Obama, the Chicago Climate Exchange, and the Climate Billionaires

U.S. unveils sweeping plan to slash power plant pollution

Ahead of power plant push, Obama ties climate change to health hazards

June 2, 2014

Rueters - The U.S. power sector must cut carbon dioxide emissions 30 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels under federal regulations unveiled on Monday that form the centerpiece of the Obama administration's climate change strategy.

The Environmental Protection Agency's proposal is one of the most significant environmental rules proposed by the United States, and could transform the power sector, which relies on coal for nearly 38 percent of electricity. It also set off a political backlash likely to run well into next year.

Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator, said on Monday that between 2020 and 2030, the amount of carbon dioxide the proposal would reduce would be more than double the carbon pollution from the entire U.S. power sector in 2012.

States will have flexible means to achieve ambitious but attainable targets, regardless of their current energy mixes. States which rely heavily on coal-fired power plants are thought to have the toughest tasks ahead.

"The flexibility of our Clean Power Plan affords states the choices that lead them to a healthier future. Choices that level the playing field, and keep options on the table, not off," McCarthy said in remarks at EPA headquarters on Monday.

The plan had come under pre-emptive attack from business groups and many Republican lawmakers as well as Democrats from coal-heavy states like West Virginia before it was unveiled.

But the 645-page plan looked less restrictive than some had feared, with targets easier to reach because emissions had already fallen by about 10 percent by 2013 from the 2005 baseline level, partly due to retirement of coal plants in favor of cleaner-burning natural gas.

The plan gives states multiple options to achieve their emission targets, such as improving power plant heat rates; using more natural gas plants to replace coal plants; ramping up zero-carbon energy, such as solar or nuclear; and increasing energy efficiency.

States can also use measures such as carbon cap-and-trade systems as a way to meet their goals.
Share prices for major U.S. coal producers like Arch Coal, Peabody Energy and Alpha Natural Resources closed at or near multi-year lows on Monday.

A LEGACY ISSUE

Monday's rules cap months of outreach by the EPA and White House officials to an array of interests groups.

The country's roughly 1,000 power plants, which account for nearly 40 percent of U.S. carbon emissions, face limits on carbon pollution for the first time.

Climate change is a legacy issue for President Barack Obama, who has struggled to make headway on foreign and domestic policy goals since his re-election.

But major hurdles remain. The EPA's rules are expected to stir legal challenges on whether the agency has overstepped its authority. A 120-day public comment period follows the rules' release.

The National Association of Manufacturers, a long-time EPA foe, argued on Monday that the power plant plan was "a direct threat" to its members' competitiveness. 

The electric utility industry, encompassing plants that use resources from coal and natural gas to wind was more circumspect about the plan.

“While the 2030 reduction target is ambitious, it appears that utilities may be allowed to take advantage of some of their early actions,” the Edison Electric Institute said.

Lawmakers representing big coal states lashed out.

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Republican leader in the U.S. Senate, termed the rules a "dagger to the heart of the middle class" that would damage the economy.

Republicans are trying to wrest control of the Senate from Democrats in November's elections. Four of the states with Senate seats in play are among the top 10 coal producers nationally: West Virginia, Kentucky, Montana and Colorado.

Obama, on a conference call with public health groups, said Americans' electricity bills would shrink, not rise, as the rules spur investment in new technologies.

On the contrary, in January 2008, Barack Obama said (see video above): "Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."

The EPA's McCarthy also forecast that the regulations could yield over $90 billion dollars in climate and health benefits.

Soot and smog reductions that would be achieved through the plan would translate into a $7 health benefit for every dollar invested in the plan, she said.

The EPA estimates that reducing exposure to particle pollution and ozone could prevent up to 150,000 asthma attacks in children and as many as 3,300 heart attacks by 2030, among other impacts.

The rules, when finalized, could give Washington more clout in international talks next year to develop a framework for fighting climate change. The United States is eager for emerging industrial economies such as China and India to do more to reduce their emissions.

Comments:

Carbon tax schemes are predicated on the illusion of anthropogenic climate change. Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history, however, constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history. Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. A large body of scientific research — including a NASA study — suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred years, not humans.

Trading carbon credits in carbon markets is the newest investment scheme. Energy traders and Wall Street financiers are at the heart of this scheme. The Chicago Climate Exchange (a carbon trading exchange), which includes some 400 companies, is now the largest cap-and-trade market in the world. The largest shareholder in the Exchange is Goldman Sachs.

While on the board of the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, Barack Obama helped fund the Chicago Climate Exchange, which will likely play a critical role in the cap-and-trade carbon reduction program he has pushed through Congress as president. In 2000 and 2001, while still a state senator, Obama voted along with other members of the board of the Joyce Foundation to give more than $1.1 million to help the Climate Exchange get off the ground.

The “privately-owned” Chicago Climate Exchange is heavily influenced by Al Gore and Maurice Strong. For years now, Gore and Strong have been cashing in on lucrative carbon trading schemes.

