Global warming may or may not be a legitimate environmental threat, but Washington lobbyists consider it a legislative threat.
It does not appear the current Congress will limit or tax use of U.S. fossil fuels, whose burning releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
But the issue has attracted much attention in both houses of Congress this spring and is likely to resurface next session.
The Bush administration somewhat defused global warming as a political issue last month when its persistence blocked a tough international treaty. But the administration was forced to concede global warming is a real problem, a concession that leaves the door o en for further action.
Some scientists have claimed a concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will result in a significant warming of the earth by 2050, threatening agriculture, altering ecosystems, and even melting polar ice and causing rising oceans to flood coastal areas and islands.
In 1990 a United Nations panel of climate scientists predicted a 2 C. increase in world temperatures within 35 years and 6 by the end of the next century. Some scientists say preventing further increases will require a 60% reduction in current CO2 emissions.
The oil industry already is beginning to feel heat from the global warming issue. The Environmental Protection Agency calculates energy production and use is responsible for 57% of current emissions caused by man.
Some congressmen believe a tax on carbon fuels would solve an environmental problem and some of the government's fiscal problems at the same time.
As usual, state governments are spearheading the issue.
A bill is pending in the Maryland legislature that would impose a carbon tax on all fuels. Legislative leaders note the bill would glean $200 million/year for the state and help alleviate a $1 billion budget deficit.
A similar bill was introduced in the Vermont legislature.
And the California Public Utilities Commission has issued an order to ensure that power suppliers will not pass through to utilities "any future costs relating from a carbon tax acquisition of tradable emissions permits, retrofits, or any other carbon emissions control strategy or regulation."
EARTH SUMMIT TREATY
Last month, after intense negotiations, the 143 country United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change forged an agreement on limiting greenhouse gases.
The treaty will take effect when 50 nations ratify it. That is expected to occur at the Earth Summit that opens this week in Rio de Janeiro.
The Rio meeting, formerly titled the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development, also will cover other issues such as natural resource depletion, population growth, sustainable development, and environmental degradation in developing countries.
The global warming treaty calls upon industrialized countries to take the lead by adopting national policies and other measures to mitigate climate change by limiting greenhouse gas emissions-CO2, ethane, and nitrous oxide.
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said, "The industrialized nations must face their special responsibility. Our 20% of the world population produces about 80% of worldwide CO2 emissions. So it is clear who has the chief responsibility and who must bear the chief burden for reducing CO2 emissions."
Industrialized countries also would release semiannual information on the policies and actions they have taken, along with projections of their effects by the end of the decade.
That will enable them to compare the results of their actions with the 1990 emissions levels with the broad aim of reducing emissions to the 1990 levels.
The agreement calls for industrialized countries to help finance greenhouse emissions reduction programs in developing countries. Other provisions outline international cooperation in technology transfer, scientific research, and greenhouse monitoring.
NO ACTION REQUIRED
As intended, the draft agreement is so vague it is unenforceable. At the insistence of the U.S., there are no deadlines for action.
Sen. Tim Wirth (D-Colo.) said, "The French could not even translate the language of the agreement because it is so ambiguous. They did not know what it meant. It was a sort of fuzzy waffle, the lowest common denominator."
Environmental groups and some industrialized nations wanted the agreement to cap CO2 emissions in 2000 at 1990's level.
But the U.S. argued the scientific evidence supporting the greenhouse theory is too tenuous to justify strict mandates that would hamper economic growth.
The U.S. won the struggle because it emits more than 20% of the world's CO2 releases, and a treaty would have been meaningless without its participation.
Strong treaty proponents say the pact provides a framework countries can strengthen if developments warrant, as they did the Montreal Protocol, which limited emissions of chlorofluorocarbons and other substances believed to weaken the ozone layer.
Jessica Matthews, vice-president of the World Resources Institute, said the real issue is whether the U.S. will accept a carbon tax at some point.
"This treaty does not do much for now. But it will begin the domestic debate, rather than end it."
U.S. POSITION
President Bush agreed to attend the Rio de Janeiro meeting, expected to draw more than 100 other world leaders, only after the weaker agreement was reached.
Bush applauded the fact the treaty "would not impede economic growth and our ability to create jobs."
