TECHNOFIX, Chapter 3 Translation of report Corporatewatch.org on techno-fixes
by The Lucinda . original PDF in English: download / available online .
See above: CHAPTER 1: THE TECHNO-FIXING CHAPTER 2: Addressing change climate by techno-fixing: the problems and alternatives. CHAPTER 3: The perspective of dominant firms on climate change.
"To achieve a green one has to live green. " Newsweek, March 2007.
The question of the technological approach to the climate problem can not be separated from the political approach subservient to the laws of markets and businesses. The government response to climate change has been to establish goals (inadequate) reduction of emissions that could attract industry. Because the implementation of solutions has been left in the hands of the market, in charge of analyzing the response of firms to climate change that is to evaluate the effectiveness of these technological solutions.
From denial to ownership, business and climate change.
Who today said he did not feel concerned by climate change? This strange situation has emerged when the environmental issue has been publicized by companies. 50 years earlier, it was shocking, especially for all those executives who now try to convince the world that they care about the planet.
The strategy of the business community on climate change has had a major turnaround in the late 90s. An influential group of companies has included the denial of climate change would not work and needed strategies more subtle and complex to take advantage of the climate threat.
The propaganda campaign of denial climate was the foundation created by the tobacco industry about the link between cancer and smoking. The tobacco industry has established of "front groups" to examine a range of issues, including the issue of cancer and climate change they have described as "scientifically bogus"
The growing threat posed action on climate change has led to the creation by the petroleum and automotive
the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) to cast doubt on the relevance of climate science and counteracting the political efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But as the campaign denial of the tobacco industry cover, because of lawsuits against big tobacco,
small streams of evidence about climate change have undermined the position skeptical climatologists, large companies have begun to change tactics.
It took a better approach than the denial to control the issue and ensure that politicians try to resolve it with means who arrange the logic of the market. In 1997 the major companies have begun to separate from the GCC, by making major public statements, so back on the jacket lapel green
21. The oil companies become 'energy industries 'And highlight their investments in solar energy or wind. It has been announced by many NGOs as a major step forward.
Denial climate is at the bottom of oblivion with the last major defendant the United States. However, it was an effective strategy, if one accepts the fact that the aim of denial did not win a debate, but to believe that a debate exists, and thus to postpone the inevitable that governments are taking seriously the existence of climate change. By being more positive than the "demon of denial Climate manufacturers have successfully rebranded their coup, which is to impose capitalism as a solution to the problem. The dual strategy of denial and false solutions to very well. The third strategy is to save time diversion, especially with new technologies. Companies are investing in technology to make a stylistic exercise in public relations, without really seriously address the problem. Suffice to say that they buy time to allow the most destructive industries such as oil, automobile, coal, aviation, to continue to make profits while people expect the arrival of new alternative technologies. Indeed, companies are saying, "Do not worry about climate change, we will manage. There's nothing ready yet but we'll get there. "That was the message heard by all the reports commissioned by the companies, BAT at General Electric. Technologies are only spins agitated by companies and governments. The issue of independence of information sources is crucial.
addition to the staging of public debate, the influence of companies on governments gave them immense power over the measures that are implemented to climate change. With the support of the business elite, Al Gore led the U.S. team in negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol has made a massive taking of interest for companies introducing the commodification of emissions, which gives polluters a license to continue polluting (see below
22.)
What do the big companies?
profit.
Large companies are legally obliged to put profit above all other considerations
23. What that seems positive action on their part, it is always in the direction of their interests. Unilever, the giant food and "welfare" that must cope with higher prices, especially palm oil due to demand for biofuels, commissioned and published a report alerting environmental hazards of these
24. Their own prime interest then, and it shows especially in their investing. BP invests in solar power but always getting down to the construction of new pipelines. Worse, BP is also investing in the bitumen and oil shale, which is far more harmful than oil.
Directors of companies have the right to act according to their future profits, which could include a crisis-avoidance strategy for the society in which they work. But this would require collaboration between many companies, without this collaboration, management of emissions reductions would affect profits in the short term and would fall in the stock market. Such collaboration, if not for the immediate interests (such as fight against restrictive legislation) has never existed. Worse, attempt to settle the issue of climate change will spell the death knell for industries that are not ready to work.
Although collaborations were established, it would be for the long term interests of big business, not those of society.
mechanisms based on the markets.
