The Economist kliimast (üsna optimistlikult)

Stopping climate change
Dec 3rd 2009From The Economist print edition

Rich and poor countries have to give ground to get a deal in Copenhagen; then they must focus on setting a carbon price

AT A time when they are not short of pressing problems to deal with, the presence of 100-odd world leaders at the two-week meeting that starts in Copenhagen on December 7th to renew the Kyoto protocol on climate change might seem a little self-indulgent. There will be oceans of planet-saving rhetoric, countless photographs of politicians wearing dark suits and serious faces and, if things go according to plan, an agreement to cut emissions to avert a rise in temperature that might anyway have turned out to be marginal and self-correcting.

It might; and then again it might not. Uncertainty about the consequences of climate change makes it hard to persuade people to spend money on it, for where the damage is uncertain, so are the benefits of averting it. Yet uncertainty is also why mankind needs to take the problem seriously. If we were sure that the temperature would rise by 2-3ºC, then we could choose to live with that. But we do not know how far the rise might go. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body set up by the UN to establish a scientific consensus on the subject, puts the range of possible increases by the end of this century at 1.1-6.4ºC. At the bottom end of the range, the difference would be barely noticeable. At the top end of the range—well, guesses about what the world would look like then read rather like science fiction.
Although the benefits of averting that sort of catastrophe are incalculably large, the costs of doing so should not be enormous—as little as 1% of global output, if policy is well designed (see our special report). This newspaper reckons that the world should fork out, rather as householders spend similar proportions of their income on insuring their homes against disaster.

Sharing and trusting
Agreeing that the problem is worth tackling is, however, a small step on the way to doing so. Since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which spawned the Kyoto protocol, was signed in 1992, global carbon-dioxide emissions have risen by a third. The problem is not a lack of low-carbon technologies. Electricity can be generated by nuclear fission, hydropower, biomass, wind and solar energy; and cars and lorries can run on electricity or biofuels. Nor is the problem an economic one. A percentage point of global economic output is affordable for a worthwhile project. Saving the banks has cost around 5% of global output.
So the problem is both simpler and cheaper to fix than most people think. But mankind has to agree on how to share out the costs, both between and within countries. That splits into two challenges. The first is to get an international deal, which is what world leaders are trying to do at Copenhagen. The second is to implement that deal at a national level, with better policies than those currently in place, including a credible carbon price. Otherwise the cost will be far more than that 1%.

The prospects for Copenhagen look better than those for Kyoto did. Australia, which initially walked away from Kyoto, has now ratified it (though its government may choose to hold an election on the issue—see article). America’s emissions-cutting bill is stuck in the Senate, and may never emerge, but Barack Obama is keen to push on. Some middle-income countries, such as Brazil and Mexico, have announced targets for cutting emissions; China has announced one for cutting the carbon-intensity of its economy.

What it’s all about
The arguments at Copenhagen will focus on two issues: emissions cuts and money. Developed countries are required to produce targets for cutting their emissions by 2020. On the basis of the IPCC’s figures, their emissions need to drop by 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 if the world is to limit the rise in temperature to 2ºC above pre-industrial levels. The offers on the table add up to around 15% compared with 1990 levels by 2020. America, the main laggard, is offering around 4%.

Developing countries are required to come up with “actions” to limit emissions. China, now the world’s biggest emitter, and so the country in the spotlight, has committed itself to cut the carbon-intensity of its economy by 40-45% by 2020. America is dissatisfied with that, because that’s pretty much where China would get to on the basis of its existing policies.

Emerging countries want governments in the rich world to pay huge sums from their coffers for adaptation to, and mitigation of, climate change. China has mentioned $400 billion a year. The EU reckons €100 billion ($150 billion) a year is more like it—some from exchequers, most from capital markets.

