Browsing by Subject "Greenhouse gas emissions"

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    Complexity in Global Energy-Environment Governance
    (Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology, 2014-05) Long, Andrew
    Thinking about energy as a complex system from which fossil fuel dominance and climate change emerge provides an analytical and policy-relevant framework for exploring pathways toward transforming that system. The linkage of issues and scales of authority, highlighted briefly above, are but two examples of how this might be operationalized. Literature since the 2009 UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen is beginning to explore alternatives to top-down binding international environmental agreements for catalyzing successful mitigation, but it has yet to coalesce around an analytical framework that can foster synergy and the development of a cohesive body of work identifying and testing viable options that are likely to produce solid policy recommendations. A perspective on climate change informed by an understanding of the global energy system as a complex system has the potential to provide such a framework. Further exploring the potential for an interdisciplinary perspective on energy as a complex system may provide the analytical framework needed to accelerate the learning process by uniting the somewhat disparate strands of thought that have emerged since the “dream of Rio,” characterized by an unjustified faith in global top-down environmentalism, came to a crashing halt at the end of 2009. A complexity perspective on energy as the source of climate change may unite many of the developing approaches, which include work exploring near-term approaches to climate change mitigation, detailed analysis of particular aspects of the mitigation challenge if developed outside of a unifying top-down structure, and analytical expositions of polycentric governance theories in climate-relevant ways. Viewed as a body of literature addressing facets of a global complex systems challenge, such work can be understood to contain the seeds of an approach that is sufficiently salient to garner political support while also probing for effective tools that will engage the multiple interacting threads of social, ecological, and technical components that affect the energy system across scales in order to produce an overall shift that achieves climate stabilization. There is much work to be done if we hope to bring about the kind of transformation of the global energy system necessary to reduce GHG emissions significantly and rapidly enough to avoid drastic climate change impacts. A complexity perspective strikes an appropriate balance between resigning the global population to the massive suffering and destabilization that climate change may bring, as a narrow focus on developed country adaptation would do, and the unwarranted faith in top-down global governance that much of the previous decade’s climate change analysis exhibited. In this sense, a complexity perspective on climate change urges a form of governance reflecting the nature of adaptive systems situated on the edge of chaos—advocating enough order to avert disaster, while imbuing reform with the long-term catalytic vision necessary to bring about the emergence of that which is desirable, but remains uncertain and unpredictable.
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    A Spoonful of Sugarcane Ethanol: A Green Tax Medicine for the Cellulosic Ethanol Industry
    (Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology, 2014-05) Huang, Ke
    On July 31, 2013, INEOS Bio, a bioenergy company, announced that its Florida facility became the world pioneer in producing commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol. Ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, is a renewable fuel resulting from fermenting plant-based materials. INEOS Bio produces cellulosic ethanol using vegetative and yard waste. Despite the flurry that accompanied last July’s event, Brazil is still regarded as the country that implemented the most successful ethanol industry in the world —the sugarcane ethanol industry. In the United States, the ethanol industry touches on two critical areas. First, ethanol can be used as motor fuel, and it is no secret that the United States relies on motor fuel. Second, the nation’s reliance on motor fuel, especially gasoline, raises significant environmental concerns, notably, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Thus, given the recent advancements in ethanol production, and the critical areas that ethanol touches on, an issue emerges as to whether Brazil’s ethanol policy model can be instructive to the United States’ fledgling cellulosic ethanol industry. This Note seeks to suggest changes to the tax benefits of the U.S. cellulosic ethanol industry. This Note argues, primarily by focusing on federal tax policies and environmental effects linked with ethanol, (1) the trajectory of the United States’ corn and cellulosic ethanol industries; and (2) the trajectory of Brazil’s sugarcane ethanol industry. This Note then (1) reviews the relevant existing literature addressing ethanol; (2) compares and contrasts the federal ethanol tax benefits of the United States’ and Brazil’s ethanol industries; (3) compares and contrasts these industries’ impact on the respective country’s environment; and (4) explains why Brazil’s tax benefits should encourage the United States to implement similar benefits. This Note concludes that revising some of the U.S. cellulosic ethanol tax benefits, following Brazil’s ethanol industry tax benefits, will likely spur the U.S. cellulosic ethanol industry, which would ultimately result in significant environmental benefits.