THE CO 2 APPROACH MUST:
Limit economic risk
Limit large
structural or lifestyle
changes
Not pick winners
Be market-based
Show a commitment
Be gradual
Promote new
technology
Lead to
commitments from
other countries
4 GREAT CAP AND TRADE CASE STUDIES




Acid Rain, CAA Amendments of 1990
RECLAIM 1994
RGGI, Northeast
European Trading System
LOW SULPHUR X SCRUBBERS = MORE COAL
REGIONAL CLEAN AIR INCENTIVES MARKET
(RECLAIM) 1994
 Reduce NOX and SO2 emissions by 70% by 2003 in LA area
 trading allow oil refineries to reach their emissions reduction
targets by taking old, high-polluting automobiles and trucks
of f the road
 initial allocations were roughly 40 -60 percent above actual
emissions during the first two years (1994 -1995).
CA ELECTRICIT Y CRISIS 2001
NOx permit prices
 $1,000 to $4,000 per
ton 1994 -1999,
 $45,000 per ton in
2000, some individual
trades over $100,000
per ton
State exempts
electric utilities from
RECLAIM
Cap.... not so hard
PERMIT GLUT X RECESSION
antirecessionary
impulse?
ETS
 International Energy Agency - $65 per ton before power plants
would switch from coal to natural gas ($2-3 now)




renewable energy mandate
an energy-efficiency mandate
recession
excess permits
 Reducing # of permits fails x 27 countries
REGIONAL GREENHOUSE GAS INITIATIVE
(RGGI)
 Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont
 Multistate cap
 all electric generators must hold allowances equal to their
CO 2 emissions over a three -year control period
 Proceeds from CO2 sales  energy ef ficiency and renewables
 Emission and allowance tracking system
10 STATES
$700 MILLION INVESTMENT
 $2 billion in lifetime energy bill savings
Connecticut Clean Energy Finance
Investment Authority (CEFIA), the town of
Cromwell has installed over 300 kilowatts
(kW) of photovoltaic (PV) solar capacity at its
elementary and middle schools — a 181 kW
system at Edna C. Stevens Elementary
School and a 166 kW system at Cromwell
Middle School.
Delaware Builds State's First Utility-Scale
Solar PV Facility with RGGI
RGGI Success Stories
http://www.rggi.org/rggi_benefits/successstories
RECESSION X NATURAL GAS = 45% BELOW
CAP
CARBON = $1.923 TON
IMPACT OF NEW CAP...
.06% reduction in US power
plant emissions
CAP AND TRADES ARE EXPANDING
CAP AND TRADE OBSERVATIONS