Large companies want to avoid regulations that would impact on their profits. The market-based mechanisms, for which companies receive financial subsidies or tax cuts to encourage them to reduce their emissions are more acceptable if their alternative is regulation. They follow the logic of large companies that will make a gesture in favor of the company unless they receive a reward for them.
Predictability
After profit, big companies want a predictable environment for their businesses. In terms of climate policy, what are the taxes on pollution, what are the subsidies on energy saving, and what public investments in new technologies would benefit them, as are government policies that could encourage or halt the development of such or such facilities as coal power plants, airports and wind farms. Businesses can adapt to a more restrictive environment (although they put pressure to avoid it) only if it proves reliable over the long term.
competitive advantages
By investing early in new technologies and highlighting mechanisms based on the market, the companies hope to gain an advantage over their competitors and thus be more competitive. This is a good harvest impact public relations and be perceived as being at the forefront.
Targeting lifestyle.
companies and governments will do well with a vision of climate change is more a change in consumer behavior as the changing economic structures. This drags out the responsibility of the sphere of producers and legislators while concealing the role of government in representing the rights of the public interest and the propensity of firms to encourage compulsive use. Consumption becomes the solution not the problem.
Global scale, mass production and ongoing solutions.
Some products and markets accommodate themselves better than others with the dominance of large companies due to economies of scale, profit margins, the labor-capital ratio, opportunities for standardization (or lack of opportunities) and many many other factors. Thus, for example, the oil trade is dominated by huge transnational corporations, so that the hair is very small structures.
In the growing market for technologies to reduce emissions, we can see how technology centralization and large scale (nuclear energy, dams, tidal power plant, coal plant with carbon capture and storage) or related technologies to mass production by creating continuous markets by selling a consumable product instantaneously (agro fuel, hydrogen), are on the front of the media scene and investment, while the technology on a smaller scale facilities that require more individual and are better able to improve a final product which does needing only a single investment (hydroelectricity currents of water, biogas production on the scale of a farm, solar thermal) are relatively neglected, despite the fact that they are much more effective in reducing emissions from the energy .. The conventional renewable energy technologies like wind turbines and solar panels are located halfway between these two axioms. Large companies focus on profit there is to learn and avoid market or smaller firms may be advantaged.
| The carbon market: how it works and what are its effects on new technologies. |
Why the carbon market is important for this report.
The carbon market is not a technology, it is a mechanism promoted by governments and businesses to encourage emission reductions. Now is the dominant mechanism in attempts to reductions. It has as such an important influence on selected technologies and areas of innovation.
The carbon market shows very well how the involvement of large companies in negotiating treaties on climate change has created a consensus which suits them but which is inefficient and does as arranging the ideology of market economy.
What is carbon trading?
is an attempt to tackle greenhouse emissions by converting the carbon cycle of the planet into a sum of exchangeable securities in a market. A limit (or valve) is placed on the number of greenhouse gases may be emitted, and is found divided by the number of polluting enterprises. The carbon market is the key mechanism introduced to the Kyoto Protocol by which industrialized countries (listed in Annex 1 of the Treaty) to seek their reduction plans caller. In Europe the emissions market is via the Community System of Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
This type of hybrid system allows polluters who have issued more than their quotas:
1. Buy pollution rights to polluters that have emitted less than their quota (Cap and trade).
2. Buy credits from poorer countries not included in the list in Annex 1. These credits are created according to the projects "carbon saving" (such as improving plant efficiency, tree planting or renewable energy projects), so-called reference and credit ("Baseline and credit ").
The Kyoto Protocol has two of these systems' reference-and-credit ": the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for countries outside Annex 1 (the Souths) and Joint Implementation (JI) for those who are marginalized from the Annex 1 countries of Eastern Europe .
The cost of emission permits, the price of carbon is traded by the market. At the time of writing this report, the price in Europe is around € 22-24 per tonne of carbon dioxide. In theory this should result in making the cost of emission reduction the lightest possible.
The way the quotas were divided roughly based on the number of emitters. The countries have national quotas negotiated as part of the Kyoto process and spent part of their quotas for heavy industry and energy sectors exempt from charges. UK 46% of the national quota is distributed over about 1000 plants representing an asset of 4milliards euros.
