6.  Adaptive measures

• Deal with consequences of climate change

• Needs by sector according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):

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a.  Water

• Expand water storage and desalination

• Improve watershed and reservoir management

• Increase water-use and irrigation efficiency and water re-use

• Urban and rural flood management

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b.  Agriculture

• Adjust planting dates and crop locations

• Develop crop varieties adapted to drought, higher temperatures

• Improve land management to deal with floods/droughts

• Strengthen indigenous/traditional knowledge and practice

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c.  Infrastructure

• Relocate vulnerable communities

• Build and strengthen seawalls and other barriers

• Create and restore wetlands for flood control

• Dune reinforcement

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d. Human health

• Health plans for extreme heat

• Increase tracking, early-warning systems for heat-related diseases

• Address threats to safe drinking water supplies

• Extend basic public health services

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e. Transport

• Relocate or adapt transport infrastructure

• New design standards to cope with climate change

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f.  Energy

• Strengthen distribution infrastructure

• Address increased demand for cooling

• Increase efficiency

• Increase use of renewables

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g.   Ecosystems

• Reduce other ecosystem stresses and human use pressures

• Improve scientific understanding, enhanced monitoring

• Reduce deforestation, increase reforestation

• Increase mangrove, coral reef, and seagrass protection

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7.  Preventative measures

• Reduce the magnitude or timing of climate change

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a.  Carbon tax

• Tax on carbon-based fossil fuels in proportion to carbon content (measured either per unit of carbon or per unit of carbon dioxide)

• Pigouvian tax to deal with negative externalities

Carbon Content of Fossil Fuels

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• Advantages

(1)  Simpler to understand and more transparent

(2)  Technological change will lead to reduced carbon emissions instead of reduced price of permits

(3)  Could be implemented more quickly

(4)  Gives greater price predictability

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b.  Tradeable permits (cap and trade)

• Tradeable carbon permits

• Credit could be given for financing projects in other countries

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• Each firm can choose to reduce its carbon emissions in a cost-effective manner.

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• Advantages

(1)  Less political opposition because it is not viewed as a tax

(2)  Businesses think they can lobby for free permits

(3)  Emissions are known with certainty

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c.  Other policies

(1)  Shifting subidies from carbon-based fuels to non-carbon-based fuels

(2) Use efficiency standards for machinery and appliances, including fuel efficiency standards for cars

(3) Research and development expenditures for alternative energy sources

(4)  Technology transfer to developing countries

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8.  Cost and technical feasibility

a.  Climate stabilization wedges

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(1)  Increase efficiency

• Double fuel efficiency of 2 billion cars from 30 to 60 miles per gallon

• Decrease the number of car miles traveled globally by half.

• Use best-efficiency practices in all residential and commercial buildings

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(2)  Energy supply-side shifts

• Produce current coal-based electricity with twice today’s efficiency

• Replace 1,400 coal electricity plants with natural gas-powered facilities

• Capture and store emissions from 800 coal electricity plants

• Add double the current global nuclear capacity, displacing coal plants

• Add 2 million 1-Megawatt wind turbines (about 5 times 2015 capacity)

• Add 2,000 Gigawatts of photovoltaic power (about 11 times 2015 capacity)

• Use 40,000 square kilometers of solar panels (or 4 million wind turbines) to produce hydrogen for fuel cell cars

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(3)  Carbon storage

• Eliminate tropical deforestation

• Adopt conservation tillage in all agricultural soils worldwide

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b.  Abatement cost curves

• Rank policies from lowest cost to highest cost to implement

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• Policies

(1)  Establish strict technical standards for efficiency of buildings and vehicles

(2)  Establish stable long-term incentives for power producers and industrial companies to invest in and deploy efficient technologies

(3)  Provide government support for emerging efficiency and renewable energy technologies, through economic incentives and other policies

(4)  Ensure efficient management of forests and agriculture, particularly in developing countries

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9.  Environment and equity issues

• Climate justice - equitable sharing of both the burdens of climate change and the costs of policy responses

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a.  Distributionally neutral carbon tax

• Combine carbon tax with payroll tax credit up to $560 per year per individual

• Impact on households at different income levels would be nearly the same as a percentage of income

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b.  Greenhouse development rights

• Deals with international equity

• Only those people living above a certain economic threshold of development should be obliged to address the climate change problem

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(1)  Capacity

• Capacity to provide financing based on per capita GDP above a certain level, i.e., $7,500

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(2)  Responsibility

• Responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions based on cumulative emissions since 1990

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