentially punted this issue to individual states and localities. Yet more than half of the American states have shale deposits, ranging from established state energy development powerhouses like Texas and Pennsylvania to other states that have virtually no prior experience in this area. Many have struggled to develop a credible policy regime and we are indeed beginning to see a patchwork quilt of state-by-state differences. Public opinion surveys find that the citizenry tends to support development but has misgivings about risks, and so supports a series of key environmental protection provisions.

And so Illinois thus takes a lead role in beginning to define what might be possible, particularly through assembling a coalition that takes a careful look at all facets of the issue and attempts to work across partisan lines to create a governance system that might be solid for the long haul.

Ironies abound in this case. It has been rare in recent decades to point to Illinois governance as a model for the nation. The state retains the lowest credit rating in the nation and has just failed yet again to fix a badly-broken system for state pensions. And it continues to hold one of the highest incarceration rates for former elected state officials, including a series of relatively recent governors. So it would hardly seem a likely case to produce a possible model for state best-practice in this emerging area.

But there has always been another side to Illinois, reflected in the life and public service career of Paul Simon. No other state has yet produced such an extensive review and balanced approach to shale development, making this aspect of the Illinois experience worthy of national attention.

Authors

Barry Rabe

Image Source: © Stringer . / Reuters

DOE’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative Leverages Regions

Scott Andes and Mark Muro — Mon, 06 May 2013 17:26:00 -0400

This spring, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is launching a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative that will support both clean energy and manufacturing competitiveness by promoting greater energy efficiency in the U.S. production sector. Rolled out at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee last month, the new initiative advances a smart take on both the nation’s energy and manufacturing strategies. But more than that it reflects a welcome new spatial and geographic emphasis at the Energy Department.

At the most general level, the new initiative marshals a number of DOE offices, research institutions, and private sector partners to map out and implement networks that promote clean energy production and energy-efficient manufacturing. Key to the effort is that this new push—like the Obama administration’s National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) proposal—takes an explicitly regional approach to innovation and the diffusion of next-generation technologies.

In this respect, the initiative aims to engage with regional epicenters of advanced manufacturing such as smart automation in Austin, Tex. and low-heat stamping in Denver, Colo. to drive local and national advances. These areas have established production ecosystems and are driving the technological frontier within clean energy; they are prime sites of U.S. innovation. Along these lines, the initiative has already awarded a total of $15 million to five projects in five different regional manufacturing clusters.

Yet the new focus is not just about covering the geographic bases. By supporting centers of excellence close to regional industrial clusters, DOE is leaning on a large body of literature that suggests innovation results from an iterative set of exchanges between production and research activities that more often than not thrive on proximity.

To be sure, old-line thinking continues to maintain that R&D facilities develop prototypes out of whole cloth and then transfer design requirements to manufacturers, wherever in the world plants are located. However, while this may be the case for low-tech industries, the reality for advanced industries is often the other way around. The genesis of many new technologies comes from within the production process via daily interactions with production facilities. These “co-location synergies” emerge as manufacturers adopt new techniques and equipment to increase efficiency and R&D engineers build upon shop-floor technological competencies to create innovate products and services. And within strong regional clusters, particularly metropolitan regions, such co-location benefits are able to penetrate beyond the incumbent R&D performing firm into the local supply chain—creating high-value start-ups and upstream innovation.

And in fact the ORNL launch event highlighted all of this. Led by Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Dave Danielson with Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam in attendance, the event highlighted both a very cool DOE facility—the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility (CFCF) at ORNL—and EERE’s emergent regional stance. CFCF is a production line-sized test bed for public and private sector researchers to explore new carbon fiber composites at scale. As such, it offers to both East Tennesssee and the nation a one-of-a-kind piece of shared industrial infrastructure as well as a focal point for local technical exchange. Currently, for example, 45 firms make up the carbon fiber composite consortium that work with CFCF researchers—many of which are small-and medium-sized firms located in East Tennessee. In that way, the CFCF is emerging as the hub of an nascent “industrial commons,” where firms of all sizes can leverage not only CFCF resources but the broader R&D infrastructure at Oak Ridge, the University of Tennessee, and in firms. In other words, the carbon fiber hub and cluster being fostered in East Tennessee—like Austin and Denver—epitomizes the increasingly “bottom-up” feel of U.S. and global innovation systems and likewise highlights a new region-oriented stance at DOE.

While it’s too early to judge the impact of the Energy Department’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative, the new push looks promising. By focusing more of DOE’s efforts on regions, a historically isolated, sometimes obtuse agency may be beginning to align itself with some of the most dynamic technology development exchanges of all—those that happen locally.

Authors

Scott Andes
Mark Muro

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

Black Carbon and Kerosene Lighting: An Opportunity for Rapid Action on Climate Change and Clean Energy for Development

Arne Jacobson, Nicholas L. Lam, Tami C. Bond and Nathan Hultman — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:09:00 -0400

SUMMARY

Replacing inefficient kerosene lighting with electric lighting or other clean alternatives can rapidly achieve development and energy access goals, save money and reduce climate warming. Many of the 250 million households that lack reliable access to electricity rely on inefficient and dangerous simple wick lamps and other kerosene-fueled light sources, using 4 to 25 billion liters of kerosene annually to meet basic lighting needs. Kerosene costs can be a significant household expense and subsidies are expensive. New information on kerosene lamp emissions reveals that their climate impacts are substantial. Eliminating current annual black carbon emissions would provide a climate benefit equivalent to 5 gigatons of carbon dioxide reductions over the next 20 years. Robust and low-cost technologies for supplanting simple wick and other kerosene-fueled lamps exist and are easily distributed and scalable. Improving household lighting offers a low-cost opportunity to improve development, cool the climate and reduce costs.

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Authors

Arne Jacobson
Nicholas L. Lam
Tami C. Bond
Nathan Hultman

The Clean Energy Ministerial in Delhi: An International Forum to Address National Energy Policy Goals

Nathan Hultman — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:32:00 -0400

This week, India will host the fourth Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM), an annual gathering of energy ministers and high-level energy officials from the world’s major economies. While this conference tends to go largely unnoticed in the wider world, the CEM represents an innovative—and potentially fruitful—approach to international energy and environmental policy. Initiated in 2009 by then-incoming U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, the CEM is designed to bring together those officials charged with understanding, regulating and improving the energy systems of the world’s biggest energy users. According to the CEM, the 20 participating countries account for 90 percent of clean energy investment and 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

There is no formal CEM treaty structure nor is there a specific mission or agenda other than providing a forum to address issues of common concern. This makes it similar in some ways to other forums like the G-8, G-20 or ASEAN, but its sole focus on energy differentiates it. Consisting of a high-level ministerial dialogue, working groups on concrete initiatives and high-level public-private meetings, the CEM provides unique opportunities. First, it allows for informal consultations on issues of common concern, and therefore allows for the discovery, development and articulation of common goals. Second, the meeting provides a platform for government technical experts to share best practices and ideas about concrete and actionable steps that could help address energy policy goals at the national level.

The location of the CEM rotates annually, and this year India will host in Delhi. With the international community currently engaged in a vigorous discussion about post-2015 development goals, attention has turned toward improving and broadening access to clean and sustainable energy services as a means of achieving poverty reduction goals. Reaching this broad goal will take a combination of both long-term development work and specific steps that are amenable to national-level policy interventions.