The main actors.
countries of Annex 1 Kyoto : Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom.
countries selling credits CDM: China, Brazil, Korea, India (86% of total credits)
The scholarship programs : European Climate Exchange (ECX), Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), Ecosecurities, Point Carbon, Climex, SENDECO2
Supervisors appropriations AP CDM: Det Norske Veritas , TÜV Süddeutschland, SGS Societe Generale de Surveillance , Japan Quality Assurance
Pressure groups (lobby) : Environmental Markets Association, International Emissions Trading Association, International Petroleum Indus-try Environmental Conservation Association, Transatlantic Business Dialogue,
companies receiving the most credit subsidized by the government in the United Kingdom : Corus, E. ON, RWE, EDF, Keadby Generation (owners of Fiddlers Ferry power stations and Other), Drax, Scottish Power, Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, Centrica, British Energy, Blue Circle (Lafarge Cement of owners), Total, Scottish and Southern Energy
NGOs: World Resources Institute, Environmental Defense, WWF
An extreme complexity that it can not walk.
Larry Lohman, criticizes the carbon market, noted that the market of the Kyoto Protocol has established the international process the more centralized, complicated, opaque and incomprehensible that has never been Instead, Community System and the trading of emissions is perhaps the most complex and most inscrutable of EU environmental legislation 25. Proponents of this system show that in the USA it has helped reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, but it is a study of a single country, and a very limited success and subject to conditions different 26. For this to work would have required an adequate monitoring of emissions, with real penalties, and emitters which are limited. These conditions do not exist with the carbon market. The emission level of country is not precisely measurable, at least enough to make this system effective. One study calculated the approximate margin of between 4 and 21%, 27
other between 10 and 30%.
28 The UK Environment Agency says that 40% of sites are not satisfactory monitoring of emissions.
29 addition it has many more sources of emissions for carbon dioxide as sulfur dioxide. John Henry, a businessman with a successful experience as a broker emission permits, said that given the lack of ability to monitor this important number of emitting sources and the absence of a strict regulatory mechanism at the national level, the international carbon market would "give the market mechanism programs a bad name. "
30 is precisely the problem with the" cap and trade . The "baseline and credit " is even more complicated, it is impossible to accurately measure emissions for projects. It is in the interest of all parties to overstate the economy emissions. While such projects have offset a continued rise in emissions from industrialized countries, they need to save even more emissions than what was expected if the original loan will no longer be valid for the proposed scenario-project baseline). The project was therefore to anticipate the increase of emissions and prove he can support it with the credit it has been charged.
In fact, any scenario that a company puts forward will be based on many assumptions that can not be verified, not including their variability, which will not easily quantifiable carbon saved. There is a big tendency to inflate the level of project emissions in the baseline scenario for maximum credit. Companies also tend to be a candidate for projects that they will get the credits anyway. A representative of the Asian Development Bank has admitted that their initial reaction to the CDM was to browse their portfolio to find direct projects that make money and more with carbon credits.
31 In addition, carbon credits rewards burial of carbon in the soil and planting trees. Scientific rigor that underlies these projects is more uncertain and it is simply impossible to give an exact idea of carbon saved, if any This infringement of carbon credits used to offset actual emissions of the North, as if they paid her gas bill with Monopoly money. Since CDM credits are two to four times cheaper than purchasing carbon credits with the ETS
32 European companies clearly prefer to buy even if they are not worth the paper they spoil. This makes the whole system a sham.
perverse incentives.
As it is costly for a company to the adjustments necessary to regulate its emissions quota, it is better to buy credits abroad than to invest in equipment. In short, the bare minimum of compliance is required rather than a long-term investment to reduce emissions from northern countries.
Governments of the South are rewarded for releasing their environmental standards in order to increase the references emissions scenario projects, increasing their credits. The Department of Mines and Energy of South Africa admitted he was facing pressure from the private sector who asked not to have emission reduction targets too stringent, so that the MDV projects are not considered incomplete, which would be if the Department maintained its objectives.
33 The carbon market can reduce emissions cheaply. Changes easy and cost are not necessarily those that are most important to do. Reduction measures may open the way for deeper changes in the future. Others induce discrete changes that do not evolve and have no environmental or social benefit. By example, a certain amount of emissions can be saved by improving the efficiency of a factory is a one-off. This same amount can be saved by changing behavior to move towards a reduction in energy demand, leading to lower emissions significantly in the future. Some types of cuts may have implications at least as important as the overall level.
34 Reward worst polluters with economic rights of value.
The carbon market system replaces the "polluter pays" by the "polluter bought at peace "or even" polluter profits as its principle. "
In Europe, the right to pollute was given free to 11,428 of the most polluting facilities.