On emissions cuts, both sides need to give ground. Developing countries are right that America’s offer is unimpressive compared with 1990 figures, but the trajectory from now on is pretty steep. And, given that the crucial legislation is stuck in the Senate, Mr Obama’s decision to put any numbers on the table is a brave one. Senators react badly to the sense that their country is being pushed around by foreigners—as their pre-emptive rejection of the Kyoto protocol showed. A deal on the basis of the numbers America has offered would be better than no deal. Nor is China’s offer derisory. The Americans complain that China’s existing policies would achieve those cuts with no extra effort. True; but China, unlike America, has already introduced significant emissions-cutting measures.

On cash, money should indeed change hands—both for moral reasons (rich countries are largely responsible for the problem so far but poor ones will suffer most) and for practical ones (some poor countries do not have access to the capital they need to invest in mitigation). But developing countries should not be asking for huge government-to-government transfers. Capital markets are better at allocating resources than governments are. Rich-country governments should help money flow from the markets by subsidising the risk of investing in clean energy in poor countries: public money should be used to prompt larger sums of private capital.

If an agreement is reached at Copenhagen, there will be much relief on all sides; but the job will only just have started. The parties to the negotiation decided to put aside the question of whether, and how, to make the deal legally binding pending the passage of America’s emissions-reducing legislation. And an international agreement is only the first step to emissions cuts. National targets have to be implemented through domestic policies which encourage businesses to invest in clean products and processes, and discourage them from investing in carbon-intensive products and processes. This is the second, harder task.

Effective, efficient or neither
A good policy framework would include some regulation in areas where the market doesn’t work well, such as the energy-efficiency of buildings and appliances. It would include a modicum of subsidy, on research into technologies that are still a long way from being marketable, such as carbon capture and storage. But it would rely largely on by far the most efficient tool in the policymaker’s kit—a carbon price.

A carbon price sends business a price signal to invest in clean stuff not dirty stuff. It doesn’t involve micromanaging business, which regulations do. It doesn’t impose a burden on taxpayers, or require governments to pick winners, which subsidies do. It is, according to an American study, twice as efficient as any other policy.

Economists prefer carbon prices, especially those set by taxes rather than cap-and-trade systems, which are more vulnerable to capture by the polluters they are supposed to penalise. Sadly, though, the views of economists carry little weight. Governments and businesses both tend to like subsidies.

Europe has done best. Its cap-and-trade system has set a carbon price and cut emissions modestly in the sectors it covers. But it relies too heavily on subsidies for renewable energy, and too little on its carbon price. Economists reckon a carbon price of around $40 is needed. Europe’s is around €13. America does not yet have a national carbon price; and its corn-ethanol subsidy, combined with a tariff on cheaper, greener imports, takes the planet’s first prize for the world’s most counterproductive “green” policy. The subsidy-laden bill to establish a cap-and-trade system is a step in the right direction; but, since the carbon price it would set is likely to be around $12, rising to $20 by 2020, not a very large one.

Governments see subsidies as a convenient way of easing in emissions curbs which businesses would otherwise resist. That may be so in the short term. But in the long run they make cutting emissions harder. The notion that dangerous climate change can be averted for a mere 1% of global GDP depends on policy being efficient. If it isn’t, the costs will mount—and so will the chances that the effort will fail.

The leaders gathering in Copenhagen need to come to an agreement, even if it isn’t a very good one. But that will only be the start. The national policies used to implement cuts need to be more efficient than the ones that are so far in place. That requires leadership from the politicians, and support from the voters. The world is, in the end, in their hands.

Cold comfort: the psychology of climate denial

If the evidence is overwhelming that man-made climate change is already upon us and set to wreak planetary havoc, why do so many people refuse to believe it?

The UN's panel of climate scientists, in a landmark report, described the proof of global warming as "unequivocal".

That was two years ago, and since then hundreds of other studies have pointed to an ever-bleaker future, with a potential loss of life numbering in the tens of millions, if not more.

Yet survey after survey from around world reveals deep-seated doubt among the public.

A poll published in Britain on November 14, to cite but one example, found that only 41 per cent of respondents accepted as an established fact that human activity was largely responsible for current global warming.

The majority said the link was not proven, that green propaganda was to blame or the world was not heating up at all.

Last week, a private exchange of emails among climate scientists stoked a firestorm of scepticism after it was hacked and posted on the web.

