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作者：羅士•葛布士班09.16.99
「有史以來最熱的一年」的消息，漸成為年度新聞
又一次美麗的夕陽
持續增加的證據顯示，由於人類每年排放到大氣的60億噸二氧化碳，限制熱能散發，氣候正在急劇變化中。
光1998一年，我們就看到：讓魁北克和新英格蘭區陷入癱瘓的冰雹，巴西、墨西哥、佛羅里達的火災失控；致命的熱浪，橫行於中東、德州、印度；墨西哥先是鬧七十年來最嚴重的旱災，接踵而來竟是大水災；洪水氾濫，在中國大陸造成一千四百萬人的無家可歸，在孟加拉、有三千多萬人流離失所，是該國最慘的一次；越南旱災連連，中美洲則是暴風雨不斷，傷亡達9000人之多。
最令人擔心的還是氣候變化的速率。不過5年前，多數科學家還認為，下個世紀中，氣候才會出現明顯的變化，可是現在，這些徵象他們都已經看到了。
1998年夏天，我參加一個集會，會議中千鎚百鍊出一套對付氣候不斷升高和能源問題的策略-「世界能源現代化計畫」。我們希望它可以引導解決問題的爭論，朝向永續平衡的終極目標。當然，這將會是很困難的。
協商惡化
首先，回溯一下現況
僅管氣候是越來越不穩定，由於美國不肯妥協，聯合國的京都協議，正一跛一跛地走向僵局，甚至是潰散瓦解。
98年夏，共和黨國會議員，受有錢有勢的石化燃料集團遊說影響，通過法案，禁止美國環保局(EPA)採取任何落實京都協議的行動，即使是「計畫、研究」都不可以。參議員Chuck Hagel (共和黨、內布拉斯加州.)還共同發起一項決心，要求發展中國家必須「有意義的參與」，以為美國批准該協議的條件，還推動法案通過，禁止克林頓政府的任何金錢支助，以確保這些國家積極參與。
儘管由於碳排放源無法勝數，又缺乏取締辦法，「國際廢氣排放貿易」條約，根本無法監控與執行。美國和歐盟代表仍互不相讓，美方當時堅持，在條約義務中，應允許美方無任何排放限制。有關排放權的部分，富國主張用1990年的排放水準計算，多數發展中國家卻認為應根據人口分配。
所有這些爭論，都著重在減量5.5％的建議範圍。可是，依「跨政府氣候變遷專家小組」（Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change）估算，這是個來自100國、兩千多位科學家所組成的團體，要減60-70％的量，世界氣候才能重新穩定。因此，大自然需要的，簡單的說，是要全世界大量轉移到使用再生能源，同時提高能源效率才行。
風的工具
攝影：Warren Gretz, NREL/PIX.
轉移面臨的阻力，特別是在美國，一直是擔心排放減量會造成嚴重的經濟崩盤，其實這是錯的。
其實，全球過渡到再生高效的能源，將從根本上增加世界經濟的穩定、公平以及財富。讓各國在發展經濟的同時，無須擔心大氣問題。也讓能開發中國家在提升生活水準的同時，不必連累工業化國家的經濟成就。
一群有計畫的人
1998六月，16個經濟學家，一些能源公司總裁、科學家和政策專家包括筆者在內，在哈佛醫學院的「健康與全球環境中心」集會，針對氣候變化，研究新的對策。
「世界能源現代化計畫」即源自於此，目的在緩和氣候變化對全球的衝擊，同時對今日危險不安的全球經濟結構，有穩定的作用。
這個計畫，包含三個互動、互補的策略：
策略一，改變津貼政策。美國政府現在每年大約要花200億美金在石化燃料的補貼上，全世界政府在這方面，估計要花掉3000億美金。如果這些能夠取消，燃料價格應能正確的反應，此舉將有助於降低石油和煤的消耗。
太陽能系統
攝影：Warren Gretz, NREL/PIX.