In a new policy brief, Arne Jacobson, Nick Lam, Tami Bond and I have identified one such possible clear and actionable step toward such a shared goal—replacing single-wick kerosene lamps with cleaner substitutes. We argue that while the household benefits of such lamps are clear and have been well documented, new research on the much greater climate impacts of black carbon from these lamps underscores a climate benefit that would be much greater than previously estimated. In addition, at a time when there is broad consensus about the need to start phasing out fossil fuel subsidies—in a way that doesn’t hurt the poorest¬—our approach can help reduce state expenditures on kerosene subsidies while actually improving the quality of the energy services for those most in need. This is an issue of great interest in India currently, where kerosene subsidy expenditures are large and the topic of much debate.

Our suggestion is just one of several focused, low-cost and technically feasible approaches to improving the energy systems in CEM countries. Improving appliance and building efficiency standards are other examples. The CEM has the potential to stimulate real and lasting improvements in national energy policies in the world’s major economies—and with that, real and lasting improvements in development, environmental and energy-security outcomes.

Authors

Nathan Hultman

Image Source: © Adnan Abidi / Reuters

Climate Policy Across the Globe: Lessons Learned and Key Challenges

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 15, 2013
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

While global climate negotiations are stalled, a surprising development is underway. In the last decade, regional, national and subnational actions to combat climate change have proliferated. Governments are making it possible to build new, clean sources of energy, regulating industries for greater energy efficiency and encouraging better land-use practices. Their accumulated experience can provide lessons on how to combat climate change faster and more cheaply. Climate Policy Initiative, a global policy effectiveness analysis and advisory organization led by Thomas C. Heller, explores this experience in five key emissions regions—the U.S., China, India, Brazil and Europe—in the inaugural edition of “The Policy Climate” report. Focusing on the most emissions-intensive industry sectors in these regions, the report presents three decades of evidence on emissions trends, economic and industry drivers of emissions, and policy activity.

On April 15, Global Economy and Development at Brookings and Climate Policy Initiative hosted a discussion on “The Policy Climate” and how findings from the report can influence future global climate policy. Climate Policy Initiative Senior Director David Nelson gave a short presentation, followed by a panel discussion. Panelists included Thomas C. Heller, CPI executive director; Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for Energy and Climate Change in the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy; and Jennifer Morgan, director the Climate and Energy Program at World Resources Institute. Brookings Senior Fellow Katherine Sierra moderated the discussion.

Flow Oil and Gas Revenues to Cleantech R&D: Common Ground on Energy?

Mark Muro — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Can Congress pass any sort of energy legislation? I’m not holding my breath. For too long now meaningful action through compromise has been a chimera. Even the most plausible deals have been dissipated by ideological tribalism.

Still, there remain potential convergence points.

Last month the Bipartisan Policy Center advanced more than 50 middle-of-the-road energy policy recommendations developed by its Strategic Energy Policy Initiative, co-chaired by former Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND) and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS). And for that matter, interesting discussions surround energy efficiency issues, thoughtful subsidy reform, and steps like opening master limited partnership status to renewable energy projects.

Now comes President Obama’s modest proposal to capitalize an Energy Security Trust fund to support research into de-carbonizing the vehicle sector.

To be funded with $2 billion over 10 years drawn from royalties the government receives from offshore drilling on the Outer Shelf, the new proposal—first aired in Obama’s State of the Union address last month—represents an important check point on the potential for constructive action through compromise in Congress.

To be sure, the proposed research fund is tiny, given the scale of the nation’s cleantech research needs. And yes, it’s focused only on the transportation sector. And yes, the proposal is quite vague and so hard to gauge.

But even so, the energy trust concept represents a significant bid to test the potential for advancing energy policy.

Research on clean energy technologies remains a critical priority. Locating funding for it remains a critical challenge. And the president’s proposal probes an area of genuine potential for convergence.

For one thing a modest bargain on energy research and oil and gas royalties has always had a sound intellectual grounding. Through such an architecture the costs of investment would be internalized across the energy sector, and the revenues of “dirty” exploitation would be used to fund clean innovation. That just makes sense.

Beyond that there is the fact that the concept has some authentic bipartisan lineage and maybe traction. Some of that comes from the support for the idea by a group of retired military and business leaders, including some Republicans, called Securing America’s Future Energy. More importantly, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the top Republican on the Senate Energy Committee, has proposed a similar idea (albeit one focused on drilling on lands now off-limits, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska). This convergence might well mean there is room to negotiate a deal that pleases both sides, especially with royalty growth likely in the coming years.

Or, maybe not. Perhaps the Energy Security Trust is just another illusion of plausible potential compromise, soon to evaporate.

Yet, there is encouragement in something called the American Energy Act, the 2009 energy plan introduced by House Republicans under the leadership of Rep. John Boehner, now speaker of the House. At the center of that plan was a proposed bargain that would have paired expanded oil and gas drilling and nuclear development with new investments in renewable and alternative energy. To fund the latter the bill proposed putting hundreds of billions of anticipated new oil and gas royalties into a trust fund to accelerate clean energy innovation. Sound familiar?

That proposal may have been mostly a rhetorical counter to the big Democratic push on cap-and-trade legislation, but it was discussed widely by GOP leadership and represents a useful precedent for a new deal now.

So, we’ll have to see. Whether it’s called an Advanced Energy Trust Fund a la Sen. Murkowski or an Energy Security Trust as per the White House, a clean energy R&D fund for the transportation sector remains a meaningful test of whether there is any room at all for significant energy legislation in Congress.

Again, I’m not holding my breath. But I’m happy to be proven wrong.

Authors

Mark Muro

The Climate Scientist and the Pipeline

William Y. Brown — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:03:00 -0400

Editor's Note: William Y. Brown responds to John M. Broder's New York Times article, Report May Ease Path for New Pipeline, on the 1,700 mile Keystone XL pipeline.

Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline say carbon emissions make tar sands oil a “dirty” fuel, and so it should not be sent to the United States from Canada. True, the whole process from extraction to incineration produces more carbon emissions than oil from conventional reserves, as the State Department’s environmental impact statement concludes.

But what about coal? Coal gives off significantly more carbon emissions per unit of energy than tar sands oil. If tar sands are dirty, then coal is dirtier. Yet United States coal exports have soared from 50 million tons in 2006 to more than 125 million tons in 2012 — a record high, with exports to China doubling.

Earth’s climate doesn’t care where the coal is burned. A proposed pipeline may make a good target for protest, but doesn’t what we are doing with everyday coal speak more to what matters?

Authors

William Y. Brown

Publication: New York Times

Image Source: © Richard Clement / Reuters

A 180 Degree Shift in Energy Policy?

Charles K. Ebinger — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:06:00 -0500

In his evocative State of the Union Address, President Obama opened the door for a new chapter in U.S. energy policy, a fact totally missed in the Republican Party’s muted response. The president stated that it is time to put the nation’s interests before an individual party’s interest and promised to engage in reasonable compromise. Sure, the president took credit for the dramatic reduction in CO2 emissions brought about shale gas replacing large volumes of coal in electricity production even though this has occurred as the result of market forces and not because of any championship by the White House. He also took credit for the dramatic expansion of wind and solar energy even though together they still account for less than 4% of primary energy production and set a goal to double them again over the next 15 years. The president also rightfully took credit for his administration’s success in doubling the nation’s CAFE standards which over time will reduce the nation’s oil imports by 2 million barrels of oil per day.