The memos expressed frustration at the scientists' inability to explain what they described as a temporary slowdown in warming, and discussed ways to counter the campaigns of climate naysayers.

Experts see several explanations for the eagerness with which so many dismiss climate change as overblown or a hoax.

"There is the individual reluctance to give up our comfortable lifestyles - to travel less, consume less," said Anthony Grayling, a philosophy professor at the University of London and a bestselling author in Britain.

While deeply anchored in the West, this resistance also extends to emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil where a burgeoning middle class is only today tasting the fruits of a lifestyle they have waited so long and worked so hard to obtain.

For Tim Kasser, a professor of psychology at Knox University in Galesburg, Illinois, the reality of climate change impinges on core aspects of our identity.

"We are told a thousand times a day, notably through advertising, that the way to a happy, successful and meaningful life is through consumption," he said.

"But now scientists and environmentalists come along and say part of the problem is that we are consuming too much or in the wrong way."

Yet there may also be a darker explanation. It is the human instinct to shut out or modify a terrifying truth: that the world as we know it is heading for a smash.

"It's a paradox: when it comes to disasters, people do not allow themselves to believe what they know," explained Jean-Pierre Dupuy, a professor of social philosophy at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.

"Because everybody is in denial - or would like to be in denial - and would prefer to not shoulder too much of the responsibility for dealing with the problem, you have a kind of disconnect here," Grayling said.

Even scientists reluctantly pushed by their growing sense of alarm into launching public appeals for action have trouble coping.

When Clive Hamilton, a professor of public ethics at Australian National University, attended a September climate conference at Oxford tasked with imagining a world warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, he was struck by how researchers spoke among themselves.

"It was very revealing. As they relaxed somewhat, they began to speak about their fears, about losing sleep, not wanting to think about the implications of what they do," he recalled.

Under such circumstances, people are resourceful in finding ways to reassure themselves or turn their backs on the threat posed by climate change.

Some applaud their own environmental virtue: "Changing to compact fluorescent bulbs makes people feel good - 'I've done my bit for today,'" said Kasser, describing a common attitude in the United States.

"Blaming China and India is another great psychological defence mechanism."

A more sophisticated variant is to conclude, with a sigh of resignation. that individual action isn't enough.

"Even if all of us were at our most maximally green, it probably wouldn't make much more than about a 0.5 per cent difference," said Grayling in characterising this mentality.

At some point, however, reality may bite.

Hamilton, who is running for Parliament in Australia, said more and more people he meets are having what he calls an "Oh shit!" moment.

"It's that moment when you really get it, when you understand not just intellectually but emotionally that climate change is really happening. I think we will see a rush of that over the next couple of years," he said.

It may take one or more terrible shocks - national bankruptcies, a major environmental disaster in a vulnerable country like Bangladesh - for that to happen, said Grayling.

Once it does, "it will be impossible to look back over your shoulder and think, 'it's not true,' or 'there will be a scientific fix, it will all go away'."

Think Again: A Climate of Conspiracy

Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, takes questions from reporters during a news conference in London on December 1, 2009. Stern, in reponse to questions about hackers who leaked emails from scientists at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit in England, said those who doubt the science of global warming are "muddled and confused."

This piece by CAP’s Eric Alterman and Mickey Ehrlich, first published here, looks at how “ClimateGate” fits into the broader set of conspiracy theories pushed by conservatives in the Obama era. I wrote about this connection here: “The top 5 ways the ‘birthers’ are like the deniers.” The fact that Superfreakonomics coauthor Stephen Dubner have joined with the anti-science ideologues, as Alterman and Ehrlich discuss, was, sadly, all-too-predictable (see “Superfreakonomics authors abandon climate science” and “Is Superfreakonomics author Levitt again denying the ‘unequivocal’ scientific evidence for global warming?” and “Dubner ratchets up the rhetoric, claiming his critics have issued a ‘fatwa’!“ If you want to know what the hacked emails really tell us about climate science, read the editorial in Nature: “Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real — or that human activities are almost certainly the cause.”

