[Graeme]

Why 'The 3% Solution' is 100 percent right

A landmark study being published tomorrow by WWF and CDP aims to change the conversation in business about addressing climate change — primarily by showing how profitable it can be to do so.

"The 3% Solution: Driving Profits Through Carbon Reduction" (being released Tuesday via a GreenBiz.com webcast that I’ll be hosting) begins with a hopeful premise: that U.S. business can reduce carbon emissions sufficient to meet science-based goals for avoiding a 2°C rise in global temperatures. And do so while capturing hundreds of billion dollars in savings and creating new business opportunities.


The report is designed to help elevate and amplify the alignment between science and business. In order to bolster the work done by the two nonprofits themselves, WWF and CDP brought in McKinsey and the other analysts to help. Says Leonard: “We relied very much on McKinsey’s cost curves and experience of working with companies in addition to our own.”

The conclusion: In order to stay below 2°C, the U.S. corporate sector must reduce total annual greenhouse gas emissions by 1.2 gigatons compared to 2010 levels — the equivalent of approximately 3 percent emissions reduction per year. There is another gigaton savings possible through emissions-reduction opportunities from utilities, consumers and supply chains, say the authors.

greenbiz

The report will be launched during a free webcast on June 18 at 1 pm Eastern Time. To register, click here.

[Plantagenet]

U.S. business can reduce carbon emissions sufficient to meet science-based goals for avoiding a 2°C rise in global temperatures

That is utter BS. Its just not true.

It doesn't matter how much US businesses reduce carbon emissions if carbon emissions continue to rise rapidly in China, India and other countries. Without a plan to cap GLOBAL CO2 emissions, there is no hope of stopping AGW.

[Graeme]

Using your twisted logic, US businesses are not going to influence anyone, and because China and India are too dumb, the best strategy is to do nothing and watch your business fail. On the contrary, it is better to do something and try to lead the rest of the world like Germany is doing.

[Plantagenet]

it is better to do something and try to lead the rest of the world like Germany is doing.

Germany isn't "leading the world." Germany is building more coal-fired power plants---while building coal-fired power plants may help the climate according to your twisted logic, most scientists believe that building more coal-fired power plants with their huge CO2 emissions is absolutely the worst possible thing Germany could be doing.

Germany to open six new coal-fired power plants in 2013

Why not face facts? No single country can reduce global CO2 emissions by itself. What is needed is a GLOBAL climate change treaty to reduce CO2 emissions, because it is a GLOBAL problem. Countries like Germany and China need to be brought under an international climate treaty to convince them to stop acting like climate criminals and force them to stop building new coal-fired power plants.

The UN already started down the road of global climate change treaties decades ago with the Kyoto Accord. What is needed now is a new post-Kyoto Treaty to reduce GLOBAL CO2 emissions and reign in the big polluters like Germany and China who are still building new coal-fired power plant after coal-fired power plant so they can shamelessly dump their CO2 in the atmosphere to F-up the whole planet's climate.

[SeaGypsy]

Germany is doing what it needs to keep the lights on. China/ India are doing what they need to do to get lights on. Corporate USA is acting in the short - medium term interests of it's shareholders.

Say US corporations can save 3% by something as simple as allowing building temperatures to fluctuate more naturally as opposed to fixing a year round office temperature- require workers to bring warm clothes in winter and light clothes in summer. The following year incentivize car pooling, get another 3% saving. The next, turn off all non essential equipment outside office hours. How long before they run out of 3% savings options?

Meanwhile China and India grow their economies by 7-9% pa and consumption in parallel. They are already using all of the above savings methods; having never had the other option. How long before the impact of savings in the USA is completely negated by increased consumption elsewhere? Not very long.

Unfortunately for CO2 emissions and AGW, there is still way too much fossil fuels way too cheap.

[Graeme]

Germany like China and India has every intention to reduce and ultimately eliminate it's (their) carbon footprint(s). Glad you mentioned the global agreement process. As a former US negotiator, you are aware that this process is still ongoing and it has been difficult to get an agreement. I'm hopeful that one will be signed in the near future; just see my latest post in the International Climate Negotiations thread.

[Plantagenet]

Glad you mentioned the global agreement process. As a former US negotiator, you are aware that this process is still ongoing....

