
The principle that polluters should pay for the waste they create has led many experts to urge governments to put a price on carbon emissions. One method is the sometimes controversial cap-and-trade. Quebec, California and the European Union have already adopted cap-and-trade and Ontario will join Quebec and California’s system in January 2017. But is it a good way to address climate change?
The program sets an overall limit—a cap—on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions a province can emit. It then tells polluters, such as heavy industry and electricity generators, how many tons of carbon each can release. For every ton, polluters need a permit or “allowance.” So, if a company’s annual limit is 25,000 tons, it would require 25,000 allowances. If a company exceeds its limit, it can purchase additional allowances from another firm that, because of its greater efficiency, has more allowances than it needs. This is the “trade” part of the equation.
Although an individual company can exceed its greenhouse gas limit by purchasing credits, the province as a whole can’t. The overall limit is reduced every year, so if the law is followed, cap-and-trade guarantees annual emissions reductions. The declining cap is the system’s great strength and the way it protects the environment.
How effective is it? Although the answer isn’t straightforward, there’s evidence cap-and-trade played a key role in reducing acid rain in the U.S. The 1990 Clean Air Act allowed power plants to buy and sell the right to emit sulphur dioxide. Since then, U.S. sulphur dioxide concentrations have gone down by more than 75 percent. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times, “Acid rain did not disappear as a problem, but it was significantly mitigated.”
Despite this and other successes, some experts are skeptical, arguing that cap-and-trade amounts to little more than a cash grab by government, a tax in everything but name. Others say it’s a mistake to expect climate change can be addressed through markets, when the problem actually requires changing our entire approach to economics, with a commitment to a steady-state economy and an end to the commodification of nature.
Some experts have also noted that the emissions reductions it brings are often modest. A 2015 paper in Canadian Public Policy claimed Quebec’s system “is still too weak to meaningfully address the environmental imperatives as outlined in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2014 Fifth Assessment Synthesis Report, in which fully eliminating carbon emissions is the benchmark for long-term policy goals.” From 2013 to 2014, California’s allowance cap went from 162.8 to 159.7 megatons, a drop of less than two percent.
Ontario’s proposed legislation indicates its program will have some great strengths and a number of shortcomings. It will likely have wide coverage, applying limits on most of the province’s emissions, including those from transportation fuels. (California's system did not initially include these fuels).
Ontario is expected to reduce emissions by more than four percent a year—about twice the initial rate of California—and generate $1.9 billion annually from the plan. That money will be invested in “green” projects throughout the province with the goal of reducing carbon emissions even further.
Ontario’s proposal to give away many allowances to big emitters is less encouraging. The government says it will eventually phase out this free disbursement, but in the meantime millions of dollars in government revenue that could be used to support renewable energy and public transit will be lost.
To keep the bulk of fossil fuels in the ground—as scientific evidence says we must—we need a variety of strategies. Cap-and-trade helps reduce emissions and generates billions of dollars for other strategies to address climate change. It also embodies the polluter pays principle. But it’s not enough on its own.
The David Suzuki Foundation and others have long argued that provinces and the federal government should put a price on carbon, through carbon taxes, cap-and-trade or a combination of both. The urgent need to address global warming means provinces that have adopted cap-and-trade need to strengthen it by ensuring emissions drop faster and polluters pay a price that truly reflects the damage caused by carbon pollution.
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Wisdom the mōlī, or Laysan albatross, is the oldest wild bird known to science at the age of at least 70. She is also, as of February 1, a new mother.
