Congressional Testimony - July 11, 2007

ELLIOT DIRINGER, DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIES

PEW CENTER ON GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

At the House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment
Committee on Foreign Affairs

July 11, 2007

Regarding the Kyoto Protocol and U.S. Climate Action: An Update
View Webcast [1]

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the Kyoto Protocol and U.S. Climate Action. My name is Elliot Diringer, and I am the Director of International Strategies for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change is a non-profit, non-partisan and independent organization dedicated to advancing practical and effective policies to address global climate change.[1] [2] Forty-three major companies in the Pew Center’s Business Environmental Leadership Council (BELC), most included in the Fortune 500, work with the Center to educate opinion leaders on climate change risks, challenges and solutions.

1) Aside from the Asia Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate, and given that the United States has neither ratified nor withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol, what is the Administration doing to advance international cooperation on climate change?

An effective global response to climate change will be possible only with U.S. engagement and leadership. Lack of action by the United States stands today as the major impediment to stronger efforts by other countries. Of the steps the United States can take to encourage global action, the single most critical is to establish unilaterally a mandatory program to limit and reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Demonstrating the will – and establishing the means – to reduce U.S. emissions will greatly alter the international political dynamic and improve prospects for international cooperation.

Unfortunately, the Administration has strongly opposed efforts by Congress to establish mandatory policy to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

3) What is preventing our U.S. industries from setting up markets for buying and selling emission credits?

4) Given that more than 400 U.S. cities support and adhere to the Kyoto Protocol, what is being done at the federal level to accelerate the development of technology that can be used to reduce emissions?

Over the forty year history of federal environmental law, nearly all major federal environmental laws have been based on state and local precedents. As envisioned by the Founding Fathers, the states have served as laboratories of democracy when it comes to environmental policy, and have been joined in this role by many major municipalities. History appears to be repeating itself with climate policy, with climate friendly measures being embraced by most states and a large number of U.S. cities.

Unlike many previous environmental problems, however, climate change is a global problem. Minimizing the greenhouse gas emissions of any one city, state or country alone will not solve the problem even for that city, state or country.

5) Given that 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from the production and consumption of energy, what should the United States be doing to encourage its energy sector to provide people with clean energy while reducing greenhouse emissions?

6) What policy suggestions could the United States make at the 2007 Summit to make the Kyoto Protocol more effective in slowing the pace of global warming, and to make it more equitable among the United States and other developed nations?

The Kyoto Protocol is a major milestone. It established the first binding international commitments to address climate change and in many industrialized countries is driving action to reduce emissions. However, Kyoto represents just one stage in the evolution of the multilateral climate effort. Achieving broader participation and stronger commitments requires going beyond the Kyoto Protocol. A post-2012 agreement could well incorporate the Protocol or some of its features, such as the use of emissions trading and other market-based mechanisms. It is worth noting that these market mechanisms were built into Kyoto largely at the insistence of U.S. negotiators and business, recognizing their importance in minimizing the cost of emissions reduction. However, a comprehensive post-2012 agreement must include new approaches and elements and it may be more practical to fashion these under Kyoto’s parent agreement, the Framework Convention. Consequently, the most important step the United States can take at the Bali summit is to support the launch of negotiations under the Convention, which, subsuming or in parallel with the negotiations already underway under the Kyoto Protocol, lead toward a comprehensive post-2012 agreement with binding commitments by all the major economies.

While targets and trading should remain a core element of the international effort, we must recognize that China, India, and other developing countries are highly unlikely to accept binding economy-wide emission limits any time in the foreseeable future. In their view, binding targets, by holding them to specific emission levels regardless of the economic consequences, would be an undue constraint on their development. Economy-wide targets also may be technically impractical for them: to accept a binding target, a country must be able to reliably quantify its current emissions and project its future emissions, a capacity that at present few if any developing countries have.

A future framework, therefore, must allow for other approaches as well. A second potential element identified in the Pocantico dialogue is policy-based commitments. Under this approach, countries would commit to undertake national policies that will moderate or reduce their emissions without being bound to an economy-wide emissions limit. This is a more bottom-up approach, allowing countries to put forward commitments tailored to their specific circumstances and consistent with their core economic or development objectives. A country like China, for instance, could commit to strengthen its existing energy efficiency targets, renewable energy goals, and auto fuel economy standards. Tropical forest countries could commit to reduce deforestation. For this to work, the commitments would need to be credible and binding, with mechanisms to ensure close monitoring and compliance. Developed countries also may need to provide incentives for developing countries to adopt and implement stronger policies. One option is policy-based emissions crediting, similar to the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, granting countries tradable emission credits for meeting or exceeding their policy commitments.

