The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act is up for a vote on the Senate floor next week — the most progress any major climate legislation has ever made in Congress. So would the bill actually reduce U.S. emissions? Not significantly — at least not until 2030, and perhaps longer. That’s the conclusion of an increasing number of energy experts and commentators, including the World Resources Institute and Joe Romm at the Center for American Progress. I performed an independent analysis (available here) and came to a similar conclusion. The problem? In an effort to contain costs and avoid increased energy prices, the Climate Security Act (CSA) allows firms to delay action into the future and purchase low-cost allowances.

Cost Containment #1: Delay till the end

According to the bill, over 6 billion emission allowances would be taken from allowances allocated for 2030-2050 — around 11 percent of the total for 2030-2050 — and these would be auctioned between 2012 and 2027 in order to contain costs. How might this impact U.S. emissions?

If all cost-containment allowances are purchased, it would delay progress toward the U.S. emissions reduction target by around ten percent until 2028. At that point, the U.S. would have 22 years to reduce its total emissions by 70%. As a result, the U.S. would have to reduce its emissions every year by 135 million tons — nearly 25% more than the 110 million tons it would have theoretically reduced each year between 2012 and 2027. In other words, starting in 2030, our efforts would suddenly have to get 25% better.

Continue reading to learn more about the bill…

And while the absolute annual emissions reduction would stay constant, by the late 2040s the U.S. would have to reduce its annual emissions by 11% from year to year. That’s in part because the bill requires the “removal” of emissions allowances taken from 2030-2050 (to supply 2012-2027) to be lower at the beginning of that period and higher at the end. When you do the math, you find that the rate of U.S. emissions reductions would have to more than triple between 2028 and 2050 — from a rate of around 3% in 2028 to a rate between 9 and 11% per year in the last three years.

Many energy experts predict that the final emissions reduction efforts will be the most difficult, since low-hanging fruit such as efficiency will gone. If this is the case, it is likely that the economic impact of such a rapid rate of decrease in emissions would produce a political backlash from consumers, industry, and politicians.

Cost Containment #2: Set a low auction price

Would the CSA result in a high price on carbon? One way to tell is to look at the price at which allowances will be auctioned. Two types of auctions will take place, one for regular allowances, another for future allowances (as described above). The bill indicates that regular allowances will be auctioned at a price floor of $10 and will increase by 5 percent annually (in addition to the rate of inflation). At this rate, the price floor for a regular allowance auction will reach about $21 by 2027 (in 2012 dollars). What about the future allowances? Their auction price floor is $22 in 2012 to increase at 5 percent annually as well, which means their price would pass $40 in 2024. Yet in Europe, we’ve seen that even at a permit price of approximately $38, coal is still economical. Could this mean we won’t see any substantial reductions until 2030?

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Cost Containment #3: Buy cheap offsets

The CSA would allow 30% of total U.S. emissions reductions to come from offsets, including domestic and international. Carbon offsets have become increasingly controversial as studies have shown them to be largely ineffective. A recent study by two energy experts at Stanford concluded:

Offset caps as envisioned in the Lieberman-Warner draft legislation, for example, do little to fix the underlying problem of poor quality emission offsets because the cap will simply fill first with the lowest quality offsets and with offsets laundered through other trading systems such as the European scheme…

We suggest that this enthusiasm [for offsets] is misplaced because any offset market of sufficient scale to provide substantial cost-control for a cap and- trade program will involve substantial issuance of credits that do not represent real emissions reductions.

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The impact of offsets is unclear, so it is difficult to know what impact this would have on total U.S. emissions. However, if much of the criticism of offsets is correct, it is very likely that actual emissions reductions would only be a fraction of what ends up on paper.

What does it all mean?

Not surprisingly, few analysts have much faith that the CSA, in its present form, will do much to reduce U.S. emissions significantly over the next two decades. Then again, few analysts expect the CSA to pass out of the U.S. Senate, much less be signed into law. But beyond the fate of the current proposal, the evolution of the CSA demonstrates several dynamics that will probably determine the fate of any climate legislation likely to draw serious consideration by the next Congress and the next President.

