Kudos to Kyoto?

By Brian Schimmoller, Contributing Editor

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: “EPA is considering proposing emission guidelines to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from existing electric utility generating units (EGUs) and is soliciting information on the proper respective roles of the state and federal governments in that process, as well as information on systems of emission reduction that are applicable at or to an existing EGU, information on compliance measures, and information on state planning requirements under the Clean Air Act (CAA).”

Those are the words from an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking that EPA released on December 18, 2017. Let’s call it the Clean Power Plan – Trump since, at a very high level, the proposal is similar in intent to what President Obama’s EPA attempted to achieve with the original Clean Power Plan (CPP) in 2014. In 2016, the Supreme Court halted implementation of CPP-Obama before it could take effect, and the Trump Administration has promised to replace it.

In practice, CPP-Trump would likely be quite different from CPP-Obama. Whereas CPP-Obama had an ambitious goal of reducing power plant GHG emissions by more than 30% over 2005 levels by 2030, CPP-Trump appears to be targeting specific efficiency improvements at certain plants instead of large system-wide reductions.

The EPA will undoubtedly receive thousands of comments on CPP-Trump from both sides prior to any form of implementation. It’s pretty safe to say, though, that it won’t be as stringent as CPP-Obama. And while clean power regulations are generally a positive for nuclear, the narrower expected scope of CPP-Trump will not be a silver bullet for existing nuclear power plants.

“The growing patchwork of climate change activities are sustaining the momentum in the absence of national commitment.”

The resurrection (or reincarnation) of CPP got me to thinking about the evolution of climate change regulation. In case you missed it last year, 2017 was the 20th anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement reached among industrial nations in late 1997 to slash their GHG emissions. Industrialized nations that signed the Protocol (plus the nations of the European Union) were required to reduce GHG emissions 5% below 1990 levels by 2012; developing nations, including India and China, were asked to voluntarily comply.

Although the Protocol officially went into effect in 2005 when countries representing at least 55% of the world’s GHG emissions ratified it, the Kyoto Protocol never truly reached its promise. The mechanisms developed for implementing the Protocol were challenging, and without participation from the world’s two leading emitters – China and the United States – many countries felt the Protocol was simply unworkable. These concerns limited the global effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol and ultimately led to the Paris Agreement in 2015, which is decidedly less prescriptive.

Still, Kyoto was a watershed moment. It marked the beginning of substantive climate change dialogue and policy debate on a global basis. Moreover, Kyoto can lay claim to some climate successes, or at least lay claim to a role in these successes. GHG emissions from countries that supported the Kyoto Protocol were more than 20% lower than 1990 levels in 2012 according to the United Nations, far exceeding the 5% target. While other factors were certainly at play in that reduction – such as economic slowdowns, the rapid growth of renewable energy, and the existence of decarbonization policies in some countries – Kyoto initiated a new way of looking at greenhouse gas emissions. Mechanisms were devised for introducing an international carbon market, new techniques were developed for reporting and verifying emissions, and green investment funding schemes gained traction around the world.

Multi-national efforts like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement are inherently difficult. Getting hundreds of nations to agree to targets – whether hard or soft – is a complicated political, economic, and emotional tug-of-war. Still, momentum can behave like a nagging parent, not letting an issue go until action is taken.

Perhaps multi-national efforts are simply too difficult. That doesn’t mean action is impossible. The growing patchwork of climate change activities – by cities, states, even corporations – are sustaining the momentum in the absence of national commitment.

Whether these action are ultimately to the benefit of nuclear power is unclear. We’ve seen state-level actions that hold promise for tagging nuclear as a clean energy source. It will be interesting to see in 2018 if those actions are viewed as one-off historical artifacts or if they become momentum builders.