The History of Global Climate Change, part 3

While we referenced many sources for this page, a key source was “The Discover of Global Warming” at the site of the American Institute of Physics. It is detailed, objective, and well written, and we strongly encourage people to go to the site and read all of it.

The immediate response to the events of the Summer of 1988 was fairly typical for a media cycle in America: a short period of intense media attention, much of it sensational, followed by a gradual loss of interest. Stories tended to focus on the more extreme speculations of the consequences of global climate change. Articles were written, books were published, and a few climate conscious bills were passed. But the next year, 1989, was relatively cool, and public attention cooled with it.

Climate scientists had been caught off guard by the sudden rush of media attention, and they recognized that that they had not presented a coherent message; in fact, they did not have a coherent message. Many felt that Hansen’s claims had been too bold and too provocative, but there was no organized and measured response. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was first convened in 1988 to improve communication, review research, reach a consensus on the issue and publicize the results. Virtually all of the important researchers in the field would eventually join the IPCC.

Their first report, issued in 1990, was perhaps overly cautious and uncontroversial, and received little media attention. That changed with the release of their second report in 1995, when a clear statement was made that global warming had occurred and that human fossil fuel use was probably a contributing factor. There was considerable controversy over this report; after so many years of caution, this was a shot across the bow. A unified statement had been made.

With the United States taking an unaccustomed back seat on the issue of global climate change, it has fallen to other countries to take the lead. The United Nations convened the first Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) in 1992, with the goal of developing a united global response to the problem. The first UNFCCC established the concept of a greenhouse gas inventory.

The greenhouse gas inventory is an example of a free market approach. Most of the initiatives to combat greenhouse gas emissions have been free market approaches. Free market thinking works on the idea that regulations alone can’t fix problems with global scope: first, because there are so many different economies, cultures, and levels of development involved that no regulation could possible be fair to all parties, and second, because there is no global “police” to enforce them. Free market approaches are based on market incentives, with regulations playing a secondary role; true free market thinkers prefer no regulations at all. It’s “carrot and stick” rather than “all stick.”

To curb greenhouse gas emission, a free market cap and trade system was proposed at the first FCCC. Based on the greenhouse gas inventory, every country on earth would be given a set amount of greenhouse gas that they were allowed to emit in a year. This allowance is their “cap.” Each country could now consider their greenhouse gas emissions as a kind of currency, called emissions credits; if they ended the year under their cap, they’d have some emissions credits left over, which they could sell to other countries who were in danger of missing their cap limit.

The idea that the smoke from a factory stack can be turned into something that is bought and sold on an open market is called commoditization. Technically, an emissions credit isn’t currency, it’s a commodity, like a stock or a futures option. It can be bought and sold for whatever the market will pay.

How do you use this system to reduce emissions? The idea is that some countries will see the profit potential in keeping their credits. They will innovate, improve efficiencies, invest in new technologies, and bring their emissions down. At the end of the year, they will make back their investments, and more, by selling their leftover credits. Countries who lag will have to spend the money to buy credits until they are under their own cap. Seeing the economic advantage they missed, they will adopt the innovations and new technologies.

Over time, cap limits are lowered. This makes emissions credits harder to earn, and forces countries to work harder to earn them. This is particularly true if a carbon tax is added for countries who miss their cap level. This kind of regulation adds a bit more “stick” to the mix. Even so, most countries continue to focus on the “carrot” of innovation and improved efficiency. And emissions decrease overall.

The economic models associated with cap and trade systems are a lot more complicated than this explanation; almost as complicated as climate science! And there is considerable suspicion that most systems currently in place are built around too much “carrot” and not enough “stick.” But in the absence of a public consensus calling for more stringent approaches, these free market systems will form the backbone of the fight against global climate change.

By the way, as you may have guessed, RECs are also a free market idea. You might be interested to know, however, that RECs weren’t created to fight global warming. You can read that story in What the HEC is a REC?

The greenhouse gas inventory was finalized in 1997, at the third meeting of the UNFCC in Kyoto, Japan. The resulting Kyoto Protocol mandated greenhouse gas allowances for all participating countries, and set the first expectations for greenhouse gas reduction. Most countries would eventually ratify the Kyoto Protocol and start working to meet their reductions. The United States was not one of them.

The Kyoto agreement introduced the concept of the carbon footprint. If each country has a greenhouse gas inventory, then why not each region, each state, each industry, even each individual? Your footprint makes you aware that everything you do that involves fossil fuels, from driving a car to heating your house to turning on a light bulb, adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. You can calculate it down to pounds of carbon dioxide (carbon dioxide was chosen to represent all the greenhouse gases because it is the most common…this make the total more impressive). That is your personal contribution to global warming.

Want to make your footprint smaller? You could drive less, turn down the heat, or turn off the light. You could also find someone who is creating a carbon sink; in other word, actively removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere through a project such as planting new forests or capturing methane. Under the Kyoto Protocol, this person earns carbon offsets based on the greenhouse gases their project removes. Yes, we’re talking free market system again.

You can buy these offsets. Does your lifestyle give you a big footprint? Buy enough offsets to bring yourself down to the level of a typical person, and you’ve balanced your footprint. Buy enough offsets to equal ALL of your footprint, and you’re carbon neutral. Technically speaking, you are no longer contributing to global warming.

The IPCC released its third report in 2001, making its strongest statement yet about global warming and mankind’s role. From this point on, the scientific community considered itself to be in consensus on the issue, though great effort would be made by business interests to present a different picture to the public.

Unfortunately, another event also happened in 2001 that removed all issues other than national security from the mind of the American people. President George W. Bush would reject the Kyoto Protocol in 2002.

Europe, however, got a wake-up call in 2003, when an record heat wave swept through much of the continent. The news of crop failures and people dying from heatstroke in countries known for their temperate climates had a profound effect on the global climate change debate in Europe.

The George W. Bush presidency has marked a period in American history when business interests come first, so it is no surprise that little official action has been taken on the issue of global climate change in the years since Kyoto. Yet businesses and industries, while maintaining a firm public stance questioning the science of global climate change, have been gradually taking a different tone in a different arena: the marketplace. The language of global warming and climate change has entered advertising and marketing, as “green” marketing has become a predominant trend.

This would not be the first time an important idea with public policy implications gained public acceptance through the marketplace and popular culture after failing in the political arena.

To succeed in America, you have to market ahead of the curve of public opinion. Everyone, it seems, is marketing themselves as green, and the language of carbon footprints and greenhouse gas reduction have proven to be an effective way to get that message across. Wal-Mart promotes compact fluorescent light bulbs and General Electrics markets their Eco-magination. IBM and HP have greener computers. Even oil companies and car companies are trying to use greenhouse gas reduction as a way to establish their “green cred.”

And everyone, it seems, is buying RECs and talking about it.

At some point, perhaps soon, we will have to do more than “green up” our ads. We will have tough decisions to make, and we may have to make them before we’re fully ready. But the fact that you’ve read this far shows that some Americans, at least, are getting there.