Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. The election campaign

  • for 2012, American presidential campaign, seems to have started. But one thing that

  • has not started is any discussion about climate change. Of course it's not on the Republican

  • agenda, but it doesn't seem really to be on the Democratic Party agenda either. President

  • Obama, during the primary campaign in '08 and in his early period as president, talked

  • quite a bit about climate change and building a whole green economy in order to deal with

  • the economic crisis and the climate crisis--seems to have lost track of those words, "climate

  • change". Well, there's a growing movement of people that say that it's not enough just

  • to talk about the climate change crisis. There's a more profound way to frame it, and that's

  • the climate justice crisis, or the need for climate justice. Now joining us from Amherst,

  • Massachusetts, where he has written extensively about climate justice, is James K. Boyce.

  • He's director of the Program on Development, Peace Building, and the Environment at the

  • PERI institute in Amherst. Thanks for joining us again, James.

  • JAMES K. BOYCE: Nice to be back, Paul.

  • JAY: [snip] what it means to talk about these issues in the context of climate Justice.

  • BOYCE: Well, I'd say the basic reframing is that addressing climate change is not only

  • a matter of protecting the planet; it's also a matter of protecting people. It's not just

  • about protecting future generations; it's about protecting people who are here and now.

  • I'd say there are four basic pillars of a climate justice program. One is to address

  • climate change sooner rather than later, because it's the most vulnerable people in our society

  • and around the world who are going to be impacted hardest by climate change. The second pillar

  • is to make adaptation assistance for those problems, those climate-related problems that

  • can't be prevented at this stage, available to everyone, not just to those with political

  • clout or with the money to pay for adaptation. So the idea there is that adaptation assistance

  • is a basic right, not a commodity that ought to be distributed by the market, and not a

  • privilege that ought to be distributed by the political process. The third piece is

  • to bring into climate policy and into our discussions the importance of what are called

  • co-pollutants, Paul. When we burn fossil fuels--coal, oil, and natural gas--we don't only emit global

  • warming pollution, carbon dioxide; we also emit a whole slew of toxic air pollutants--particulate

  • matter, nitrogen oxides, and others. And when we reduce the burning of fossil fuels, we

  • reduce the emissions of those co-pollutants. And that creates what sometimes are called

  • co-benefits--benefits on top of the benefits of arresting global warming. Now, those co-benefits

  • aren't randomly distributed. In fact, they will be greatest in the places where the co-pollutant

  • burdens are heaviest. And those tend to be in low-income communities and in communities

  • with above-average percentages of people of color in this country. And so by addressing

  • those co-pollutant burdens and by integrating that into policy, we can both get more bang

  • for the buck from the policy, we can in effect enhance efficiency, and at the same time,

  • we can improve justice by reducing pollution burdens that are disproportionately inflicted

  • on the most vulnerable people.

  • JAY: Jay, give us an example of co-pollutants and co-benefits, a specific example.

  • BOYCE: Let me give you a concrete example. Let me compare two major carbon dioxide emitters

  • in Southern California. The first is the La Paloma Power Plant, which is located about

  • 40 miles west of Bakersfield. The second is the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, California,

  • which is not too far from Los Angeles. Both of these facilities emit, according to the

  • California Air Resources Board, about the same amount of carbon dioxide every year,

  • about 2.5 million to 3 million tons. But the La Paloma Power Plant only emits about 50

  • tons a year of particulate matter, whereas the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance emits

  • 350 tons of particulate matter--seven times as much. Moreover, if we think about how many

  • people are impacted by that within a 6 mile radius of each facility, there is an enormous

  • difference. There are about 600 people living within 6 miles of the power plant in La Paloma.

  • There are about 800,000 people living within 6 miles of the refinery in Torrance. So if

  • you put together both the higher amount of particulate matter coming out of the Torrance

  • facility and the greater number of people impacted, you have co-pollutant impacts in

  • the refinery that are more than 1,000 times bigger than those from the power plant. If

  • you add to that the fact that the people living around the plants in Torrance are also bearing

  • cumulative impacts from a lot of other toxic air polluting facilities, you've got an even

  • stronger reason for trying to make sure that you get those emissions reductions in places

  • like Torrance where the co-benefits are biggest.

  • JAY: Why is one plant so much lower than the other?

  • BOYCE: It has to do with the technology of what they're burning [inaud.] sort of pollution

  • control equipment they've got installed. And, as I said, it also has to do with how many

  • people are living in the vicinity and therefore being impacted by these burdens, and what

  • else is impacting them.

  • JAY: Okay. So let's move to the bigger conversation, which is the whole issue of climate change,

  • climate justice. In the '08 elections, in the Democratic primaries, even early on in

  • the Obama presidency, there was a lot of talk about climate change. There was a period there

  • where it was the front page of every newspaper and magazine. Now it's become a completely

  • marginalized discussion. You can have the Republican leadership seriously, most of them,

  • not even believe there is such a thing. The Democratic Party leadership doesn't want to

  • challenge them on it. And the mainstream discourse or discussion about it has more or less disappeared.

  • So why do you think that's happened? And for people that believe this is such an urgent

  • issue, what can they do about it?

  • BOYCE: Well, I think to understand that, you have to understand the sources of not only

  • the Republican opposition to the climate change bill that died in the Senate, but also some

  • of the reservations on the Democratic side about that bill and the strategy that the

  • Democratic leadership--the successful strategy that they pursued. The Republicans weren't

  • only denying. Of course, some of them were denying that there's a problem at all. But

  • they also--and this, I think, was a very telling criticism that the Republicans made--said

  • that if the bill passed, it would have been the biggest tax increase in American history.