But this was just the warm-up to the real message in the president’s speech which was a quantum change in his policy toward the oil and natural gas industry. Gone were the blistering tirades on the tax credits enjoyed by big oil and gas “fat cats.” Gone were the highly partisan attacks on oil and natural gas lobbyists and their influence peddling on Capitol Hill. Instead, the president talked about the huge benefits that have accrued to the U.S. economy and energy security by the “natural gas boom.” Instead of calling for a go-slow policy on leasing oil and gas on federal lands and the attendant “fracking” that will occur—a policy favored by many of the president’s most staunch environmental supporters—President Obama reversed course saying that he would support “speeding up” new oil and natural gas lease sales on federal lands. If one contemplates how the unconventional oil and gas revolution over 96% of which has occurred on state or private land has done to transform the U.S. energy landscape, it is simply mind boggling to realize how much additional oil and natural gas may be found if the president puts his words into action.

Industry critics will counter that the president’s threat to use executive actions to attack climate change if Congress fails to act represents regulatory overreach which will only add to energy production costs. However, such a view misses the president’s willingness to horse trade by allowing new oil and gas production on federal lands while at the same time creating an “Energy Security Trust” which would use a portion of the enhanced oil and natural gas royalties accruing from the accelerated opening of federal lands to fund research to get our cars and trucks running on non petroleum fuels. If this was not an open endorsement for the natural gas industry to replace diesel in our 18-wheel trucks, locomotives, delivery vehicles, and marine transportation then it is hard to imagine what else the gas industry could want from the president.

Sure there is much more to be done and critical questions remain about other aspects of the president’s energy agenda such as his approval of the Keystone Pipeline, his position on natural gas and crude oil exports, and his views toward the future of the coal and nuclear power industries. Specifically, there will need to be more clarity over whether his energy policy will support new research on carbon capture and sequestration from both natural gas and coal power plants, R&D for small scale modular nuclear reactors, and implementation of the recommendations of his blue ribbon commission on long-term nuclear waste storage. Finally there is the critical issue of whether the administration will take on the maritime lobby and support repeal of the Jones Act bringing great relief to New England consumers and their dependence on imported oil while finding a market for the growing surplus of oil on the Gulf Coast.

In his SOTU address, President Obama opened the door to the oil and gas industry to be part of the nation’s great energy future. It is now time for industry to step forward, meet the president halfway, and help reindustrialize America.

Authors

Charles K. Ebinger

Image Source: © Sergio Perez / Reuters

Manufacturing Hubs: What and Why?

Mark Muro and Kenan Fikri — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Last night President Obama proposed the launch of "a network of manufacturing hubs" through which industry, universities, community colleges, and governments will work together to develop and deploy new manufacturing technologies. That line in the State of the Union address probably had a lot of folks scratching their heads, wondering where it came from. After all, we as a nation have gotten out of the habit of thinking much about manufacturing, how innovation works, and the work of inventing things.

So what is it all about?

As it happens, and as I wrote last summer, Obama’s manufacturing hubs proposal is not a one-off idea out of nowhere but in fact is one very smart and plausible idea that Congress and the nation really should embrace.

Basically, the manufacturing hubs idea reflects an emerging consensus among a large number of industry leaders, technology analysts, and economic development professionals that regions are the place to work on technology-based development and that regions need to be anchored by hubs of collaborative R&D where industry can work with academia and government to solve tough problems and foment technology gains.

Creating such hubs was the idea behind our companion proposals at Brookings for the creation of a network of regional energy discovery-innovation institutes and the establishment of a program to aid and abet nascent clusters with competitive grants. And it is also the point of the Department of Energy’s Energy Innovation Hubs program as well as the several regional innovation cluster programs now running, including at the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, that have moved along these lines. More recently, my colleague Devashree Saha and I proposed creating a similar network of advanced industries hubs in both energy and manufacturing.

The ultimate point: Industries and the regions in which they are located profit from the presence of structured centers of excellence in which industry led consortia of firms, universities, community colleges, state and local governments, and other actors collaborate to solve innovation and technology deployment challenges of critical interest to advanced industries. That’s the point of innovation hubs.

So it is welcome to see the Obama administration moving to publicize and build out a potential network of regional manufacturing institutes aimed at tackling tough problems in advanced manufacturing.

Piloted last year with the launch of a new public-private institute for “3-D printing” in Youngstown, OH, the proposed new National Network for Manufacturing Innovation would launch 15 innovation centers akin to those boosting national competitiveness in leading innovation and manufacturing nations, such as Germany to Taiwan, as noted by David Hart, Stephen Ezell, and Robert Atkinson of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.

The centers will seek to accelerate technology deployment, operate demonstration facilities and test beds, support education and training, and perform applied research on new manufacturing processes—all unlikely activities for private industry on its own.

Nor will they do this just anywhere. Selected and designated through a competitive process, the hub consortiums will reflect not just technical excellence but regional excellence and regional concentrations of expertise and opportunity. In that sense, the theory and practice behind the hubs is compelling and sensible, as I wrote last year with my colleague Jessica Lee, and reflects a critical aspect of innovation and technology development:

Innovation, and its deployment, does not happen just anywhere. It happens in places and, most notably, within metropolitan regions where firms and workers tend to cluster in close geographic proximity, whether to tap local supplier networks, draw on a pool of skilled workers, or profit from formal and informal knowledge transfer.
If properly channeled, these “co-location synergies,” as economist Greg Tassey has dubbed them, will ensure that value added through innovation spreads through and remains within the domestic manufacturing supply chain. Nor is this only a “soft” benefit. Such local synergies—accumulated region by region—can foster greater efficiency within and across manufacturing supply chains and add to the nation’s competitiveness.

In sum, the proposed new manufacturing hub network is far from random, or sudden. In fact, it’s not only smart and necessary for rebuilding U.S. manufacturing competitiveness, it also draws on some of the most fundamental wellsprings of economic exchange known.

Authors

Mark Muro
Kenan Fikri

Image Source: © Ho New / Reuters

The Black Swan: The Big Thaw

Elizabeth Ferris — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Brookings Foreign Policy experts have come together to create a series of policy memos addressing the “big bets”—opportunities to strengthen President Obama’s second term—and “black swans,” the low probability, high-impact events that could derail the administration’s priorities. These were released at a public event on Thursday, January 17. Senior Fellow Elizabeth Ferris says a “Black Swan” is dramatic climate change and how the Obama administration will respond and take leadership in reducing carbon emissions causing global warming.

Video

The Black Swan: The Big Thaw

Authors

Elizabeth Ferris

States, Metro Areas Outdo Washington

Bruce Katz and Judith Rodin — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's note: Judith Rodin and Bruce Katz discuss key points in a newly released interactive report, "Innovations to Watch." Rodin and Katz highlight state and metropolitan governments that encourage economic growth, productivity, sustainability, and global reach through innovative initiatives. Read the full article at cnn.com.

With its past-midnight resolution (at least temporarily) of the fiscal cliff, Washington gave us a clearer picture of what the next two to four years of federal action might look like: Lengthy periods of legislative gridlock, persistent partisan finger-pointing and short bursts of incremental activity that ultimately fail to resolve the major national challenges at hand.

And those challenges are substantial. Our country is still struggling to fully recover from the Great Recession. More than 12 million Americans are still out of work, and 107 million Americans are considered poor or near poor (up from 81 million a decade ago). The United States ranks 16th in the world in infrastructure quality, with one in four bridges in America considered structurally deficient. And our education system is no longer keeping our kids competitive, leaving 15-year-old American students ranked 31st in math and 23rd in science.

