It is here and a short summary is here. It is a good overview, noting that it does not cover the parts of the world most likely to be severely hit. The paper is especially good at discussing the policy implications of scientific uncertainty. This passage outlines a key issue and, in bureaucratese, asks how much it is possible to do:
Those insights have spurred some researchers who are particularly worried about low-probability but high impact outcomes to call for limiting long-term warming to no more than 3°F to 5°F with a high degree of certainty. However, since about 1.4°F of warming has already occurred, and past emissions have made a substantial amount of further warming inevitable, limiting long-term warming to such levels with a substantial degree of certainty would probably require very dramatic and potentially very expensive curtailment of expected future emissions. There is a large difference in costs between a policy that leaves a 50 percent risk of warming exceeding 5°F and a policy that virtually eliminates that risk. In moving along the continuum of risk from the former to the latter, each increment of risk reduction is likely to come at an increasing price.
I was taken by Paul Collier's earlier discussion of the ethics of climate change. Using different terminology, given that "probabilistic aggression" against people in the poorer countries is problematic, concern for climate change is (or rather should be) the libertarian point of view.
I also found useful the dialogue "The Big Heat" in the June issue of Discover magazine (not yet on-line). It's the best discussion I've seen of why the climate change skeptics clutch at a few pieces of (supposedly) favorable evidence but don't think about the issue at the very deep level or require that their scientific theories cohere as a whole or predict a wide range of climate-related data.
That all said, I come to the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. Here is one estimate that the impact of that bill on global temperature will be very small. I am not at all endorsing that estimate, but as someone concerned with the issue as a whole, I would like to know: what is the highest quasi-credible estimate for how much good that bill will do?
I would like to know.
Thank you for posting this. I trust your judgment in locating sources on this issue that are not overly politicized.
Setting aside how you so trivially dismiss skeptics and a wealth of scientific evidence that points to the contrary (though anthropological arrogance is likely also a factor), the libertarian position should be one of great alarm. I think you vastly underestimate the effect that global warming environmental policies (and the subsequent Pandora’s box that it will open) will have on our economic and scientific development. As you so often like to point out, public policy as it is implemented rarely mirrors the well thought out theories and initial proposals of experts. All of the proposals thus far involve the creation of a greatly expanded role for government bureaucracy, and that’s before the politicians and interest groups get their pound of flesh. Many of the people in the environmental movement who are leading the push for these changes are anti-corporatist at best, and anti-capitalist at worst. This should be of great worry to you. You should also be worried that the science of climate change is part of a larger trend towards greater political interference into scientific research. That you seemingly hold onto the theory of global warming so tightly with such weakly developed scientific evidence should also worry you.
One problem is that people who wouldn’t know property rights from a hole in the ground are suddenly quasi-geolibertarians when it offers a justification for world government regulation. That’s just one problem.
In my estimation, the libertarian position is we figure out how to compensate the people who are (actually, honest to god) hurt and they agree to the price. The statist position is that this is not feasible so we must act right the f___ now to avoid impending catastrophe.
Well, given that a variation of 1 °C is NOT a problem (even when it comes to dealing with it) and that LOCAL climates are even more unpredictable (a global increase of 1°C can have ultimately different effects on different regions.
How any rational person can come to a conclusion that definite “emergency” measures are necessary, is beyond me. Especially, when most actions taken do not present a very good cost/benefit analysis. I doubt that any further government meddling will change anything (given how ineffective the crippling of European Energy Production due to the Kyoto-Protocol was).
And what if they do not agree, but prefer to live without global warming?
According to the article that is not an option.
- from max : “How any rational person can come to a conclusion that definite “emergency” measures are necessary, is beyond me. Especially, when most actions taken do not present a very good cost/benefit analysis.”
– well, a “rational” person might know about real option theory, which tells us that when making an irreversible decision under uncertainty (which is the case here, as emitting green-house gases is in a short to medium term an irreversible action), there might be a value to “keeping options open” and doing more to mitigate climate change then “a very good cost/benefit analysis” might call for (under these conditions, standard CBA analysis is biased, and it would therefore not be rational to rely on it)
ergo, precautionary behaviour is rational and is economically justifiable
plus, where did you find evidence that the Kyoto-Protocol (I am assuming you are actually refering to the european emissions trading scheme (EU-ETS)) has been “crippling european energy production”?
