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Capitalizing on Cap and Trade: Background

In the coming weeks, I hope to continue this series of articles regarding cap and trade legislation finally culminating in a market driven solution to United States emissions pollution. This section, part one, will describe a brief background of the issue, setting the stage for the articles to come.

Though there still exists public uncertainty regarding the overall climate change debate, there is substantial scientific consensus supporting the views of the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) regarding the anthropogenic origins of global warming and the potential calamitous impacts that runaway warming can bring. This scientific consensus has spurred action around the global on climate mitigation policy, most notably the European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme.

The EU-ETS was the world’s first multinational emissions trading program and maintains its notable position as the world’s largest overall “cap and trade” system. Founded in 2005 and continuing today, the EU-ETS has been met with great acclaim, with resultant emissions cuts exceeding 10% since 2005. In addition to what initially meets the eye, there is also great depth to the specific regulations that have made this program a success, which will be discussed in later writings.

The focus of this conversation will not be on specific advocacies of legislation; rather, it will mainly pertain to the history of “cap and trade” regulation in the United States and its prospects for the near future. For those who are not familiar with the term “cap and trade,” it refers to a market based emissions reductions system in which firms are allocated a specific number of permits denoting the amount of emissions they are allowed to produce. The number of permits allocated to all firms in the program is referred to as the “cap,” effectively setting a maximum for the total amount of emissions. The “trade” comes from the ability of firms to trade these permits amongst each other in order to ensure the most efficient allocation of emissions reduction spending. If Firm A is unable to abate emissions at a price X, but is able to buy a permit from a Firm B at that price, the cap and trade system ensures the emissions reductions happening occur at the lowest possible cost. Like the intricacies associated with the EU Emissions Trading System, there are many variations that are associated with generic cap and trade systems that will be discussed in a later post.

In the history of US federal policy there has been one seminal bill that almost dramatically changed US climate policy regarding carbon emissions. The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, otherwise known as the Waxman-Markey Bill, was a cap and trade system closely related to the EU-ETS. The Waxman-Markey Bill was passed by the House in June of 2009, but after continuous Senate filibustering to stall voting, the bill was stopped dead in its tracks. It was this moment in US political history which marked a definite cessation of climate driven legislation passing through Congress.

Prior to the Waxman-Markey Bill, the US had seen great success in similarly structured climate legislation through the adoption of the “Acid Rain Program” amendment to the United States’ Clean Air Act. This legislation bears some resemblance to cap and trade programs, but the permits traded were for sulfur dioxide (SO2) rather than carbon dioxide (CO2). As the name implies, the program was initially founded due to fears of acid rain damage in local areas, but as was later discovered, it also dramatically helped reduce substantial respiratory health issues associated with high concentration of SO2 and particulate matter in the air. This program has been considered almost perfectly effective, leading to a 40% reduction in SO2 pollution since the 1990s.

The sad reality of climate skepticism is that it has stalled climate legislation, in particular cap and trade, thus preventing any such measures to be adopted on a federal scale. Future discussion will examine how states such as California have reacted to this lack of federal action and have implemented their own trading systems to ensure emissions reductions. Hopefully politicians will tune into economic researchers and reconsider the adoption of cap and trade policies in the hopes of spurring a shift in international emissions policy.

- Nitin Gupta 

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American Military Policy and Robotic Warfare

Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming presidential election, there exists one common future in store for American military policy, robotic warfare.

Both presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, share similar viewpoints over the usage and expansion of the military robotic industry. For clarification purposes, a robot is most usually defined as, a semi-autonomous machine made up of sensors, processors, and actuators, capable of determining the surrounding environment and independently acting upon it. Under this definition, the military hosts tens of thousands of military robots, ranging from the well-known MQ-1 Predator drone, to the less-known, but equally deadly, SWORD (Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System).

Robots have been used for reconnaissance and direct warfare since the late 1990’s, but the last few years have seen a dramatic increase in their usage. Since the US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, military robotics has taken center stage, hosting roughly 22,000 robots at any given time in these locations. Most recently, fleets of UAV’s, unmanned aerial vehicles, which have been stationed in Libya due to last year’s war, were used on surveillance missions in response to the terrorist attacks in Benghazi.

There are two major conflicting ideologies in regards to robotic usage. The first, in favor of robot usage, due to the tactical advantages of unmanned warfare, and the second, against robot usage due to several limitations and problems with this strategy.

The most frequently articulated advantage, and ironically, disadvantage, of robot usage is the removal of the human risk aspect of warfare.  Proponents of an increase of robotic warfare argue that this strategy is favorable due to diminished casualties, therefore putting American soldiers out of harm’s way. On the other hand, a widely accepted argument among opponents of unmanned warfare is that this decreased danger to Americans “cheapens war”, making war/violence a more likely venture. During the 2011 Libyan Civil War, the United States launched roughly 101 UAV strike missions without the fear of human causalities. Consequently, due to the intrinsic nature of robots, the United States was able to store these in surrounding areas and call upon their use at its call.

A second advantage argued by proponents of military robots is the precise and efficient nature of robots. Many articulate that as technology continues to improve, so will the infallibility of robot sensors and processors. Drone strikes have been commonly noted as “pinprick strikes” in contrast to conventional missile and bombing runs. Though there is some debate whether or not robots decrease civilian casualties of war, it is widely accepted that these precise robotic strikes are favorable to conventional tactics.

The final issues I will talk about regarding robot usage are the ethical problems associated with the control of military robots. Multiple first-hand accounts indicate that, from the pilot’s perspective, the operation of robots seems like a video game where buttons are pushed to control virtual images on a screen. Opponents of unmanned warfare find the emotional detachment of robot use to be a critical ethical dilemma associated with robotic usage due to the desensitization of operators in regards to the taking of lives. This psychological detachment has empirically spread to other individuals, causing a phenomenon called military voyeurism, the gratification of warfare. Soldiers watching an assault, streamed live by UAV video surveillance, on a terrorist location in Qatar described the event as “like a Super Bowl party”, where individuals would cheer during large explosions and enemy casualties.  Videos such as clips of people being blown up by UAV strikes have been set to popular songs and spread throughout the internet, marking an expansion of this voyeurism.

Apart from the aforementioned costs and benefits of robotic warfare, there exist countless arguments for and against robotic usage. Future reading into the subject can be done by reading Peter W. Singer’s book “Wired for War”, a thorough and well-respected take on the current expansion of military robotics. 

--Nitin Gupta