But as has happened time and again throughout American history, our greatest innovations come at times of greatest challenge. True to form, inaction from the federal government has sparked the innovation of states, cities and metropolitan areas that are teeming with smart, pragmatic bipartisan solutions to national economic challenges.

Bruce Katz
Judith Rodin

Publication: CNN

Image Source: © Carlos Barria / Reuters

Innovations To Watch

Bruce Katz and Owen Washburn — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Authors

Bruce Katz
Owen Washburn

Innovations to Watch: 2012 Recap

Bruce Katz and Owen Washburn — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 14:17:00 -0500

Last year, the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program identified 10 “State and Metropolitan Innovations to Watch.” These represent our assessment of the most promising new practices undertaken by states and metropolitan areas across five key areas—exports, low carbon, innovation, opportunity and governance—that seem ripe for meaningful impact as well as for replication by other communities. With the release of our 2013 list of Innovations to Watch, we checked in with the 2012 selections to find impressive progress, and in some cases initial signs of innovative ideas being implemented in other states and metros.

Exports

METRO

Los Angeles, California – From Regional Export Council to Export Champions

In March 2012, the Los Angeles Regional Export Council (LARExC) launched its Regional Export Plan. The plan identified target industries for export promotion efforts, established a marketing strategy to increase the global profile of the region and firms expanding sales abroad and identified new performance metrics to gauge the success of implementation. In addition, LARExC began operating as a full-fledged organization: The council received funding for operations from the Port of Los Angeles and JPMorgan Chase; led international trade missions to Chile (focused on medical equipment), Japan (focused on consumer products), and Hong Kong (focused on textiles and fashion); conducted 15 trade seminars focused on small and medium sized businesses; and recruited six firms to its export champions program.

STATE

Michigan - Clearing Hurdles for the New International Trade Crossing

The New International Trade Crossing, a major proposed bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ont., was the highlight of our 2012 focus of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s infrastructure plans for the state. Despite continued opposition from the operator of the existing cross-border Ambassador Bridge, plans for the new bridge continued in the last year, with the Canadian government officially agreeing to fully finance the $1 billion project in June. Michigan voters also rejected a ballot initiative in November crafted to stop the project, which would have required another round of voter approval for international crossings from the state. The next step is approval from the Obama administration, pursuant to the International Bridge Act of 1972.

Low Carbon

METRO

San Diego – Smarter San Diego: Expanding Access to Electric Vehicles

The deployment of electric vehicle technology in San Diego took exciting steps in 2012. The California Energy Commission awarded UC San Diego, in partnership with two charging manufacturers, a $340,000 grant to build world-leading campus EV infrastructure. In addition, the city of San Diego brought to scale the nation’s first all-electric car-sharing service through Daimler subsidiary car2go, quickly accumulating more than 12,500 members who have taken more than 200,000 trips using the service.

STATE

Connecticut – Green Bank Deployment and Replication

The Connecticut Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority (CEFIA) has both begun to make and facilitate clean energy and energy efficiency investments, and emerged as a model for other states. In 2012, CEFIA invested in new projects including solar PV deployment, energy efficient installations on the state’s college campuses, and a 15 MW fuel cell power plant in Bridgeport, CT, one of the largest in the world. In June, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy signed legislation enabling CEFIA to manage a new commercial property-assessed clean energy (PACE) program, enabling property owners to take out low-interest loans for energy-efficiency upgrades or onsite renewable energy via CEFIA-backed PACE bonds, paid back with energy cost savings. This month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a similar $1 billion “green bank,” and states like Hawaii, Montana, Rhode Island and California are considering similar initiatives.

Innovation

METRO

New York, NY – Applied Sciences NYC: Campus Expansion, Class in Session

The Manhattan Community Board approved Cornell’s land use plan for the flagship Applied Sciences NYC campus on Roosevelt Island. This January Cornell welcomes students to its initial “beta class” for a one-year master’s of engineering program temporarily housed in Google’s New York City headquarters. In addition, New York City announced two new Applied Sciences NYC campuses within the city. A consortium led by New York University is establishing a Center for Urban and Science Progress (CUSP) in Brooklyn, and Columbia University is creating a new Institute for Data Science on the University’s main campus in Morningside Heights.

STATE

Tennessee – Launching Regional Startup Ecosystems

Tennessee’s entrepreneurship and innovation efforts expanded in 2012 with the creation of LaunchTN, a new five-year public-private partnership overseeing all of the state’s entrepreneurship and innovation programs—including the regionally-focused INCITE Co-Investment Fund, highlighted among last year’s Innovations to Watch. Over the last year, Tennessee’s nine regional business accelerators, under guidance from LaunchTN, provided support to nearly 100 early-stage companies, which together raised over $17 million in private capital and created over 200 jobs. The INCITE fund also invested $7.1 million in Tennessee-based companies, matched by $18.6 million in private investment. These investments, paired with a focus on tech transfer and commercialization, has driven a dramatic increase in startups spun out of state research institutions—up 70 percent in the last year and 200 percent in the past two years. To ensure these efforts are sustained, LaunchTN named a board of directors that includes some of the state’s leading entrepreneurs and investors as well as representatives from some of the state’s leading research institutions and companies including Vanderbilt University, Oak Ridge National Lab, Eastman Chemical Company, FedEx, and Smith & Nephew.

Opportunity

METRO

Seattle, WA – A Race to the Top Road Map

The Road Map Project in Greater Seattle got a substantial endorsement and support in 2012 in the form of a federal Race to the Top grant. A consortium of the seven school districts involved, which cover 261 schools serving 150,000 students, were awarded $40 million over four years—the largest grant awarded—to support the project’s integrated and personalized cradle-to-college approach, with funding for early learning, STEM education, and college preparation.

STATE

North Carolina – Progress on Pathways to Success

For the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS)’s comprehensive statewide community college initiative SuccessNC, 2011 was a year of identifying strategies, and 2012 was the first full year of implementation and execution. So in the last year, a number of SuccessNC’s comprehensive statewide strategies have seen significant developments, from new pilots to fully implemented programs. The “Career and College Promise,” for example, (which was implemented in 2012) is a partnership with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and University of North Carolina System, which offers dual-enrollment between high schools and community colleges with a pathway to UNC college credit, a credential, certificate or diploma in a technical career, or a high school diploma and two years of college credit in just four to five years. And SuccessNC’s “Code Green Super Curriculum Improvement Project,” (which is being piloted now and will be rolled out beginning in fall 2013) streamlines technical education in core skills to be better aligned with industry-recognized credentials and integrates the fast-growing, cross-industry topics of clean technology and energy efficiency.

Governance

METRO

Northeast Ohio– Magnet: Attracting New Partners

Northeast Ohio’s Partnership for Regional Innovation Services to Manufacterers (PRISM), launched by the region’s business planning initiative, has expanded its reach in 2012. The Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network (Magnet), which manages PRISM, announced a partnership in October with four universities—Cleveland State University, Case Western Reserve, Lorain County Community College, and the University of Akron. Magnet will now be able to connect small and medium sized manufacturers in the region with faculty, students, facilities and equipment in the specific areas of specialty for each institution (e.g. polymers at the University of Akron), to facilitate research and product development. The partnership is part of Magnet’s aggressive growth strategy: it has worked with 12 firms to date who project the collaboration will lead to $275 million in new revenue and 450 new jobs by 2014, and hopes to reach more than 100 firms by 2017.

