This commentary is by Suzanna Jones, a resident of Walden.
A new report has just been issued, revealing that the rich are disproportionately responsible for carbon emissions. The evidence shows that the wealthiest among us, termed the “polluting elite,” are responsible for the vast majority of carbon emissions.
Peter Newell, a professor of international relations at the University of Sussex who has extensively studied emissions sources, says this report shows that patterns of consumption — especially by the wealthy — need to be targeted if we are to address the climate crisis.
Here in Vermont, the Affordable Heat Act is being considered by the Senate. The stated goal of the bill is to reduce Vermont’s carbon emissions. It is an industry-driven measure that, if passed, will use market forces to induce Vermonters to abandon heating sources other than electric, with the costs unjustly passed on to homeowners and small businesses. Once again, a tremendous burden is placed on working and poor people.
The bill is built upon a credit trading scheme, which, like the Renewable Energy Credits, obfuscates emissions on paper while allowing polluting and profiting to proliferate. Nowhere in the bill is reduction in energy use directly encouraged.
Well intentioned as it may be, this bill would further our dependence on a profit-driven system that is failing us (power outages, anyone?) while largely neglecting the real needs of the biosphere. It enables us to believe we are addressing climate change, while we deceive ourselves about the necessary economic sacrifices we all must make.
The Senate is mandated to follow the emission reduction goals set by the Global Warming Solutions Act. However, the metrics used by that act are selective and questionable. This needs to be remedied before lawmakers consider any legislation where carbon emissions are concerned.
There are two primary methods of carbon accounting: sector-based and consumption-based. Sector-based carbon accounting measures emissions only by activities that occur within Vermont. If we purchase something made in Vermont, the emissions connected to it are accounted for.
But if we purchase something from California or China, the emissions to produce it and transport it to Vermont are ignored. Consumption-based accounting, by contrast, considers the total carbon embedded in products and services that Vermonters use, no matter their origin.
What difference does it make which accounting system is used? The state of Oregon has conducted a study concluding that its consumption-based emissions are almost 50% greater than their sector-based emissions. It’s safe to assume that number would be at least that or even higher in Vermont because we import so much of what we consume, and export relatively little.
Sector-based accounting, in other words, leaves consumption out of the picture — so some people can still get on a plane in July to go skiing in South America unaccounted for and guilt-free. It also makes it appear that local products emit carbon while imports don’t. All of this is absurd.
What can be done to meaningfully reduce emissions? This is challenging for a number of reasons. Conventional economists tell us that a healthy economy needs to grow, and policymakers actually encourage consumption as a way to keep GDP increasing. But it’s becoming clearer that GDP growth doesn’t correspond to a rising quality of life — often the opposite is true.
Alternative measures like the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) would enable policymakers to choose paths that improve well-being without increasing consumption. Although measuring Vermont’s GPI annually was mandated by the Legislature in 2012, it has never been implemented.
Another hurdle to reducing consumption — especially among the “polluting elite” — is that the wealthy wield more political power than the rest of us. Their interests often align with the corporations and developers that, in many cases, are the source of their wealth. Campaign donations and hired lobbyists ensure that the consumption machine runs unimpeded.
Calculating our emissions using a consumption-based method would at least make it clear that our emissions depend not just on what fuel we use to heat our homes and power our vehicles, but on our overall levels of consumption. Policymakers could make more effective decisions with the appropriate information. The Global Warming Solutions Act should revise its metrics.
A more fundamental problem is that we rarely look at the crises we face from the perspective of the biosphere. If the goal is to stop the negative impacts of modern life on the climate, then it is modern life, or “progress,” that we should limit, no matter how challenging that is to our sense of entitlement.
We need a conservation ethic — one which encourages us to drastically reduce our overuse of, and impact on, everything. Instead, we try to protect our comfortable modern existence, which depends on an economy based on growth, extraction and exploitation. And that is what’s killing the planet.
Facing this is our greatest challenge.
