2007

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Updates by the Competitive Enterprise Institute

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Daily Round-up
March 7, 2007

Some global warming-related stories you may have missed:

• British companies involved in the Emissions Trading Scheme enjoy a $1.5 billion profits windfall while energy prices to the consumer increased 72 percent
• Germany at odds with France over emissions reductions
• Some Texas mayors upset by Houston mayor\'s emissions policies infringing on their cities
• Bank of America sees the dollar signs involved in carbon trading (for an explanation of why this is a cartel, not involving new money, see here)
• Hugo Chavez thinks his country has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia
• Climate scientist Roger Pielke Sr discover what looks like a big mistake in the IPCC summary.

Daily Round-up
March 6, 2007

Just a couple of stories today:

• EU industry commissioner warns against \'climate hysteria\'
• China may overtake US as world\'s largest emitter this year
• Canada \'s Fraser Institite on adaptive management of the climate risk

Finally, a propos of the first item, a reminder that the EU\'s economy is 20 to 30 years behind America\'s.

Daily Round-up
March 5, 2007

Lots of global warming-related stories you may have missed:

• Threat of Kyoto is leading to wholesale deforestation in New Zealand
• UN climate talks aren\'t going anywhere
• IPCC chief says it will be very difficult to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees C
• Irish emissions rise
• France opposes binding targets on renewable energy use
• Scientific paper that suggested Gulf Stream slowdown was based on a trivial error
• More evidence of the effect of solar variability
• Cap and trade schemes around the world aren\'t working
• UK likely to miss its emissions reduction targets
• Shipping contributes twice as much to emissions as aviation
• The Internet is using more and more energy
• Why a leading French atmospheric scientist and socialist politician recanted
• Leading evangelicals concerned that global warming alarmism is diverting National Association of Evangelicals staff from \"the great moral issues.\"
• Environmentalists concerned at rush to Ethanol

Daily Round-up
March 2, 2007

Some global warming-related stories you may have missed:

• The role of warming in species extinctions might be less than thought.
• Antarctic debris may protect ice from rising sea levels
• International Energy Agency head says EU emissions reduction plans may be too expensive.
• In Canada, the Liberal Party\'s record on the environment contrasts with their rhetoric to create political problems for them.
• German carmakers can\'t meet the EU\'s emissions reduction targets.

Daily Round-up
February 28, 2007

Some more global warming-related stories you may have missed:

• Developing world countries including China and Indiareject any talk of limiting their own emissions.
• Global hurricane intensity isn\'t increasing.
• How global emissions trading represents a global wealth redistribution scheme.
• John Tierney interviews an heretical environmentalist.
• Environmental finance house makes loss of about $20 million.

Daily Round-up
February 27, 2007

Some global-warming related stories you may have missed:

• The EU\'s rapidly rising transport emissions mean that they won\'t meet their Kyoto targets \"without additional measures.\"
• Ireland is in a particular pickle with its transport emissions.
• British government Ministers are contributing to the problem.
• Hedge funds are rapidly retreating from investment in renewable energy technologies, which is showing signs of being a classic bubble market.
• Sen. Feinstein says mandatory caps on emissions will not pass the Senate for \"years.\"
• Scientist Roy Spencer points out the serious deficiencies of global climate models.

Daily Round-up
February 26, 2007

Here\'s a few global warming-related stories from around the world today:

• Germany may have to sacrifice its luxury car industry to pursue global warming mitigation policies.
• Renault is expecting to have to raise its prices for new cars as a result of the same policies.
• China and India are raking it in as European companies, unable to reduce emissions, buy credits from those countries. Italy will spend the equivalent of the economy of Iceland this year.
• UN data confirm that America\'s recent performance on emissions is much better than Europe\'s.
• Greece \'s emissions are rising sharply, an embarrassment for Stavros Dimas, the EU Environment Commissioner, who is Greek.