STATE

New York – Regional Economic Development Goes Two Rounds

New York State’s bottom-up regional economic development planning competition, featured in our 2012 Innovations to Watch for state governance, saw the beginning of implementation of the first round of regional plans as well as a new round of awards in the a last year. Each of the “best plan” regions saw significant progress in developing their plans: Western New York, centered around Buffalo, for example, completed the “site control” phase in construction of its new Industrial Trade Center; North Country secured $30 million in Industrial Revenue Bonds to fund a new biomass electric facility; Central New York supported construction of the CNY Biotech Accelerator, scheduled for completion in 2013; and the Long Island’s publically-supported research collaborative launched a public-private emerging technologies commercialization fund. And throughout the state, the councils have become central to coordinating any economic development initiatives. In December, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced $738 million for the second round of regional council funding, with the Finger Lakes, Mid-Hudson, and Southern Tier regions winning this year’s “best plan” awards.

Authors

Bruce Katz
Owen Washburn

Image Source: © Mike Blake / Reuters

Energy and Climate: Black to Gold to Green

Charles K. Ebinger and Kevin Massy — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

The United States can use its oil and gas bonanza to put itself back at the forefront of global trade, and take a leadership role in climate change mitigation. Charles K. Ebinger and Kevin Massy drafted this memorandum to President Obama as part of Big Bets and Black Swans: A Presidential Briefing Book.

How can American energy exports to China and India be used to advance climate change mitigation?
How should President Obama address opposition to exporting oil and gas, and promote greater investments in green energy?
What are the geopolitical benefits of increasing American oil and gas exports?

Download Memorandum (pdf) | Download the Presidential Briefing Book (pdf)

TO: President Obama

FROM: Charles K. Ebinger and Kevin Massy

Your second term offers a significant opportunity for the United States to strengthen its economic and geopolitical position by taking advantage of near-term global demand for oil, gas and coal, while bolstering its competitive position in the longer-term global market for lower-carbon technology and taking a leadership role in the battle to address climate change.

Recommendation:

By adopting policies that encourage the development and export of U.S. hydrocarbons including oil, coal and gas, the United States can take advantage of the rising demand for these fuels in developing and emerging economies around the world. As a condition of greater exploration, production and trade in these fuels, the Federal Government should impose a modest but meaningful volumetric or carbon-based tax on their production, with the resultant revenues allocated specifically to the development of two technologies that are essential to global efforts to fight climate change: carbon capture and sequestration; and advanced batteries, both at the grid and vehicle scale.

Background:

While the global political economy is likely to throw up many surprises over the next 20 years, three things appear certain:

U.S. global power and influence will have to be shared with others, as emerging powers such as China and India gain economic and geopolitical influence. As highlighted by the recent National Intelligence Council Report, Global Trends 2030, the global political order will change to one in which “power will shift to networks and coalitions in a multi-polar world.”

• Asia will continue to experience rapid growth in energy demand, most of which will have to be met with fossil fuels under any scenario. China’s energy demand is set to grow by 60 percent between 2010 and 2030, while India’s demand is projected to more than double. Despite the development of renewable and low-carbon technologies such as wind, solar and nuclear, coal will continue to play a leading role in global energy supply, with consumption in Asia’s electric power sector alone projected to increase by 63 percent between 2011 and 2020. Asian demand for energy will more than compensate for a broad leveling off of energy demand and a reduction in carbon emissions among the OECD countries.

• Consequently, global carbon emissions will continue rising at an unsustainable rate as efforts to get an internationally binding agreement on emissions reductions stall and investments in low-carbon technologies falter in the economic downturn. In its most recent annual assessment, the IEA concluded: “Taking all new developments and policies into account, the world is still failing to put the global energy system onto a more sustainable path.”

These global trends are coinciding with large structural domestic changes in the United States. Facing weak economic growth prospects, a massive debt burden, fiscal constraints and a dysfunctional political system, the one bright spot for our country in recent years has been the unexpected boom in oil and gas production. U.S. oil production rose at its highest annual rate ever in 2012 to levels not seen in decades. Thanks to technical developments in hydraulic fracturing and lateral drilling, natural gas production and inventories are at all-time highs. While the natural gas bonanza and environmental concerns are leading to a reduced role for coal in the U.S. power sector, exports of the commodity — of which the United States is the largest resource holder — are also at record levels.

The oil and gas boom has had many commentators breathlessly heralding an era of U.S. energy independence. This is unlikely to materialize either practically or economically. Under even the most optimistic scenarios for domestic hydrocarbon production, the United States will continue to import millions of barrels of crude oil per day for the foreseeable future, albeit increasingly from our own hemisphere rather than the Middle East. And as long as the United States is connected to the global trading system, it will be subject to supply and demand shocks beyond its borders, meaning that price disruptions anywhere in the world will be passed on to U.S. consumers.

However, there is a way in which the U.S. can use its oil and gas bonanza to arrest both its relative economic and political decline to put itself back at the forefront of global trade and to take a leadership role in climate change mitigation.

Irrespective of actions by OECD countries, China, India and other emerging nations will burn oil, gas and coal in ever greater quantities for the foreseeable future. The main beneficiaries of this demand are likely to be the OPEC nations, Russia, Australia and other oil, gas and coal producers. Given its huge reserves of hydrocarbons, the United States could position itself as perhaps the principal beneficiary of this demand by adopting a near-term policy of full-scale, export-led oil, gas and coal development. Such a policy would involve the expedited permitting of oil and gas production and ancillary pipeline infrastructure projects and the enabling of crude oil and gas exports, which are currently subject to policy restrictions or prohibitions. The resultant surge in production and exports would strengthen both the country’s fiscal position through export revenues and job creation; and its political position through weakening the market power and the revenue generation of OPEC nations and Russia. It would also bring geopolitical benefits through the deepening of partnerships with key consumers such as China and India.

The obvious opposition to such a policy is on environmental grounds. With global warming an unavoidable and worsening reality, such a course of action is open to criticism of being irresponsibly self-interested. However, a policy of full-scale hydrocarbon development can be consistent with leadership on climate change if, as a strict condition of the rapid development and export of our oil, gas, and coal resources, the production of hydrocarbons is taxed, either on a volumetric or carbon-content basis. You should then allocate the revenues to a modern “Apollo Mission” effort toward the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS), and advanced batteries and storage technologies. CCS is a necessary technology for any meaningful reduction in climate change given the continued prominence of coal in the global power generation mix. Advanced battery and alternative fuel storage technologies are essential to make electric cars competitively viable and to give solar and wind power the reliability and scale they need to compete with fossil fuels. The policy will also work to move the domestic economy towards lower-carbon consumption in power generation and transportation and to prove the new technologies at scale.

Having gained a competitive advantage in green technologies, the United States can then become the dominant global producer and exporter of CCS technology, advanced batteries and other lower-carbon products and services, maintaining its competitive position in the global energy economy.

The implementation of this policy will not be easy. There is likely to be opposition to exports of oil and gas on the grounds of U.S. energy security and ideological opposition to new taxes. Such concerns should be addressed by greater efforts at public education on the importance of global trade to U.S. energy security and the domestic economic and geopolitical benefits of expanded production.

Conclusion:

In a business-as-usual scenario, the world will continue its hydrocarbondependent trajectory towards an unsustainable level of carbon emissions with the principal economic benefits accruing to other resource-rich nations. By adopting this “black-gold-green” policy, the United States could simultaneously realize the near-term economic and geopolitical benefits generated by the world’s near-term need for hydrocarbons while taking a leadership role in the development and deployment of the technologies that are able to meaningfully address climate change over the longer term.