Tyler, the best analyses of the Waxman-Markey bill you’re likely to find anywhere is at Joseph Romm’s Climate Progress blog. Here’s a link to all his latest: Climate Progress on Waxman-Markey
What I find most galling about the anthropogenic global warming debate are the trite dismissals on both sides of the issue. Know that there are very serious and credible people on BOTH sides of the debate. Off handed dismissals of either side betray a complete lack of respect for these serious people and serious ideas. It has been my experience that Discover magazine has a long history of asymmetric reporting (read that as bias) on the matter. Climate science is rife with bizarre practices such as not publishing or limiting access to supporting data and mathematical approaches. As the null hypothesis to AGW is that earth’s climate is undergoing a normal temperature fluctuation, scientists refuting AGW only have to “clutch at a few pieces of (supposedly)† bad assumptions, poor methodologies to conclude that the null hypothesis still holds. This was not the finest post!
I gotta say, the summary that resorts to the “consensus” argument in the first paragraph, and then calls the report author a “true geek” in the last paragraph because he (an economist), like, reads and stuff, does not inspire me with confidence on how these people view a scientific problem.
Re: Litmus test.
There are a lot of insincere people making a property rights argument when it is more a tragedy of the commons issue. We’ll set those people aside because the sincere people need an answer. Even if you subscribe to a strict property rights litmus test view you still must define the right. We don’t say that I have the right to freedom from the photons from my neighbor’s tasteless yellow VW beetle. It has never been considered a property right to 500-700 ppm CO2 in the air over your property. It’s never been considered a property right to have the same temperature range you’ve historically enjoyed. Creating these would be to create NEW rights. That’s fine, though I think wrong. So, we are left with actual harm done to people or property that can be attributed to human causes and perhaps compensated through collective liability. Or, the poor could say, for example, “just give us free access to your research papers and we will prosper from your R&D or provide us with free nuclear fuel and build us nuclear power plants.”
As for proceeding with caution, I agree. If we aren’t sure how bad it’s gonna be and not sure if we can actually do anything about it, maybe we’d better proceed with caution down the path of causing known damage to economic development.
Zamfir, if those who contribute to global warming owe a duty to those who suffer the consequences, the difficulty of agreeing on compensation is as difficult as agreeing on the amount of prevention.
As Andrew suggests, compensation in cash is more sensible than compensation in kind. (If I destroy your house, you would probably insist that I compensate you with cash rather than insist that I build you a new one – wouldn’t you be concerned I would do a bad job?)
Yes — and senior scientists also tend to have highly secure government or university positions that are little affected by deterioration in the U.S. economy. In fact, poor economic conditions tend to improve scientists’ relative standing compared to those who are employed (or no longer employed or precariously employed) in the private sector (a tenured university or civil service position looks a hell of a lot better compared to almost any job in industry than it did a few years ago).
Tyler: I would like to know: what is the highest quasi-credible estimate for how much good that bill will do?
I’m sure the answer from proponents is that, by itself, it will do little, but that it is an essential first step in a follow-on to Kyoto and in convincing other nations to follow suit. Which, of course, is more a political than scientific prediction.
@Floccina biochar is good but my favorite solution ( as former space engineer ) is a space shield ( there are several different designs which all prove to be good using computer simulation ) estimated about several trillion to build ).
At least it would cost a way less than 37 trillon on cuts.
As Andrew suggests, compensation in cash is more sensible than compensation in kind. (If I destroy your house, you would probably insist that I compensate you with cash rather than insist that I build you a new one – wouldn’t you be concerned I would do a bad job?)
I see that my comment was too short, and sounded snarky. I was quite serious: I don’t see much of a realistic “contract” option that identifies most of the people hurt and makes a deal with them where they get cash and we get absolution. Even if it were economically the best option to make everyone better off, I just don’t see it happening. Besides, it would be very alike to the kind of here-have-some-cash variety of development aid programs that don’t seem to do much for anyone involved.