這些錢若用來補助再生能源的開發，將成為吸引能源公司主因去投資諸如：燃料電池、太陽能、生物能、風力等能源，而將再生能源推向世界工業的大聯盟。同時，部分錢可用來訓練原煤礦業、石化燃料業的工人，轉業到再生能源或其他行業去。
策略二，對所有國家，採取累進式、更嚴格的石化燃效標準，視同京都協議的一部份，補充或取代那效果不彰的「廢氣排放貿易」方案。
從發電方面舉個例來說：一般燃煤電廠的燃效約為35％，比較起來，高效能的天然氣電廠，加上汽電共生設備，就可以達到75％至90％之高。單是從燒媒改成燒天然氣（汽電共生），就可以減少排放量50％以上的改善。相對的，在運輸、工業生產、加熱、冷卻方面，也可以得到類似的成績。
世界上所有工業化和開發中國家，如果都能採用進步的石化燃效標準的話，可以立刻創造出一個全球再生能源市場。假如各國又能承諾，在現有水準上制定比率、一級一級的提升本國的石化燃效，如此一來，京都協議所期望的公平體制--廢氣排放「買賣」(cap-and-trade)，在工業化和開發中國家所造成的僵局就能迎刃而解。（值得一提的是，就石化燃料標準來看，所有的非碳再生能源，都是100％的燃效。）
累進式燃效和再生標準的建立，並取消不利競爭的種種控制，一個建基於效率和價格兩個條件的自由能源市場，就能夠產生。
因此，我們相信，上面幾點再加上改變津貼政策，應該就足以讓工業界開始推動能源轉移。
分享財富
不巧的是，未來10年、溫室效應氣體最大的來源，不在美、日、西歐，而是中國大陸、印度、墨西哥、巴西、和所有努力脫離長期貧困的國家。
所以，任何解決氣候變化的策略，若要落實，需要將對氣候無害的能源技術，轉移給開發中國家。當然，這些國家都樂於改用太陽、風、氫等能源，可是，她們一點自行轉移的財力都沒有。
因此，「世界能源現代化計畫」的第三個策略，主要在提供財務支援給開發中國家，供其過渡至乾淨、高效的能源上。我們提議，對每一筆國際貨幣交易徵稅，這些交易一天約130萬兆美元，每一元徵收0.25分，扣掉成本，一年就有2000到3000億美元的稅收，可用來資助如：印度的風力農場，薩爾瓦多的太陽能生產線，南非的汽電共生的電廠，俄羅斯的燃料電池廠。
諾貝爾經濟獎得主，James Tobin最先構想出，這個稅可用來當做穩定國際金流的工具。在各種建議中，從國際貨幣交易上徵稅，似乎是最公平的、沒有差別的、適用最廣的機制，它分佈在整個資本結構上，消費者事實上是看不到的。
無論如何，其他還有相當具有籌款潛力的財源，如碳能源加稅、飛機票加稅，部分保護石油商務安全的國防預算，也可移做此用。
不管是什麼財務機制，這種性質的基金，對窮國經濟的刺激，很類似二次戰後馬歇爾計畫對西歐經濟的刺激一樣，將靠人援助的貧窮國家，轉變為健康茁壯的貿易伙伴。
全球能源過渡期間，數百萬個工作機會，將在世界各地創造出來，會進一步拉近工業國和開發國的經濟差距，再生能源工業，也將迅速地成為世界經濟成長的重要推手。
從這裡，我們到得了那裡嗎？
展望近期政治，各國仍在爭論不休這很難落實的廢氣減量方案，美國國會就連稍作讓步都拒絕考慮。看起來，這種規模的計畫有點不實際。
不過，是有一些有意義的改變在進行。石化燃料圈內的變化正在出現，像英國石油(British Petroleum)、Sunoco、殼牌(Shell)、德士古(Texaco)、福特(Ford)、克萊斯勒(DaimlerChrysler)，還有許多公司，現正突破和其他石油業、汽車製造業的身份階級。兩年前(97)， 英國石油執行長John Browne，針對目前氣候變化的險況，提出一份有力的說帖。隨後宣布，在太陽能方面，，英國石油公司預期在未來10年，每年做10億美金的生意。克萊斯勒和福特也發佈說，2002年、兩公司將開始合作行銷燃料電池汽車。當年二月，殼牌和克萊斯勒也共同宣布一項計方案，計畫將冰島的經濟，全部建立在氫氣燃料上。
除商業圈之外，其他地方也在改變中。這個議題，終於得到社會大眾的矚目。世界各地、大家都特別警覺到這越來越不穩定、越來越惡劣的天氣，開始擔心自己和子孫的未來。
正如自然界的氣候在劇烈變化著，社會和政治的氣候，也一樣圍著這個主題在劇烈變化中。今天看來似乎是不可行的計畫，可能馬上就會變得不但可行，而且必然發生。
當然，如果我們不去改變，前途恐怖而且一片茫茫。南極冰帽的崩解，阿拉斯加森林的陸續死亡，聖嬰現象的模式改變，傳染病北移，連續性的暴風雨繼續延伸，變樣的乾季雨季模式，溫度趨向極端等等。全球氣候的加速變化，將不只是在世界經濟扯破一個洞而已，甚至極可能毀滅我們的現代文明。，
除非我們立即採取行動。
本文作者：羅士•葛布士班，The Heat Is Online網站的開創人，也是Boston Globe, Washington Post, Village Voice, Philadelphia Bulletin.的編輯和記者。
原文與圖片詳見: http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/
maindish/gelbspan091699.stm
版權歸屬 Environment News Service (ENS)，環境信託協會 (蘇崧棱 譯，周曉雯審校)
中英對照全文詳見：http://news.ngo.org.tw/issue/
ecoeco/issue-ecoeco00052501.htm |
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by Ross Gelbspan 09.16.99
Announcements of the "hottest year in recorded history" are becoming annual events.
