First Name | Laurie & Allan |
---|---|
Last Name | Williams/Zabel |
Email Address | williams.zabel@gmail.com |
Affiliation | Citizens Climate Lobby & as Individuals |
Subject | Offset Protocols and Regulations Do Not Meet Integrity Criteria of AB32 |
Comment | AB 32 Offsets Challenge – Public Comments on October 18, 2011 Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, as individuals and as volunteers for Citizens Climate Lobby Summary of Evidence that Proposed Greenhouse Gas Offset Protocols and Regulations do not meet the AB 32 Integrity Criteria – Overall Comments - Supplemental Standards in Protocols and Regulations Do Not Meet Integrity Criteria: The proposed Protocols and Regulations would provide offset credits for projects that are above “common practice” in the relevant geographic region. This is contrary to the AB 32 Integrity Criteria described below. (We incorporate by reference, all of our prior comments, including our comments submitted on Dec. 13, 2010, Aug. 10, 2011, and Sept. 27, 2011, October 18, 2011.) AB 32 Integrity Criteria: “(d) Any regulation adopted by the state board pursuant to this part or Part 5 (commencing with Section 38570) shall ensure all of the following: (1) The greenhouse gas emission reductions achieved are real, permanent, quantifiable, verifiable, and enforceable by the state board. (2) For regulations pursuant to Part 5 (commencing with Section 38570), the reduction is in addition to any greenhouse gas emission reduction otherwise required by law or regulation, and any other greenhouse gas emission reduction that otherwise would occur. (See AB 32 at Section 38562(d).) Evidence of Urgency CARB should give special scrutiny to the integrity of offsets because of the urgency of taking effective actions to prevent the very serious impacts that are anticipated from a failure to reduce emissions. NSF Press Release, Methane Releases From Arctic Shelf may be Much Larger and Faster than Anticipated, March 2010 - National Science Foundation Reported that Methane Emissions indicated that the East Siberian Arctic Shelf has begun leaking large amounts of methane and that further releases of methane through the shelf could “trigger abrupt climate warming.” (Att. 1.) National Academy of Sciences Report Press Release, May 2010. Three reports issued in 2010 indicate that “climate change is already occurring and poses significant risks. The reports recommend “prompt and sustained efforts to promote major technological and behavioral changes” are needed to avert additional climate impacts. (Att. 2.) NY Times. Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security, by John Broder, August 2009. “US military and intelligence analysts anticipate that climate change will contribute to serious security risks to the United States in the coming decades. (Att. 3.) Revised MIT Climate Model Sounds Alarm, March 2009. MIT scientists found that new information indicated that, without “rapid and massive action” climate change impacts would be twice as severe as modeling showed six years prior. (Att. 4.) NY Times Tree Death, 2011. Experts are seeing extensive tree death in millions of acres of US Forests as a result of beetle infestations and drought, due in part to climate change. The loss of these trees will make it even more difficult to control global warming. (Att. 5.) News Report – Global emissions of greenhouse gas emissions hit their highest level ever in 2010, May 30, 2011. Both the chief economist of the International Energy Agency and the UN Climate Change Secretariat made statements indicating that it would be difficult in light of this trend to keep global warming below 2 degrees Centigrade, the target previously set by at the international climate talks in Cancun last year. (Att. 6) EscienceNews.com, Act now to tackle the health and security threat of climate change, say experts, October 17, 2011. Health experts, government officials and scientists at a British Medical Journal meeting in London warned of “grave and escalating threat to the health and security of people around the globe and must be tackled urgently.” (Att. 7) Evidence of Failure to Meet Integrity Criteria: Given the urgency of effective actions to address climate change, the adoption of a compliance mechanism that lacks integrity poses huge risks. Since California’s actions are anticipated to be model for the nation and the international community, it is extremely important that regulations and protocols adopted under AB 32 meet the integrity criteria found in that statute. As shown in the attachments incorporated in this comment, prior experiences in Europe under the European Emissions Trading Scheme (“ETS”) and Clean Development Mechanism (“CDM”), indicate that it is either difficult or impossible to assure the integrity of greenhouse gas offsets and many experts, including those interviewed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, believe that it may be impossible to achieve such integrity, because it is nearly impossible to know whether the offset projects are “additional” to what would have happened absent the offset program. U.S. Government Accountability Office report: Climate Change, Observations on the Potential Role of Carbon Offsets in Climate Change Legislation, March 2009. The GAO found that “it is impossible to know with certainty whether any given [greenhouse gas offset] project is additional.” (Att. 8.) European carbon trading faces sharply dropping prices, E&E Publishing, October 11, 2011. News report documents that carbon markets continue to be very volatile. (Att. 9.) Proliferation of emissions offsets