A Sustainable Train of Thought

The California Climate Change Center at the University of California at Berkeley recently released Managing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in California. The report analyzes the risks to California posed by climate change and the opportunities present within those risks.

I’m going to crib directly from the executive summary because the following points are incredibly relevant for my thesis:

Climate action in California can yield net gains for the state economy, increasing growth and creating jobs. Preliminary modeling indicates that just eight policies that were analyzed in detail can achieve almost half of the Governor’s 2020 targets while increasing Gross State Product by about $60 billion and creating over 20,000 new jobs.

While $60 billion is a lot, the model isn’t complete: “We also know that there are many more low-cost options for the 2020 goals that are not included in the scenarios evaluated here by the BEAR model.” In fact, the model factored in only eight policies—if the economic gains outweigh the costs of the other twenty-two policies which weren’t included in the study, then that $60 billion gain would likely be much higher.

There are numerous additional climate action initiatives beyond those that have been modeled, many of which will also improve California’s economy. The analysis thus far indicates that California can likely reach the Governor’s 2020 targets with a net gain for the state economy.

I’m not as interested in the part about reaching the governor’s targets as I am in the part about “net gain for the state economy.” My feeling is that the more this point is hammered home, the more people will jump on the energy efficiency bandwagon. Positioning the issue of climate change as an issue only environmentalists care about is, in the end, not a very smart strategy. Nobody likes to be called an enemy of the environment.

However, everyone likes to make money—this was something Aram and Alejandro made clear in their service design presentation last year when they said that McDonalds never saw itself as selling burgers forever. It will sell whatever makes money. It’s a business. And in my opinion, smart environmentalists will use this tendency to their advantage by aligning and positioning their goals with those of big business. It’s not about selling out: it’s about communication.

Voluntary measures, while helpful, are insufficient to yield the required reductions. Designing an effective combination of regulatory standards, market-based approaches (such as a well-designed cap-and-trade program) and innovation policies is the best way to cost-effectively manage greenhouse gas emissions in California.

This is the approach I’m taking with my thesis. I know I keep talking about it and not showing it, but until now things have been very fluid and I’m somewhat reluctant to draw a line in the sand until I’m willing to step across it. I’ve got that momentum now, and my energies are focused on honing this thing for my review in about a week.

Anyways, back to the point: I was originally reluctant to talk about regulation (and I’m still holding out on regulation for some other ideas I have outside of this thesis), but in the end I think it makes sense for my thesis direction.

Technology innovation, spurred by a combination of regulations and incentives, will be needed to shift the economy over the long term away from carbon-based fuels and meet the 2050 targets. By acting now, California can gain a competitive advantage by becoming a leader in the new technologies and industries that will come into existence worldwide due to the common goal of reducing GHG emissions.

This is self-explanatory. Reading further into the Executive Summary reveals some more detail:

Globally, increasing GHG emissions are assumed to be essential to a growing economy. This is not true in California. The state can take an historic step by demonstrating that reducing emissions of GHG can accelerate economic growth and bring new jobs. Moreover, exercising leadership in this area plays to California’s comparative economic advantage in the US and world economies as a first-tier innovation economy. California can gain a competitive advantage by acting early in the new technologies and industries that will come into existence worldwide around the common goal of reducing GHG emissions.

Really, this is nothing new. Paul Hawken and others have been banging this drum for a long, long time. The difference here is context. Where Hawken and others have spoken in generalities to great effect, I’ve always felt that in the end this approach left me with very little to grasp. I haven’t been able to ground anything, which is exactly what this report accomplishes in some respects: it grounds these ideas in a real time and place, and thereby gives traction to some of these theories. What this report does through analysis, I’m attempting to do using a synthesis of present-day trends and extrapolations to project into the future. By proposing a future scenario, I hope to stimulate discussion and forward movement on these important issues which face us.

(Report originally found via Treehugger)