Market Forces

When it comes to developing natural gas – not all impacts are created equal

By / Bio / Published: December 18, 2015

Over the past decade, Pennsylvania has seen a huge increase in natural gas production due to technology advancements. Horizontal drilling combined with hydraulic fracturing, the process of cracking rock open deep underground to release the gas trapped inside, has made Pennsylvania the nation’s second largest natural gas producer. While a thriving natural gas industry is a boon for the state’s economy, well-documented accounts of air and water pollution have been associated with its development.

But do the benefits and risks of natural gas production impact Pennsylvania’s communities equally? In particular, while the broad economic benefits (more jobs, cheaper gas prices, etc…) may accrue to all members in the community, the local environmental impacts may only affect those living in close proximity to a shale gas well.

A recent paper published this month in the American Economic Review examines the impact of increased drilling activity on the property values of homes located in close proximity to a well, and in particular, estimates whether this impact differs for homes dependent on groundwater for drinking compared to those with publicly supplied water. To determine how property values for these different types of homes may be affected, EDF, working with economists from the University of Calgary and Duke University, utilized transaction level data across the state to conduct comparisons in three different dimensions simultaneously:

  • properties very near a well to those further away;
  • properties dependent on groundwater for drinking to those with access to piped water;
  • and properties sold prior to a shale gas well being drilled with those sold after the well was drilled.

Furthermore, to account for the fact that many groundwater-dependent properties may be located further away from urban centers, the data were restricted to homes located near the piped water boundary. This helps eliminate differences in neighborhood characteristics that could affect both the price of the home and its proximity to a shale gas well.

The analysis determined that property values are impacted by proximity to a shale gas well, though results differ depending on the property’s drinking water source. Those with piped water can economically benefit from being very near a well (a value increase of 3 percent for properties within 1.5km of a well), potentially due to royalties and bonuses companies pay to develop on a homeowners land. However, the property values of homes that are dependent on groundwater and located within 1.5km of a shale gas well declined by an average of 13 percent. Importantly, the impact on both types fades with distance; showing that both the benefits (increased royalty payments) and costs (increased groundwater contamination risk) of proximity diminish as one moves further from shale gas development.

This analysis does not draw information from observed air or water contamination. Instead, the data reflects public perception and brings to focus two important observations.

The first is that oil and gas communities are becoming more aware of the environmental risks posed by development. Managing these risks is critically important, as nearly 10 million Americans live within one mile of a hydraulically-fractured oil or gas well.  Smart policies that improve operations and create more opportunities for public transparency are necessary to ensuring communities in close proximity to drilling feel adequately protected from the inherent risks of oil and gas development.

But the study also highlights another key issue – the economic and environmental consequences of oil and gas development (both positive and negative) do not impact communities evenly. There is a clear detriment to some populations – as there often is with any industrial activity.  And rigorous, economic and scientific analyses are important tools for helping policy leaders understand these discrepancies to respond effectively.

Economic research can provide insights into how markets internalize the environmental costs of economic activities, even if these costs do not have a monetary value associated with them (for example, you can’t buy greenhouse gases, but economic research has demonstrated that the social cost of a ton of carbon is around $40). This analysis demonstrates that the threat of drilling activity causing groundwater contamination – which has no market value – still has true costs. Rigorous economic analysis allows us to quantify these costs, leading to more informed policy decisions and better outcomes for both the environment and the local community.

 

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PBS NewsHour Making Sen$e with Paul Solman

By / Bio / Published: December 4, 2015

Q&A accompanying a re-broadcast of a PBS NewsHour segment featuring Climate Shock:

Everyone is talking about 2 degrees Celsius. Why? What happens if the planet warms by 2 degrees Celsius?

Martin L. Weitzman: Two degrees Celsius has turned into an iconic threshold of sorts, a political target, if you will. And for good reason. Many scientists have looked at so-called tipping points with huge potential changes to the climate system: methane being released from the frozen tundra at rapid rates, the Gulfstream shutting down and freezing over Northern Europe, the Amazon rainforest dying off. The short answer is we just don’t — can’t — know with 100 percent certainty when and how these tipping points will, in fact, occur. But there seems to be a lot of evidence that things can go horribly wrong once the planet crosses that 2 degree threshold.

In “Climate Shock,” you write that we need to insure ourselves against climate change. What do you mean by that?