On the other hand, there just might be some chance to get a global agreement on some level of CO2 reduction. Probably not enough to stop global warming, but every bit helps. Unless we manage to go to far and reduce way too much, but I don’t see any indication that that is going to happen by a long way.
of course, “continue as always and screw the consequences” is also a realistic outcome, but “continue as always and we will compensate the poorer parts of the world in a decent way on which they have agreed” doesn’t seem to likely, except perhaps as a first step towards “Continue as always and oh sorry we will not compensate after all”
Hi Mesa,
the problem with your 1.4 degree examination is the the effects are probably not linear. Like having a fever – going from 99 to 101 is not nearly as bad as going from 101 to 103, and going from 103 to 105 is potentially fatal.
Anytime you have large binary outcomes, there are problems with assessing risk. We’ve seen this played out in the CDS market, where the govt spent a few hundred billion paying out CDS contracts (read binary contracts) through AIG in order to keep the system going.
Unfortunately, if a binary event of similar or greater magnitude happens in our environment, we will not be able to spend a few trillion and have it go away in 18 months.
The danger of something catastrophically bad happening with our environment is sufficiently large to justify some actions now. Additionally, if we choose these actions wisely, there will be huge benefits even when the disaster is avoided.
speaking of property rights… my granddad was awarded compensation last month for a neighboring developer channeling run-off onto one of his properties without an easement- creating a swampy area that had formerly been dry. if the majority of scientists are right and carbon emissions (mostly from developed countries) cause sea level to rise and valuable land to be lost in developing countries, wouldn’t the same principle of property rights apply? not that it is equally simple to prove or to agree on compensation, but I don’t see how the principle of “property rights” is an argument against dealing with the predicted effects of carbon emissions.
as for waiting until it happens to negotiate compensation, I think it more likely than not that entire nations will be held liable for the actions of their citizens or residents. as a younger resident and taxpayer in the US, I do NOT want to be liable for payouts to affected Bangladeshis. I support a carbon tax to recover the probable future costs of global warming- just like I support requiring mines to pay up front for the costs of environmental rehabilitation- because by the time the environmental effects occur, the profits are long gone and the company who profited can’t be held liable. if the carbon tax is calibrated based on current best estimates of the future costs of global warming, then I’m indifferent to whether predictions unfold and are paid for by the tax revenues or whether the tax reduces carbon emissions enough that the effects are less severe. does this make me an environmentalist?
CO2 equals .000382 of the atmosphere…250 million years ago it was 500% higher, about .0015 of the atmosphere. I am skeptical that CO2 the primary determinant of how much solar energy we retain in this atmoshpere. Water vapor seems to be a bigger deal. Is co2 a better solar insulater than O2 and N2(which make up 99% of the atmosphere. What about water vapor?
I also wonder if the increased solar activity over the last century has been caused by the CO2 growth?
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/tempCO2_vs_solwind.html
or is it possible that increased solar activity has caused things to warm up a bit between 1970-1998? are you guys “solar deniers”?
The latest MIT study claims we can drastically reduce GHG emissions at very low cost.
GCM results say that keeping net warming to the 3-5 degree range requires the entire world to essentially shut down emissions in the next handful of years.
Huh?
AGW advocates have not come up with a test whose negative result would falsify the hypothesis. Even a decade’s worth of global temperature observations apparently does not provide such a test. (This last decade’s global temperatures have been flat, even though GHG emissions exploded during that time.)
Where is the line between science and advocacy, and who is crossing it now?
Wow! Who’d a thunk it. Tyler Cowen, arch libertarian, a believer in anthropocentric global warming alarmism. You are a dwindling minority. I remember there used to be a commonly used phrase GIGO. You almost never hear that anymore. Probably because it so concisely and completely describes this new environmental religion. Just one point. The earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. Temperatures and CO2 levels have constantly risen and fallen during this, let’s be honest here, rather lengthy sampling period. Thus, one must challenge any statement that it is the skeptics responsibility to disprove the wild a** Chicken Little claims by the radical environmentalists, along with their collectivist political and legal allies. No, sir, the shoe is on the other foot. And mathematical models are not proof. So a mainstream media product reports “climate change skeptics clutch at a few pieces of (supposedly) favorable evidence but don’t think about the issue at the very deep level or require that their scientific theories cohere as a whole…” The inclusion of sentence like this one means you have done zero research on the skeptics position and their reasons for doubt. Please take this as a polite suggestion: stick to your day job.
