http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/27/12312/0380

Environmentalism's existential moment

Shellenberger & Nordhaus respond to critics

Posted by David Roberts

The following is a guest essay by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, authors of Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility and "The Death of Environmentalism." Nordhaus and Shellenberger are managing directors at American Environics and the founders of the Breakthrough Institute.

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This month the world celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the international treaty that phased out ozone-destroying chemicals. For environmentalists, the Montreal Protocol has long been a model for action on global warming. In the words of David Doniger, the climate director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, "The lesson from Montreal is that curbing global warming will not be as hard as it looks."

Indeed, when one looks back at the pollution problems of old, none of them were as hard or as expensive to solve as the affected industries claimed they would be. Scrubbers on smokestacks, catalytic converters on cars, lead out of gasoline, and alternatives to ozone-depleting chemicals -- these technical fixes came at a very low cost to the economy, industry, and consumers.

The same will be true, environmentalists say, when it comes to global warming. All the alternatives we need -- efficiency, conservation, renewables, sequestration, and even nuclear -- already exist. We just need to scale them up.

Sure, global warming is a bigger problem, they acknowledge. But it will be solved just like we solved acid rain: by auctioning emissions permits and allowing firms to trade them. To reduce U.S. emissions by 80 percent between 2010 and 2050, we simply need to reduce the total allowable emissions by two percent each year.

By limiting the amount of emissions each year, and auctioning or giving away a limited number of emissions permits to firms, governments will effectively create a price for carbon dioxide emissions. This price will create value for reducing emissions, and the free market -- firms trading emissions permits for emissions reductions -- will find the most efficient way to reduce our greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050. And as dirty energy sources like coal and oil become more expensive, clean energy sources will become cost-competitive and more widely used.

It is true, environmental leaders acknowledge, that China and the rest of the developing world haven't agreed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. But they are just waiting for the U.S. to act. These countries, China in particular, are receiving billions of investment from European firms purchasing emissions reductions. They will see the wisdom of limiting their emissions so that, in the future, they can stay in the emissions trading system. And while the developed nations that ratified Kyoto saw their emissions go up, not down, they are just getting started. The U.S. will learn from Europe's mistakes, and the next version of the Kyoto treaty will be executed much better.

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