Cap levels are too high
Market Design Flaws Can Cripple Environmental Programs
Price fluctuations are a threat - need cost containment
Market certainty/rule of law
frequent auctions = liquidity, improved price discovery
 Market Design Flaws Can Cripple Environmental Programs
 Cap levels are too high
 Price fluctuations are a threat- need cost containment
 Market certainty/rule of law
 frequent auctions = liquidity, improved price discovery
CONTROL ON PRICE NOT QUANTIT Y
“Specifically, a carbon tax equal to the
damage per ton of CO2 will lead to exactly the
right balance between the cost of reducing
emissions and the resulting benefits of less
global warming.” William Pizer
“Corrective taxes are superior to direct
regulation of harmful externalities when the
state's information about control costs is
incomplete."
 2013, 33 countries and 18 sub -national jurisdictions would
have a carbon price in place
 82% approval, $7 a ton
WHAT IS THE BEHAVIORAL IMPACT
ON FIRMS AND CONSUMERS?
AEI, Climate Change: Caps vs. Taxes, 2007
WHY THE CHANGS?
 Vancouver versus Australia
IMPACT OF CARBON TAX ON
EMISSIONS AND REVENUE
REDUCTION IN TAXES
DOUBLE DIVIDEND
 Mitigate economic costs of tax
 Lower capital/corporate taxes
 Lower payroll taxes, offset regressive effects
 Invest in energy efficiency
 Provide political side payments
PREDICTABILIT Y
 No fluctuation in prices
 good- consistent price signal
 bad- doesn’t respond to economic changes
SELLING INDULGENCES
EARTH BLOG
no one has the ‘right’ to emit greenhouse
gases in reality – we share the biosphere with
all other living organisms, and no organism
except for humans expects any rights,
especially not to put agents of global warming
into the air. Non-human organisms just live,
and die. However, at least with a mechanism
like C&C the amount of carbon dioxide,
methane, nitrous oxide and so on, that is
emitted, is not dictated by the amount of
money you have in the bank, or how many
tanks or missiles you have.
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS, PART III
 “A discourse is a shared way of apprehending the world.
Embedded in language, it enables those who subscribe to it to
interpret bits of information and put them together into
coherent stories or accounts. Each discourse rests on
assumptions, judgments, and contentions that provide the
basic terms for analysis, debates, agreements, and
disagreements” John Dryzek
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE DISCOURSE
 Poor, people of color, and indigenous peoples are
disproportionately at risk from environmental hazards
 Emphasis on equity, justice, and rights
 Equity in exposure to risks/hazards
 Recognition of unique cultural positions and participation in
environmental policy;
 questions of the role of scientific expertise
 Political not academic, grassroots, global
 “they are poisoning us”
 Expansive
 initial issues of toxins and dumps, but also to analyses of
transportation, of land use and smart growth policy, water quality and
distribution, energy development and jobs, brownfields refurbishment,
food justice,
Bob Bullard, Houston Landfill Study, Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management, 1979
WARREN COUNT Y,
1982
Explosion of Grassroots EJ Groups
 Founded to oppose a $595m waste -burning incinerator in LA
 CCSCLA - first African- American environmental organization
in Southern California http://ccscla.org/
 Study on prevalence of toxic releases, shift to pollution
prevention
 “continues to work on environmental issues such as
recycling, cleanliness of our alleys and streets, childhood
lead poisoning prevention, storm drain protection, used
motor oil recycling, teen worker rights and any other issues
which are adversely af fecting our quality of life. ”
BOB BULLARD
 “Small grassroots groups operate from a bottom up model.
They don't have boards of directors and large budgets and
large staf fs but they do operate with the idea that everyone
has a role and we are all equal in this together. The
environmental justice groups are more egalitarian, most of
them are led by women, and its more democratic. Not to say
its perfect but it does bring out the idea that power rests in
all of us and when we operate as a collective, that's when we
are most powerful and we move forward as a unit, as a body
and not necessarily with a hierarchy.”
 Strategies
 community research, education
 protest/media
 direct action
 Challenges
 limited resources for grassroots
 gaining access/legitimacy from decision makers
SOME GRASSROOTS LEADERS IN EJ
MOVEMENT
 People for Community Recovery
(Toxic Doughnut) Chicago, 1979
Hazel Johnson
 Concerned Citizens of Norco
(Cancer Alley) Louisiana, 1989
Margie Eugene-Richard
 Little Village EJ Organization
(power plants) Chicago, 1998
Kim Wasserman
NATIONAL PEOPLE OF COLOR
ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERSHIP SUMMIT 1991
 Environmental justice embraces the principle that all people
and communities are entitled to equal protection of our
environmental laws. It means fair treatment, and it means all
people — regardless of race, color or national origin — are
involved when it comes to implementing and enforcing
environmental laws, regulations and policies.

Environment is everything: where we live, work, play, go to
school, as well as the physical and natural world. And so we
can't separate the physical environment from the cultural
environment. We have to talk about making sure that justice
is integrated throughout all of the stuf f that we do .
 If you have 900 activists, “You have to have demonstration
and march.”
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE EXECUTIVE ORDER
12898
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE EXECUTIVE ORDER
12898
 Creation of an Interagency Working Group on Environmental
Justice
 guidance to Federal agencies on criteria for identifying
disproportionately high and adverse human health or
environmental ef fects on minority populations and low income populations;
 each Federal agency, whenever practicable and appropriate,
shall collect, maintain, and analyze information assessing and
comparing environmental and human health risks borne by
populations identified by race, national origin, or income.
EJ MOVEMENT TODAY
 400 groups in 1994 to more than 3,000 groups and a dozen
networks in 2013.
 50 states have a environmental justice law, executive order,
or policy
 dozens of EJ university centers, 22 legal clinics
 EJ as international movement - Taiwan, Brazil, South Africa etc
 Although.... $10 billion spent between 2000 -09, 11% goes to
environmental social justice organizatins
DO PEOPLE OF COLOR
FACE GREATER EXPOSURE
TO ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS
WHICH RESULT IN HIGHER
RATES OF DISEASE AND
DEATH AMONG
MINORITIES?
Is it true?
does it matter?
no
MEASURING EJ 1. LOCATION
 Location of polluting facilities and comparison with
demographics of neighboring community
 Bullard, demographics of dumps
GAO, SITING OF HW FACILITIES
SITING OF ENVM BAD X DEMOGRAPHICS
MEASURING EJ, TAKE 2- EXPOSURE
 Exposure to Environmental Pollutants
 Toxic Release Inventory data by zip code 1987 -91
 less than 5%, 10,122 lbs of toxic pollutants
 25% or more 24,314 lbs toxic pollutants
EPA 2007 ABANDON URANIUM MINES AND
THE NAVAJO NATION: ATLAS WITH
GEOSPATIAL DATA
 Navajo grassroots organization The Forgotten People
http://appsfortheenvironment.challengepost.com/submissions/4611-environmental-justiceparticipatory-mapping
MEASURING EJ, TAKE 3 HEALTH EFFECTS
EJ LOGIC
 Siting Exposure Worse Health Outcomes
CAUSES OF ENVM. INEQUIT Y OR
YOU SITE THE HIGH TEMP HW
INCINERATOR GAME