Gernot Wagner: At the end of the day, climate is a risk management problem. It’s the small risk of a huge catastrophe that ultimately ought to drive the final analysis. Averages are bad enough. But those risks — the “tail risks” — are what puts the “shock” into “Climate Shock.”

Martin L. Weitzman: Coming back to your 2 degree question, it’s also important to note that the world has already warmed by around 0.85 degrees since before we started burning coal en masse. So that 2 degree threshold is getting closer and closer. Much too close for comfort.

What do you see happening in Paris right now? What steps are countries taking to combat climate change?

Gernot Wagner: There’s a lot happening — a lot of positive steps being taken. More than 150 countries, including most major emitters, have come to Paris with their plans of action. President Obama, for example, came with overall emissions reductions targets for the U.S. and more concretely, the Clean Power Plan, our nation’s first ever limit on greenhouse gases from the electricity sector. And earlier this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a nation-wide cap on emissions from energy and key industrial sectors commencing in 2017.

It’s equally clear, of course, that we won’t be solving climate change in Paris. The climate negotiations are all about building the right foundation for countries to act and put the right policies in place like the Chinese cap-and-trade system.

How will reigning in greenhouse gases as much President Obama suggests affect our economy? After all, we’re so reliant on fossil fuels.
Gernot Wagner: That’s what makes this problem such a tough one. There are costs. They are real. In some sense, if there weren’t any, we wouldn’t be talking about climate change to begin with. The problem would solve itself. So yes, the Clean Power Plan overall isn’t a free lunch. But the benefits of acting vastly outweigh the costs. That’s what’s important to keep in mind here. There are trade-offs, as there always are in life. But when the benefits of action vastly outweigh the costs, the answer is simple: act. And that’s precisely what Obama is doing here.

And what steps should the countries in Paris this week take to combat climate change?

Martin L. Weitzman: If it were entirely up to me, I would have a very simple solution: negotiate one uniform price on carbon dioxide applicable to everyone. That doesn’t mean some imaginary world government would be in charge — not at all. Every country — every government — can implement their own policy, keep the revenue and decrease taxes elsewhere. But the price is universal across the world.

Gernot Wagner: Pricing carbon, of course, is indeed the answer. It’s the obvious one or at least it should be. Now, the negotiations themselves, of course, are messy, and there currently is no negotiation around a uniform, globally applicable carbon price. Instead, what’s happening is many large countries — the U.S., the EU, and chief among them China — are putting forward internal policies that will put a price on carbon and other greenhouse gases. That’s also where Paris comes in: putting a framework on all these country actions.

Are you hopeful?

Gernot Wagner: I am. The climate problem is, in fact, a lot worse than many people realize. The climate shock is real. But there are solutions. They work. They are getting better and cheaper by the day. And we are largely moving in the right direction.

Martin L. Weitzman: Climate change is an extremely difficult problem to solve, certainly among the most difficult I have seen in my lifetime. But I’m guardedly optimistic, yes.

Gernot Wagner: In the end, it’ll take Washington, Wall Street and Silicon Valley to make this right by pricing carbon, deploying clean technologies at scale and investing in research and development that will lead to new, even cleaner technologies we can’t yet even imagine. A lot is happening on all these fronts. A lot more, of course, needs to be done.

Originally published on the PBS NewsHour Making Sen$e blog, on December 3rd, 2015.

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California Market at Three: All Grown Up and Thriving

By / Published: November 24, 2015

This post was co-authored by Jonathan Camuzeaux and Derek Walker.

2960384757_155b4e2efa_zAs we pointed out in August, no news is good news when it comes to California’s cap-and-trade quarterly allowance auctions, which have been running effectively and without hiccups since November 2012. That’s right, last Tuesday’s auction marks the three-year anniversary of the program’s first auction, and the fifth time that California and the Canadian province of Quebec have conducted a joint auction. Time flies by when you settle into a routine, and another set of consistent, stable results indicates once again that California has a strong, well-functioning cap-and-trade program.

