by Glenn Hurowitz
An endangered unicorn protected by one of the imaginary offsets created if Kerry-Graham-Lieberman raids funds for tropical rainforests.In the ongoing negotiations over the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman
bill, different polluters are clamoring for cash to compensate them for not
fouling the atmosphere quite so much. One of their targets: the legislation’s set-aside
funds for reducing tropical
deforestation, which is responsible for at least 15 percent of total carbon
dioxide emissions (more than all the cars, trucks, ships, and planes in the
world).
Outside of all the myriad benefits of protecting tropical rainforests
for the planet, raiding this “Climate
Forest Fund” seriously threatens the affordability, effectiveness, and
political viability of energy and climate legislation.
Here’s why: one of the primary purposes of this fund is to
help rainforest nations supply the international offsets needed to keep the
bill affordable and end deforestation.
No set-aside, no
offsets, no affordability: Climate
legislation rightly includes strict requirements to ensure that offsets
actually reduce emissions. Most international offsets are expected to come from
tropical rainforest conservation. But right now, most rainforest nations can’t
meet the legislation’s requirements to generate offsets—they don’t have
enough trained people or good monitoring satellites to accurately track how
many forests they have, how much they’re losing, how many emissions result, and
how effective conservation projects are. Until these countries get the capacity
they need through the Climate Forest Fund, all those offsets and the cost
savings that come from them are pure fantasy.
With the help of my able associate Olivier Jarda, I’ve put
together a graph showing what I mean:
Joking aside, this is a real threat to the bill.
The EPA analysis of the House-passed American Clean Energy
and Security legislation found that excluding international offsets makes
emissions permits 89 percent more expensive.
Take a look at this actual graph from an excellent new study
by Nigel Purvis and Andrews Stevenson at Resources for the Future quantifying,
in unicorn-free terms, how much a small investment in the Climate Forest Fund
actually saves Americans by bringing offsets to market.
To summarize, setting aside five percent of the revenue from
climate legislation for tropical rainforests saves U.S. consumers $9.6 billion
per year, or a total of $421 billion over the life of the legislation,
according to additional data provided by the study authors.
The Climate Forest Fund helps U.S. business and consumers in
other ways: part of it will be dedicated to enforcing laws against importing
illegally logged wood into the United States, where it undercuts more
responsibly and sustainably produced American forest products.
Finally, by delivering very cheap (currently $5 per ton)
pollution reductions beyond those mandated by the cap, it brings U.S. pollution
commitments close to those of other industrialized countries—putting pressure
on countries like China and India to reduce their own pollution.
Indeed, the only group likely to be happy about raiding the
Climate Forest Fund are Chinese coal executives who will be thrilled that their
own government will be freed from any pressure to take on tighter pollution
reduction targets—leaving the Chinese free to out-pollute and out-compete the
United States.
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