OurBlook interview with Geoffrey Garver, an environmental law and policy consultant.
Editor's Note: We're stunned, and flattered, by the top-quality credentials of the people who are nice enough to respond to our interview requests. Mr. Garver, an environmental law and policy consultant in Montreal, has been director of submissions on enforcement matters at North America's Commission for Environmental Cooperation and a top U.S. government environmental attorney.
 You are lukewarm about the American Clean Energy and Security Act, calling it a modest effort at best. What do you see as the strong points?
GG: The ACESA is a step in the right direction, and the fact that it would for the first time regulate greenhouse gas emissions would be an enormous achievement. If done right, legislation of this nature will move toward scientifically based limits on the amount of greenhouse gases that can ensure that atmospheric GHG concentrations do not exceed safe limits. We are pleased to see new measures on green buildings, vehicle performance and renewable energy requirements and would hope that they could be strengthened.
As for the negatives of the act, what specific provisions would you have liked added?
GG: We would prefer to see a bill that explicitly references the need to work toward global atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations that must be respected in order to prevent catastrophic climate change. We are impressed with the approach of those calling for a limit of 350 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere as the basis for regulatory efforts. The reliance on offsets is troubling, especially offsets for preventing deforestation, as opposed to for reforestation. Although National Academy of Sciences review as called for in the bill will help, the disconnect between the bill and the underlying science is troubling. A good analysis of how the bill could be improved is at this link: http://www.all4energy.org/news/science-based-tactics-not-scare-tactics-climate
Do you see alternative energy playing a major role in the U.S. or is it likely to always play a minor role? Will it ever be able to stand on its own two feet or will it always need a subsidy to compete with traditional energy?
GG: "Traditional" energy is already heavily subsidized, so it is difficult to analyze these questions. In fact, the ACESA contains provisions that use federal financial assistance for coal-fired power plants as an incentive to promote carbon capture and storage. An interesting point of departure would be to see how renewable energy sources fare when all subsidies for fossil fuel and nuclear energy are removed and the external costs, such as the cost of effective control of greenhouse gases and other pollution, are included. We have not conducted this analysis, but find interesting the following chart from the 2008 Living Planet Report, which shows how non-fossil fuel sources could meet demand by 2050.
Source: Living Planet Report 2008
http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/lpr_2008/
George Monbiot's book "Heat" is skeptical of the ability of renewable energy to meet demand in this timeframe, and his solution is to develop sound carbon capture and storage technology as rapidly as possible. In the likelihood that coal and other GHG-producing energy sources are not going to go away by 2050, rapid development of CCS technology is essential, but it must go hand in hand with an objective to minimize coal as an energy source.
Do you see the U.S. as ahead of Canada or behind Canada in dealing with ecological issues?
GG: In terms of ecological footprint, the latest information (see the 2008 Living Planet Report) is that the per capita footprint in the U.S. (9.4 hectares per person) is considerably higher than the per capita footprint in Canada (7.1 hectares per person). In addition, Canada has more undeveloped land, much of which is boreal forest that acts as a carbon sink (the carbon footprint is a major part of overall ecological footprint), with the result that its overall biocapacity is greater than its total ecological footprint. It is therefore considered a footprint "creditor" whereas the U.S. is considered a footprint "debtor," its ecological footprint being greater than its biocapacity.
On the other hand, on most ecological issues, the U.S. has stronger laws and a better regulatory system, although there are exceptions. The U.S. has stronger federal laws and a better system for ensuring that the states have environmental protections that meet federal requirements. Without such a federal system, which maintains a fair playing field, states and provinces are much more likely to promote economic development over environmental protection.
In Canada, the provinces are more autonomous and harmonization of provincial environmental systems is a constant struggle. Moreover, the provinces tend to resist federal environmental laws that effectively regulate natural resource development, which is by and large controlled by the provinces. To maintain peace with the provinces, the federal government in Canada tends to limit the reach of federal environmental requirements. For example, the federal Species at Risk Act in Canada is more deferential to provincial and private entities than is the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Another example is the deference that federal authorities give the British Columbia government on protection of fish habitat on streams that are affected by timber harvesting.
On environmental enforcement, Canada at the federal level has only penal laws, requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt in all cases, whereas in the U.S. enforcement includes administrative enforcement for the least serious offenses, and judicial enforcement, which can be either civil or criminal, for more serious violations. Moreover, in Canada, because all environmental violations are deemed criminal, an accused is always able to assert a "due diligence" defense, allowing it to prove that it took reasonable measures to prevent the violation. By contrast, in the U.S. virtually all environmental laws are strict liability laws that do not allow such a defense: if you exceed an environmental limit, you are liable.