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Comparing rime ice and glaze ice shows how each changes the texture of the blade. Gao, Liu and Hu, 2021, CC BY-ND
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While traditional investment in the ocean technology sector has been tentative, growth in Israeli maritime innovations has been exponential in the last few years, and environmental concern has come to the forefront.
theDOCK aims to innovate the Israeli maritime sector. Pexels
<p>The UN hopes that new investments in ocean science and technology will help turn the tide for the oceans. As such, this year kicked off the <a href="https://www.oceandecade.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030)</a> to galvanize massive support for the blue economy.</p><p>According to the World Bank, the blue economy is the "sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystem," <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019338255#b0245" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Science Direct</a> reported. It represents this new sector for investments and innovations that work in tandem with the oceans rather than in exploitation of them.</p><p>As recently as Aug. 2020, <a href="https://www.reutersevents.com/sustainability/esg-investors-slow-make-waves-25tn-ocean-economy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Reuters</a> noted that ESG Investors, those looking to invest in opportunities that have a positive impact in environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, have been interested in "blue finance" but slow to invest.</p><p>"It is a hugely under-invested economic opportunity that is crucial to the way we have to address living on one planet," Simon Dent, director of blue investments at Mirova Natural Capital, told Reuters.</p><p>Even with slow investment, the blue economy is still expected to expand at twice the rate of the mainstream economy by 2030, Reuters reported. It already contributes $2.5tn a year in economic output, the report noted.</p><p>Current, upward <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/-innovation-blue-economy-2646147405.html" target="_self">shifts in blue economy investments are being driven by innovation</a>, a trend the UN hopes will continue globally for the benefit of all oceans and people.</p><p>In Israel, this push has successfully translated into investment in and innovation of global ports, shipping, logistics and offshore sectors. The "Startup Nation," as Israel is often called, has seen its maritime tech ecosystem grow "significantly" in recent years and expects that growth to "accelerate dramatically," <a href="https://itrade.gov.il/belgium-english/how-israel-is-becoming-a-port-of-call-for-maritime-innovation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">iTrade</a> reported.</p><p>Driving this wave of momentum has been rising Israeli venture capital hub <a href="https://www.thedockinnovation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">theDOCK</a>. Founded by Israeli Navy veterans in 2017, theDOCK works with early-stage companies in the maritime space to bring their solutions to market. The hub's pioneering efforts ignited Israel's maritime technology sector, and now, with their new fund, theDOCK is motivating these high-tech solutions to also address ESG criteria.</p><p>"While ESG has always been on theDOCK's agenda, this theme has become even more of a priority," Nir Gartzman, theDOCK's managing partner, told EcoWatch. "80 percent of the startups in our portfolio (for theDOCK's Navigator II fund) will have a primary or secondary contribution to environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria."</p><p>In a company presentation, theDOCK called contribution to the ESG agenda a "hot discussion topic" for traditional players in the space and their boards, many of whom are looking to adopt new technologies with a positive impact on the planet. The focus is on reducing carbon emissions and protecting the environment, the presentation outlines. As such, theDOCK also explicitly screens candidate investments by ESG criteria as well.</p><p>Within the maritime space, environmental innovations could include measures like increased fuel and energy efficiency, better monitoring of potential pollution sources, improved waste and air emissions management and processing of marine debris/trash into reusable materials, theDOCK's presentation noted.</p>theDOCK team includes (left to right) Michal Hendel-Sufa, Head of Alliances, Noa Schuman, CMO, Nir Gartzman, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, and Hannan Carmeli, Co-Founder & Managing Partner. Dudu Koren
<p>theDOCK's own portfolio includes companies like Orca AI, which uses an intelligent collision avoidance system to reduce the probability of oil or fuel spills, AiDock, which eliminates the use of paper by automating the customs clearance process, and DockTech, which uses depth "crowdsourcing" data to map riverbeds in real-time and optimize cargo loading, thereby reducing trips and fuel usage while also avoiding groundings.</p><p>"Oceans are a big opportunity primarily because they are just that – big!" theDOCK's Chief Marketing Officer Noa Schuman summarized. "As such, the magnitude of their criticality to the global ecosystem, the magnitude of pollution risk and the steps needed to overcome those challenges – are all huge."</p><p>There is hope that this wave of interest and investment in environmentally-positive maritime technologies will accelerate the blue economy and ESG investing even further, in Israel and beyond.</p>- 14 Countries Commit to Ocean Sustainability Initiative - EcoWatch ›
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