Putting aside whether or not offsets are credible at all (and there’s plenty to make us question whether or not they are), I think it’s pretty apparent that while we need to reduce emissions abroad, fund clean development and stop global deforestation, those goals should be pursued in addition to our efforts to transform the U.S. energy economy into a clean, prosperous and more just system. Allowing polluters to purchase offsets instead of reduction their own emissions does exactly the opposite, pitting two necessary goals – transforming the U.S. energy system to a low-carbon system and helping spur clean global development/stop deforestation – against each other.

Also, we’ve been highly skeptical of the offset provisions not just since the draft came out (see for example, this post from April 27th about the discussion draft version), but since the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act – the ideological predecessor to this bill – was circulated and debate in 2008. We weren’t waiting to spring this for some particular moment. But provisions were changing quickly as this bill was negotiated, this kind of analysis takes time, and we didn’t finalize our analysis until the bill itself was finalized by the E&C Committee.

I should also note that Joe Romm was HIGHLY critical of all those same provisions in the Lieberman-Warner bill. The question really is: why is he suddenly A-OK with the provisions in the Waxman-Markey bill.

One thing I am confused about in the Breakthrough analysis is how the purchase of international offsets, which the WRI analysis lists as “additional” have anything to do with the supply of the emissions allowances. As I understand it, purchasing offests supplements a certain number of allowances(which I’m not defending), but they do not add more allowances to the system. Also, don’t offsets make up about 25% of the total reductions?

The amount of emissions allowances are a fixed amount are they not? I know that there is a “strategic” reserve of allowances that the EPA can use to release more allowances into the system if they feel that there are too few, but I find it very hard to believe that we would make the same mistake the Europeans made and start the system off with too many allowances. Joe Romm has a very insightful post on what the Europeans did wrong with allowances, and how Waxman and Markey have tailored the bill to avoid this

http://climateprogress.org/2009/05/17/greenpeace-attack-waxman-markey-european-trading-scheme/

Another thing that makes me skeptical is that these offset provisions have been in the draft bill since it was first put out in late March/early April. Why wait until late May to sound the alarm on international offsets? I’ve seen two WRI analysis, as well as the EPA analysis, which do not find this problem with international offsets. Has this information been available somewhere else, but I didn’t see it?

On top of all that, even if it was true that having international offsets would undermine the entire allowance system, I don’t understand how emissions reductions in the US are going to be higher in 2030 than they are right now. Just the nationwide renewable energy standard of the bill alone(20% RES with 5% being efficiency) should achieve reductions. Add in the investments made in the stimulus, the newly announced fuel economy standards, the rapid growth of wind and solar power in the country versus no coal growth. Even with no climate bill, I don’t see emissions rising, even if they don’t drop as much as the science says they should.

Lastly, I find it hard to believe Al Gore would lend any support to the bill if it was going to let emissions rise for two decades.

I’m just raising different points of skepticism. I would really be interested in seeing an analysis of the Breakthrough Analysis by other institutes since obviously if international offsets are in fact going to ruin the cap and trade system, we should know.

While I think there are many many aspects of this bill that need strengthening and this is nowheres near what I would write, I completely reject the notion that this bill would do more harm than good. I think we need to be advocating and organizing around making it stronger, not around trying to kill it.