1. Targets are meaningless: Emissions reduction targets and timetables in proposals to address global warming are largely meaningless. The CSA purports to cut U.S. carbon emissions by 70 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. But no serious analysis of the bill suggests that it will actually do so. The various cost containment mechanisms described above effectively limit the actual emissions reductions well below what the targets and timetables that headline the legislation would ostensibly accomplish. While targets can be useful as goals or a statement of policy intent, we should be under no illusions that those targets will actually be achieved when the details of cost containment mechanisms, offsets, and international trading mechanisms will determine what, if any reductions will be achieved.

Advocates of the current approach will argue that this is simply a problem of closing the loopholes and eliminating the cost-containment mechanisms, which brings us to the second critical dynamic.

2. The Gordian Knot: The Gordian Knot of climate and energy policy that we described almost a year ago is alive and well in the U.S. Congress. For those unfamiliar with the concept, we described a dynamic, already well documented problem in Europe, wherein political leaders tasked with establishing or implementing policies to reduce carbon emissions would not be capable of overcoming public resistance to policies designed, explicitly or implicitly, to significantly increase energy prices.

Cost-containment mechanisms included in the CSA legislation are not the result of drafting errors or provisions slipped into the legislation in the dead of night by energy lobbyists, they are provisions necessary for any climate legislation to be seriously considered by the Congress. Virtually every proposal in the Senate includes explicit or implicit cost containment provisions. Any proposal moving to the Senate floor or beyond will probably need to make its cost containment provisions explicit.

This dynamic has defined virtually all policies around the world to establish carbon emissions reductions and has resulted in little progress in reducing actual emissions where policies have been established non-withstanding the ostensible emissions reduction goals of those policies. All approaches to reducing carbon emissions that depend upon making dirty energy more expensive, be they cap and trade, cap and auction, cap and dividend, or simple carbon taxes, will run up against this dynamic.

The solution may simply require building political power sufficient to overcome public opposition to raising energy prices, but it is sobering to note that the Gordian Knot dynamic continues to dominate the political dynamics of climate change after close to twenty years and many hundreds of millions of dollars spent to build sufficient political support to establish significant limits on carbon emissions and two years after public opinion about the urgency of addressing global warming supposedly tipped.

3. Regulation is Expensive: Cost containment proposals raise the question of how much low carbon technologies really cost. If, as many environmental leaders assert, cutting carbon emissions deeply will not cost as much as it now appears, and if low carbon energy technologies will soon be cost competitive with conventional energy sources, then environmental leaders should not object to cost containment provisions in legislation like the CSA. Modest carbon prices such as those allowed by the CSA proposal should be sufficient to drive the transformation to clean energy technologies, and environmental organizations should not be opposing the cost containment provisions and cranking out analysis of the bill suggesting that it will have little impact on carbon emissions.

But of course that is not what is happening. Environmental leaders are attacking the cost control mechanisms and asserting that the legislation would do little to reduce emissions. These actions speak louder than all the rhetoric of recent years about solar, wind, and other alternatives being cost competitive with current energy sources. The reality is that alternative energy technologies, in real deployed terms, remain vastly more expensive than conventional energy sources. This is the reason why environmental organizations oppose cost containment and why even environmental supporters of the legislation see it as an incremental step that will need to be amended (namely removing cost containment) in order to achieve deep reductions in U.S. carbon emissions.  And it’s why we must focus on reducing the price of clean energy through massive and strategic investments in clean energy technology, rather than focus on making dirty energy expensive.

Here’s an idea the right wing loves to talk about: ‘Liberals think breathing is bad for the planet.’ This theme is apparent in Carbon Belch Day, a day of action on June 12th for participants to create as much carbon as possible.

Yup, you heard me. They’re using carbon calculators to help people figure out how to create the biggest impact. Grassfire.org is a medium sized (couple hundred thousand) grassroots conservative community that uses 501c(4) money to represent its constituents values in the media and politics. And this tactic has been pitched as: “belch to stop Al Gore.”