On November 19, emails stolen from scientists at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England were leaked onto the web. Conservatives immediately claimed that these proved global warming to be a hoax and part of a worldwide conspiracy run by mad scientists who have quashed debate in order to institute a socialist, business-killing cap-and-trade policy. Thus was yet another conservative conspiracy theory in the age of Obama launched: “Climategate.” It’s getting hard to keep track of all of them.

We have written in this space about the promotion of baseless beliefs regarding President Obama’s birth and the authorship of his books. And while much of the mainstream media continues to ignore the conspiratorial nature of contemporary conservative politics’ arguments, the true leaders of the conservative movement in America—Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the like—have been leading the charge for these conspiracies and many more.

Conservative websites and airwaves abound with conspiracy theories to the point where it becomes nearly a full-time job to merely keep up with the various and secretive forces seeking to undermine our country and turn us into—well, it’s never quite clear. Terrorists? Communists? Socialists? Gays? Whatever.On his TV show on Monday, Glenn Beck, with the help of Andrew Breitbart of the website Big Government, reasserted that the White House had ordered union members to beat up anti-health care protestors at town hall meetings this summer. Joseph Farah, the editor of World Net Daily, asserted on Tuesday that President Obama “publicly supports ethnic cleansing in the Middle East against Jews.” And recent polls indicated that 52 percent of Republicans believe that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Barack Obama, who, by the way, according to nearly half of Republicans recently polled, was born in Kenya. (And hey, did you know ACORN caused the financial crisis? Don’t tell me Lou Dobbs would dare to mislead you about that.)

Of course, it’s no secret that the noted climatologist Rush Limbaugh thinks global warming is a “scam” and “a hoax.” So, too, do many Fox News consumers. An informal online poll at Foxnews.com showed that 80 percent of those who voted said that their views on global warming were unchanged and that they do not believe global warming research is accurate.

The leaked East Anglia emails that allegedly provided the “proof” of this view go back 10 years. Conservatives claim that the emails that were leaked undermine all scientific data that suggest global warming is occurring at the rates scientists say it is and that it is caused by humans. They also claim that the emails reveal an organized effort to silence critics of the climate consensus in the scientific community.

In fact, while the scientists in question were undoubtedly overzealous, and went way overboard in the name of debunking dangerous pseudoscience on the issue, as Jeff Masters has pointed out, “Even if every bit of mud slung at these scientists were true, the body of scientific work supporting the theory of human-caused climate change—which spans hundreds of thousands of scientific papers written by tens of thousands of scientists in dozens of different scientific disciplines—is too vast to be budged by the flaws in the works of the three or four scientists.”

Nevertheless, on November 24, Stephen J. Dubner, who wrote about Climategate for the Freakonomics blog at NYT.com, appeared on Fox Business Network with host David Asman. Asman introduced the segment by evoking efforts by Hitler and Stalin to manipulate science to achieve their evil ends. Asman said, preposterously, “Well, it can’t happen here, as many people have said, but apparently it has.” Asman’s guest completely allowed the comparison of climate scientists to the mass murderers to stand.

Dubner then claimed that the emails showed that scientists were “colluding” with Al Gore in “distorting evidence.” He insisted that “you can’t read these emails and feel that the IPCC’s or the major climate scientists’ findings and predictions about global warming are kosher.” He also claimed, without any evidence, that the hackers who illegally obtained the emails “either wanted to get in there because they knew there was something they should read. Or maybe there’s a whistle blower.” Dubner’s conjecture put him in league with Rush Limbaugh, who, the day before, guessed “maybe there’s a whistle blower inside the organization who is just unhappy about what’s going on.”

No one cites the possibility that the emails were hacked by people fishing for evidence whether it was there or not. The emails are only proof-positive about a global warming conspiracy to people who believed it before the emails were leaked. As Sean Hannity put it on November 24, “Now we find out that this institute is hiding from the people of Great Britain and the world that, in fact, climate change is a hoax, something I’ve been saying for a long time.”

