'Not in My Backyard' Won't Work for Climate Change

By Dave Rochlin - Originally posted on care2.com

I was on the beach last week, and watched a fellow beach-goer finish a cigarette, dig a small hole in the sand, and bury the butt. Presto, it was gone! As most of us know, cigarette butts are not biodegradable, so that solution was temporary, and just made the pain of that butt someone else's problem.

Hiding a problem does not make it go away, and for the environment, out of sight out of mind just won't cut it. This can be especially problematic when we try to raise the bar by doing things locally. For example, one of the California CBS affiliates recently reported that "California's recycling rules are so strict that we send our electronic waste across state borders. CBS 5 Investigates found a huge pile of glass from California's TVs and monitors in Arizona, a pile that environmental experts said contained potential environmental hazards...The pile consisted of thousands of pounds of glass, broken-up screens from California's supposedly recycled TVs and monitors."

It doesn't matter if you ban certain chemicals, or require local factories to use green energy or offset, if you turn around and buy goods from somewhere else that lacks these rules. The 'emerging' world economies (where much of our food and other goods are produced) are poised to pass the 'developed' world in emissions in the next decade, and in many cases the environmental bar is set lower. Even in the US, the carbon impact of a product can vary greatly depending on where it was made.

Conscientious consumers are figuring this out. More and more, we're asking for information and labels to make informed purchases. As a result, more companies are offering extra nutrition, recycling, organic, and fair trade labeling, with carbon labeling on the horizon. We can't vote in other states or countries, but we do get to vote with our wallet every day. When we do, we have the opportunity to enforce greener, cleaner practices wherever products are produced.

Not Just About the Bike

By Dave Rochlin - Originally posted on care2.com

Probably the coolest thing I saw in Amsterdam a couple of years ago was a multi-story parking garage at the train station...for bikes. Bikes are everywhere; they have their own protected lanes, and at rush hour, they rule. Car and bus drivers have to deal with it. It's amazing how many people will adopt an earth friendly practice like riding a bike when it is easy.

When I was in Paris last month (and yep, I'm offsetting the flight by supporting a Ugandan fair trade forestry project via ClimatePath), I noticed a different approach to encouraging biking - it's called "Velib". Velib is basically a Zip Car for bikes. You can pick up a bike at one of 1,400 parking kiosks around town, and drop it at another. I love the concept, but Paris streets remain scary and not very friendly to bike riders. Until that changes, I doubt this program will make much of a dent in traffic in the city of lights.

Public infrastructure change is crucial in supporting a lower carbon economy. You want less driving? Stop spending on roads and start subsidizing rail and expanding better coordinated public transportation. (Paris has an amazing, integrated rail and metro system, which costs $1.50 to ride.) More recycling? It's less about the CRV and more about making it easy to drop that bottle or can in a separate bin. (Paris scores low on that one.) In my home town, battery recycling went way up when a local community group organized drop off points and made it painless.

It's exciting to see some of the focus of the stimulus funds directed at smart grids, energy efficiency and other projects...but I wonder if a lack of shovel-ready infrastructure projects that create a permanent greenshift in our communities is a lost opportunity. The lesson is probably to be realistic about what it will really take to transform your community, but to still dream big.

Cigarettes for the Planet

By Dave Rochlin - Originally posted on care2.com

Global giant Deutsche Bank just launched a real-time 70-foot-tall carbon counter in New York City (right outside Penn Station and Madison Square Garden at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue), which displays a running total of long-lived greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. You can see the online version here.

This sort of advertising is something that humble NGOs only dream of, and has the real potential to raise awareness and reinforce the need to act.

Kevin Parker, who heads up Deutsche's Asset Management group says that:

"Behavioral economists will tell you that the simple act of placing an electricity consumption meter in plain view can substantially cut a home's energy use. The same goes for real-time miles-per-gallon meters in cars, which change the way we drive. These findings tell us something about behavior: When the price of costly activities isn't hidden from us, we're more likely to pursue those activities prudently."

But how quickly does change occur? The sudden rush to raise awareness reminds me of the very public campaign against cigarettes, which started picking up speed 40 years ago when the "scientists don't agree" arguments crumbled and the surgeon general started issuing warnings about tobacco use. The good news on the cigarette front is that there are only 1/2 as many smokers in the US as there were in the 60's. The bad news is that it took 40 years to get here. The worse news is that smoking rates have continued to rise in developing parts of the world, rising by 3.4% per year, according to the WHO. The American Cancer Society projects a drastic increase in cigarette use, based on population and smoking trends in the developing world.

