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350 ppm
Alex Steffen, WorldChanging
“The evidence indicates we’ve aimed too high — that the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 is no more than 350 ppm,” says Jim Hansen.
350: That is the level to which Hansen believes we need to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide (and by implication, other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere if we want to avoid a series of catastrophic climate tipping points.
The bad news? Atmospheric carbon is already at least 383 ppm, and the rate at which we’re spewing greenhouse gases is increasing. In other words, we’ve seen the credible bar for achieving climate stability drop from 550 to 450 to 350 over roughly the last year.
…Carbon-neutral prosperity is possible. We can design and build a sustainable society within the time we have remaining. The matter hinges entirely on having the will to build it. And that’s what’s going to be tested now, and big time: our will.
Beyond the political barriers, though, I think there are some habits of mind that impede the gathering of that will.
The first is, as we’ve said here frequently, the lack of compelling and credible visions of what that society would look like. Without those visions, it is very difficult for any of us to seriously imagine transformational change.
…The second is that we are in overshoot and time is proving to be the strictest planetary limit of all. It’s bad enough that with each passing day it becomes more difficult to attain a bright green future — it’s worse to know that things are going to get grim, no matter what we do. We have already committed ourselves to climate chaos, an extinction crisis and mass human suffering — though what we do now will greatly determine exactly how awful each of those things gets, and if we act now, we can, in fact, still make it through the window of opportunity. To do that we need to be able to read the bad news and still remember that defeatism serves evil here, and in times like these, optimism is a political act. We need to cultivate a politics of optimism.
(2 January 2008)
One of the grimmest posts I’ve seen from Alex Steffen. Follow-up column: Stablization and Peak Targets: Understanding CO2 Numbers -BA
Bert Bolin, 82, Is Dead; Led U.N. Climate Panel
Dennis Hevesi, New York Times
Bert Bolin, a pioneering climatologist and the first chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore for their warnings about global warming, died Sunday in Stockholm. He was 82.
…Last month, while visiting Sweden, Mr. Gore told Dr. Bolin in a written statement: “Bert, you set up the framework for the I.P.C.C. and without your contributions we would not have come to where we are today. Thank you for starting the process.”
Dr. Bolin traveled to Washington in May 1959 and, according to The New York Times, told the National Academy of Sciences that a 25 percent increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere during the 150-year period ending in 2000 could be expected. Carbon dioxide, he said then, was the cause of a warming trend of two to three degrees in the previous 50 years.
He was chairman of the United Nations panel from 1988 to 1997 and, with scientific expertise and acquired diplomatic skills, shepherded the panel through the first two of its influential climatological assessment reports.
(4 January 2008)
Creating an Earth Atmospheric Trust
A system to control climate change and reduce poverty
Various, Gristmill
Authors: Peter Barnes of the Tomales Bay Institute, Robert Costanza of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, Paul Hawken of the Natural Capital Institute, David Orr of the Lewis Center for Environmental Studies, Elinor Ostrom of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis and the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity, Alvaro Umaña of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and Oran Young of the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.
… Analysts have proposed a variety of forms of carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems as policy measures to deal with [global warming]. A few measures, like the European Emission Trading Scheme, have been implemented to some degree. But the measures under consideration at present are deeply flawed. In this article, we present an alternative system that has several attractive features, including the capacity to deal fairly with the regressive nature of most carbon taxing systems, to protect the new governance arrangements from political manipulation or corruption, and to contribute to the alleviation of global poverty. Working out the details of the general plan will be an ambitious task, but we think it is important to take the first step and propose a broad strategy having the six principles laid out below.
The core of this system is the idea of a common asset trust (9, 10). Trusts are widely-used and well-developed legal mechanisms designed to protect and manage assets on behalf of specific beneficiaries (11). Extending this idea to the management and protection of a global commons, such as the atmosphere, whose owners/beneficiaries include all people alive today as well as future generations, is a new but straightforward extension of this idea. Because the atmosphere is global, the Earth Atmospheric Trust would be global in scope….
The trust arrangement we envision has six basic features together with four special features and precautionary measures.
…We encourage those interested in adding their name to a growing list of supporters of this idea to visit this website.
www.earthinc.org/earth_atmospheric_trust.php
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Summary statement from the site
- Set up a global cap and trade system for greenhouse gas emissions – all greenhouse gas emissions from all sources.
- Auction off all emission permits – and allow trading of permits.
- Gradually reduce the cap to follow the 450 ppm target (or better). The price of permits will go up and total revenues will increase as the cap is reduced.
- Deposit the revenues into a trust fund, managed by trustees appointed with long terms and a mandate to protect the asset (the climate and atmosphere).
- Return a fraction of the revenues to everyone on earth on a per capita basis. This amount will be insignificant to the rich, and much smaller than their per capita contribution to the fund, but will be enough to lift all the world’s poor out of poverty.
- Use the remainder of the revenues to enhance and restore the asset. They could be used to fund renewable energy projects, research and development on renewable energy, payments for ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, etc.
Special features and cautions
- Do not allow revenues to go into the general fund of any government.
- Appoint trustees based on their qualifications and understanding of the purposes and details of the trust, not their political affiliations.
- Make all operations and transactions of the trust transparent by posting them open access on the internet.
- Make trustees accountable for their actions and decisions and subject to removal if they are not managing the trust for the benefit of the beneficiaries (all current and future people).
(3 January 2008)
