McCain, Obama, and hot air
Bjorn LOMBORG
Whatever the outcome of the United States’ presidential election,
climate change policy will be transformed. Both candidates have placed
great importance on global warming.
Republican John McCain believes that it presents “a test of
foresight, of political courage, and of the unselfish concern that one
generation owes to the next,” while Democrat Barack Obama calls it “one
of the greatest moral challenges of our generation.”
It remains far from clear, however, whether the shift in rhetoric and
policy will move the planet any closer to embracing the best response.
Both McCain and Obama could leave future generations lumbered with the
costs of major cuts in carbon emissions - without major cuts in
temperatures.
Both politicians are keen to tap into voters’ concerns about global
warming. McCain launched a television commercial declaring that he had
“stood up to President George Bush” on global warming. If elected, Obama
plans to count on former vice president and passionate campaigner Al
Gore to help “lead the fight” against warming.
Each would introduce aggressive targets for reductions in greenhouse
gas emissions. Obama’s plan would reduce emissions by 80 percent below
1990 levels by 2050, while McCain aims to ensure that emissions are 60
percent lower by then.
Both would achieve these ambitious cuts by the same method: a
cap-and-trade system that imposes limits on industry emissions and
forces businesses to buy rights to any additional emissions.
A cap-and-trade system can seem like a neat market solution. In fact,
it is worse than a straightforward carbon tax. With a tax, the costs are
obvious. With a cap-and-trade system, the costs - in terms of jobs,
household consumption, and economic growth - are hidden, shifted around,
and not easy to estimate, though models indicate they will run into
trillions of dollars.
Not everybody would lose. Some big businesses in privileged positions
would make a fortune from exploiting this rather rigged market. And
politicians would have an opportunity to control the number and
distribution of emission permits and the flow of billions of dollars in
subsidies and sweeteners. This is a very expensive, unwieldy way to
achieve a very small reduction in temperatures.
The Warner-Lieberman bill on climate change - a piece of legislation
which was recently abandoned in the US Senate but is seen as a precursor
of future policy - would have postponed the temperature increase in 2050
by about two years.
Recently, the Copenhagen Consensus project gathered eight of the
world’s top economists - including five Nobel laureates - to examine
research on the best ways to tackle 10 global challenges: air pollution,
conflict, disease, global warming, hunger and malnutrition, lack of
education, gender inequity, lack of water and sanitation, terrorism, and
trade barriers.
Their goal was to create a prioritised list showing how money could
best be spent combating these problems. The panel concluded that the
least-effective use of resources would come from simply cutting CO2
emissions.
A lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - the
group that shared last year’s Nobel Peace Prize with Gore - told the
experts that spending $800 billion over 100 years solely on mitigating
emissions would reduce inevitable temperature increases by just 0.4
degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century.
Even accounting for the key environmental damage from warming, we
would lose money, with avoided damages of just $685 billion for our $800
billion investment.
The expert panel concluded that investing in research and development
into low-carbon energy would be a much sounder, more effective option -
an effort that both McCain and Obama support. But this, not carbon
emissions, should be the core of their climate change policy.
Currently, low-carbon energy solutions are prohibitively expensive.
The typical cost of cutting a ton of CO2 is now about $20, but the
damage from a ton of carbon in the atmosphere is about $2. So we need to
reduce by roughly ten-fold the cost of cutting emissions. We can achieve
this by spending dramatically more researching and developing low-carbon
energy.
The US could provide leadership by committing to spending 0.05
percent of its GDP exploring non-carbon-emitting energy technologies -
wind, wave, or solar power - or capturing CO2 emissions from power
plants. It would then have the moral authority to demand that other
nations do the same.
By focusing more on research and development, and less in carbon
cuts, both candidates could embrace a solution that encourages the best
of the American innovative spirit and leaves the best possible legacy to
future generations: a high-income, low-carbon energy world.
The writer is the author of The Sceptical Environmentalist and Cool
It. (Daily Times) |