He added, "Today's environmental problems are global, and every nation must help in solving them. As the U.S. has demonstrated over more than two decades, protecting the environment and encouraging economic growth can co hand in hand."
William Reilly, EPA administrator, explained Bush could not agree to attend until a reasonable treaty was assured.
"Once the president committed to go, he ran the risk of being presented with demands we would find unacceptable," Reilly said.
"The climate change treaty we got owes a little bit at least to a desire that the president would attend and a concern on the part of other governments to make sure the treaty language would be helpful to get him to Rio."
U.S. officials say the treaty gives them wide latitude on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without injuring industrial development.
A White House official said, "There is nothing in any of the language that constitutes a commitment to a specific level of emissions at any time."
FLEXIBLE POLICY
Richard Morgenstern, an EPA policy official, said the U.S. policy on global warming calls for mitigation and adaption measures.
He said, "Reductions in emissions can be achieved through various means such as an increase in energy efficiency or capturing methane emissions from landfills. Mitigation also can be achieved by protecting and enhancing greenhouse gas sinks such as forests. As trees grow, they sequester carbon, thereby reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
"Even with mitigation activities, climate models project that global average temperatures will increase at an uncertain rate. As a result, adaptation will be a key component of any comprehensive solution to this problem. One example of adaptation would be to develop drought and heat tolerant crops.
"Given these options and the scientific and economic uncertainties surrounding global climate change, the U.S. favors a flexible, bottom up, action oriented approach,
"Rigid targets and timetables ignore the great uncertainties surrounding global climate change that could result in extreme over- or undershooting of these targets and timetables. Flexibility provides the best means for dealing with uncertainties, and specific actions ensure that greenhouse gas mitigation is being undertaken."
Morgenstern noted the U.S. spent $2.7 billion in 1990-92 on climate change related research, especially in relation to scientific uncertainties, and the administration has asked for $1.4 billion in fiscal 1993. He said the U.S. is conducting about half of the world's climate related research effort.
ROLE OF ENERGY POLICY
U.S. officials say energy policy legislation, expected to pass Congress this year, does much to try to solve the greenhouse problem.
Linda Stuntz, acting deputy secretary of the Department of Energy, recently told the Senate energy committee the administration's National Energy Strategy (NES) will limit greenhouse gases by stimulating improvement in energy efficiency in all sectors of the U.S. economy and increasing the availability of energy supply technologies with reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
She said NES aims for more efficient use of electricity and improved energy efficiency in buildings.
And it would promote production of fuels that produce less greenhouse emissions: natural gas, renewable fuels, nuclear energy, and clean burning coal technologies.
"Finally," she said, "although transportation efficiency has much larger implications for oil dependence than for projected greenhouse gas emissions, NES transportation efficiency measures such as increased incentives for mass transit use, pursuit of an aggressive research program in new transportation technologies, and promotion of alternative fuels and vehicles also make a further contribution to greenhouse gas reductions."
LEGISLATION SIDETRACKED
Congress apparently will not legislate tough global warming deadlines this session.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) prepared a bill, which had more than 100 cosponsors, that would have required the U.S. to stabilize CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by 2000.
But he did not offer it on the House floor as an amendment to the omnibus energy bill, explaining the administration had accepted the international treaty, and the bill "would not be constructive to the international process."
Sens. Albert Gore (D-Tenn.) and George Mitchell (D-Me.) have a similar bill pending in the Senate, where it could be offered at any time as an amendment to a bill on the floor.
The Senate and House omnibus energy bills both have global warming chapters.
The Senate bill creates the position of director of climate protection in DOE. He would help develop a least cost strategy to reduce greenhouse gases.
The House bill requires several reports, establishes a technology transfer program for sharing U.S. technology, and establishes an accounting system for voluntary greenhouse gas reductions.
The committee report explains the latter "is intended to reward forward thinking companies who produce, transport, or consume energy for beginning to do their part to reduce greenhouse warming before the government tells them what to do."
It said, "The federal government would establish baseline greenhouse gas emissions estimates for producers, transporters, and consumers of energy and establish a system to measure and certify voluntary reductions against that baseline so companies can be credited for the reductions against any future requirements.
EUROPEAN PUSH
The executive commission of the European Community has urged imposition of a carbon tax on fossil fuels to limit pollution and global warming.