35 companies have an enormous influence on the negotiation process, they are pushing for a global cap low and high emission quotas, which means they can remain for them to a quota that allows them to resell their surplus to those industries that have had less influence. In the United Kingdom, companies such as BP and Shell were able to make windfall profits while the National Health Service has had to pay much for buy extra permissions.
36 In 2205, such an "exception" means that the total number of permissions granted by the European Union exceeds the cap by 10%, equivalent to 1.8 billion € allocated to the most destructive companies.
This new system of private property rights is a concern. Governments give rights that can be considered public goods. That's privatization. History shows that when private property rights are created they find themselves in the hands of the powerful.
38 In this case is given to big polluters the right to pollute, what drives them to want more when new negotiations on emission reductions. When the cap was lowered, the companies are lobbying to maintain the right to issue the highest possible, and take the blow to household energy sectors, public sectors and transportation. At the global level, the North has the highest level of emissions permits.
Sustaining dependence on fossil fuels.
The carbon trading is designed to perpetuate the fossil fuel, not to induce changes to go to other energies. As Larry Lohmann noted, "While the market system could theoretically enable the participating plants to save money by reducing their emissions of specific substances to a particular degree, over time, and through a wider range of technologies, it is not the best choice if the goal is to save money, industrial, or achieving overall environmental improvement, or to make deeper cuts with long-term goals term, or result in a change in a large technological system scale. "
39 Carbon trading is just wasting resources and inventiveness by making only refine technologies should be eliminated. It is also true for the CDM: 72% of projects end up pinned in the form of advertisements in plants emit. Far from rewarding renewable energy projects that will have beneficial impacts on development, the CDM does that reward heavily polluting operations but very well funded, able to enlist the makers of dubious factual scenarios with probabilities.
40 The expert CDM Ben Pearson noted that "a mechanism designed to promote climate protection ... should reduce the projects based on oil and coal, and provide new sources of income by diverting renewable projects.
41 unacceptable Negative impacts on communities and the environment.
Since sites polluters can buy their very right to pollute, carbon trading does nothing to improve the lives of communities suffering from the consequences of pollution from heavy industry and petrochemicals. These polluters are concentrated in usually in very poor areas.
In addition, low-cost loans that allow companies to continue polluting the poorest communities in the North, are produced at the expense of communities of the South. CDM projects have been associated with seizures of territories and exhaustion of soils and water, human rights violations and pollution affecting the communities. The CDM has failed to reward small-scale projects that offered real benefits to communities because they were implementing too little money to move the bureaucracy.
Conclusion.
The carbon trading does not push companies to make long term investment for the good of the planet. Instead, it has taught them how to lobby for more power issue, charging consumers inexpensive credit squeeze abroad, get a nice green image, hold fossil fuels like gas option, and make only limited progress.
42 Practical measures for long-term climate change are not part of the reality of the carbon stock.
| Why big companies are not the solution to climate change. |
Companies can play the market, but not climate.
Although there are few companies that have managed to combine interests and taking into account climate change, and who among their personalities really involved in this crisis, the general approach remains the problem.
Profit, interest, even from a company attempting to make a profit requires solutions that climate change is a motivation perverted. Companies are historically known to claim a particular commitment to benefit: the effectiveness of a remedy pharmaceutical, oil reserves, the impacts of their operations in the South. Advertising on technological solutions to climate change is no exception, it is to win investors and sell products.
For example, in its report on sustainable development, Shell predicted that in the medium term, drivers could move over 400 km with 2-liter tank of hydrogen that could be purchased in garages.
43 This prediction has nothing to do with the development of hydrogen technology (see below). The aviation industry continues to rely on outdated data when it asserts that its impact on climate and much lower than what the public can perceive.
44 emissions from the production of biofuels is proving to be far more damaging than fossil fuels, but companies that continue to draw benefit blindly claim to be green.
Such statements
hinder investments in technology more useful and cover emissions as companies continue to grow. Officials transmitters could be pinpointed, the emission reduction credits can be sold, but in terms of climate emissions are still there and it still does nothing.
The boom in environmental technology.