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Authors

The Big Thaw

Elizabeth Ferris — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

A significant rise in sea levels throughout the world would have particularly devastating impacts on the concentrated urban populations living in low-lying coastal areas, affecting the local economy, politics, community life and security. Elizabeth Ferris wrote this memorandum to President Obama as part of Big Bets and Black Swans: A Presidential Briefing Book. Watch her related Q+A video.

What if climate change generates a dramatic melting in the Arctic ice cap?
Are countries ready to deal with international migration due to climate change?
Where should climate change fit in President Obama’s foreign policy agenda?

Download Memorandum (pdf) | Download the Presidential Briefing Book (pdf)

TO: President Obama

FROM: Elizabeth Ferris

Global warming is occurring at a faster pace than predicted by scientists. Temperatures are rising, icecaps and glaciers are melting, and extreme weather events are becoming both more frequent and more intense. Last fall, the National Snow and Ice Data Center documented a record low of the level of Arctic sea ice – a figure 49 percent lower than the 1979-2000 average. If these trends continue, the results will be far-reaching for life on this planet. But if the warming accelerates dramatically and if polar ice melts even faster, the results could be catastrophic. This could occur if the Greenland ice sheet or the West Antarctica Ice Sheet (WAIS) collapses, triggering a significant rise in sea levels throughout the world with particularly devastating impacts on populations living in low-lying coastal areas. Although the effects of climate change are likely to be long-term and the worst effects will probably neither be experienced in your presidency nor even in your lifetime, the future is inherently unpredictable. Climate change is already affecting communities around the world. It is likely to produce devastating consequences whether in the near or distant future. Taking bold steps now to address climate change offers an opportunity for you not only to leave a legacy that will impact future generations but also an opportunity to address current problems resulting from the effects of climate change.

Recommendations:

• Raise the priority of climate change on your foreign policy agenda, in particular by re-vitalizing negotiations over a post-Kyoto treaty. The Doha round of negotiations, which ended last month, was disappointing. Countries are further away today than they were a year ago on reducing emissions. U.S. leadership can reverse current trends of inadequate global commitment to reduce greenhouse gases.

• Support measures that will enable communities and countries to adapt to the most egregious effects of climate change. On the international level this means supporting and leading the difficult discussions around climate finance and using U.S. aid to support government planning to respond to the effects of climate change, including financial assistance to encourage communities to stay where they are as well as to plan for the relocation of communities whose homes will no longer be habitable.

• Support effective multilateral action to increase both mitigation and adaptation measures. Use your influence with the multilateral development banks to encourage more attention to disaster riskreduction measures in development planning. Work with international agencies and legal experts to devise an international legal regime for dealing with the expected increase in trans-border migration. It is easier to put a system in place before a crisis is at hand.

• Strengthen domestic efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change by reducing carbon emissions and enhancing domestic capacity to prepare for, respond, and recover from sudden-onset natural disasters.

Background:

Since the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990, the projections about the impact of global warming have become direr. From projecting the widespread consequences of a global rise in temperature of 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, current projections are that the rise in temperature will double to 4 degrees Celsius. The seas are rising 60 percent faster than predicted by the IPCC. The Greenland ice sheet is shrinking twice as fast as estimated by the IPCC and is losing mass at about five times the rate it was in the early 1990s. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt completely, global sea rise could reach seven meters. And the consequences of global warming go far beyond sea-level rise. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns that the conditions that led to the 2011 Texas drought are 20 times more likely to occur now than in the 1960s as a result of increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.

Although climate change will have many negative effects in different parts of the world, including prolonged droughts, reduction in arable land, declining agricultural productivity, and increased flooding due to more extreme weather events, the impact of sea level rise perhaps best illustrates the potential dangers. Throughout the world, more people are living in coastal areas as the result of population growth, urbanization and government policies. Presently 10 percent of the world’s population — 600 million people — live in low-elevation coastal zones and the percentage is growing. Sixty-five percent of the world’s megacities (those over 5 million) are located in these coastal areas. A rise in sea level of even a meter would have major implications for coastal populations; if sea levels were to rise by several meters, the consequences would be catastrophic. Most obviously, sea level rise will submerge land, causing countries to lose physical territory. The areas expected to experience the largest land loss by 2030 are the Arctic Ocean coasts of Canada, Alaska, Siberia and Greenland as well as coastal areas of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, southeast Indonesia, and eastern Africa. In the United States, particularly vulnerable areas include the coastal areas of the east and west coasts and the Gulf of Mexico.

Rising sea levels will affect economics, politics, community life and security. For example, the mega-deltas of Asia are the food baskets of the region, and the impact of a sea level rise on food security will be considerable. But perhaps the most significant impact of climate change in general and rising sea levels in particular will be the displacement of people. Migration is a complex process driven by a range of economic, social and political factors but it is becoming clear that environmental factors will increasingly influence migration. In Bangladesh, for example, moving to cities has become a common coping strategy in the face of flooding. One of the IPCC background studies posits that a 40-centimeter rise in sea levels will affect 100 million people. As hundreds of millions of people in Africa and Asia are at risk of flooding by 2060, it is likely that many will move to cities such as Dhaka and Lagos that are located in coastal flood plain areas. In other words, the trend is for people to migrate to areas of greater — not lesser — environmental vulnerability. At the same time, as the UK’s authoritative Foresight study concludes, those who are able to migrate may well be the lucky ones; those who are unable to move may be the most vulnerable.

Large-scale migration has many consequences. If sea level rise renders small island states uninhabitable (which is likely to occur long before the islands are actually submerged by the seas), issues of sovereignty, legal status, and responsibility will present the world with huge challenges. Most climate change-induced migration or displacement will be internal, placing strain on infrastructure and pressure on governments to deliver services. Political instability, conflict and poor governance exacerbate these problems. Climate change is a threat multiplier, often affecting those countries least able to respond appropriately. How will governments cope with the movement of large numbers of people from coasts toward inland areas? There is also a possibility that some, perhaps many, will seek to move to other countries because of the effects of climate change. The international legal system is unprepared to deal with trans-border movements triggered by environmental factors or disasters, since the displaced do not fall under the 1951 Refugee Convention (unless they leave because of political turmoil exacerbated by climate change.)

Projecting possible massive displacement from climate change is complicated by the difficulty of comprehending the interrelationships between the different effects of climate change, for example, changes in fish stocks and coral reefs brought about by the acidification of the world’s oceans; changing patterns of disease; changing habitats for animals and plants; the intersection of deforestation and increasingly arid climates in some parts of the world. Delicate ecological balances are changing in ways that are as yet poorly understood. Similarly, there is much we do not know about the dynamic nature of the effects of climate change. For example, some scientists are reporting that the melting of Arctic ice itself is releasing more carbon into the atmosphere, increasing global warming which will in turn increase the rate of Arctic ice melt.

Most scientists have observed that the climate is becoming warmer and that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent. While it is impossible to attribute any single weather event, such as Hurricane Sandy, to climate change, the global trends clearly demonstrate an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events. These trends are likely to intensify. The interaction between increasing extreme weather events and other effects of climate change – such as increased erosion, acidification of the seas, desertification, sea-level rise – is also likely to lead to large-scale movement of people.

Conclusion:

There are certainly obstacles and pitfalls to making climate change a centerpiece of your foreign policy. Perhaps the projections of scientists are too pessimistic and the effects of global warming will not be as serious as now thought. Perhaps you will be unable to marshal the necessary political support to enact necessary legislation. Perhaps other governments will fail to rally to your leadership and perhaps the negotiations over climate change mitigation and adaptation will widen, not narrow the North- South divide. It is certainly understandable that you would want to put aside these longer-term challenges and focus on more immediate economic issues. But a climate catastrophe could be lurking around the corner.