Steady results equal a healthy carbon market

Over 75 million current vintage allowances – which covered entities can use for compliance as early as this year – were offered at last Tuesday’s auction, and 100% of these allowances were purchased at a price of $12.73. This price, known as the settlement price, is 63 cents above the floor price set by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for this auction, and is in line with previous auctions where allowances have cleared at prices slightly above the floor. In the advanced auction for 2018 vintage allowances – which can only be used starting in 2018 – over 10 million allowances were offered and 100% of these were purchased at a price of $12.65. Read More »

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From climate finance to finance

By / Bio / Published: November 19, 2015

IETA 2015 Making WavesClimate finance is lots of things to lots of people. For some, it’s the $100 billion “Copenhagen commitment”. For others, it’s Citi’s latest sustainable finance pledge of $100 billion. It’s Bill Gates’s $1 billion clean energy investment. It’s public and private monies; mitigation and adaptation; loans, bonds, equity stakes, high-risk ventures, Kyoto-style allowances, offset credits, and private and public grants. It’s all of the above. When it comes to carbon markets, climate finance is often about what happens with allowance revenue. That’s important. But the primary goal is, or ought to be, appropriately pricing the climate externality.

It’s about nudging massive private investment flows from the current high-carbon, low-efficiency path toward a low-carbon, high-efficiency one. That, in turn, means focusing on the incremental dollars necessary to sway private investments. In the end, it’s all about the margin.

Righting the wrong incentives

The incentives facing many private actors today are clearly misleading. Benefits, for the most part, are fully privatised, while many costs are socialised. That goes in particular for environmental and climate costs. The ‘hidden’ costs of energy investments are large and negative. While largely invisible to those doing the polluting, these costs are all too visible to society as a whole: in form of costs to health, ecosystems, and the economy. In the United States, for example, every additional tonne of coal, every barrel of oil, causes more in external damages than it adds value to GDP. That calculation does not even consider the large carbon externality.

There, one of the more important metrics is the so-called ‘social cost of carbon’. The US government’s central estimate is $40 per tonne of CO2 released today. The true number is likely a lot higher, especially when considering the many ‘known unknowns’ not quantified (and sometimes not quantifiable). Regardless of the precise amount, it’s the cost to society — to the economy, health, ecosystems, the whole lot — of each tonne of CO2 released today over its lifetime.

The social cost itself is inherently a marginal concept. While all of us seven billion pay a fraction of a penny of the social cost for each of the billions of tonnes emitted today, few of those doing the actual polluting pay themselves. A price on carbon, through cap and trade or a carbon tax, ensures that anyone covered by the market forces faces the right incentives. Polluters face a direct cost of pollution and, thus, are driven to pollute less. The law of demand at work.

Incentives at work

One of the guiding principles of economics is that people are motivated by incentives. That’s not too surprising. It would be surprising if people were not motivated by what is designed to motivate them. When faced with a price on carbon, emissions go down, and investments change course.

At the level of individual businesses, solid evidence points to how existing carbon prices have incentivised investment in clean technology, research and development.

In places with no external carbon price, investments can be affected by internal carbon pricing. The Carbon Disclosure Project counts over 400 companies with an internal, ‘shadow’ carbon price, either independently or in reaction to an external market price. That price, in turn, figures into day-to-day decisions from where to site a new facility to how to source energy.

In 1999, the World Bank conducted a study to determine the impact of a shadow price for carbon on the Bank’s investments. At an internal price of $40, the highest evaluated price, almost half of the analysed investments would have had a negative net present value, and, thus, would likely not have been made. For the rest, profitability would have been significantly reduced.

Individual investments, if organised at a large enough scale, make the difference. Take the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a market-based mechanism that channels funding to emission reduction projects in developing countries. Countries and investors can invest in CDM projects as a way of meeting domestic reduction goals, or complying with domestic carbon prices. Through the CDM, hundreds of billions of private sector dollars have gone towards funding GHG mitigation.

With a government-imposed carbon price, reflecting the true cost of carbon to society, investment portfolios would change. Drastically. We’ve seen it in practice, but the current scale is not large enough to sway the majority of investments that matter. Today, in fact, much of firms’ investments towards mitigating climate change are made voluntarily.

From Climate Finance to Finance

Climate finance often is ‘concessional’ finance. That might be outright development aid. It also includes voluntary commitments like Citi’s $100 billion. Citi, of course, is not alone. Goldman Sachs committed $40 billion in 2012, Bank of America $50 billion in 2013, all made over 10 years. Meanwhile, these three banks alone underwrite hundreds of billions of loans every year. Total global Foreign Direct Investment is in the trillions.

These massive financial flows won’t be redirected overnight. But they do follow incentives. In fact, that’s all they follow.