I was never a US negotiator, but about 10 years ago I was selected to be part of a US delegation of scientists sent to an international science conference convened in Amsterdam as part of the UN Climate Treaty process. I had a very good experience at the UN conference, and I stayed on for a couple of weeks afterward and travelled in the Netherlands. I strongly recommend visiting the Dutch islands that front the North Sea---beautiful beaches and you can rent a bicycle and pedal from beach to beach seeking out the best seafood and prettiest Dutchgirls all day long.

Back on topic---I'm strongly convinced a new binding UN global climate change treaty is the only way to reduce global CO2 emissions.

[Graeme]

Thanks for your comment regarding the UN global treaty, and your clarification regarding your experience in the treaty process.

I just saw another article about what Siemens proposes to get Germany and the rest of Europe to transition to RE.

Siemens presents three-point plan for implementing cost-efficient energy transition in Germany

Germany has embarked on a large-scale Energiewende (energy transition)—a policy-driven shift away from nuclear and fossil energy to a renewable energy economy. Following the Fukushima disaster in 2011, the Federal government oversaw the immediate closure of eight nuclear plants, with the rest of the stations to be shut down by 2022. The government also is maintaining its target of cutting GHG emissions by 40% by 2020 (compared with 1990 levels) and by 80% by 2050.

However, the financial cost of the shift is causing concern.


At the recent Siemens Energiewende-Dialog (Energy Transition Dialogue) in Berlin, the company presented a three-point plan with specific proposals for the cost-efficient implementation of the Energiewende in Germany.

Siemens proposes giving up a fixed target for renewables and focus on reducing CO2 emissions in the future instead. The country should give greater priority to high-efficiency combined cycle power plants and wind power, the company suggests. With efficiency ratings of more than 60%, an advanced combined cycle power plant emits less than half the CO2 produced by a new coal-fired power plant, and wind power is well on its way to be able to deliver electricity as cost-effectively as conventional energy sources.

The Three-Point Plan. The pillars of Siemens’ Three-Point Plan are a restructuring of the electricity market; increasing energy efficiency; and a European coordination of the energy transition.

greencarcongress

[Plantagenet]

Germany is doing what it needs to keep the lights on.

No they aren't. Germany is shutting down nukes (which keep the lights on and release zero CO2) and building coal-fired power plants to replace them. The net result is a huge INCREASE in German CO2 production.

This kind of foolishness from Germany is exactly why we need a new global climate treaty to force countries to reduce their CO2 emissions. The planet's atmosphere is not just a trashpile into which Germany or China or other countries should be allowed to dump more and more CO2.

[SeaGypsy]

Yes they are doing what they need to keep the lights on. Nukes have become politically less palatable than coal- so it's back to coal.

There is no way to enforce such international treaties. Look what has happened to the Geneva Convention on the Rules of War. We now have many of the key signatories backing the grossest breaches imaginable.

Look at Australia where the Carbon tax has doomed the government which introduced it to an electoral wipeout this September. Is this because the public have bought AGW denial- or because they can see the hypocrisy and futility of mitigation at home whilst ever expanding coal exports? Does it matter which?

A global solution is the only one with any chance of making a real difference; and it's just not going to happen. China/ India and the rest of the developing world will continue to lobby the blatant unfairness of first world countries dictating caps.

[Plantagenet]

There is no way to enforce such international treaties. Look what has happened to the Geneva Convention on the Rules of War. We now have many of the key signatories backing the grossest breaches imaginable.

The Geneva convention calls for war criminals to be prosecuted in the Hague international court.

Obviously a global climate change treaty would also have to have penalties and a court or tribunal to enforce them (and hopefully a more effective one then the war crimes treaty currently has).

[SeaGypsy]

So the Geneva Convention is almost ineffective in prosecution and seems totally ineffective at culture change. Current wars in MENA mostly work on a 'take no prisoners' approach. Warriors and their entire villages are rounded up, tied and shot, beheaded, tortured to death. This is definite and real crime going on every single day; there can be no doubt about it.

Yet somehow a theory (AGW) with relatively subtle effects in current real time, is going to motivate a rigidly and strictly enforced international prosecution? I very much doubt it.

[Plantagenet]

Current wars in MENA mostly work on a 'take no prisoners' approach. Warriors and their entire villages are rounded up, tied and shot, beheaded, tortured to death. This is definite and real crime going on every single day; there can be no doubt about it.

Don't forget the cannibalism the Syrian rebels proudly filmed and put on youtube.

Yet somehow a theory (AGW) with relatively subtle effects in current real time, is going to motivate a rigidly and strictly enforced international prosecution? I very much doubt it.