A third potential element is sectoral agreements, in which governments commit to a set of targets, standards, or other measures to reduce emissions from a given sector, rather than economy-wide. In energy-intensive industries whose goods trade globally, which are the sectors most vulnerable to potential competitiveness impacts from carbon constraints, sectoral agreements can help resolve such concerns by ensuring a more level playing field. Such approaches are being explored by global industry groups in both the aluminum and cement sectors. We believe it is also worth exploring sectoral approaches in other sectors such as power and transportation where competitiveness is less of an issue but where large-scale emission reduction efforts are most urgent.

The four elements I have outlined thus far fall under the heading of mitigation. A fifth critical element is adaptation. We need stronger adaptation efforts within the international climate framework but extending far beyond it as well. The top priority within the framework should be addressing the urgent needs of those countries most vulnerable to climate change. But the broader goal must be to spur comprehensive efforts to reduce climate vulnerability generally by integrating adaptation across the full range of development activities.

Having outlined the potential elements of a post-2012 climate effort, I now turn to the question of how these approaches can be integrated in a common framework. While different countries should be allowed different pathways, they cannot simply each go their own way. An ad hoc series of parallel initiatives will not produce an aggregate effort nearly adequate to the need. By linking actions, and negotiating them as a package, nations are likely to undertake a higher level of effort than they would acting on their own. Such a negotiation could take the form of sequential bargaining, with countries proposing what they are prepared to do under one or more of the different tracks I have described, and then adjusting their proposals until agreement is reached on an overall package. To help ensure a balanced and therefore stronger outcome, it may be necessary to agree at the outset that certain countries will negotiate toward particular types of commitments most appropriate to their circumstances. The objective would be an integrated agreement that is flexible enough to accommodate different types of commitments, and reciprocal enough to achieve a strong, sustained level of effort.

7) Given that the U.S. is not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, what influence does it have, if any, to promote global action?

Whether or not a party to the Kyoto Protocol, the United States has enormous power to shape – or to impede – global action against climate change. As the world’s largest economy and world’s largest emitter, the United States is arguably the single most influential force in determining the future of the international climate effort. As noted earlier, the two most critical steps the United States can take to strengthen global action are to unilaterally establish a mandatory program to limit and reduce U.S. emissions, and to lead in the development of an effective multilateral framework. Other countries eagerly await this leadership.

There are other steps the United States can take through domestic legislation to encourage developing country participation, and to address the issue of competitiveness. These issues are closely related. Ultimately, I believe, both are most effectively addressed through binding multilateral commitments. But it is important to distinguish these two issues because, in advance of a stronger global framework, each will require a different set of interim policy responses.

Competitiveness is a potential concern not for the U.S. economy as a whole, but rather for specific sectors – primarily energy-intensive industries, such as steel and aluminum, whose goods trade globally. In establishing a mandatory domestic climate program, steps can be taken to minimize or mitigate competitiveness impacts. For instance, in the design of a mandatory cap-and-trade program, potentially vulnerable sectors could be allowed special consideration in the emission allowance allocation process. Another option is to provide technology and transition assistance to affected industries and communities, possibly funded by auctioning a portion of allowances. As a longer-term option, legislation also could stipulate that if the major developing countries have not taken stronger action to reduce emissions within a specified timeframe, the United States, in concert with other industrialized countries, will consider tariffs on their energy-intensive exports or other mechanisms to correct the resulting competitive imbalances. I would note, however, that unless accompanied by positive incentives, these latter approaches are not likely to induce strong developing country action, and could lead to more confrontation than cooperation.

Engaging developing countries will require a firm but balanced approach. To begin with, we must be absolutely clear in our expectation that the major developing countries assume binding commitments in a post-2012 framework. It is true that the United States is by far the largest historic contributor to climate change. In establishing mandatory limits on domestic emissions, the United States will have begun to fulfill the commitment it made with other industrialized countries to lead the climate change effort. And having done so, it will then be reasonable to expect that countries like China fulfill their responsibilities as well. China’s emissions have grown 80 percent since 1990 and could rise another 80 percent by 2020. It is essential that these trends be reversed. Realistically, given the greater capacity and historic responsibility of industrialized countries, China, India and other developing countries will require incentives to undertake strong climate efforts. The United States should provide market-based incentives through a domestic cap-and-trade program by recognizing credits for emission reductions achieved in developing countries. In addition, targeted bilateral and multilateral assistance should be provided for the deployment of critical high-cost technologies such as carbon-capture-and storage. However, in return for these incentives, China and the other major developing countries must assume appropriate commitments that will slow and ultimately reverse the growth of their greenhouse gas emissions.