Enter carbon markets. They ensure that anyone covered by the market faces the right incentives. The prevailing allowance price is one good proxy of the level of ambition of any particular market. It’s also what helps nudge investments into the right direction. In econ-speak, it’s all about internalising externalities. In English, it’s about paying your fair share and no longer socialising costs.

None of that renders what’s traditionally called ‘climate finance’ unnecessary. There are still plenty of uses for additional monies. In particular, carbon markets are all about mitigation. Adaptation might dovetail nicely on some forms of mitigation, but it’s not the primary goal. That’s where foreign aid as well as government and private grants come in. If anything, those amounts need to be scaled up, too.

But the true scaling happens on the investment front. That’s no longer “climate finance.” It’s simply “finance.” Re-channelling only 0.1% of total wealth under active management globally amounts to around a $100 billion shift. Efforts, of course, must not stop there. It’s about channelling the full $100 trillion into the right direction.

Gernot Wagner is lead senior economist at the Environmental Defense Fund, and co-author, with Harvard’s Martin L. Weitzman, of Climate Shock (Princeton University Press, 2015).

This article was first published in IETA’s Greenhouse Gas Market 2015 report “Making Waves“. Download the full text in PDF form.

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Cap and Trade under AB 32 – Now it’s an “Official Success”

By / Published: November 5, 2015

(This blog post was co-authored with Tim O’Connor and originally posted on California Dream 2.0.)

iStock_000004415617SmallMany people have been following the AB 32 cap-and-trade program since it kicked off on January 1, 2013. After all, it’s the most comprehensive carbon market in the world; it has created billions in investments for pollution reduction in California communities and garnered intense international attention. Now, based on data showing the program has cut climate pollution during its first compliance period, the chair of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has dubbed it “officially a success.”

Under California’s Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting program, the largest polluters in the state across all sectors must report their emissions every year. This data is then collected and counted by CARB. Yesterday, the agency released the final tally of the 2014 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions covered by cap-and-trade, and with data, we get the final word on what happened during the program’s first compliance period (for years 2013 and 2014).

Covered emissions went down…            

According to CARB’s report, although GHGs in 2014 experienced a slight increase compared to the year before, total climate pollution across the compliance period (2013 and 2014) decreased by over three percent to approximately 146 million metric tons (MMt) of carbon dioxide-equivalent. This means California’s emissions were nine percent under its 2014 cap of 159.7 MMt, putting the state well on its way to achieve its short-term emissions reduction target: bringing emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020. It also shows how cap-and-trade is best evaluated across compliance periods: since businesses have the incentive to cut pollution as quickly and deeply as possible, reductions in one year of the program may outpace those in another year.

… While California’s economy continued to prosper

Total emissions reported under the Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting program, including those not covered under cap and trade, also decreased between 2012 and 2014, by about 1.3 percent. Meanwhile, the state’s gross domestic product (GDP) increased by almost three percent in 2014, surpassing the two percent GDP growth California’s economy underwent the year before. So while emissions were declining under AB32, the state’s economy grew, proving once again that economic output and emissions don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

California also experienced remarkable job growth during the same period. In 2013, California saw total employment increase by 2.1 percent, beating the national average. In 2014, job growth in the state reached an impressive 3.2 percent. As a comparison, the rest of the United States experienced only an average 2.2 percent growth in jobs that year.

Companies are complying with cap and trade

Under California’s cap-and-trade program, regulated polluters are also required to surrender some of their emissions allowances every year. Yesterday, they did just that, turning in allowances needed to cover the remainder of 2013 emissions and all of 2014 emissions. Total allowances for the first compliance period represent approximately 290 MMt of carbon dioxide-equivalent.

According to data released by the agency, over 99 percent of the required allowances were surrendered in the first compliance period, barely short of a perfect score, proving companies are prepared to incorporate cap-and-trade obligations in their everyday business practices.

Looking ahead

Starting on January 1 of this year, transportation sector emissions are also regulated under California’s cap-and-trade program. This is another important step forward: emissions from transportation represent almost 40 percent of the state’s GHG emissions. It is also a crucial building block, putting California on the right track to achieve its ambitious medium and long-term targets – with the ultimate goal of reducing emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Today’s results confirm that the cap-and-trade program’s first compliance period was a success and that California has a strong foundation to build upon as it takes the next critical steps towards its climate change goals.