Another beautiful sunset.
Evidence is mounting that drastic climatic changes are under way, driven by the 6 billion tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that humans pump into our atmosphere each year.
In 1998 alone, we saw a crippling ice storm in Quebec and New England; uncontrolled fires in Brazil, Mexico, and Florida; killer heat waves in the Middle East, Texas, and India; Mexico's worst drought in 70 years, followed by intense floods; massive flooding in China, which left 14 million people homeless; the worst flood in the history of Bangladesh, which left 30 million people homeless; an extensive drought in Vietnam; and 9,000 hurricane casualties in Central America.
Most alarming is the accelerating rate of climate change. As recently as five years ago, most climate scientists said they expected to see significant signs of climate change in the middle of the next century. Now they are seeing those signs today.
Last summer, I took part in a gathering that hammered out a new set of strategies for dealing with our mounting climate and energy problems -- the World Energy Modernization Plan. We hope it can redirect the debate about climate change solutions and ultimately lead us toward sustainability. But it will be an uphill battle.
Negotiation Aggravation
First, a review of where we stand.
Even as the climate becomes increasingly unstable, the U.N.-sponsored negotiations on the Kyoto climate change treaty are limping toward terminal stagnation, and perhaps even collapse, largely because of U.S. intransigence.
Last summer, Republicans in Congress, spurred by the wealthy and powerful fossil-fuel lobby, passed a bill prohibiting the EPA from taking any action even "in contemplation" of implementing the Kyoto treaty. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) cosponsored a resolution demanding "significant participation" from developing countries as a condition of U.S. ratification, then pushed through a bill forbidding the Clinton administration from spending any aid money to secure that participation.
Meanwhile, U.S. negotiators are butting heads with the European Union, insisting that the U.S. be allowed to meet its treaty obligations with unlimited international emissions trading -- though such trading is unmonitorable and unenforceable, given the immense number of carbon source points and the lack of a unified regulatory system. And while wealthy nations want to use 1990 emissions levels as a basis for allocating emissions rights, many developing nations argue those rights should be allocated on a per capita basis.
All this squabbling surrounds proposed emissions cuts in the range of 5.5 percent. But what we really need to restabilize the climate are cuts of 60 to 70 percent, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries. What nature requires, in short, is a massive global transition to renewable energy sources and high energy efficiency.
Wind instruments.Photo by Warren Gretz, NREL/PIX.
Resistance to this shift, especially in the U.S., has been based on the fear of massive economic disruption from emissions reductions. That fear is misplaced.
A global transition to renewable and high-efficiency energy sources would substantially expand the stability, equity, and total wealth of the global economy. It would allow every national economy to develop without regard to atmospheric limits. It would raise living standards in the developing nations without compromising economic achievements in the industrialized nations.
A Clan with a Plan
In June 1998, 16 economists, energy company presidents, scientists, and policy experts, including this author, met at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School to develop a new approach to combating climate change.
The World Energy Modernization Plan, which emerged from those discussions, is designed to begin to moderate the worldwide impacts of climate change as well as reduce volatility in today's dangerously unstable global financial
structure.
The "solution" as we see it involves three primary interactive and mutually reinforcing strategies:
The first is a change in subsidy policies. Today, the U.S. government spends about $20 billion each year subsidizing fossil fuels. Globally, government subsidies for fossil fuels are estimated at $300 billion. If these fossil fuel subsidies were withdrawn, it would result in more accurate fuel prices, which would help reduce oil and coal consumption.
A solar system.Photo by Warren Gretz, NREL/PIX.
Putting this money into subsidies for renewable energy development would provide major incentives for the world's energy companies to invest in fuel cells and solar, biomass, and wind power, boosting renewable energy into the big leagues of global industry. At the same time, a portion of the money formerly spent on fossil-fuel subsidies could be used to retrain displaced coal miners and other fossil-fuel industry workers for jobs in the renewable energy industry or elsewhere.
A second strategy is the adoption of a progressively more stringent fossil-fuel efficiency standard for all countries as part of the Kyoto Protocol, as a complement to -- or substitute for -- the ineffectual scheme of emissions trading.
