As the Copenhagen climate meeting comes to its end, with the exact outcome still to be announced, I thought I'd re-post
my expectations for the meeting published in October.
The good news for international negotiators and politicians who have promised action is that the stage is set for a global agreement of some sort but, we are told, perhaps not with I's dotted and t's crossed. This means that government claims to be taking action can be backed up with evidence of some sort of an agreement at Copenhagen, while at the same time ineffectual domestic actions can be sustained. If the negotiators are really clever, they will find a way to package the ineffectual domestic policies as a sort of patched-together global agreement.
However, for those who care about emissions reductions, especially leading environmental groups and activists in the science community, the joke will be on them - they will get just about everything they campaigned for, except any prospect for actual reductions in future emissions. Meanwhile, India and China will be able to continue their current round of securing oil, gas, and coal from sources around the world to fuel their booming economic growth. Similarly, as we march toward Copenhagen, the Obama Administration has quietly set forth plans to build a pipeline from Canada to exploit carbon-intensive oil locked in tar sands. The United Kingdom and other EU countries are considering building new coal and gas plants to meet growing needs for power. As long as leaders of the climate movement continue to pretend that progress is being made, the climate policy charade will go on for a while longer, while business proceeds as usual.
In July a group of us concerned with the fact that climate policy is off course published a White Paper suggesting an alternative way to think about the challenge of decarbonizing the global economy:
Prins, G., Cook., M., Green, C., Hulme, M., Korhola, A., Korhola, E.R., Pielke, Jr., R., Rayner, S., Sawa, A., Sarewitz, D., Stehr, N., and H. von Storch, 2009. How to get climate policy back on course. Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Oxford University and London School of Economics, The Mackinder Programme, LSE.
In that paper we argued that a more direct approach to decarbonizing the global economy would be more likely to lead to progress than the current, indirect approach being discussed in Copenhagen:
We should switch decisively to a radically different but also very familiar approach to policy which focuses upon actions that have worked in the past and which we know to be politically feasible. This track stands in contrast to current conventional wisdom which, oddly, is grounded upon policies that have not worked in the past and which we know never to have been politically feasible except through the application of unacceptable political forces.
Please have a look at that paper for the critique and suggested alternative approach. Will post-Copenhagen discussions be more or less open to alternatives? Will we repeat the Copenhagen exercise next fall in Mexico City? Time will tell.
14 comments:
Roger,
Nothing substantive is going to happen until after a timeout to re-evaluate the science has taken place. The failed stimulus, massive pork fueled debt, and the deeply unpopular health care mess are killing the Democrats. If they jam health care through the way they have the other legislative disasters, Obama will sink even lower than he is now (most unpopular president in history at this stage). If he tries it with a climate bill too (or just tries to use the EPA to do it), he will wreck the party.
The CRU leak is a gamechanging earthquake. Regardless of how damaging one thinks it is, the bottom line is that the public now wants total transparency and a complete accounting of the science. Until that accounting has been completed and the science emerges as robust and solid, nothing happens. And if the science is at all tainted, it's back to square one (at best) for the AGW crowd.
I saw a rather sober assessment from a Russian source: http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20091217/157276133.html
If true about emissions from this Russian perspective, how is it that mere PC posturing defeats The Gods of the Copybook Headings?
It looks like world leaders are desperately looking for a form of words to save face at Copenhagen.
Roger can you provide a paragraph or two to prevent global embarrassment?
It could prevent the Ice Caps from melting overnight!
Whatever happens, Obama and Brown will emerge with something they will refer to as an 'agreement'.
I am opposed to anything that limits Co2 levels. I have always been sceptical of the science, even before the hockey stick, on the grounds of complexity.
Bjorn Lomborg is ideologically biased, but I like his writing, in which he argues that mitigation is more expensive any IPCC damage projection. Emissions trading is a horror story; the scope for corruption at every level is legion. On top of the deprivation that will result,
P.S.
I use the Guardian forum to write my messages for this blog. It allows easy creation of html.
For example bold, italic, and links
I'll respectfully offer a 'laymans' view.
On population management.
There are two basic views. Rising standards of living cause a natural drop in birthrates or the alternative..a drop in birth rates causes a rising standard of living.
I support the first premise based simply on 'the blackout effect'. If the lights go out in New York City for a few hours, there is a statistically signifcant rise in birthrates.
In my simple mind...
All species are preprogrammed to propagate...the question is 'at what rate'. If we look at various industrialized countries with high standards of living, Japan and Germany for example, the current propagation(fertility) rates points to voluntary extinction in the not to distant future. The 'maintain current levels of population' biological imperitive thru 'heir and a spare' has given way to 'heir only'. I believe this is based more on some mechanism related to the likelyhood that the 'heir' will survive..hence a 'spare' is unecessary.
I don't think these are conscious decisions related to educated decision making..but rooted in biological pre-programming.
If they were rooted in educated decision making they would not be subject to 'the blackout effect'. A few hours or days of returning to 'pre-industrial' life causes a spike in the birth rate.
I can see the effect of affluence in my own family tree. My mother had 4 children, the 4 children produced 10 grandchildren, 9 of which are currently between 20 and 40 years old, there is however only 1 great grand child. None of the grand children could be described as 'environmental or social activists'.
So we are left with only two ways to control population...affluence or eugenics. Eugenics is politically impossible in most of the world.
So we are left with creating affluence as the most effective solution to containing population growth.
A third solution is to do nothing, and let mother nature work out the eugenics. The black plague did wipe out 1/4 of the worlds population.
Not being a fan of eugenics or nature indescrimitedly killing billions of people that leaves me in my simple mind with only one approach.
We must pursue policies that create affluence.