"When industry giants such as GE, Toyota, and Sharp, as well as investors such as Goldman Sachs infuse billions and billions of dollars in clean technology, the message is clear. Develop environmental technologies is no longer a social issue that environmentalists have to gamble, but a financial company firmly anchored in the stream of business. " 45 How the world TECHNOFIX sponsored by companies moving easily observed in markets. Environmental technologies and clean technologies are planned for the new
startups, new biotechnologies, the new technology wave that will change the world and will greatly benefit companies that have managed to take this new trend. Waving their new image they are environmentalist a new current commercial, environmental technologies mean "any product, service or process that delivers value using little or no nonrenewable resources and / or creates less waste than conventional offerings. "
46 This encompasses several sectors: energy, transportation, materials and water. In 2006, the clean energy sector alone was estimated at 55.4 billion dollars by researchers at Clean Edge
.
47 researchers
Lux Research, emerging technology experts has produced the largest and most analysts calculated the number of these companies Clean Technology 1500 in the world.
48 These technological booms occur when a number of factors come together. Analysts cleantech describe a "perfect storm" of factors that contributed to its growth
Climate change and peak oil: increase in oil prices, demand from governments for energy security and potential cost of greenhouse gases due to the carbon market has encouraged companies to invest in environmental technology.
Emerging markets: economic growth China, India, other Asian countries, Africa and South America leads to increased investment in cleaner technologies, just because there are not enough fossil fuel to follow. Millions of people leave rural areas to cities and economic growth leads to a higher demand for access to electricity and other services. In 2006, China has devoted to investment near $ 180 billion over 15 years in environmental technology. Companies want to cut their share in this emerging market.
Technological convergence: The New developments in nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology opens enormous opportunities in creating materials, processes or products and less expensive.
competition: the old, regions and countries are beginning to compete to be the hub of manufacturing and development of clean technologies by offering subsidies and tax cuts.
capital: many investors to lead the growth of the Internet revolution High Tech and began to invest in clean technology in recent years. Vinod Khosla of Sun Microsystems is a key investor. Large companies like Goldman Sachs , BP, General Electric have invested billions in the sector.
consumer's concern: that demand for products and services and promote equity market to create specific products.
The effects of this boom.
Green technologies are far from being the alternative niche companies concerned about social issues or environmental. Rather it is an investment for profit researchers who show little regard for environmental causes, except for public communication. The estimation of environmental technology companies based largely on intellectual property, which is the key to winning investments from the capitalist adventure. It is racing to key technologies which will be dependent populations in the future, in order to receive royalties.
In this approach Electronics , performance is key. In the absence of legislation motivating, ie providing subsidies and tax exemptions, temporary ban on products deemed destructive, companies can not get new products on the market the only environmental criteria, they must confront their performance with conventional products. So it comes to performance and not saving energy, which does not involve consumption reduction or sustainable development. Can be seen in automobile development. The Model T Ford has a performance of 25 mpg. The U.S. average is 21 mpg today. Gains have been used to increase speed, weight, and gadgets 50. For many the boom in clean technologies is a positive sign towards a perspective of climate regulation. The market is waking up, innovations provide new opportunities. But analysts warn that already environmental technologies are likely to drown in his own hype. Lux Research noted that these new markets "are strangely reminiscent of the boom in Internet start-up" companies with highly inflated because capital flows happen. 51 What makes the market explodes and is very dynamic. However, at the time of writing this report, the global credit shrinks and the impending U.S. recession dries up the cash flows, which will slow the boom and bring about a revaluation of available capital. Of the thousands of new firms only a small percentage will increase. For those who develop technologies no matter if they walk, what matters is to attract funds, make money and sell everything with the crash. We see little in other sectors such as during the boom in biotechnology the 90s, the GM seed companies had promised food plants with medicinal or nutritional education. What about now? In most cases, companies have been bought, merged, and their major flagship projects which were making a decade ago have disappeared from circulation.
In the analysis of the boom in clean technologies, technologies that have missed the boat are those that can not be applied to large scale, or whose cost does not make them competitive on the market. There are many reasons why these technologies have failed to test the market. The effectiveness and durability are just two factors among many others, from the perspective of the market, they do not matter.
Large companies are scrambling to play portal and the weather chart to see which companies will survive their hype, and wait for the price of carbon reaches a price that make these technologies viable. Meanwhile we weigh the pros and cons of the solutions to climate change. The changes should have been done years earlier had been postponed, putting aside the technologies that might be useful until they are more profitable, emissions and increase the possibilities of avoiding dangerous climate swings down.
Larry Lohmann, Carbon Trading: A critical conversation on climate change, privatisation and power , Dag Hammarskjold Foundation, Development Dialogue no. 48,
