Climate change: Global crisis or ATM?

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In a March 21 editorial entitled “There's gold in them hills, only this time it's in the trees,” the Oregonian’s Editorial Board concluded that “Oregon, the Northwest and public agencies working here should get check-cashing credit for forests that help the world by storing carbon. Anything less is neglectful stewardship and, well, ungrateful.”

The notion that anyone who contributes to reducing carbon emissions, or to sequestering carbon (as in forests) should be compensated for helping to slow global warming sounds attractive. There are so many of us that would seem to benefit that it’s also a notion that packs a lot of political punch. Because it’s not just the national forests! It’s commercial tree growers who sequester carbon, farmers who practice no-till agriculture, mass transit agencies who help people avoid car trips, nuclear energy producers that provide an alternative to coal, companies making and installing energy efficient light bulbs, not to mention all the Prius drivers and bike commuters, and people who keep their thermostat turned down (or up in the summer).

In that sense many of us help avoid carbon emissions, and by the time we’re done millions of us would be in line at the climate change ATM. But fair’s fair, and wouldn’t denying such compensation be, well, ungrateful? Maybe so, and I’m all for sending us a collective thank you note for our good deeds. But the notion that we should all be compensated for those good deeds trivializes the problem of climate change, and distracts us from badly needed efforts to address the problem.

For one thing, who would keep the climate change ATM stocked with cash? The government, the electric utilities, and oil companies you say? But who is paying those taxes, those electric bills, those gasoline bills? We are. While we might believe that we have something to gain by being compensated for our good deeds, at the end of the day it would be a huge circular money flow.

Even more importantly, would the climate change ATM actually help address climate change? Unfortunately, the impact would be marginal at best. Almost all of the money being paid out by the climate change ATM would simply subsidize reductions that are already “business as usual.” The national forests are already there, the nuclear energy plants are already operating, mass transit systems already keep millions of cars off the road, and we already have an incentive to buy energy efficient light bulbs.

To address climate change will require a full-court press to be sure. But there’s a huge difference between paying people for activities that are already business as usual, and paying them for activities that are undertaken explicitly because we’ve put a value on carbon reductions and sequestration. If we believe climate change is a problem, we have to be big enough to accept a collective thank you for our good deeds, and get on with the difficult job of real climate change mitigation.

Dr. Mark C. Trexler is Director of Climate Markets and Strategies for Det Norske Veritas, a leading global risk management firm. He has specialized in climate change since 1988, and can be reached at mark.trexler@dnv.com.