This is the policy of the Chinese government, a government that did engage in forced population control and also weathered periods of 'natural' population control thru massive starvation.
Contrary to popular belief, the Chinese are pursuing policies that attempt to adress climate issues while not impacting their need for afluence. They met their 'wind power' goals 3 years ahead of projections and recently tripled their estimates of wind power by 2020.(References can be found on climateprogress.org)
In conclusion, IMHO efforts to control wealth or population are destined to failure. The only potential way forward is to find a way to produce energy in a manner that has 'least impact' on the environment using available technology.
The goals of many environmentalists towards 'zero impact' have actually impeded the nuclear power industry for decades. If CO2 is to be considered a 'waste product', then the relative environmental costs of Gigatons of CO2 waste must be weighed against a few tons of nuclear waste.
Obama's speech was not well received according to the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/18/obama-speech-copenhagen . I hear he is now headed home.
Stan, good stuff.
You write:
Nothing substantive is going to happen until after a timeout to re-evaluate the science has taken place.
My view is plainer:
Nothing substantive is going to happen.
AGW policy is driven by a combination of lip service to high-falutin' principles and the logic of collective action. But from the point of view of influencing policy, it is actually almost irrelevant whether AGW theory is right or wrong (at this writing I think it's probably right, though its advocates have certainly mastered the art of antagonising a large minority of thinking people, such as yourself). The externalities problem is so enormous that even to think it can be resolved in the real existing world is beyond the pale of reason. Regardless of the outcome of a scientific evaluation, the human race will continue as before: to extract every economically extractable molecule of carbon fuel from the earth's crust without much concern for the impact on the world's climate. The thirst for energy is unquenchable. End of debate.
So join me in the futilititarian club. Let's just sit back and enjoy this real time show with all its strutting and fretting -- three great episodes so far: the pomp of Rio, the fantasy land of Kyoto, the whited sepulchre of Copenhagen.
And the directors haven't jumped the shark yet.
Carolus Obscurus
Roger,
I agree a direct investment in clean energy approach is far more politically viable than cap and/or tax.
Republicans, even though many are skeptics regarding AGW, will support Democrats in a nuclear energy (co2 free) push.
For those concerned with current nuclear safety, waste, ... etc, where have previously developed technology (in the 60's) using the thorium fuel cycle and molten salt (LFTR et al endorsed by Dr. James Hansen). $10B/yr invested in LFTR, PHEV, and other clean energy is politically acceptable and will lead to long term de-carbonization of the economy.
This approach will not be favored by socialist, communists, and environmentalist intent on reducing population.
Roger,
I would like to point out that Lomborg also favors the direct investment approach.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/17/climate-talks-lomborg-business-energy-deal.html
"That means failure at Copenhagen is the best outcome, says Lomborg, because it means the world can seek out a smarter strategy for tackling climate change. "People will be looking around for a plan B once it becomes obvious that this isn't going to work." His alternative: Governments should focus on putting money into research and development for renewable energy sources."
-9-charleshart
He is learning ;-)
Dr Richard North sums up the “deal” well here http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/12/theatre-is-over.html
“This slugfest was not about saving the planet. It was not about the climate, global warming or any of that shit. It was and is about money, renewing the “Kyoto Protocols” and thus protecting the income stream generated by the carbon market.
They had to buy off the “bunnies” with a few bribes, and the Mercedes salesmen will do mightily well out of the deal, but most of the funding is “funny money” which will be tied up with the carbon market and the “Clean Development Funds”.
The greenies are, of course, screeching with fury. But then they have every right to be – they have been stitched up, kippered and spat out.”
I read your science policy paper. If I accept as true that we even need to reduce carbon, I can appreciate the approach. I think it shows wisdom (or at least pragmatism) to avoid the 2 points that are controversial: population control & wealth.
I am left to wonder if the US government would give tax exemptions or bigger tax exemptions or bigger incentives to make one's home or mode of transportation more green.
So do you think the government would give money away to individuals to install geo-thermal heating/cooling in their homes, etc. reducing his/her dependence on the utilities power grid and taking money out the hands of these utility companies? If the cost to clean-up global warming is the billions/trillions, why wouldn't they encourage everyone with big incentives to re-tool their heating/cooling systems? I mean big incentives...like paying 90%-100% of the cost to install geo-thermal heating/cooling.
Been thinking about this a bit: from legal and political and pragmatic perspectives, could it be possible for the government to attatch strings to grants it handed out for energy R&D (under a plan along the lines of that described in the paper) to private companies to require them to license technology that turns out to be useful in decarbonization at discounted rates to developing countries that request them? Perhaps with safeguards, if they'd be at all possible, to keep those people from turning around and selling them to others? Do companies generally retain ownership of those kinds of technologies when they're partially or fully funded by government grants now?
One aspect that has not been mentioned but is very important in understanding the UN, multilateral and bilateral funding institution is the administration fee those institutions are going to get from the countries contributing to the developing countries. This often translates to 10 to 15 per cent of the funds. For the 10 billion dollar fund in the next three years, that translates to $1.5 billion. Most of the funds would not be infrastructure or operating programs but payments for consultants, NGOs, per diem to government officials for project preparation, study tours, seminars, regional meetings for coordination, capacity building, publications of training materials, receptions, consultative meetings, purchases of project vehicles, etc. There might be some demonstration projects for the photo opportunity and documentation purposes. The actual impact on the poor people of the developing countries would be really minimal. It is the ruling elite in the developing countries, the international bureaucrats, NGOs and businesses in the developed countries who will really benefit. The contributions from the developed countries is just as good as stimulus package to its service industries. Let us look beyond the climate change science to the real reason that good real science does not matter in climate change policy formulation.
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