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Biking and Renewables

By / Bio / Published: October 6, 2015
Illustration by Kelsey King/Ensia

Illustration by Kelsey King/Ensia

There’s nothing quite like biking down clogged city streets, weaving in and out of traffic. For short distances, it’s faster than driving. It’s liberating. It’s fun.

It also makes it painfully clear that most roads aren’t made for bikes. Make one mistake, and you might end up dead. If you do everything right and the 4,000-pounder next to you makes a mistake, you still might end up dead. Few regular urban cyclists remain entirely unharmed throughout the years: A broken bone (“cut off by a van”), a scraped shin (“car door”), or perhaps simply drenched on an otherwise dry road (“I avoided the mud puddle; the car didn’t”).

Blame it on my day job, but as I was cut off by yet another driver fixated on his phone while cycling to work, I got to thinking that this is how wind and solar electrons must feel as they try to navigate the electric grid. There, too, the infrastructure and rules were designed for the conventional, fossil fuel-based generators, not their smaller, greener counterparts.

We need to get off gasoline-powered vehicles, the same way we need to get off fossil-powered electricity. Biking alone, of course, can’t eliminate fossil fuel-based transportation. It’s a niche alternative that chiefly works in densely populated cities filled with environmentally concerned citizens. What works in Berkeley, Boulder, Brooklyn and Boston won’t work everywhere. Neither can trains, by the way, another favorite of environmentalists. Most U.S. cities have a lot of catching up to do with their European counterparts, but, if anything, it will be electric vehicles that will truly help us make this transition.

Similarly, wind and solar can’t singlehandedly eliminate fossil fuel-based electrical generation. They have great potential, much more so than biking ever will. But there, too, are limitations — chiefly the (eventual) need for storage to eliminate all fossil fuel-based generation: coal, petroleum and natural gas.

Meanwhile, there are great benefits to pushing both green technologies. Biking helps get previously sedentary drivers to move, which, in turn, extends their lives and decreases societal health care costs, assuming injuries can be avoided by appropriate bike infrastructure. Every dollar invested in that infrastructure can pay for itself many times over.

Something similar holds for subsidizing infrastructure for renewables (and, for that matter, some energy efficiency measures). The reduction in the large and risky global warming externality typically offsets the costs of subsidies and other sensible policy interventions. Many of the right policies are indeed being put in place.

Still, some traditional utilities continue to fight the integration of rooftop solar and other renewables, the way New York City did with bikes in 1987 when it tried to ban them altogether from midtown Manhattan. Today, New York is decidedly friendlier to cyclists, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg adding over 300 miles of bike lanes to city streets, and a popular, still-expanding bike share program. Renewables, for their part, are increasingly welcomed onto the grid, with increased open access and grid management tools aimed at integrating intermittent renewable energy sources. Much more needs to be done.

Getting the Job Done

There’s one more parallel that might well dwarf all else: Biking for biking’s sake is fun on a sunny Sunday afternoon. On a Monday morning, when it’s about getting to a meeting on time and looking professional, transport choice comes down to getting there reliably, quickly, cheaply and without sweat stains.

Electricity is no different. Solar panels may be an interesting, even fun, choice for some. The feeling of energy independence and doing good is a bonus. But many times, it doesn’t matter where electrons come from, just that they do — reliably, cheaply and cleanly.

The ideal policy solution for energy is as clear as it is seemingly difficult to implement: Pay the full, appropriate price for electricity at the right time and place, including currently unpriced environmental costs. Once every electron comes with the appropriate price tag, the solar panel on your roof — or the solar farm down the road — may well carry the day. Or it might not. That’s OK, too. Having the right energy mix matters more than any one technology. The energy system is a system, after all.

Biking, too, is but one form of getting around. Appropriate gas taxes, congestion charges and parking fees help incorporate the full costs of gasoline-powered engines and encourage more alternative modes of transport — from electric vehicles to public transport and bikes. Meanwhile, outright subsidizing those alternative modes is surely the right step. Pushing those alternatives at scale is as sensible as pushing renewables, especially when it also means moving closer to the ideal pricing policies in the first place.

But pushing biking or any one form of alternative transport is no end goal in itself. At the end of the day, it’s about getting from A to B. That means — as it does for energy — getting the entire system right.View Ensia homepage

Published on Ensia.com on October 1st, 2015.

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