September 2007

Almost everyone now acknowledges that the first phase of the system – running from 2005 to 2007 – has been a failure: more permits to pollute have been printed than there is pollution. The price of carbon has collapsed to almost zero, creating no incentive to reduce pollution. As a result, UK firms covered by the scheme increased their emissions by 3.6% in the first year alone. Across the EU, emissions from installations covered by the ETS rose by just under 1%.

Last week in his blog post, New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears, on the Inhofe EPW Press Blog, Marc Morano cited a July 2007 review of 539 abstracts in peer-reviewed scientific journals from 2004 through 2007 that found that climate science continues to shift toward the views of global warming skeptics.

Increasing production of biofuels to combat climate change will release between two and nine times more carbon gases over the next 30 years than fossil fuels, according to the first comprehensive analysis of emissions from biofuels.

The Oscar-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth" touted itself as the world's first carbon-neutral documentary.

The producers said that every ounce of carbon emitted during production — from jet travel, electricity for filming and gasoline for cars and trucks — was counterbalanced by reducing emissions somewhere else in the world. It only made sense that a film about the perils of global warming wouldn't contribute to the problem.

It was a ridiculously good deal with one problem: So far, it has not led to any additional emissions reductions.

Green taxes are being used by the government to raise revenues, rather than tackle climate change; are bad news for consumers and are socially unjust. These are the conclusions of the Taxpayers Alliance (TPA), a right wing lobby group dedicated to a low-tax society.

There is no shortage of ways to reduce our carbon footprint. I could teach my economics courses in the dark, forbid anyone to bring in a bottle of water, scale down the heat in winter and have everyone wear coats (and turn off the air conditioning on hot, muggy May days), force my 150 students to share one copy of the text to save trees, give only oral examinations to cut down on the use of paper, not answer e-mail from my students to minimize the electrical drain, be more like the French (or some of my colleagues) and not shower daily nor put on clean underwear. But I like to think of economics, and teaching my courses, in terms of tradeoffs—convenience, practicalities, comfort, being "fuelish"—and the marginal costs versus marginal benefits and reasonable alternative, as opposed to simply minimizing the energy bill.

Governments need to scrap subsidies for biofuels, as the current rush to support alternative energy sources will lead to surging food prices and the potential destruction of natural habitats, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development will warn on Tuesday.

Australia's flagship scheme to cut greenhouse gas pollution is on the verge of collapse, putting jobs and millions of green investment dollars at risk and killing the incentive for householders to cut soaring electricity consumption.

Every time NASA's James Hansen makes a global warming pronouncement, the press treats his words as if they were gospel. When he announced that 1998 was the warmest year on record, it was front page news. The only problem is NASA's "facts" were wrong.