Scientific Rationality
Market Rationality
Neighborhood transition
Political Power
Intentional Discrimination
ENVIRONMENTAL GOODS
 Access to Parks in Los Angeles (acres/1000 people) ( Univ of
Southern California 2002)
 predominantly white neighborhoods 17 acres park/1000 people
 predominantly people of color neighborhoods 1 -2 acres park/1000
people
 EJ or not?
RICHMOND, CA HEALTH SURVEY
RICHMOND, CA
RICHMOND, CA
 36% of Richmond residents are African - American and 27% are
Latino, as
 compared to 9% and 18%, respectively, for the greater county .
 50% of homes tested have indoor air levels of particulate
matter above California’s ambient air quality standard
 Richmond Health Survey Report
 Communities for a Better Environment
 June 2009
CA AVERAGE 14.8%
RICHMOND HEALTH STUDY
 Bullard
 “multiple, cumulative, and synergistic risks”
 Foreman
 environmental justice activist driven by political empowerment,
social justice, improved public health that are difficult to improve
through environmental policy alone
 efforts to address environmental issues, divert attention from more
serious threats to health and well being of minority communities
BULLARD
 the principle of the "right" of all individuals to be protected
from environmental degradation .
 adopts a public health model of prevention (elimination of the
threat before harm occurs) as the preferred strategy.
 Shift the burden of proof to polluting entities
 Obviate proof of intent, only proof of disparate outcomes
 Emphasis on addressing inequities, not on science ri
 reliance solely on objective science for environmental decision
making in a world shaped largely by power politics and spcial intersts
often masks instutional racism.
CHRIS FOREMAN
 evidence supporting inequities in distribution of
environmental risks is inconclusive
 national political climate is unreceptive to new environmental
protection
 environmental justice activist driven by political
empowerment, social justice, improved public health that are
dif ficult to improve through environmental policy alone
 ef forts to address environmental issues, divert attention from
more serious threats to health and well being of minority
communities
 EJ has “a chronic inability to define and pursue a coherent
policy agenda”
SENATOR AL GORE
 No siting of industrial facilities in high pollution areas
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ATLAS
 https://ejatlas.org
 grassroots
 correlation logic
2 BIG QUESTIONS FOR PUBLIC POLICY
 How to define discrimination
 outcomes or intent
 How to define equity in distribution of polluting facilities
 rich can pay poor for increased risk
 geographic equity
 equity between generations
POLITICALLY REALISTIC?
STATE POLICIES
 California Environmental Justice Action Plan (2004) •
Consider cumulative impacts, use precautionary principle in
siting facilities
 New York Energy Plan (2009) • Consider needs of vulnerable
communities/role of EJ in energy decisions
 Rhode Island Policy for Remediation of Contaminated Sites
(2009) Promote ef fective collaboration with communities •
Identify communities of concern relative to EJ
 Maryland Commission on Environmental Justice and
Sustainable Communities (2001) Assess state policy for
dif ferential impacts on communities
 Massachusetts Environmental Justice Policy (2002) • Improve
environmental quality & equity in air, energy, land, greening
of urban areas
 Distributive Justice • Facility siting • Energy and climate
change policy • Environmental health (especially for children)
• Transportation • Land use •
 Procedural Justice • Outreach for participation by
EJ/vulnerable communities in public decision making •
Materials/proceedings provided in relevant languages for
af fected communities