threatens to depress Europe's carbon trading, Jan, 17, 2011. The CDM has approved lots of new carbon offsets at a time when demand is low, resulting in additional market uncertainty. (Att.10.) A Realistic Policy on International Carbon Offsets by Michael Wara and David Victor, 2008. Researchers find that most of the offsets approved under the CDM offsets have not been “additional.” They conclude that “any offset market of sufficient scale to provide substantial cost-control for a cap-and-trade program will involve substantial issuance of credits that do not represent real emissions. Finally, they determine that the CDM created perverse incentives that increased emissions. (Att.11.) California Emissions Plan to Explore the Use of Offsets, by Eli Kintisch, Science Magazine, July 4, 2008. Relying on the work of Michael Wara, David Victor and other experts, the article raises questions about the integrity and efficiency of carbon offsets as a mechanism to address climate change. (Att.12.) Trading in Fake Carbon Credits: Problems with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) by Friends of the Earth and International Rivers, 2009. Additional research provides examples and reasons that offsets approved under the CDM are not additional. (Att.13.) EU Emissions Trading – Failure at the Third Attempt, by Carbon Trade Watch, April 2011. In a race to the bottom, approximately 80 percent of the carbon offsets approved under the CDM have been industrial gas projects that could have been achieved much more cheaply by regulation or direct payment for the expense of destruction of the gas. The report notes in the words of EU Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard these offsets suffer from “a total lack of environmental integrity.” However, they will remain legal through 2012. (Att.14.) Carbon Offsetting: An Efficient Way to Reduce Emissions or to Avoid Reducing Emissions? An Investigation and Analysis of Offsetting Design and Practice in India and China, by Barbara Haya, 2010. Ms. Haya found that offset developers could make it appear that offsets met the profitability test, the idea that the project would not have been profitable “but for” the offset credit payment, by “turning the knobs.” (Att. 15 at p. 51.) Measuring Emissions Against an Alternative Future: Fundamental Flaws in the Structure of the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, by Barbara Haya “Interviewees commonly made statements such as: CDM revenues are just “cream on the top”; developers decide to build projects “on their own terms,” not based on the small and uncertain change in IRR from carbon credit sales; “any project can be registered under the CDM.” Validators, tasked with auditing CDM additionality claims, believe that current additionality testing procedures are subjective and can be manipulated. One validator described the many “knobs you can turn” to change the results of the financial analysis. Several validators suggested ways to lessen the manipulation, but did not believe that it is possible to prevent it.” (Att.16 at p. 14) Cap-and-Trade Market Issues, by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (CA LAO), June 29, 2011. The CA LAO sees the potential for gaming and manipulation in carbon markets, including the offsets market. With respect to the “spot” market, the report notes, “ARB has no experience in regulating such markets, and its lack of technical expertise and institutional knowledge of such matters increases the chance that market manipulation could go undetected, in spite of any monitoring efforts that it puts in place.” (Att. 17 at p. 5.) Subprime Carbon? Re-thinking the World’s Largest New Derivatives Market, by Michelle Chan, Friends of the Earth March, 2009. “Subprime carbon would most likely come from shoddy carbon offset credits, which could trade alongside emission allowances in carbon markets.” Ms. Chan finds that the impacts of a lack of integrity in these markets could be similar to subprime mortgages. (Att. 18.) Conning the Climate: Inside the Carbon Market Shell Game, by Mark Schapiro, February, 2010. “As thousands of reductions are claimed worldwide, the projects already far outstrip the UN’s ability to police them.” Mr. Schapiro’s research indicates that whether a project is additional is described as a “counterfactual” inquiry. He concludes that the carbon markets are “in essence, an elaborate shell game, a disappearing act that nicely serves the immediate interests of the world’s governments but fails to meet the challenges of our looming environmental crisis.” (Att. 19 at pp. 4, 6, 8 and 9.) Whistleblower Disclosure: Disclosure of Unfixable Flaws of Greenhouse Gas Offsets in Proposed U.S. Climate Legislation, by Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, July 22, 2010. The authors describe the two tests that have been developed to determine whether projects are additional (the performance test and the economic analysis (or but for”) test and why these tests are incapable of determining whether a particular project is additional. The analysis is applied to the U.S. EPA Climate Leaders protocols, many of which are similar to the California AB 32 proposed offset protocols. The authors describe the four unfixable flaws associated with the protocols and the methodologies for determining the additionality of greenhouse gas offset projects. (Att. 20.) |
Attachment | www.arb.ca.gov/lists/capandtrade11/91-overall_evidence.zip |
Original File Name | Overall Evidence.zip |
Date and Time Comment Was Submitted | 2011-10-18 20:57:09 |
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