Barkley Rosser,
In fairness, boqueronman did say “anthropocentric global warming alarmism” (sic). If he omitted the alarmism you would have a better point. I must admit that I am firmly in the “skeptic” column and sympathetic to the complaint that the sentence “climate change skeptics clutch at a few pieces of (supposedly) favorable evidence but don’t think about the issue at the very deep level or require that their scientific theories cohere as a whole…” is a grotesquely unfair statement and indicative of an uninformed position. IMHO The role of CO2 is vastly overstated.
Neil
Blah blah blah.
The US can cut its emissions to nothing and it won’t do a thing.
Because China is going to burn increasing amounts of coal for a long time.
Go change all your bulbs to CFLs or LEDs or turn off all your lights. Get rid of your car. Turn off your furnace, your water heater, and your AC. Go ahead, the Chinese won’t mind a bit.
Blah blah blah.
Though your posts are generally direct and often bold, this time you tiptoe along dropping disclaimers and disavowals as you go like Hansel and Gretel dropping breadcrumbs as they went through the forest. Well, there’s no going back for you either. Do not be afraid of the global warming witches. Fear is their only weapon. Master your emotions and you’ll prevail over them.
Today a new Startrek movie comes out. Four decades ago, the show premiered and featured these things they called comunicators, that were thin devices that flipped open so they could talk to someone a long distance away.
If anyone had asked what one of those communicators would cost and how soon they would be available, my guess is economists would have predicted a hundred years and they would cost a $1000 in 1970 dollars. At the time, the military technology for a huge handheld device was a few thousand and Motorola had commercialized mobile phone for cars. By about 1980, people were carrying around bag phones. I’m not sure when the first pocket phones appeared, the realization of the Startrek vision came in 1996 with the Motorola StarTAC, priced at about $1000, which would have been about $250-300 in 1970.
Was the cost of delivering the Startrek vision affordable?
Did the technology exist when the Startrek technologists imagined it for the show set a few hundred years in the future?
Did Motorola start off designing the StarTAC a few years after someone watched the original Startrek show?
Did the US government play a significant role in funding the R&D for key technologies required to produce the commercial StarTAC?
Would the massive amount of government funding been approved if someone said, “this is so I can have a Startrek communicator in my lifetime”?
I and many other scientist/engineer/technologists are certain that sustainable energy economy is just as feasible today as were the guys who wrote the Star Trek technical manual in 1970 showing the flip phone communicator, or Arthur C Clarke was about communication satelites in geosynchonous orbit circa 1950. Don’t know the specific technology will be or the cost, but I can assure you that the cost will be substantial yet will be the biggest boost to the economy since the commercialization of the transitor and its refinement into the current billions of transitors you carry around in your pocket.
The first transitor I bought about 1965 cost me $3. So, based on that price, what would you have projected the cost of a billion transitors would be in 2009. A billion dollars? A million dollars? A thousand dollars?
Engineers deal with cost to a greater degree than economists, in my view. We are trading off dollars with size with time to market with features with volume with recovering development cost with price reductions and the next generation. The electronics industry is the fruit fly of all technology change and innovation. The limits we face are quite real, and many can’t be overcome, at least not with the direct frontal attack.
The one thing an engineer developing things that no one has ever done before is that you will never get there is you demand to know the what, how, when, and how much before you start.
To understand what a sustainable energy economy will be like, take a close look at everything that is required to make it possible for you to pull out that flip phone in your pocket and add up all the costs, and then imagine you were in 1970 trying to figure out what it would cost to take the device that Captain Kirk held and put it in your hand. I’m sure you would never be able to make the case you ever seeing that phone in your lifetime.
The first paragraph of the previous post was a quote from Gary.
Paul,
The first sentence of your second paragraph is simply wrong.
Do you believe the earth is flat also? Of course the evidence
that has been presented (strong correlation in recent decades
between human-induced increases in CO2 and global temperature)
can be debated, but your statement that it is all models and
that only the skeptics deal with empirical data is just fantasyland
nonsense. What ridiculous source did you get this from? I suggest
you go read Pat Michaels of the Cato Institute.
