Perhaps no industry will be more affected by climate change than agriculture. Cropping patterns, pests and plant disease, and access to water will combine to profoundly affect our ability to produce food. And rising fossil fuel prices will undoubtedgly affect fertilizer, pesticide and machinery costs for farmers. A 2000 report by IATP Board Member Steven Shrybman concluded that agriculture and the larger global food trade system, supported by free trade agreements and the World Trade Organization, was one of the larger contributors to climate change.
So what do we do about it? Peter Barnes, author and former President of Working Assets, has written an excellent new citizen's guide called Climate Solutions: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why. The short book gently dissects the limitations of poorly designed cap and trade systems currently being considered by Congress. The two main problems: 1) giving away pollution permits thereby reducing incentives to cut carbon emissions; 2) rising energy prices for consumers that will disproportionately hit middle and low income households.
To address these weaknesses, Barnes proposes a hard cap and dividend to reach an 80 percent carbon reduction by 2050. Under this plan, a steadily declining number of carbon emission permits would be auctioned off. Money from the permits would go directly into a trust which would give checks back to citizens to help offset rising energy costs. The Political Economy Research Institute outlines how such a cap and dividend approach would benefit middle and lower class families.
Steadily rising carbon prices would also make investments in cleaner energy, conservation and mass transit more cost competitive. And would spur the government to shift the enormous subsidies that currently go to the fossil fuel industry, as outlined in research by Doug Koplow at Earthtrack, toward renewable energy and conservation.
Barnes' book primarily focuses on U.S.-based solutions, both because of the U.S. historic contribution as the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter and because Congress and Presidential candidates are all talking about climate solutions. But he also puts forth some interesting ideas related trade and a global system for carbon reduction. On trade, he proposes carbon border fees on goods that have carbon fees lower than the U.S., basing the fee on the amount of carbon required to make the product and the carbon price differential between the U.S. and the exporting country. He argues that such an approach would protect U.S. companies who are lowering their carbon and encourage other countries to lower their carbon emissions.
A more ambitious proposal is an Earth Atmosphere Trust which would work similarly to his domestic proposal: A declining number of pollution permits would be auctioned globally and proceeds would go into a global fund. A portion of the fund would then be disbursed to people around the world on a per capita basis or to local institutions in an effort help the poor deal with increasing costs, and the rest invested into renewable energy and climate mitigation.
Dealing with climate change can be overwhelming. And the details matter in how we move forward. Barnes' ideas shed light on many of the tough choices we need to make going forward.