Nations who violate International economic treaties are successfully prosecuted all the time.

Its very hard for the international court to get their hands on war criminals----its actually much easier for international tribunals to locate and prosecute nation states who violate trade agreements (or, theoretically, produce excess CO2).

[SeaGypsy]

Right, that's why Blair and Bush are sitting in dungeons in the Hague.

(The cannibalism video is just one of something not nice being done to a guy who is already dead. I don't care who or what eats my remains once I'm dead. There are much worse videos circulating the net.)

If such a CO2 enforcement regime was put in place, it would be abused the same as Geneva- the most powerful and biggest polluters would use it to prosecute their competitors in the international markets, whilst justifying their own impunity with 'mitigation strategy'.

[Plantagenet]

Blair and Bush are sitting in dungeons in the Hague.

Actually, they aren't. Neither is Obama for the drone program, or the remaining al Qaida leaders for the 911 attack, or any of the multiple Australian leaders for selling coal to China that promptly gets converted to CO2 and shot into the atmsophere, or really much of anyone except leaders of very small countries or rebel bands that commit war crimes.

If such a CO2 enforcement regime was put in place, it would be abused the same as Geneva- the most powerful and biggest polluters would use it to prosecute their competitors in the international markets, whilst justifying their own impunity with 'mitigation strategy'.

Thats certainly possible. On the other hand, maybe a process similar to that successfully used to adjudge dumping violations and such under various free trade treaties could be established for CO2 violations.

[SeaGypsy]

Yep. Did you make it down here after all? (I remember you were planning a visit to Queensland/ Great Barrier Reef.)

The longer I live, the more disillusioned I become, especially with our 'great leaders'. I see a mix of 1984 and Idiocracy is the reality. Though the terminology has matured in context, little has changed for the better since the end of the Vietnam War. Energy crisis, pollution, peak oil, AGW, overpopulation, die-off- the fundamentals were pretty well understood in the mid 1970's; yet here we are still talking about what the 'big guys' should do. They won't or can't do what they 'should' do. They respond to the highest pressure items only and according to the election cycle. The highest pressure item is always to maintain the status quo economically and the election cycle is from 3 to 5 years. The rest is window dressing.

[ralfy]

In a global capitalist economy where there is no conservation, where a global population with 85 pct not part of the middle class want to become part of the same, where the remaining 15 pct are counting on the rest to become part of the middle class in order to earn, where 60 pct lack one or more basic needs, where much of manufacturing and mechanized agriculture heavily dependent on oil, and where a financial elite has control of much of money supply and only want more production and consumption of goods to keep the value of money propped up, it is likely that emissions will continue to increase.

[Plantagenet]

Yep. Did you make it down here after all? (I remember you were planning a visit to Queensland/ Great Barrier Reef.)

I visited Queensland and the reef several years ago, and then went on to New Guinea.

I'm definitely planning a return trip to Australia someday---I'd like to rent a camper and take two weeks to drive from Cairns south, but I've already got tickets for my next trip is to Spain. I'm planning to hike the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail from France and then across Spain in September.

How about you? Got any nice sailing trips planned?

The longer I live, the more disillusioned I become, especially with our 'great leaders'. I see a mix of 1984 and Idiocracy is the reality. Though the terminology has matured in context, little has changed for the better since the end of the Vietnam War. Energy crisis, pollution, peak oil, AGW, overpopulation, die-off- the fundamentals were pretty well understood in the mid 1970's; yet here we are still talking about what the 'big guys' should do. They won't or can't do what they 'should' do. They respond to the highest pressure items only and according to the election cycle. The highest pressure item is always to maintain the status quo economically and the election cycle is from 3 to 5 years. The rest is window dressing.

Yup. I know just what you mean---I was pretty down on the prospects for the human species for the last several years, but for whatever reason I'm feeling pretty optimistic these days. I don't have any good reason for it......global politics seem worse than ever.....but its just how I'm feeling these days so I'm going with it.

[SeaGypsy]

Cool
I have been too preoccupied with family matters to get out on the water at all (besides a bit of surfing/ windsurfing) lately. Kind of in a bit of a limbo about what comes next.

I'm in that kind of space too- re. despite all the crap I'm feeling ok anyhow. I honestly don't know how Graeme can keep up his positive spin though. I know he means well and some of his finds are pretty cool; we need him around even if we don't believe much of it.