Experts Say Toughest Proposed Emissions Laws Won't Solve Climate Problem
Transportation experts warned Thursday that even some of the toughest proposed emissions regulations won't be enough to solve the climate problem.
Transportation accounts for almost a third of the country's greenhouse-gas emissions, noted Margo Oge, an auto-emissions expert at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That's a problem of such scope, she said, that even the sweeping legislation aimed at reducing emissions 80 percent by 2050 that failed in the Senate this year wouldn't have made much of a dent.
Oge, commenting during a panel discussion at a carbon-markets conference in Washington, D.C., said EPA analyses showed the bill would only increase gasoline prices by 53 cents per gallon--an amount painful to consumers but too weak to boost alternative technologies, like fuel cells and plug-in hybrids, with any haste.
David Hone, a climate change adviser at Shell International Ltd., said fuel economy regulations from Washington won't do the trick, either. He cited a study by the consulting firm McKinsey and Co. that found fuel economy standards in light-duty cars and trucks were estimated to have negative costs. That is, the long-term savings would outweigh the short-term costs of making cars more efficient.
In spite of this, Hone said, current fuel economy standards aren't aggressive enough to make dramatic cuts.
"It is going to be necessary to tease out these reductions from the transport system" through other means, such as research and development funds, he said.
The solution, Oge said, may be to combine some policies that Washington has already considered. She said most sectors of the economy have expressed support, in principle, for a cap-and-trade scheme, but that "in addition to a cap-and-trade program, we need complementary programs" that address not just vehicles, but also their fuels.
Oge recommended combining a cap-and-trade measure and the federal renewable fuels standard, which has set national biofuels targets, with a long-term fuel economy standard. Setting a fuel economy goal for 2050, for example, with smaller goals for the intervening years, would send industry economic signals that could produce a drastically more efficient car.
Even if technology leaps forward, though, some policymakers are uncertain they can meet climate targets.
Sprawl-friendly California, for example, is estimated to have 16 million new residents by 2040, according to Mary Nichols, the chairwoman of California's Air Resources Board. Nichols' agency is charged with implementing California's Assembly Bill 32 climate change law, which aims to rewind state emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
"Growth has worked against us in the fight against climate change," Nichols said. "So the basic truth is that no amount of vehicle technology or low-carbon fuels or other technology innovations that we know about today" will get California to its emissions target.
As a result, Nichols said regulators are targeting another aspect of the problem: land use. She said they are considering a program that would allow regions of the state to work with Sacramento to set a goal for denser development, a change that would require residents to drive less.
Regions that complied would be rewarded with more transportation funding--and the reverse would be true for non-compliers.
- Posted by
- Scott Doggett November 14, 2008, 7:19 AM
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- Emissions, Fuel Cell, Fuel Economy, Hybrid, Legislation, Plug-ins and Electric
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- Environmental Protection Agency, Fuel Cell, Fuel Economy, Hybrid, Hydrogen, plug-in hybrid, Tailpipe Emissions
Obviously, no amount of transportation regulation will work because the remaining 66+% of green-house gas emissions is not being tackled! We don't need an expert realise this!