I don’t have a lot of comments. Check it out for yourself. Mostly, its good to know what people like this are up to.

Activists with Asheville Rising Tide broke ground on a new 800 Mw clean energy power plant in Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers front yard earlier this week. The power plant will tap into a previously unexplored energy source known as hot air which has been found in large concentrations at Roger’s residence, 330 Eastover Rd, Charlotte, NC. “The hot air emitting from Jim Rogers mouth has been around for quite some time, but the last couple of years has seen an exponential growth of this untapped energy source as Rogers parades around the country calling for greenhouse gas reductions while building the dirty Cliffside coal plant. This was simply an opportunity we couldn’t pass up,” said Jill Rockingham, chief engineer for the project.

Asheville Rising Tide believes that the construction of the power plant is a win-win situation for the economy and the environment. “We are taking a very dangerous and volatile gas and turning it into a source for clean, carbon free electricity. The great thing about tapping into Roger’s hot air is that it is a truly renewable resource. At this point there appears to be an endless supply,” said, Rockingham. “Why build another dirty, expensive coal plant, when there are millions of BTU’s of clean, cheap, energy seeping out of their CEO’s mouth every day,” said Jake Tillerman, Asheville Rising Tide’s investment relations manager.

The plant has come under fire from some environmental groups over concern of a little studied element known as BS, a byproduct of burning hot air. The hot air at the Roger’s residence has an unusually high concentration of BS and environmentalist are concerned over potential health effects to nearby residents. “We are currently looking into ways in which to capture and sequester the BS but the technology just isn’t available at this moment,” said Rockingham. “We assure the environmental community that this is the last plant we build that does not have the capability of sequestering Roger’s BS. Besides, we painted the plant green. That seems to be all that corporations like Duke have to do to call a project sustainable.”

I am a unknown voice on Its Getting Hot In Here, despite the fact that I read it daily and have devoted the past two years of my life to help direct the Energy Action Coalition. My silence on this blog ends today - and I will use every platform imaginable to tell the story we need to tell and I’m asking all of you and millions more to join me. I’m ready for a POWER SHIFT.

The youth climate movement encompasses some of the most dynamic, talented, and innovative thinkers and activists around…We have pushed the limits on our campuses, in our communities, and positioned ourselves to be a strong voice for the clean and just energy future. We are amazing, but we are not big enough, we are not loud enough, and we are not yet powerful enough - but we COULD BE!

As I read this blog, and I see such critical debates about the Lieberman-Warner Bill, or positions on Coal or Nuclear, or Bio-Fuels - I’m left with the same thought over and over again…We need to change what’s politically possible, we need to make the demand for our clean and just energy future so loud and so clear that we change the game entirely. That movement can so easily start with us young people modeling the power of the grassroots to grow exponentially in this fight.

Every day we as champion need to be bringing more people along for this ride. We will grow large enough and powerful enough to put the special dirty energy interests out of the driver seat and help drive our country towards the clean and just energy future you and I dream about each day.

Let’s taking the opportunity this fall to flex our muscles, make more noise than we ever have and shift the politics in this country for real. We’re calling the campaign POWER VOTE - but really the campaign could be called almost anything, the fundamental idea behind it is that we organize 1,000,000+ people to fight for the brand of change we all feel so passionate about. We are successful is this effort, not if we raise millions of dollars, or hire the best staff, we are successful if tens of thousands of young people across this country step up to organize those around them…This is about good old fashion community building, and having millions and millions of conversations with our friends and families and classmates. This about being highly visible not only in showing up to vote on November 4th, but following candidates of all parties every step on the campaign trail demanding they address climate change, its demonstrating in front of coal plants, its advocating for the creation of clean and renewable energy choices, it helping our nation vision what a green economy with million of green jobs actually looks like.

This is a long rambling email filled with excerpts of the inspirations streaming through my head and my heart and I thought this was a good place to start.

JOIN US! Run POWER VOTE on your campus, unleash the leader that is screaming to come out inside you! Sign up now to take the lead - www.powervote.org - we’ll help train you and support you to train and support thousands more! Make the commitment to engage 1, 5, 10, 1000 new people in our movement.