Unless urgent action is taken now, the effects of climate change on life on this planet and on life in the United States will increase. Climate change is a domestic, foreign policy, security, development, human rights, and intergenerational justice issue. Preparing better for climate change disasters at home and abroad is a good short-term prophylactic. But making serious and sustained efforts to reduce global warming can solidify America’s present leadership in the world. It can lay the foundation for the country’s sustainable future development. It can address the causes of future humanitarian crises and alleviate future human suffering. It can be a legacy issue for the Obama administration that will impact the world for generations.

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The Black Swan: The Big Thaw

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Video

The Black Swan: The Big Thaw

Authors

Elizabeth Ferris

A New Latin American Climate Negotiating Group: The Greenest Shoots in the Doha Desert

Timmons Roberts and Guy Edwards — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:50:00 -0500

Well-worn stories of dinosaurs like the United States and India battling it out in the United Nations climate change negotiations in Doha last week (see my previous post, titled "Doha Climate Change Negotiations: Moving Beyond the Dueling Dinosaurs to Bring Together Equity and Ambition") continue to crowd out other, more positive stories that need to be told. Rather than retelling the story of sticking points between the rich countries of the global North and those of the developing South, it’s crucial to see where something new is breaking through. The greenest shoots we saw at COP18 were from a group of developing countries scarcely mentioned in the media’s fascination with conflict and acrimony between the different Parties and blocs.

This is a “revolt of the middle,” neither the poorest nor the richest, a group of developing countries willing to step out from the Group of 77 and China bloc’s shadow and offer real ambition. Last Wednesday, six countries—Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Perú, Guatemala and Panamá—with the support of the Dominican Republic announced the creation of a new negotiating bloc, the Association of Independent Latin American and Caribbean states (AILAC). Boldly, the AILAC countries have decided to stop waiting for emissions reductions or financial support from wealthy countries like the U.S., and launch an ambitious case for low-carbon development at home and abroad.

What’s really new here is that these countries seek to break down the North-South firewall that has stalemated the climate negotiations for the past two decades. As Mónica Araya, a Costa Rican negotiator, told El País “[the negotiations are] always told as a battle of North versus South, rich against poor, but each time this explains less and less of what’s happening.” She told the leading Spanish daily that the new group shows that “there is an alliance of countries that want all nations to take on binding obligations, and that the negotiations process is adapting to a changing world.”

José Alberto Garibaldi, who advises several Latin American countries’ delegations and has been participating in the UNFCCC for more than a decade, mentioned in Doha how this group, along with other Latin American countries, has been acting informally to mobilize others with similar views in other regions. Now, they are formally present. While not a new collaboration, Garibaldi notes, “The group allows [them] to give a fresh view of the fundamental challenges the Convention sought to address, and the need to face them through increased collective action by all.”

AILAC arises from a diverse and fractured region on international climate policy. Brazil, a pivotal actor at the talks, for years attempted unsuccessfully to lead the region, but then found stronger allies in the other large emerging economies China, India and South Africa (creating the BASIC bloc). BASIC played a central role in the reorientation of the whole process and the drafting of the Copenhagen Accord in 2009. The radical Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America (ALBA in Spanish) bloc made up of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba is pushing for developed countries to pay their “climate debt” and commit to steep emission cuts. Since Copenhagen in 2009, ALBA has played a role of resistance, at times blocking the negotiations, but also forcefully reminding rich nations of their obligations under the Convention and the importance of procedural inclusion following the U.N.’s difficult rules. In 2012, some of the ALBA countries have participated in meetings in the newly formed Like-Minded Developing Countries bloc (LMDC) alongside China, India and Saudi Arabia. The LMDC bloc has spoken firmly on respect for the core principle in these negotiations of “Common But Differentiated Responsibilities”—in this case that the developed countries need to act first, because they have done the most to create the problem of climate change.

Another bloc, the Central American Integration System (SICA in Spanish), is made up of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá and the Dominican Republic. SICA has pushed for greater recognition as one of the most vulnerable regions to the impacts of climate change, focusing on the capitalization of the new Green Climate Fund. A number of Caribbean states also participate in the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), which represents 44 island and coastal countries around the world. AOSIS have loudly called for a 1.5 degree Celsius limit on global warming, which they argue may be the only way to avert the loss of their nations to rising sea levels.

That’s not all. A number of countries in the region also participate in the Coalition of Rainforest Nations, which pushes for schemes to reimburse developing nations for protecting standing forests. Another is called the Group of Highly Vulnerable Countries, which fought hard at COP17 to be included in National Adaptation Programs of Action alongside the least developed countries. Finally, there are some countries like Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay who participate solely in the Group of 77 and China, the powerful developing country bloc consisting of 131 countries around the world, which for years was the region’s only collective voice in the talks.

But of these splintering groups, AILAC is the most recent, most ambitious and most likely to break something loose in the North-South standoff. The six AILAC countries have participated actively in an informal discussion group called the Cartagena Dialogue for Progressive Action, alongside others on both sides of the North-South divide, including Australia, Ethiopia, Indonesia and the United Kingdom. The group is not an official negotiating bloc, but instead serves as an informal space to hold discussions on how to increase support and consensus at the climate talks. AILAC nations were encouraged by the fruits of early leadership by the Cartagena Dialogue to step forward as a group and have their voices heard more clearly on the negotiating floor and in its reporting outlets.

One might wonder why yet another negotiating group is needed. Paula Caballero, lead negotiator for Colombia at COP18 in Doha, commented that setting up AILAC was a natural progression given that the countries involved already share positions on most of the key issues such as the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action—the main vehicle for a post-2020 global climate change agreement. The decision also helps the group have a more powerful and visible presence.

Garibaldi clarifies that AILAC is not designed as a reaction to one group or the other, but rather an effort to create something new: “Their coming together might help stress opportunities, and not only constraints in facing these challenges, while helping to build bridges to achieve further ambition, within a dynamic view of the existing principles of the convention.”

The AILAC countries were tired of waiting for the ambitious emissions reductions that scientists say are needed. They are going ahead with ambitious actions, with or without financial support of wealthy countries. However Costa Rica’s Minister of the Environment, René Castro, made clear in his “High Level” speech last week that funding from the developed countries could catalyze the transition to a greener path. “We need to find a solution to the current silence on climate finance. Many developing countries are engaging in NAMAs [Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions] and adaptation projects, and are deeply worried about the lack of fund-predictability post-2012 when the fast start finance period ends. ... [we need] clarity on how the commitment will be translated into a clear, credible trajectory that will build trust in the developing world.”

The Earth Negotiations Bulletin, a mainstay reporting service for the negotiations, in its summary of the Doha negotiations describes AILAC’s emergence as an indication of a potentially major change: “The evolving negotiating dynamics perhaps herald a new world order on a different level. Developing countries have started to look at the future with different perspectives.”

Mónica Araya described to us how the group’s “objective is to build bridges to be constructive, propositive and open to dialogue” in what are often polarized and unproductive negotiations. “The point is not to tell others they are wrong. Our objective is to move the 2015 negotiations forward,” she says. The timing for this kind of leadership is ripe.