The 12 EC member nations as well as the European Parliament must approve the recommendation before it can take effect.
But the executive commission said the carbon tax should be adopted only if the U.S. and Japan take similar steps. Otherwise, European manufacturers would be at a competitive disadvantage.
Under the plan, beginning in 1993 oil would be taxed at $3/bbl, rising $1/bbl/year to $10/bbl in 2000. Other fuels would be taxed on an equivalent BTU basis in 1993, rising to $14/bbl of oil equivalent for coal, $7/bbl for natural gas, and $5/bbl for nuclear.
EC said unless it takes action, CO2 emissions will increase 12% by 2000. The carbon tax would achieve half of the needed cutback.
That policy proposal has drawn protests from Persian Gulf oil producers, who discussed the issue at a meeting of the Gulf Coordination Council.
They object to government actions to restrict oil demand, noting that would put at risk their internal investments to increase production.
SCIENTIFIC VIEW
Alden Meyer, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' climate change program, said, "While a handful of vocal skeptics would have us focus on the remaining scientific uncertainties in our ability to predict rates of climate changes and its impacts, the fact is there is a high degree of consensus in the scientific community that this is a problem to be taken seriously.
"If atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are doubled, the earth's average global surface temperature will rise 1.5-4.5 C., or about 3-8 F.
"The impacts of climate change will vary from region to region but could include more frequent and severe droughts, damage to coastal areas from sea level rise and more powerful storms, effects on human health from higher temperatures and spread of disease vectors into new regions, and devastation of some ecosystems that would be unable to adapt to rapid shifts in climate.
"While the magnitude of such temperature shifts is not unprecedented in the earth's past, the rate of change would be. Shifts that have taken millennia will be compressed into a period of a century or less."
He said the U.S. is responsible for nearly a quarter of current fossil fuel related carbon emissions.
"A long term transformation of the energy sector will be required to squarely confront the threat of global warming. Mere tinkering around the edges will not suffice.
"I think it would be prudent for government and industry energy planners to assume steadily increasing pressure to cut energy related emissions in the decades ahead.
"Despite all the controversy of the stabilization goal during the climate change treaty negotiations, it is increasingly apparent it will not be too difficult for the U.S. to hold its 2000 CO2 emissions at or below 1990 levels.
"The Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook gives a reference case projection for fossil fuel consumption in 2000 of about 80 quads, just over a 10% increase over 1990 levels. This translates into an increase in carbon emissions of about 140 million metric tons during 1990-2000.
He noted administration officials estimate actions under way or planned will reduce carbon emissions by 87-121 million metric tons between now and 2000, and that does not include energy efficiency and renewable energy provisions in pending energy bills that total another 60 million tons or actions by state and local governments.
"Given that federal actions alone will likely produce emissions cuts exceeding EIA's 140 million ton base case increase estimate, it's clear the U.S. is on a path toward stabilization at 1990 levels despite the administration's unyielding opposition to legally committing us to such a goal."
CARBON TAX OPTION
Roger Dower, director of the World Resources Institute's climate program, said governments could control CO2 emissions through marketable emissions permits, strict regulatory limits, or carbon taxes.
He noted carbon taxes have been the focal point because they can be directly incorporated into economic models, and some economists think they are the least expensive way to achieve any given level Of CO2 emissions.
In 1990 the Congressional Budget Office laid the groundwork for a U.S. carbon tax with a study of how such a tax would help limit global warming.
It said levying a tax at $10/ton and phasing it up to $100/ton during 10 years would ultimately amount to a tax of $60.30/ton on coal,. $12.99/bbl on oil, and $1.63/Mcf on natural gas.
CBO said those taxes would reduce the U.S. gross national product by about 2% after they were completely phased in.
A Commerce Department study said a fossil fuels tax designed to obtain a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 would lower industrial production among major Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations by 1-3.5%.
The U.S. and other nations that are heavy users of fossil fuels would experience the greatest loss in output, and the U.S. economic output would be 3.1 % lower.
Commerce said a tax of $120/ton of carbon would be needed for the U.S. to stabilize its CO2 emissions at current levels by 2000, $384/ton to achieve a 10% reduction by 2010, and $720/ton for a 20% reduction by 2020.