The U.S. also has a federal hazardous waste cleanup law, the Superfund law, whereas Canada does not, and provincial regimes are by and large underfunded. On climate change, neither country has yet found an effective solution, and although Canada has signed the Kyoto Protocol, it is as much as laggard as the U.S. if not more so. According to Environment Canada, GHG emissions in Canada were about 22 percent above 1990 levels in 2006, whereas according to the EPA, GHG emissions in the U.S. were about 17 percent above 1990 levels in 2007. Canada recently announced that it would not act to control GHGs until the U.S. does, an explicit admission that it is content to lag behind the U.S. on action to address climate change.
One exception to the foregoing is that a recent report of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation states that in regard to national pollution release and transfer registries, Canada reports on a greater number of chemicals through its National Pollutant Release Inventory than the U.S. does through its Toxic Release Inventory.
You have an approach to sustainability issues that may seem doomsday to some ... you speak of Earth Overshoot Day of Sept. 22, 2008, a date that comes earlier every year ... you assail the notion of economic growth ... you call for governments to encourage lifestyles "with radically lower impact." Exactly which modern conveniences do you live without? How do you convince the poverty-stricken peoples of the Third World that they shouldn't want their lives materially improved?
GG: We would call this a reality-based approach, not a doomsday approach. It is an approach that tries to integrate the scientific realities revealed over the last couple of centuries and the basic moral and ethical tenets that are true to nearly all ethical, religious and cultural traditions with our way of managing the human economy. Rather than assailing economic growth, we call into question a paradigm that pursues growth regardless of the social and ecological consequences. To date, the rise in economic growth correlates quite closely with the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, water use, resource consumption and loss of biodiversity, as the following graphs from Gus Speth's book "The Bridge at the Edge of the World" illustrate.
The challenge is either to decouple economic growth from these ecological impacts, which would allow growth to continue, or to figure out a way to maintain well-being for humans and the other life on Earth in a negative growth or steady-state economy. Either way, we have a choice between intentionally living lives with lower impact now or waiting until these graphs catch up with us and we have no choice.
What modern conveniences to forego? There are many books and on-line resources that can help people learn about ecological footprint and design personal plans to apply the Golden Rule and notions of fair sharing to their lives, so that they are taking a lower share of the Earth's limited capacity to support life.
Jim Merkel's "Radical Simplicity" is one. If we connect our ways of living with the scientific realities and ethical traditions that underlie the notion of "right relationship," we can find fulfillment from things that do not involve excessive consumption and waste. Vacation at a nearby park or in your home city instead of taking an airplane to a faraway place. Supporting and using green buildings, green infrastructure and green transport. Eating locally grown food, less meat, and eating less in general. There is plenty of low-hanging fruit to start with.
The current situation is unprecedented. For the first time in history, the human economy is consuming the Earth's ecological capacity faster than it can regenerate. Only since the late 1980s has this situation existed according to ecological footprint researchers (see the 2008 Living Planet Report, at www.panda.org).
The developing world, which is responsible for the unprecedented situation we now face, must reduce its excessive consumption, both in fairness to less developed countries and to present and future generations of humans and other life on Earth. At the same time, leadership from the developed world on decreasing per capita and overall ecological footprint should decrease the incentive for the developing world to seek developed world levels of consumption.
Meanwhile, there is a great deal the developed world can learn from the developing world. In La Paz and El Alto, Bolivia, for example, the main means of transportation in the less wealthy parts of town is minivans that work on a flexible schedule with a broad array of routes. The minivans fill up quickly and the system is impressively efficient. In New York City, a similar system is now emerging as a way to increase the number of passengers in taxis, with no loss in service... a good way to reduce energy consumption.
At North America's Commission for Environmental Cooperation, Mr. Garver directed the unit that handles assertions by North American citizens that one of the NAFTA countries ... Mexico, the U.S. or Canada ... is failing to effectively enforce its environmental laws. Previously he spent nine years with the U.S. Justice Department as an attorney whose major cases included lawsuits dealing with Everglades water quality, winter use and bison management in Yellowstone National Park, and water rights in Idaho and Florida. He received his B.S. in chemical engineering from Cornell and his law degree from the University of Michigan.
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