  • Now, that may be political hyperbole, but on some level the Republicans were onto something.

  • If you put a price on carbon emissions as that Waxman-Markey legislation would have

  • done, you are raising the price of oil, natural gas, and coal, and everything that's produced

  • with them. So the prices of gasoline at the pump go up. The prices of electricity go up

  • in people's monthly bills. People are going to be paying more. In fact, they're going

  • to have to be paying considerably more if the price increases are going to be significant

  • enough for people to notice and firms to notice and to start making the investments in renewable

  • energy and energy efficiency that this whole policy is designed to produce. So the Republicans

  • were right about that, Paul. They weren't making this up. And the Democratic response,

  • I have to say, was really pretty myopic. What they said is, oh, no, no, no, this isn't a

  • tax, and besides, the price increases won't be that big anyway; they'll only be the equivalent

  • of a postage stamp per person per day. Well, in making that claim, the Democrats were either

  • deliberately or mistakenly confusing two different things. The postage stamp number comes from

  • research done by, among others, the Congressional Budget Office that refers to what's the cost

  • of the carbon emission reductions that we're going to experience, in other words, what's

  • the cost of meeting our energy needs some other way or installing energy efficiency

  • devices, etc. And it's true. That cost is modest, particularly in the initial years

  • of any program. It doesn't amount to that much. We can afford it as a country. That's

  • called the economic cost. That's the cost of preventing emissions. But then on top of

  • that, in terms of household pocketbooks, there's the cost of all the fuel that's still being

  • burned, the cost of the emissions that aren't avoided, the price increases that push those

  • changes in energy consumption. And those costs are really substantial. Then we're talking

  • about hundreds of dollars per person per year, maybe even more, as the cap on carbon emissions

  • gets ratcheted down. Now, unlike the cost of installing solar panels, let's say, that

  • money isn't actually spent. That money doesn't get used for anything. It gets transferred

  • around. It gets collected by the people selling the fuels. And then the question is: where

  • does the money go? So this gets to what the Democrats did. They, pursuing what I would

  • describe as business-as-usual politics, they decided they would divide up most of that

  • money amongst the most powerful lobbyists and political players in Washington. A huge

  • chunk of it was going to go to the electric utilities. Coal, oil, others would get a piece

  • of the action. And the strategy was that if you let them harvest that extra money and

  • keep in their own pockets, they won't oppose your bill, or they'll let it go through. That

  • was the strategy. Now, what that would have meant if it had passed is that you and me

  • and every household in America would have been paying higher energy costs, and the result

  • would've been windfall profits for the people who were selling us those fuels who got to

  • keep the money.

  • JAY: That's why you're favoring a plan which you're calling cap-and-dividend.

  • BOYCE: [inaud.] Paul, and that's not only a plan I favor. That was plan B by the time

  • that Congress ultimately decided not to act on plan A. Plan A was Waxman-Markey with those

  • huge giveaways, and plan B was the Cantwell-Collins bill introduced in the Senate by Senators

  • Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins, a Democrat and Republican respectively, which would have

  • recycled--it would have auctioned all the carbon permits off, wouldn't have given them

  • away to the corporations, and would have recycled the bulk of that money straight back to the

  • American people in the form of cash monthly dividends. Right? This would have meant that

  • for the majority of the people, they would've actually come out ahead at the end of day,

  • and it would've meant that we have a policy that recognizes that we all own our share

  • of the atmospheric commons equally, together, in common and equal measure, that it's not

  • the property de facto of ExxonMobil or a coal company or any other big corporation. That

  • was the plan that the Democrats chose not to pursue. And I think that's the plan that

  • ultimately will prevail if and when we get a serious discussion in climate policy in

  • the United States. It's a plan that the American people would support.

  • JAY: James--. Right. James, we're going to put a previous interview we did with you,

  • which gets into the whole cap-and-dividend plan in more detail, and we'll put that interview

  • just below this one in another video player. But just quickly before we finish, there seems

  • to be another reason why, other than taxes and the cost of all of this, this science

  • debate itself seems to have swung to the skeptic side, the idea that the climate-change science

  • isn't real, that it's being promoted just by, you know, various sections of capital

  • that just want to make money out of going green. The scientific debate, if you believe

  • the majority of scientists who say there's an urgent problem of climate change, they

  • seem to be very much on the defensive. In fact, even the climate debate itself from

  • a scientific point of view seems not to be out there, and if anything, the skeptics seemed

  • to have the upper hand.

  • BOYCE: Well, Paul, I mean, to call this a debate is to glorify what's really, I think,

  • a pretty well understood set of issues. Right? Now, of course there's uncertainty about exactly

  • what's going to happen. When you're talking about the future climate of the planet, nobody

  • can say precisely what's going to happen. But what is very clear is that things are

  • going to happen, and those things are going to be big, and potentially they're going to

  • be hugely costly to many people around the world, particularly to the most vulnerable

  • people in the world, but really costly to us all and our children and our grandchildren

  • and so on. There's no debate about that in the scientific community. The scientists are

  • clear that things are going to happen, that they're going to be difficult to cope with.

  • They just can't say exactly that in this place the temperature's going to go up by x degrees

  • and in that place the sea level's going to rise by y inches. That's a difference between

  • uncertainty and debate. The debate you're talking about is not in the scientific community.

  • It's in the media. And what that reflects is the fact that we've got a media in this

  • country where corporations have an extraordinary stranglehold on the information that's presented

  • to the public, and they've used that stranglehold in ways that filter the news, that give people