Krugman on global warming policy
Paul Krugman has written a great article on the policy options available to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is well worth a read as it provides a great overview of the emerging economic consensus, and demonstrates why cutting greenhouse gasses wont destroy the economy as some have claimed.
Like the debate over climate change itself, the debate over climate economics looks very different from the inside than it often does in popular media. The casual reader might have the impression that there are real doubts about whether emissions can be reduced without inflicting severe damage on the economy. In fact, once you filter out the noise generated by special-interest groups, you discover that there is widespread agreement among environmental economists that a market-based program to deal with the threat of climate change — one that limits carbon emissions by putting a price on them — can achieve large results at modest, though not trivial, cost.
Banks move away from emissions trading
Failure at Copenhagen, time for a new approach
Lets face it, Copenhagen was a failure. No commitment to carbon cuts, no targets set. Nothing that will slow the rise in GHG concentrations in the atmosphere, to say nothing of lowering them to 350ppm as some say is needed to avoid the worst effects of global warming.
At best it could be described as a first step towards a meaningful climate deal, but the difficulty of establishing carbon caps for every country still seems like an insurmountable task.
So it seems worth repeating, that we need carbon prices, not quotas.
Stephen Schneider’s take on Copenhagen; James Hansen’s take on Copenhagen, offsets, cap-and-trade and more
Two interesting (and opposing) takes on Copenhagen from two of the top climatologists in the world.
The huge mistake of Cap-and-Trade
It is no surprise that the current US climate bill (Waxman-Markey) making its way through the senate has problems. Big problems. For starters it doesn’t mandate the deep cuts the latest science say are needed to avoid the devastating effects of global warming, and its is a massively complex which will ensure that it will be full of loopholes and require large amounts of government bureaucracy. Not to mention the multitude of problems that the reliance on offsets will create.
But there is a case to be made that we should pass the best bill we can pass today (and Waxman-Markey is likely the best we can to today) and work to improve it later.
On the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill
Given that I have highlighted some of the more amusing arguments against the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill (and no, it wont cost American families $3,100 per year) , it is only fair that I state my position. The short answer is best summed up by Paul Krugman in the New York Times:
The legislation now on the table isn’t the bill we’d ideally want, but it’s the bill we can get — and it’s vastly better than no bill at all.
The cap in cap-and-trade is no cap at all
Something most cap and trade proponents don’t seem to get: The cap isn’t really a cap at all.
While the cap in cap-and-trade is entirely virtual, realized only through pricing or administrative actions like penalties, the concrete image of a placing a physical object like a cap over emissions reassures that there is a limit to emissions somewhere. Yet without both a price for emissions and some pretty daunting penalties, the cap hovers in the air without any foundation at all; it remains simply a well-meaning “climate pledge.”
There is no more certainty in emission levels from a cap and trade system then from a carbon tax, unless one implements draconian penalties for emitting without a permit. Given that no one is willing to do such a thing the cap becomes little more than a well-meaning climate pledge. It certainly isn’t a cap, at least not by any normal definition of the term.
BC NDP global warming plan: bad for the environment, bad for the economy [UPDATED]
Originally posted on April 15, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Mark Jaccard has recently released an analysis of the BC NDP’s main policy to deal with global warming concluding that:
if BC were to try to reach its aggressive GHG emissions reduction target without emissions pricing for non-industrial emitters, relying instead on industry and government funds to subsidize relatively ineffective energy efficiency and fuel switching by non-industrial emitters, the outcome is likely to be a dramatic reduction in BC industrial production. This would have significant negative repercussions for employment levels, especially in some key BC communities that are dependent on one or two specific large industrial GHG emitters. The loss of jobs will be substantial.