I’m standing up and making noise…I’m honored to have this community to share my ideas with and anxious to grow it together. Let’s get to work!

The recent spurt of discussion and debate over the Climate Security Act on IGHIH illustrates how seriously individuals and organizations are wrestling with the merits of this bill.  Though our strategies may differ, we are all working to ensure that Congress passes strong legislation to stabilize the climate, protect vulnerable communities and ecosystems, and revitalize our economy.  It’s also great to see that Ranger Rick still inspires so much passion - and in that vein - we’d like to respond to some of the requests for more background on National Wildlife Federation’s support for the Climate Security Act.

For many who thought the movement was just biding its time until the next administration, the upcoming vote on the Climate Security Act has hit like the jolt of a cold shower.  We are now confronted with the possibility of creating a bridge from a land of lawless greenhouse gas emissions to the first ever U.S. legislation to regulate global warming pollution.  This is an opportunity to fill a gaping hole in federal policy.

The trek to this bridge has been long, demanding our utmost determination to fight back well-heeled corporate lobbyists and members of Congress seeking to liquefy coal, prevent higher fuel efficiency standards, and wring oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Now that we are finally here, there is hesitation: “What kind of future will the Climate Security Act lead us to?  Do we cross this bridge to a safer place or we stand at the edge and wait, demanding an Eden on the other side?”

These are the questions National Wildlife Federation and every other group has had to weigh in deciding whether or not to support the bill.  This important debate has yielded two basic options — 1) “Fix or ditch” or 2) “Strenghten and pass”.  After lengthy analysis and dialogue, and faced with the urgency of the climate crisis, NWF is working to strengthen and pass the Climate Security Act.  The Climate Security Act is not perfect, but it’s a really good start.  And even if it doesn’t pass, the debate on the Senate floor will provide important momentum for passing strong climate legislation in 2009.

Here are a few reasons why NWF supports the Climate Security Act:

The Act reduces emissions: Unlike past votes in Congress for measures that would have merely stopped emissions from growing, the Act puts us quickly on the downward trajectory of cutting emissions from large emitters by 2% per year from current levels.  U.S. emissions would be 18% lower in 2020 than they are today.

Recharges America’s economy: The Act will help accelerate America’s transition to a clean energy future.  It funds renewable energy, energy efficiency, advanced vehicles, and mass transit.  By 2050, $190 billion is used to fund green jobs training programs and help affected workers transition to the clean energy workforce.

Assists small businesses and low-income families: Polluter payments are used to help consumers reduce their energy consumption through efficiency upgrades.  More than $1.7 trillion in tax relief and other assistance would be available to small businesses and low-income families.  The Climate Security Act ensures that the costs of clean energy are paid by polluters and do not burden working class Americans.

Protects wildlife and natural resources: The natural resources and systems that we all depend on are already being impacted by global warming.  By 2030, a total of $137 billion is allocated to help vulnerable species and ecosystems survive global warming.

We cannot afford not to act. The longer we delay, the more greenhouse gases build in the atmosphere.  Waiting just two years to pass climate change legislation will mean that we have to reduce emissions 4% per year, rather than 2% per year, to achieve the same cumulative cuts by 2020.

So there is much good riding on this vote — the process officially begins on Monday, June 2nd.  We’d love your support, of course, but whatever your view, perhaps what is most important to take away from this historic vote is the need to continue building a diverse and powerful grassroots base that will turn the tide on global warming.  We won’t get the legislation we want until we really drum up some noise and pressure our members of Congress.  As the generation that will be most affected by global warming, we have a particularly important role to play in creating the future climate we want to inhabit.  From the lobby visits at Powershift to state victories, young people have been instrumental in shaping climate policy and influencing key votes.  Starting this summer, NWF and its partners in the Energy Action Coalition are ramping up our efforts and working with thousands of leaders across the the nation to run PowerVote — a campaign to build the youth climate movement to one million strong, to push candidates to take a stronger stance on climate and to elevate the issue in election races across the country.  We’re all in this together and together we are changing history.