The Washington Times story about the UN data also includes the following:

Global warming is not a \"top-tier\" issue, according to a Pew Research survey of 1,708 adults. Respondents ranked the issue fourth from last in a 23-item list of policy priorities for the White House and Congress. Only 19 percent expressed \"deep concern\" about global warming. A minority 47 percent blamed it on human activity. Among conservative Republicans, the figure was 20 percent; among liberal Democrats, 71 percent.

\"The issue is of relatively low priority for members of both parties,\" the survey said. It was conducted Jan. 10 to 15, with a margin of error of three percentage points.

GlobalWarming.org is back
February 26, 2007

Security concerns meant we had to take the site down to strengthen it. Were back now, more resilient than ever, and will try to update regularly with global warming-related stories you wont find anywhere else

The most important contribution to the global warming debate for some time comes in a new study of global warming economics from one of the dozens of climate economists, Yale's William Nordhaus. His 253 page extravaganza (pdf link) finds that the cost of unabated global warming will be about $22 trillion to the world. So what about the plans to stop it? Well…

"First, the [UK Treasury's] Stern proposal for rapid deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions would reduce the future damage from global warming by $13 trillion, but at a cost of $27 trillion dollars. That's not a good deal. For an even worse deal, the DICE-2007 model estimates that the Gore proposal would reduce climate change damages by $12 trillion, but at a cost of nearly $34 trillion. As Nordhaus notes, both proposals imply carbon taxes rising to around $300 per ton carbon in the next two decades, and to the $600-$800 per ton range by 2050. A $700 carbon tax would increase the price of coal-fired electricity in the U.S. by about 150 percent, and would impose a tax bill of $1.2 trillion on the U.S. economy.

"In addition, scenarios which attempt to keep the future average temperature increase below 1.5 degrees Celsius and concentrations below 1.5-times pre-industrial atmospheric concentrations are also not cost-effective. The DICE-2007 model calculates that both would cost more than $27 trillion in abatement costs and provide only about $13 trillion in reduced damages."

Now, Nordhaus proposes a small, globally-harmonized carbon tax as the best way to avoid both climate damages and high abatement costs, reducing damages by about $5.5 trillion at a cost of $2 trillion. However, as far as I can see, and I haven't slogged through the entire report yet, Nordhaus does not consider an alternative approach that aims at reducing damages by deregulation and resiliency. This approach is admirably summed up by Professor Julian Morris of the University of Buckingham in an op/ed that ran in the Wall Street Journal this week (and archived here for those without a subscription): "In the short term, though, the main response to climate change must be adaptation. That is because most of the problems associated with climate change are extensions of problems that we already face today – from malaria and water-borne diseases to flooding and crop failure. If we could tackle those problems now, reducing their severity, incidence and consequences, then they would be also less of a problem in the future, with or without climate change.

"By adaptation, economists generally do not mean government mega-projects, such as dams and the like. Rather, they mean enabling people more effectively to address the problems they face. This is especially so for the poor, who suffer the most from the vagaries of the weather – they are least adapted to the current climate.

"For the poor, the best adaptation strategy is to become wealthier and to diversify away from subsistence agriculture. Then they would be able to afford to pump and purify water – avoiding the water-borne diseases that today kill around two million children. They'd be able to afford clean energy (even if it is produced in coal-fired power stations), thereby avoiding the noxious fumes that result from burning wood, dung and paraffin in poorly ventilated fires, which currently leads to over a million deaths a year from respiratory infections. And they'd be able to afford sturdier houses with better drainage and air conditioning, keeping them away from animals and stagnant water, and keeping out mosquitoes and malaria – which currently kills around two million a year. But none of this will come about without a great deal of economic growth, which is unlikely to take place if Kyoto-style policies are implemented."

It may well be that such an approach will deliver even better positive results than Prof. Nordhaus' carbon tax. Given that Prof. Nordhaus' work clearly demonstrates the positive harm alarmist policies will have on the world, even with global warming effects, it is time to put those decisively off the table forever, and start to analyze the effects of adaptation as opposed to demand-side interventions.