In Great Britain, the blogs at the Telegraph have been awash with outrage over Climategate. On November 20, before the authenticity of the emails had been confirmed, James Delingpole wrote a piece with the hyperbolic title, “Climategate: The Final Nail in the Coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming?’” Delingpole proceeded to reel off mantras of climate change denial. He wrote, erroneously, that the world is in a period of cooling, and cited scientists who claim that dangerously high concentrations of carbon dioxide provide necessary food for plants.

On “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” George Will falsely asserted that the emails revealed an effort to “delete” evidence that showed a medieval warming period. Will has used his Washington Post column to undermine the evidence of global warming and the urgency for policies addressing it. Most recently he has written on the abundance of fossil fuels.

An editorial in The Washington Times bore the title, “Hiding Evidence of Global Cooling: Junk science exposed among climate-change believers.” The article referred to the “baloney practices that pass as sound science about climate change.” There is never any reference to evidence in the emails that disputes the broad scientific consensus on climate change.

In fact, as CAP’s Matthew Yglesias points out, the consensus on global warming extends to all governments in the world, including the world’s biggest polluter, China. In the current issue of Time, Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, adds, “It is the ice melt from these glaciers [those quickly vanishing in the Himalyas due to global warming], that sustains irrigation. The melting of these glaciers is the most massive threat to food security that we have ever projected.” And, as the magazine’s Byron Walsh continues, “It is also a threat to global security. In developing nations such as China and India, growing prosperity means ever greater demand for—and potential battles over—water.”

Of course, talk like that is just part of the conspiracy. Glenn Beck promises that the upcoming U.N. summit on climate in Copenhagen designed to begin addressing problems like these, even if only in vague and undemanding terms, will mean “the end of U.S. sovereignty.”

Just who is actually running things, well, they never do say.

Unsettled Science

Unusually, I’m in complete agreement with a recent headline on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page:

“The Climate Science Isn’t Settled”

The article below is the same mix of innuendo and misrepresentation that it’s author normally writes, but the headline is correct. The WSJ seems to think that the headline is some terribly important pronouncement that in some way undercuts the scientific consensus on climate change but they are simply using an old rhetorical ‘trick’.

The phrase “the science is settled” is associated almost 100% with contrarian comments on climate and is usually a paraphrase of what ’some scientists’ are supposed to have said. The reality is that it depends very much on what you are talking about and I have never heard any scientist say this in any general context – at a recent meeting I was at, someone claimed that this had been said by the participants and he was roundly shouted down by the assembled experts.

The reason why no scientist has said this is because they know full well that knowledge about science is not binary – science isn’t either settled or not settled. This is a false and misleading dichotomy. Instead, we know things with varying degrees of confidence – for instance, conservation of energy is pretty well accepted, as is the theory of gravity (despite continuing interest in what happens at very small scales or very high energies) , while the exact nature of dark matter is still unclear. The forced binary distinction implicit in the phrase is designed to misleadingly relegate anything about which there is still uncertainty to the category of completely unknown. i.e. that since we don’t know everything, we know nothing.

In the climate field, there are a number of issues which are no longer subject to fundamental debate in the community. The existence of the greenhouse effect, the increase in CO2 (and other GHGs) over the last hundred years and its human cause, and the fact the planet warmed significantly over the 20th Century are not much in doubt. IPCC described these factors as ‘virtually certain’ or ‘unequivocal’. The attribution of the warming over the last 50 years to human activity is also pretty well established – that is ‘highly likely’ and the anticipation that further warming will continue as CO2 levels continue to rise is a well supported conclusion. To the extent that anyone has said that the scientific debate is over, this is what they are referring to. In answer to colloquial questions like “Is anthropogenic warming real?”, the answer is yes with high confidence.

But no scientists would be scientists if they thought there was nothing left to find out. Think of the science as a large building, with foundations reaching back to the 19th Century and a whole edifice of knowledge built upon them. The community spends most of its time trying to add a brick here or a brick there and slowly adding to the construction. The idea that the ’science is settled’ is equivalent to stating that the building is complete and that nothing further can be added. Obviously that is false – new bricks (and windows and decoration and interior designs) are being added and argued about all the time. However, while the science may not be settled, we can still tell what kind of building we have and what the overall picture looks like. Arguments over whether a single brick should be blue or yellow don’t change the building from a skyscraper to a mud hut.