Qatar’s bleak desert landscape is broken only by green patches where the nation’s many guest workers frequently hose down its manicured gardens or flip on underground irrigation systems. Likewise, the greenest shoots in the vast granite hallways of the Qatar National Convention Center were from this group of middle-income developing countries that do not neatly fit in the story of North versus South. For example, the Dominican Republic, ranked 90th in the world with a GDP per capita of just $5,500 a year, made an unconditional pledge last week to reduce its emissions by 25 percent below 2010 levels by 2020. That such a poor nation is willing to make a commitment that far exceeds that of the United States (with income at $48,000 per person) should jolt them into action.

Back in Bali in 2007, the U.S. was told brusquely by a developing country delegate to “lead, follow, or get out of the way.” AILAC’s move is a brave “revolt of the middle,” by actors who have offered leadership with ambitious action, without waiting for emissions reductions, pledges or even financial support from others. This is a courageous move of nations taking an uncertain step towards the long-term goal of low carbon resilient economies and away from old negotiating positions that avoid commitments. We should follow their leadership with our own bold action and support: We need to learn from these leaders and water these precious green shoots.

Authors

Timmons Roberts
Guy Edwards

Doha Climate Change Negotiations: Moving Beyond the Dueling Dinosaurs to Bring Together Equity and Ambition

Timmons Roberts — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 15:20:00 -0500

The vast plenary hall was nearly empty. Nation after nation had ministers and negotiators stand up for their three minute statements on the progress of these 18th annual climate negotiations taking place in the cavernous Qatar National Convention Center in the desert near Doha. Slim and greying American lead negotiator Todd Stern mounted the steps to deliver what everyone assumed would be a defensive and rote portrayal of an administration doing all it could, the tired and totally debunked line about how the U.S. is showing leadership on climate action.

But he didn't. Stern summarized the state of the first of four years of talks on the "Durban Platform for Enhanced Action," which is supposed to negotiate a long-term treaty by 2015, and then went on to surprise nearly everyone. Stern said, "Let’s provide a thorough opportunity for Parties to discuss all critical issues, including the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. The United States would welcome such a discussion." He continued by explaining his logic, "because unless we can find common ground on that principle and the way in which it should apply in the world of the 2020s, we won’t succeed in producing a new Durban Platform agreement. And we have to succeed. So let’s have that discussion."

Hallelujah. Stern is dead right on this: the past 20 years of negotiations since the initial 1992 Rio de Janeiro Framework Convention on Climate Change has been largely futile because there was no clarity and agreement upfront about the operational meaning of its core principle: "Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities." The phrase is referred to so often in these wonky circles that it is simply called CBRD, or more precisely, CBRD+RC.

The problem is that different countries and individuals have had different ideas about what CBRD means. Admitting "common" responsibilities was an acknowledgement by developing countries that climate change was not just a problem caused by the world’s rich countries and for which they were solely responsible for fixing. This was actually a major concession on their part, since back at that time, the vast majority of the problem had been caused by the developed nations.

The compromise was that countries’ responsibilities were described as "differentiated," because some countries were far more responsible than others. But how do you properly differentiate between nations? Some major developing nations, including India and China, held that systems of accounting for who was responsible should be based on "per capita" emissions rights, which would allow them substantial room to grow but would require developed nations to cut back substantially, and first. Brazil went one large step further, demanding that richer nations had an "historical responsibility" for the carbon they had put into the atmosphere while getting rich. This approach gave developing nations much more time to grow, and made it even more pressing for developed nations to move quickly.

The developing nations’ preferred approaches were abruptly pushed off the table in the December 1997 Kyoto negotiations, when the protocol adopted just marginal reductions by the wealthy big polluters. No scheme based on any sort of equity principle underlay its purely political solution.

The Kyoto Protocol was never meant to be truly adequate to the task of solving climate change by itself: it was meant to be a first step, in which the wealthy nations would move first in what was called the "First Commitment Period." A fateful July 1997 resolution by the U.S. Senate tied the Clinton-Gore administration's hands, saying they could not bring home a treaty that did not include binding limits on developing nations "in the same commitment period."

Under Kyoto there were just two groups of nations: "Annex 1" nations who took on the marginal binding emissions reductions averaging 8 percent by 2012, and "Non Annex 1" nations who would only take them on at a later date, after the wealthy nations with more responsibility and capability did so first. The Durban Platform, in contrast, says that all countries will take actions to reduce their emissions, which will have several degrees of differentiation. We don’t know yet what those will be—the next three years of negotiations will determine this—but one can assume there will be far different expectations for the impoverished least developed countries than for the OECD or the rapidly industrializing developing nations like China and Brazil. Some very thorny ground will have to be traversed, and there will need to be trust and some basic agreement about what can fairly be asked of each group of countries.

This bind of who will have to act when, and how drastically they’ll have to cut their emissions, has tied us up for these 15 years. This is where the equity issue rears its head again and again each year, and Doha was no exception. For example, in a side event with India’s lead negotiator, leading Indian environmentalist Sunita Narain described how 'the world is running out of [atmospheric] space and time" before all the capacity of the climate to absorb more carbon will be used up. She refuted the idea that a deal could be made based only on the remaining atmospheric space. "We cannot have ambition without equity: this is the prerequisite for effective action."

Bashing the U.S. for "fiddling with the numbers" by choosing its own baselines from which to judge its emissions reductions, Narain pushed her Joint Secretary and lead negotiator for India Rajni Ranjan Rashmi hard to demand equity measures be at the core of a new Durban Platform 2015 agreement, and that the Kyoto Protocol be kept going into an effective Second Commitment Period. If equity is watered down more in the Durban Platform text, she said, then India should walk out.

Joint Secretary and lead negotiator for India Rashmi pushed back: "Negotiations are about what is possible, about a balance of ideas." Just last year at this time in South Africa, India was in the global hot seat, seen as the one major nation blocking the finalization of the Durban Platform because it did not want poorer nations to have to take on emissions reductions. China seemed to be willing to discuss future targets that included reductions. Narain was not the only one making heavy threats: other groups considered pulling out of talks in Doha, and in the final night of negotiations there was, a rumor circulating about Todd Stern saying he would block a controversial element of the text on loss and damage.

It is tempting to frame this story as two dinosaurs arguing for another year as Rome burns - geopolitical rivals battling as the planet heats to dangerous levels. And doing so is probably more smugly satisfying for writer and reader alike. But the story has much more nuance, and frankly it is not getting us where we need to go. We need a more subtle story about opponents and deescalation on all sides to get us to action that is adequate to this daunting task, now, in a way that does not make countries on either side feel cheated.

There is nuance to report, such as when Narain admits that "we all must do our fair share," and when Stern admits that "we have to succeed…so let’s have that discussion" about equity. These to me are the sounds of two old rivals circling the table before sitting down to find a compromise. A serious one year work program on equity would be an excellent way to have that discussion before it’s too late for it to lay the foundation for the 2015 Durban Platform outcome. Todd Stern did not rule that out when I asked about it in the final week at Doha.

And this old story of battling dinosaurs is crowding out other stories of new green shoots sprouting in the deserts of Doha that need to be told more desperately. The greenest shoots I saw in the deserts of Qatar were from a new negotiating bloc of developing countries who scarcely got mentioned in the media and NGO portrayal of conflict between the old titans, and among the emotive stories of the sinking small island developing states, the radical Latin American left, or the least developed countries. This is a new "revolt of the middle," a new group of developing countries willing to break from the Group of 77 and China bloc and step up with real ambition, without waiting for emissions reductions or financial support from laggards like the U.S. Meanwhile, having failed to lead or follow, it’s time for the dinosaurs to get out of the way.

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