To use one example from the electrical generating sector, a normal coal-fired generating plant achieves about 35 percent efficiency. By contrast, a high-efficiency, gas-fired cogeneration facility achieves from 75 to 90 percent efficiency. Simply by switching from coal to gas-fired cogeneration, we could cut our emissions from the electricity sector by more than 50 percent. Similar efficiencies can be achieved in transportation, industrial use, heating, and cooling.
Globally, a progressive fossil-fuel efficiency standard adopted by both developing and industrialized nations would create an immediate worldwide market for renewable energy. If each nation -- beginning at its current baseline -- were to commit to increasing its fossil-fuel efficiency by specified rates at designated intervals, that would also sidestep the current impasse between industrialized and developing nations over the equity of the emissions "cap-and-trade" regime envisioned in the Kyoto Protocol. (It's worth noting that by a fossil fuel standard, all non-carbon renewable energy sources are 100 percent efficient.)
The establishment of progressive efficiency and renewable standards -- together with the elimination of regulatory barriers to competition -- would allow free energy markets based on the dual criteria of efficiency and price.
We believe that these elements, along with shifts in subsidies, would be enough to initiate an energy transition in the industrial world.
Sharing the Wealth
Unfortunately, the largest sources of greenhouse gases in the coming decades will not be the U.S., Japan, and Western Europe. They will be China, India, Mexico, Brazil, and all the developing countries working to stay ahead of the undertow of chronic poverty.
Any viable strategy for addressing climate change requires the transfer of climate-friendly energy technologies to the developing nations -- virtually all of which would be happy to switch to solar, wind, and hydrogen and virtually none of which is capable of financing that transition by itself.
The third strategy in the World Energy Modernization Plan centers on a vehicle for financing this major transition to clean, efficient energy in the developing world. We propose a tax on all international currency transactions. These transactions today total about $1.3 trillion per day. A quarter-of-a-penny tax per U.S. dollar on those transactions would yield from $200 to $300 billion a year (after other costs) to finance wind farms in India, solar assemblies in El Salvador, cogeneration plants in South Africa, and fuel-cell factories in Russia.
James Tobin, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, initially conceived of the tax as a method for stabilizing international capital flows. Of all the various mechanisms that have been proposed, a tax on currency transactions seems to be the most equitable, non-discriminatory, and broad-based. It would be spread throughout the whole capital structure and be virtually "invisible" to consumers.
However, there are other funding sources with comparable revenue-raising potential, including taxes on carbon-based fuels, taxes on airline tickets, and diversion of those portions of defense budgets dedicated to protecting the security of oil commerce.
Regardless of the financing mechanism, a fund of this type could galvanize the economies of the poor nations in much the same way that the post-World War II Marshall Plan galvanized the economies of Western Europe, turning dependent and impoverished allies into robust trading partners.
A global energy transition would create millions of jobs all over the world. It would go far toward reversing the widening economic gap between industrialized and developing countries. And, in short order, the renewable energy industry would become the central, driving engine of growth in the global economy.
Can We Get There from Here?
Given the short-term political outlook -- nations bickering over grossly inadequate emissions cuts, the U.S. Congress refusing to consider even modest changes -- a plan of this magnitude seems hopelessly unrealistic.
But significant changes are already afoot, beginning with the emerging fissure within the fossil-fuel community. British Petroleum, Sunoco, Shell, Texaco, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and other companies are now breaking ranks with the rest of the oil and automaking industries. Two years ago, John Browne, the CEO of BP, made an eloquent statement about the perils of climate change and followed it up with an announcement that BP anticipates doing $1 billion a year in solar commerce during the next decade. Shell is investing $500 million in renewable energy sources.
Daimler Chrysler and Ford have announced a partnership to begin marketing fuel-cell powered cars by the year 2002. And in February, Shell and
Daimler Chrysler announced a project to run the entire economy of Iceland on hydrogen fuel.
There are changes beyond the business community as well. The issue is finally registering on the public's radar screen. All over the world, citizens are extremely alarmed about increasingly unstable and violent weather. People are worried about their futures and their children's futures.
Just as the physical climate is changing rapidly, so is the social and political climate surrounding this issue. A plan that may seem utterly out of reach today could become far more realistic -- even inevitable -- in a very short time.
Absent such a transition, of course, the outlook is frightening and depressing. The accelerating changes to the global climate -- the disintegration of Antarctic ice shelves, the die-off of Alaskan forests, alterations of El Nino patterns, the northward migration of infectious diseases, the continuing succession of severe storms, altered drought and rainfall patterns, and temperature extremes -- will do more than tear holes in the global economic fabric. Climate change may well prove the undoing of our organized civilization.
Unless we choose to act now.
Ross Gelbspan is author of The Heat Is On, and creator of The Heat Is Online website. He has worked as an editor and reporter for the Boston Globe, Washington Post, Village Voice, and Philadelphia Bulletin. |