The IPCC reports should be required reading for anyone who thinks that scientists think that the ’science is settled’ – the vast array of uncertainties that are discussed and dissected puts that notion to bed immediately. But what we do have are reasons for concern. As Mike Hulme recently wrote:

[S]cience has clearly revealed that humans are influencing global climate and will continue to do so, but we don’t know the full scale of the risks involved, nor how rapidly they will evolve, nor indeed—with clear insight—the relative roles of all the forcing agents involved at different scales.
…
The central battlegrounds on which we need to fight out the policy implications of climate change concern matters of risk management, of valuation, and political ideology. We must move the locus of public argumentation here not because the science has somehow been “done” or “is settled”; science will never be either of these things, although it can offer powerful forms of knowledge not available in other ways. It is a false hope to expect science to dispel the fog of uncertainty so that it finally becomes clear exactly what the future holds and what role humans have in causing it.

Dealing with the future always involves dealing with uncertainty – and this is as true with climate as it is with the economy. Science has led to a great deal of well-supported concern that increasing emissions of CO2 (in particular) are posing a substantial risk to human society. Playing rhetorical games in the face of this, while momentarily satisfying for blog commenters, is no answer at all to the real issues we face.

Gavin Schmidt, RealClimate.org

Veskimägi: taastuvenergia tasu kasv aitab head hinnata

Eleringi uus juht Taavi Veskimägi ütles, et taastuvenergia tasu kiire tõus aitab elektritarbijail oma rahakoti najal aru saada, mis on neile pikemas perspektiivis hea, ja vaigistab fossiilsete kütuste ning taastuvenergia pooldajate vahelist sõnasõda.

Mul ikkagi küsimus, et kas AGW on teadus või poliitika? Ei oska seisukohta võtta, aga kui sunnitakse valima, siis ütlen, et AGW on bullshit ja seega poliitika mitte teadus.

Alustaks täna huumoriga?

angelp	Re: Kui palju inimtegevus kliimat mõjutab?	13/11/09 13:59
Olukorrast Arktikas: Gröönimaa jääkilp kahaneb kiirenevas tempos http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091112141311.htm Massi kahanemist on aidanud osaliselt kompenseerida suurenenud sademed. Süsteemiteooria kohaselt on see negatiivne tagasiside, mis aitab põhiprotsessi kiirendust maha võtta. Decibel, selles osas on sul õigus, et mitte kõik protsessid ei ole isevõimenduvad.

henryhenry	Re: Kas ma olen mida maha maganud või?	13/11/09 14:32
To angelp: Kas tõesti Globaalne kliima olukord on juba nii hull, et Gröönimaa jääkilp on Arktikasse ära kolitud või?

Tin	Re: Kui palju inimtegevus kliimat mõjutab?	13/11/09 15:16
henryhenry, jah sest tigedad eskimod kiusasid ja mõnitasid jääkilpi, momendil ta on arktikas ning on sisse andnud asüülitaotluse.

Aizar	Re: Kui palju inimtegevus kliimat mõjutab?	13/11/09 15:55
Just, väidetavalt on isegi juhtumeid, kus eskimod urineerisid jääkilbi peale, rääkimata teistest tegevustest.

http://www.lhv.ee/forums/index.cfm?id=196424&start=651

What percentage of global warming is due to human causes vs. natural causes?

Vastab kliimateadlane Gavin Schmidt:

Over the last 40 or so years, natural drivers would have caused cooling, and so the warming there has been … is caused by a combination of human drivers and some degree of internal variability. I would judge the maximum amplitude of the internal variability to be roughly 0.1 deg C over that time period, and so given the warming of ~0.5 deg C, I’d say somewhere between 80 to 120% of the warming. Slightly larger range if you want a large range for the internal stuff.