China is now the biggest producer and consumer of cigarettes. Of course, the same is true of CO2. Are we doomed to repeat the cigarette cycle with greenhouse gasses? A gradual adjustment in our domestic "carbon consumption", combined with growth in other parts of the world will be disastrous, leaving the planet with the equivalent of a two-pack-a-day carbon habit.

As a first, step, we need to lead by example. US emissions rates on a per capita basis are so high that it makes it difficult for us to credibly call for action elsewhere. Do your part!

The UN Says Trees Matter....Really?

By Dave Rochlin - Originally posted on care2.com

With all of the billions of dollars being invested in clean technology, carbon reduction and smart grids, it's amazing that forests have been largely overlooked as a source of carbon capture and storage. As a new report by the United Nations Environment Program points out: "forests...have been doing the job in a tried and tested way for millennia." Unfortunately, when forests are cleared via slash and burn, that carbon is unlocked. The UN estimates that 20% of global emissions come from releasing carbon stored in forests, tundra and other ecosystems.

The UNEP report comes at a pretty significant time. There has been a lot of ongoing debate leading up the next round of climate talks in Copenhagen about the role of forests and land use in reducing carbon levels. Establishing baselines, proving that money directly creates a carbon benefit (aka additionality), insuring that they don't burn and modeling ecosystems is pretty complex, and has made forest preservation an outsider when it comes to cap and trade and carbon finance.

I have written about REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) before, and the idea that forests have a carbon value that can be quantified and monetized. An acre of tropical forest can store 100 tons or more of carbon, and UNEP estimates that we are losing at least 20 million acres a year. They also point out that a number of other natural systems, from peatlands to savanna are under similar pressure. The greenhouse gas math is scary. Population growth and the need for income is driving a lot of the destruction, and providing an economic solution, for example by paying indigenous groups to care for forests and set them aside, rather than farm them, is an elegant way to 'unlock the value' of the forest land without unlocking the carbon. ClimatePath has been working with several groups that are using the voluntary carbon markets to do just that.

I have to say, it is a sign of how far decoupled and out of balance our global economy has become that the idea of protecting forests and other natural ecosystems as a way of fighting climate change is open for discussion. While the true 'cost of carbon' is open for debate, can you picture a world without forests? Aside from the carbon, deforestation is often irreversible, and deadly for the plants and animals that call specific forests home. For these reasons alone, let's err on the side of saving them.

Still Inconvenient?

Posted by Dave Rochlin at www.climatepath.org

In what is being considered a major reversal of years of government policy, the EPA recently acknowledged the need to regulate greenhouse gas emissions to combat global warming.

The EPA concluded that the continued growth in greenhouse gas emissions "endangers the public health and welfare of current and future generations." Two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. And now the EPA has the impetus.

The Clean Air Act was originally enacted in 1970 as part of a host of changes acknowledging that unregulated business practices were creating serious health and environmental issues. In the case of air pollution, leaded gas was the most pressing problem, and was continuing to grow despite knowledge of the harm caused by lead. Over time, the law was modified to take on other issues, such as CFC-induced ozone depletion, another environmental disaster which started as a simple business decision. So limiting the six primary greenhouse gasses is a no brainer right?

Maybe not. Our world runs on activities which produce GHGs – from growing food, to producing electricity, to filling up landfills. We have resisted efforts to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for years, out of concern for the economy. Substitutes are proving to be a long time coming, which has us stuck trying to somehow both acknowledge and ignore the inconvenient truth that we are making permanent and unhealthy changes to our planet.

The latest example is the recent decision to uphold that the Endangered Species Act and GHG emissions should not be linked. The endangered species in question is polar bears, and the evidence is pretty unequivocal that their habitat is in decline thanks to global warming. Even Disney – in their latest movie Earth – makes the obvious connection. Refusal to act on GHG emissions to save Polar Bears has nothing to do with questions about cause and effect, and everything to do with the costs of moving to a relatively carbon free world. It would simply be too much of a shock to the system to act at the speed and level that the act would require. This is a devastating probable death sentence for a magnificent animal, and highlights the tension between pragmatism and speed in the fight against climate change.

While congress, industry, academia, and consumers debate how much change is needed how fast, we at ClimatePath continue to advocate for both speed AND pragmatism. We firmly believe that this notion of a “trade off “ is false. Want to cut your emissions in half? You can reduce your energy consumption by 25% simply by following the many conservation actions we have listed on our site. And by the way, this will probably save you $500-$1,000/year. If you take just 10% of that savings and put it against offset projects – such as the reforestation, energy efficiency, and alternative energy projects we feature – your carbon footprint will be half of what it was. Want to have a bigger impact? Convince 10 other people to do the same. We don’t have to wait while our institutions debate at what cost polar bears are worth saving.

