Global Warming Solutions for Governments

Editor’s note: We have permission from Guy Dauncey to post another chapter from his new book, The Climate Challenge: 101 Solutions to Global Warming. New Society Publishers, Fall, 2009.

PHASE OUT ALL FOSSIL FUELS

Sweden is aiming to end its dependency on oil by 2020. Germany has determined to cease all production of hard coal by 2018. The Swedish region of Kalmar is planning to end all fossil fuel use by 2030. This is the future we must embrace, before the impact of fossil fuels overwhelms our planet.
 
Close Down All Coal-Fired Power Plants

In Britain, in 2008, a Parliamentary Committee called on the government to set a deadline to close down all coal-fired power plants, and warned against allowing coal-fired power plants that claimed to be “CCS ready” because of the immaturity of carbon capture technologies. 
 
In New Zealand and British Columbia, new coal-fired plants are no longer allowed unless they capture their carbon emissions. In California, utilities can no longer import electricity that produces more CO2 than a modern gas-fired power plant. In 2008, governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas vetoed the development of a new coal-fired plant, hopefully signaling the beginning of the end for America’s coal industry.
 
In 2008, a British jury ruled that the threat of global warming was such that six protesters were justified in doing $70,000 of damage to the Kingsnorth coal-fired power plant in Kent by painting a slogan on its smokestack, using the argument that it is considered legal to break into a house to put out a fire.
 
Does the coal industry have any alternatives? One possibility is to convert coal-fired plants to biomass combustion combined with carbon capture, producing carbon-negative energy that sucks CO2 out of the atmosphere. The Belgian utility Electrabel has retrofitted an 80 MW plant to burn 100% biomass from locally produced pelleted wood, reducing its CO2 emissions by 500,000 tonnes a year. Another is to diversify into biogas, renewable energy, or geothermal heat.
 
End All Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Behind fossil fuels’ global dominance lies the shocking fact that governments still subsidize them with tax-breaks and price supports, some dating back to World War I. The total global give-away to fossil fuels comes to more than $210 billion a year. [1]
 
The German government has spent over $200 billion subsidizing its coal industry since the 1960s. [2] Canada gave more than $40 billion between 1970 and 2000 to its fossil fuel industries, [3] including to Alberta’s tar-sands, where oil’s carbon footprint is three times greater than regular oil. In 2006, Canadian subsidies continued at $1.4 billion a year. [4]
 
In the US, from 1992-2002, the oil and gas industry got $26 billion and the coal industry $3 billion in subsidies. [5] In addition, even before the 2003 occupation of Iraq, the US was spending $10-$20 billion a year defending Middle Eastern oil fields. Globally, the same is happening through World Bank and other agencies, which lent over $61.3 billion to the oil and gas industry between 2000 and 2007. [6] In 2006, Earth Track estimated that the US oil and gas industry received $39 billion in federal energy subsidies, and the coal industry a further $8 billion. [8]
 
Behind the subsidies and tax-breaks lies the power of the lobbyists, who fight to maintain their privileges even while the world floods and burns. We should no more allow this than we would have allowed lobbyists for Germany or Japan during World War II.
 
End All Corporate Campaign Financing

Behind the lobbyists is the corruption of democracies where political influence can be purchased with campaign donations. We must end this forever. By 2008, Clean Elections was the law in Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Vermont. In Canada, only individuals can contribute to a political party’s finances, to a limit of $1,100. Instead, parties receive state financing based on their share of the vote at the previous election.
 
We also need to tax all windfall profits that are caused by investor speculation, such as the $148 billion that was taken by the five major US oil companies in 2007, returning half to the taxpayer and investing the other half in climate solutions.

Organizations working on these issues:

• 700 Mountains: www.700mountains.org
• Burning the Future – Coal in America: www.burningthefuture.com
• Clean Elections: www.publicampaign.org
• Clean Energy Action: www.cleanenergyaction.net
• Coal Moratorium Now: www.cmnow.org
• Coal-Is-Dirty: www.coal-is-dirty.com
• Earth Track: www.earthtrack.net
• End Oil Aid: www.endoilaid.org
• Exxon’s Climate Footprint: www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/news/exxonmobil_climate_change.html
• Exxon’s Greenwash: www.desmogblog.com/exxons-greenwash
• Moving Beyond Coal: www.sierraclub.org/coal
• No New Coal: www.nonewcoal.org.uk
• NRDC Dirty Coal Campaign: www.nrdc.org/coal
• Oil Change International: http://priceofoil.org

Action:

• Close down all coal-fired power plants by 2020 that do not capture their CO2 emissions, compensating their owners for any stranded assets.
• Establish retraining programs for all affected plant workers and coal-miners.
• Establish renewal programs for affected regions to help them become sustainable communities.
• Place a moratorium on all new heavy oil sands developments until they are included in a cap-and trade program.
• Ban all exports of fossil fuels to nations that don’t have legally-binding carbon reduction programs.
• Eliminate every fossil fuel subsidy, tax-break, and incentive.
• Restrict the lobbying registration rights of fossil fuel lobbyists.
• Tax profits from fossil fuel lending at twice and renewables at half the normal rate.
• Reform campaign financing to eliminate the influence of money.
• Collect a windfall oil industry profits tax.

 
There is something unbelievable about the world spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually to subsidize its own destruction.
-       Earth Council 

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1.  Subsidizing Climate Change, by Lester Brown. Earth Policy Institute, 2007.
2.  German hard coal prodution to cease by 2018. Washington Post, Jul 30th, 2007.
3.  Government Spending on Canada’s Oil and Gas Industry. Pembina Institute, January 2005.
4.  Industry receives $1.4 billion in tax breaks annually while greenhouse gas emissions skyrocket. EcoJustice, June 14, 2006.
5.  Green Scissors report referenced in Subsidizing Climate Change, by Lester Brown. Earth Policy Institute, 2007.
6.  Aiding Oil, Harming the Climate. Oil Change International, 2008.
7.  Subsidies in the US Energy Sector: Magnitude, Causes, and Options for Reform, by Doug Koplow. Earth Track, Nov 2006.
8.  Subsidizing Unsustainable Development: Undermining the Earth with Public Funds, 1997.