In the U.S., a tax of $100/ton of carbon would equate to a tax of $70/short ton of coal, $11/bbl of oil, $1.66/Mcf of natural gas, and 27/gal of gasoline.
VOLCANIC SOLUTION?
A study released by the American Geophysical Union said the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines last June may have eased the global warming problem. It said the volcano spewed a fine mist of sulfuric acid in the upper atmosphere that has dimmed the sunlight reaching the earth's surface by about 2%.
AGU said the resulting cooling effect is about twice as powerful as the warming effect caused by CO2 in the atmosphere.
The eruption, largest since the 1883 explosion of the Krakatau volcano in Indonesia, dumped about 23 million tons of sulfur compounds into the atmosphere.
AGU said that should cool the average temperature over the entire planet by about 1 F., although the effect will vary around the globe.
The Mt. Pinatubo eruption also will help scientists check their estimates of global warming. Previously, researchers relied heavily on computer and mathematical models to predict the impact of volcanic aerosols on the climate. Pinatubo will now serve as an acid test on scientists' ability to predict global climate change.
James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said due to the volcanic eruption, the models now predict dramatic global cooling in 1992 and 1993. "We should see it, or there's something wrong with the models."
WARMING QUESTIONED
A George Marshall Institute study said computer estimates of the greenhouse effect have overstated its importance.
The study said highly accurate satellite measurements of the earth's temperature show global temperatures have hardly changed in the last 12 years, although greenhouse calculations show a shift.
The study said computer models have estimated increases of 1-5 C., but if the greenhouse effect were as large as any of the results yielded by these computer models, the effect would have shown up clearly in the temperature record.
"The fact that the expected 'greenhouse signal' is missing from the record suggests the computer models have considerably exaggerated the size of the greenhouse effect," the institute said.
"Additional evidence, reported in the last year and based on satellite measurements of global temperatures, indicates the greenhouse warming produced by a doubling of CO2 in the next century will be less than 1 C. and may be as small as 0.5 C.
"Independent support for this conclusion comes from a comparison of changes in solar activity and changes in global temperature. The very close correlation between solar changes and temperature changes suggests the sun has been the controlling influence on climate in the last 100 years, with the greenhouse effect playing a smaller role.
"The solar data and the temperature data fit so closely in their time dependence as to imply that the greenhouse contribution to global warming up to the present time cannot be more than a few tenths of a degree.
"If the concentration of greenhouse gases rises in the course of several decades by an amount equivalent to a 100% increase in CO2, as some have predicted, the warming to be expected in the next century may be as large as 0.5 C.
A chart compiled by the institute compares greenhouse calculations with global temperature changes for 100 years. Both show a temperature rise of about 0.5 C. However, most of the global temperature rise occurred before 1940, while most of the greenhouse gases entered the atmosphere after 1940.
It said, "Greenhouse gases cannot be the cause of a temperature rise that occurred before these gases existed."
PRECEDENT SEEN
Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.) recently observed, "Mankind has a special fascination with global catastrophes. In recent times, the global environment has taken central stage and has engaged scientists, politicians, environmental activists, and the media.
"Perhaps the most distressing aspect is that the process is being driven by politics rather than science. The assumption is being made that the so-called greenhouse effect is not only a scientifically verified phenomenon, but it will devastate the earth over the next hundred years.
"By comparison, the scientific community cannot yet establish that man has already precipitated global climate changes. In fact, a November 1991 article in Science magazine suggests a direct influence of solar activity or climate during the past 130 years.
"Satellite measurements of atmospheric temperature show hardly any change in temperature in the last 12 years despite large increases in greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
"'Even if increased concentrations of greenhouse gases are likely to cause changes in atmospheric and oceanic temperatures and weather patterns, there is no valid basis for the hysteria that is being generated by some organizations about global warming.
"Sound science, not science driven by a political agenda, must provide the cornerstone for a sound response to the potential for climate change. We cannot allow ourselves to be pressured to act on inaccurate data that grabs headlines.
"We made that mistake with acid rain. Numerous scientists gained national attention by asserting that lakes in the Adirondacks were dying from acid rain."
Wallop added government scientists now say many of the early scientific claims were exaggerated.
Copyright 1992 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