Whose Footprint?

Posted by Dave Rochlin - Climatepath.org

We just finished a study on Tweeting – (definition: the act of posting on Twitter) that calculated the carbon footprint of twittering at 21.5 pound per year. We decided to offset the 2009 tweeting of our followers as a 'thank you' gift for earth day. Our concept for tweet footprinting is supply side: If you post a twitter, people read it, and so that activity should be counted as yours. (You can learn more by clicking here: )

But you could just as easily build a demand side argument. In other words, if you agreed to follow a tweeter, the act of following should be yours. The difficult thing to avoid is double counting…either the tweeter or the tweetee (is that a word?) needs to be the one accountable.

McAfee just did a study of their own calculating the carbon footprint of unwanted email (aka spam.) As with twittering, the largest component is from the energy used by recipients (from reading the things.) The difference in this case of course is that it is spam…you didn’t ask for it! Being asked to account for the footprint of spam would be kind of like someone else burning down your house and then you being asked to offset the carbon from the fire.

So how to decide who should get the footprint? The whole point of measuring and offsetting carbon is to create a link between action and climate. Someone somewhere is taking an action that produced greenhouse gasses, and they probably aren’t considering the environmental costs when they do it.

Using this guiding principal, spammers should offset the spam footprint, tweeters should offset tweeting, wineries should offset everything that goes into making a bottle (but leave the CO2 from the act of chilling and drinking it to the happy customer) and clients should offset the climate cost of their lawyers flying to see them. Matching behaviors and costs leads to change.

Of course everyone can use a nudge now and then (for example, Maytag could ask you to offset the energy of your washing machine) but that is an idea for another blog!

Where does a business footprint start and stop?

Posted by Dave Rochlin - ClimatePath (www.climatepath.org)

We have been busy working on a footprinting exercise for a brewery, and it brings up many of the recurring questions about the scope of carbon emissions that should be attributed to an organization. And I thought beer is supposed to be fun! Some quick observations:

Counting for the purpose of measuring vs. mitigating (via offsetting and conservation) are two different things.
From an accounting perspective, if each entity accounts for their inputs, then 100% of the carbon (or it's equivalent) source is inventoried. For a brewery for example, the beer maker could count the brewing as their footprint, a bottle manufacturer covers the glass, a farmer the hops, and the paper maker the cardboard.

For declaring carbon neutrality or even carbon progress, however, this number leaves the brewery far short of the real impact of their operations. The end product - a bottle of beer - is actually a combination of the inputs, and the carbon footprint should reflect the total. When a consumer buys a beer that is labeled as carbon neutral, they expect the grain, glass, and packaging to be covered.

If the brewery's direct carbon input is 100,000 tonnes, then a 10,000 ton reduction would sound like an impressive 10% improvement. If all inputs actually add up to 300,000 tonnes, however, it is a far less impressive 3%. From a cap and trade perspective, this becomes a critical issue.

There is direct pain from indirect emissions
The guidelines around what gets counted upstream are surprisingly loose. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol , which is also used by the Climate Action Registry refer to scope 3 (indirect emissions) in this way:

Scope 3 is optional, but it provides an opportunity to be innovative in GHG management. Companies may want focus on accounting for and reporting those activities that are relevant to their business and goals, and for which they have reliable information. Since companies have discretion over which categories they choose to report, scope 3 may not lend itself well to comparisons across companies. This section provides an indicative list of scope 3 categories and includes case studies on some of the categories.

Encouraging innovative accounting? Yikes! One coffee study I have been reviewing shows that almost 50% of all emissions for the company result from the production and transport of fertilizer (not the use, but the actual production.) This input can easily by overlooked, which not only instantly cuts the firm's footprint in half, but also removes incentives to use organic and other techniques to reduce fertilizer dependency.

Good intentions are not enough
Almost without exception, flying is a pain point when it comes to footprinting, and most businesses (and individuals) would prefer to leave it out of their footprint. I was recently at a fair trade conference, and many of the attendees regularly fly to Africa, South America, and/or Asia to meet with the groups that they buy from. Few think to offset the travel, and most would consider themselves green and "low carbon," as well as socially progressive businesses. But four trips to Africa could mean 50 Tons of carbon, and for a small business, this actually puts them on par with traditional manufacturers. Too often green efforts fall short of real impact, but with carbon, the numbers don't lie. ClimatePath encourages full transparency in footprint reporting, and you should to.