SustainabiliTank: “The Kyoto Mechanisms: Key to combating climate change?” There May Be New Answers Argues Professor Jeffrey Sachs of The Columbia University Earth Institute; Also Don’t Forget The Ongoing Economy Melt-Down, It Will Have Its Impact On The Ways We Move Against Global Warming.

“The Kyoto Mechanisms: Key to combating climate change?” There May Be New Answers Argues Professor Jeffrey Sachs of The Columbia University Earth Institute; Also Don’t Forget The Ongoing Economy Melt-Down, It Will Have Its Impact On The Ways We Move Against Global Warming.

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 13th, 2008
by Pincas Jawetz (PJ@SustainabiliTank.com)

Thanks to Timothy Gardner of Reuters, we have the important “Taxing or Trading Carbon” Yom Kippur discussion, October 9, 2008, at Columbia University, that we could not participate because of its timing.

We knew that this was going to be a very important event designed to focus attention on the critical core elements of the global climate change negotiations’ financial methodology and ask the important question - will it be the Kyoto Mechanisms or some sort of Carbon Tax that can lead us to the desired result of reduction in Green House Gases? We had two postings related to the announcement of this event of October 3, 2008 - where we pointed out that somehow the UN manages to have important events exactly on Yom Kippur.

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The discussion was chaired by IISD (the Canadian based International Institute For Sustainable Development) Climate Change and Energy Director John Drexhage, and we are grateful to him for noting at the start of the meeting that unfortunate timing. Also, Professor Jeffrey Sachs told me that he was not involved in setting that date.

The two main discussants were: Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Two additional discussants were: Geneva-based International Emissions Trading Association President and CEO Henry Derwent, who was previously the UK negotiator at the climate change meetings, and Columbia University Ewing-Worzel Professor of Geophysics Klaus S. Lackner, whose work is on Carbon Sequestration and Storage (CCS).

Obviously, these days, the topic of discussion got even more complicated then originally anticipated because of the ongoing global financial crisis and market uncertainty presenting further critical questions for governments working to establish a framework to address climate change.

In addition to all of this, John Drexhage also took notice of the upcoming October 14, 2008 Canadian elections, where how to handle climate change and environment dangers has become a main topic of the political campaign.

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The Timothy Gardner reporting i titled “Carbon Tax Endorsed by Director of Earth Institute at Columbia University.” - and the essence - “Climate taxes, not cap and trade markets alone, will lead to the vast technological changes the world’s energy system needs to fight global warming, a top U.S. economist said on Thursday. Cap and trade has emerged as the dominant attempt to slow global warming. Global deals in permits to emit greenhouse gas emissions have hit nearly $65 billion a year. The European Union, under the Kyoto Protocol, has embraced cap and trade since 2005 and voluntary markets have developed in the United States, the developed world’s top carbon polluter. But a straight carbon tax on energy production — at an oil wellhead or refinery for instance — would be simpler and cheaper than putting a cap on tens of thousands of polluters, Jeffrey Sachs, a special advisor to the U.N. secretary general and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University told a panel on Thursday. As the world prepares to form a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol by the end of next year, focus is sharpening on how well cap and trade markets are fighting emissions. Carbon taxes would quickly cut emissions across all sectors of the economy, including vehicles and manufacturing, said Sachs. It could also be more efficient than spreading the trade of permits across the financial system.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7847667

Similarly, Kate Galbraith, of the New York Times, reported on New York Times online, October 9, 2008, “Debate over Climate Change at Columbia University“ and the essence - “In a wide-ranging debate at Columbia University on Thursday morning, Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia’s Earth Institute, faced off over how best to address climate change.” http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/climate-change/?ei=5070

A Webcast of the forum is available here.

Click here to view video
(RealPlayer required)

In the meantime we present here the material as we collected it, so our readers can have access to this important exchange of ideas, but we will return and look up closer at the two hour long video recording of the meeting that provides a wealth of ideas for a possible alternative path to the one that was pushed by the US in 1997 at Kyoto, and then dropped as if it were a hot potato. The reality is that the world has lost 8 years - because of the fact that the US has lost 8 years - and when we start figuring out what to do with the present global recession - it is only reasonable to assume that we will not go back to the Kyoto route, but something new will have to emerge under new US leadership - in partnership with the emerging powers in the rest of the world, and the old industrialized States.

The fact that the UN was aiming at the Copenhagen December 2009 meeting as target date, was really not stressed at this discussion, I even heard from Professor Sachs that while before that date seemed to be too far in the future, now, with the world in need of stabilizing the economies, it seems too near.

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Posted in Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from Washington DC, Global Warming issues, Reporting from UNFCCC Meetings, United Kingdom, Africa, Nairobi, Geneva, New York

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