Gore buys his carbon off-sets from himself—the Generation Investment Management LLP, an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 with offices in London and Washington, D.C., of which he is both chairman and founding partner. The Generation Investment Management business has considerable influence over the major carbon credit trading firms that currently exist, including the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Strong is on the board of directors of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Wikipedia-described as “the world’s first, and North America’s only, cap and trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide.”  Strong, the silent partner (the Canadian-born Strong is little known in the United States), is a former Secretary General of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the much hyped Rio Earth Summit) and Under-Secretary General of the United Nations in the days of an Oil-for-Food beleaguered Kofi Annan. He spends most of his time in China where he has been working to make the communist country the world’s next superpower. The nondescript Strong, nonetheless, is the big cheese in the underworld of climate change and is one of the main architects of the Kyoto Protocol.

The Climate Exchange is the brainchild of Richard Sandor, an economics professor who has worked for both the Chicago Mercantile Association and the Chicago Board of Trade. Known as "Mr. Derivative" for his work in creating interest rate futures markets, Sandor first proposed the creation of the Climate Exchange in 2000, just before the signing of the Kyoto Accord on greenhouse gas reduction. The United States subsequently refused to participate in the accords. Speaking at the State of Green Business Forum in Chicago in 2010, Sandor urged the attendees to do whatever they could to push for a national cap-and-trade program. After giving a quick history of where value creation for businesses came from in past decades, he said that the next big area for value creation will be in the commoditization of air and water -- they will be made commodities through cap and trade (see the video, "The Story of Cap and Trade," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYi78LaY8u4). In the case of carbon, that would set quotas for carbon emissions, and those who exceed their quotas can trade those extra cuts to those that are unable to use their own quotas.

Globally, the number of CDM projects (UN-backed clean development mechanism) entering the pipeline is increasing rapidly. The onset of a carbon tax is already underway in numerous countries (the World Bank will be the collection agency for a global CO2 tax). In January 2005, a new system of CO2 emissions trading went into effect in the European Union. David Miliband, the UK's environment secretary, announced that Britain would become the world's first nation to legislate a climate change bill setting legally binding timetables for a low-carbon economy. This decision affects every British industry, business and household. Britain's former prime minister, Gordon Brown, said: "My ambition is to build a global carbon market founded on the EU emissions trading scheme and centered in London." Every citizen would be issued a carbon "credit card" or "ration card" — to be swiped every time they buy petrol, pay an energy utility bill, or book an airline ticket — under a nationwide carbon rationing scheme (according to a feasibility study commissioned by Miliband). Under the scheme, everybody would be given an annual allowance of the carbon they could expend on a range of products, probably food, energy and travel. If they wanted to use more carbon, they would be able to buy it from somebody else on a carbon exchange. In the future, each person will start the year with 1,000 carbon credits, for example, on a carbon ration card. Personal carbon rations would cover everyone’s direct use of energy in the household and for personal transport, including air travel. Each time someone fills up their car, for example, they would put the card in a slot on the pump and it will deduct a few points.

The main features of personal carbon rations are:
· An equal annual ration is allocated for each adult, with a smaller one for children.
· Rations are tradable.
· The ration covers the direct energy used in the household and for personal travel.
· A phased year-on-year reducing ration is signaled well in advance.
· The arrangement is mandatory (in order to be effective, carbon rationing would have to be mandatory, just like Obamacare)

From the document, "Kyoto Chip - Awareness raising of personal CO2":

"There is no easy technical way to deal with CO2. The best way to reduce it and the other emissions is to use the car only when it is necessary and to cycle, walk or use public transport where possible. Personal awareness is the other path to follow. It is obvious that not only the choice of which vehicle and its fuel efficiency is important, but also how much use is made of the vehicle.

"The approach suggested in this document aims at creating even greater awareness and an active personal involvement by individual European citizens in their personal level of CO2 emission. Once every driver knows their annual allowance, and how much their vehicle uses, then they can make much better choices about the trips they make and which mode they choose to make them.

"Part of this is already done in the UK where the annual ‘road tax’ is based on the CO2 emissions of the vehicle you own. We believe that the next logical step is to empower citizens by giving them the knowledge and possibility to make a real change based on their choices and behavior.

"The ’Kyoto Chip’ is about CO2 rationing on a personal level and -- doing so- - raising more awareness about personal CO2 use. David Miliband, the UK environment secretary, is keen to set up a pilot scheme to test the idea, and has asked officials from four government departments to report on how it could be done. The move marks the first serious step towards state-enforced limits on the carbon use of individuals, which scientists say may be necessary in the fight against climate change."

"It extends the principle of carbon trading -- already in place between heavy polluters such as power companies and steel makers -- to consumers, with heavy carbon users forced to buy unused allowances from people with greener lifestyles."

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