As for the argument that China will just eat any cutbacks we make,
maybe, but more likely not. It is definitely the case that both
China and India are going to be increasing emissions. But the
statement above suggests that if we cut back, they will simply
increase their emissions more. I doubt it. We made fools of
ourselves by passing the Byrd-Hagel resolution 95-0 that said we
would not accept Kyoto if there were no restrictions on China and
India. Kyoto may have been pathetic and ridiculous, but our conduct
earned us the contempt of the entire world, and certainly of China
and India. There is no way they will cut back if we do not, but
they might make some efforts to do so if we do so.
GWL (and Tyler),
Sorry, you are going to be disappointed. So, I just googled “Markey-
Waxman bill benefits” and, big surprise, got a big fat zero. I do not
think anybody has made any estimate of benefits, high, low, or medium.
If they have, they are buried pretty deeply somewhere, not easily accessible.
And, I do not have the time to go cook up some numbers myself (don’t even
try to ask). So, anyone out there who wants to either cook up some numbers
themselves or go digging more deeply, good luck. But, I doubt that the
question will be satisfactorily answered.
I don’t think there is any doubt that A) the earth has been going through a warming period, and B) mankind has had some positive effect on this warming through CO2 emissions.
That paragraph describes what I think is a reasonable scientific consensus with very little uncertainty. Anyone who denies the above is not seriously reading the literature.
HOWEVER…
Once you get that out of the way and start talking about policy prescriptions, you run into a minefield of unknowns. For example:
– We still don’t fully understand the effects of cosmic rays and the sun’s variability on our climate. For example, the earth actually hasn’t warmed at all in the past few years, and we don’t really know why. The sun is currently in an abnormally quiet phase, and we don’t know why or how long it will last or what the effect will be on the Earth’s temperature.
– The estimates for long-term warming are very uncertain, because we still don’t have a good understanding of the various feedback mechanisms that the Earth uses to stabilize climate. We discover new ones every day.
– Moderate warming is actually a net benefit to the planet (according to the IPCC, that would be warming below about 2.5 degrees f), as it would manifest itself primarily through warmer nights in the temperate zones and longer growing seasons. Any estimate for the long-term costs of CO2 emissions has to factor in the possibility that it will actually be a benefit, or even if it’s a cost, we will transition through a period where it’s a benefit, partially or wholly offsetting the cost (especially since the benefit comes first, which means it has a disproportionate effect once you factor in a reasonable discount rate).
– Because the effects of change we make today won’t be felt for decades, you need to apply a considerable discount rate on the cost of damages in the future compared to money spent today. There is still considerable debate over what a reasonable discount rate is, and traditional values generally conclude that spending money today to fix a problem a century from now does not make sense. Therefore, advocates of government action argue that ‘social discount rates’ are what matter, and they are close to zero. That’s highly debatable.
– If we start by conceding that warming will damage the planet (even significantly damage the planet), it’s still not clear that we can do anything about it. It seems equally clear that it’s certain we can’t do anything about it unless China and India are fully committed to this program. Unilateral action to curb carbon emissions in the U.S. will simply drive energy-intensive manufacturing to China and India, where due to manufacturing inefficiency the energy footprint of those goods could actually go up. Cutting fossil fuel consumption in the U.S. will drive down the price of oil, which will stimulate demand elsewhere until a new equilibrium is reached. These are basic economic consequences that simply can’t be ignored, and anyone who is serious about climate change policy MUST address the China/India issue FIRST, as unilateral action without them on board actually reduces their incentive to participate, because their comparative advantage will be greater.
- Finally, if we are really determined to do something serious about this, the only answer I can see is to make a determined push towards nuclear power. Not just here, but in other countries. Working with China and India to lower the cost of nuclear power and help them move away from fossil fuels, coupled with a serious effort to streamline regulation and fast-track construction of nuclear plants in the U.S. is the only way I know of to make a serious dent in global CO2 emissions. Solar and wind are not going to do it. Not for decades, and maybe not ever. Conservation won’t do it either, because demand for energy continually grows. Conservation is a one-time lowering of the curve which just pushes the level of emissions off by a couple of years. You need a scalable source of non-CO2 generating power that can grow with energy demands.
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