CARBON EMISSIONS RISING FASTER THAN EVER

Yet global warming stopped at least 8 years ago!

Far from slowing down, global carbon dioxide emissions are rising faster than before, said a gathering of scientists in Beijing on Friday. Between 2000 and 2005, emissions grew four times faster than in the preceding 10 years, according to researchers at the Global Carbon Project, a consortium of international researchers. Global growth rates were 0.8% from 1990 to 1999. From 2000 to 2005, they reached 3.2%. Though alarming, the figures confirm expectations. "They make intuitive sense to me," says Jim Watson, deputy leader of the energy programme at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK.

One likely contributor is China, whose emissions slowed at end of the 1990s before rising again. China is now the world's second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US. On Tuesday, the International Energy Agency released a report predicting that it would become the world's top emitter by 2030 (see World faces 'dirty, insecure' energy future). Other growing developing countries, such as India and Brazil, are also fast becoming large emitters.

The US, meanwhile, is taking no nationwide action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme - created to help EU nations abide by their agreed Kyoto Protocol emissions limits - failed to do so in 2005, its first year of operation. It is unlikely to do so until its second phase of operation, which begins in 2008.

The Global Carbon Project report shows that carbon dioxide emissions over the last five years resembled one of the scenarios which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses to predict how the world will change with greenhouse gas emissions. The "A1B" scenario assumes that 50% of energy over the next century will come from fossil fuels, resulting in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations causing drastic climatic consequences. "On our current path, we will find it extremely difficult to rein in carbon emissions enough to stabilise the atmospheric CO2 concentration at 450 parts per million and even 550 ppm will be a challenge," says Josep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project. Research suggests that stabilising carbon dioxide concentrations at 450 ppm could limit global warming to 2øC.

The authors also highlight the importance of environmental inertia. This is the mechanism by which the environment stores up part of the energy of generated by greenhouse gas emissions, only releasing it to the atmosphere later on. As a result, even when human emissions do begin to drop, atmospheric carbon dioxide will continue to rise for up to a century. Global temperatures will continue to increase for two or more centuries. "This report shows how important it is for all countries to work towards more ambitious climate targets within the next phase of international action beyond 2012," says Watson. He adds: "Action to persuade the US and large developing countries such as China and India to work towards such an agreement is particularly crucial. So is the acceleration of technological co-operation initiatives to help developing countries - particularly China - to move to a lower carbon development pathway."

Source






THE ETHICS OF SHORTCHANGING PRESENT GENERATIONS: COMMENT ON THE STERN REVIEW

One of the devices used by the Stern Review (SR) to show that the costs of climate change might reach 20 percent of global GDP is its use of low or declining discount rates which it justifies, in part, on the notion of intergenerational equity (SR, p. 23).1 However, even if for the sake of argument one accepts the Stern Review’s claim that GDP (or GDP per capita) would be reduced by such an amount, the numbers provided in the Review and the analytical sources that it relies upon indicate that despite any climate change, future generations of both the developing and industrialized countries will be far better off than the present generations inhabiting these areas. That this is the case is shown in Table 1. Specifically, this table shows that under the richest-but warmest (A1FI) scenario, “net” annual GDP per capita in the “developing” world, after accounting for a 20 percent loss in welfare due to climate change, would be over $53,000 in 2100 compared to $875 in 1990 (the base year used in the IPCC scenarios).2 Under the poorest but-less-warm (A2) scenario, the net annual GDP per capita for developing countries in 2100 would be $9,500.

The Stern Review also suggests that per capita GDP losses due to climate change could total 35.2 percent in 2200 if one accounts for the risk of catastrophe, and market and non-market losses (SR, pp. 156 and 158). I will, for the sake of calculating a lower bound for the GDP per capita under climate change in 2100, assume that the losses would equal 40 percent in that year, that is, double the losses shown in Table 1. Even under this extreme assumption, the net GDP per capita for developing countries in 2100, ranging from $8,015 under the A2 scenario to $39,900 under the A1FI scenario, would substantially exceed the 1990 level of $875. Notably, under the A1FI scenario, the average inhabitant of the developing world would be better off in 2100 than the average person in the industrialized world was in 1990 even if climate change losses amount to 78 percent of GDP.

FULL CRITIQUE here




STERN AND DRANG

For non-literary people, Tim Worstall is alluding to "Sturm und Drang" (storm and stress) -- a well known period in German literature. It may also be explanatory to note here that "Stern" is an Ashkenazi name so means "Star" rather than what it seems to mean in English. Ashkenazi (German Jewish) surnames are often rather mocking when translated. "Kren", for instance, means "Horseradish" and "Finkelstein" means "Gemstone" etc.

The Stern Review is out and now that people have had a couple of days to digest the 600 or so pages of heavy verbiage and math, we're starting to see some commentary on how well it's been done. Leave aside the screaming newspaper headlines that shout that we all drowned yesterday and will boil tomorrow and the general reaction from those who know the subject is 'Hunh?'

The one group not complaining are the economists looking at what the Review recommends should be done if indeed matters are as bad as the Review claims. Increased investment in new technologies, the rapid diffusion of these around the world, either carbon taxes or a cap and trade system of permits to reduce emissions: these are indeed what most economists would say was the rational way to deal with such a series of problems.

The Review also makes the eminently sensible observation that there is no point in any one country trying to work alone. As the report is written from a UK point of view the truth that that country is responsible for only 2% of global emissions is shown, along with the fact that even if the UK could become zero carbon emitting overnight that is less than one year's increase in the emissions from China. Those who are already baying for higher taxes in the UK as a result of the Review do seem to have missed that little nugget: any solution has to be global and it has to include the developing nations: something which we might remember Kyoto entirely failed to do.

One possible criticism, a valid one to my mind, is that having told us all how we need this wonderful example of international cooperation to make the problems less awful, there's little there that tells us how to actually get that international cooperation. As we've also all seen not every country has signed onto Kyoto yet: and I don't just mean the industrialized countries: to make the new proposed system work everyone has to sign on, the poor as well as the rich.

My own, very much larger, objection, I'll come to in a minute, after a look at what some other people are saying. Nature, for example, reports that there are those who are not all that impressed: "Such criticisms come as no surprise to Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich, UK. Hulme says that the British government has asked him many times to conduct a study on the total cost of climate change. He declined, as he does not feel it's a question that researchers can answer. Difficulties in estimating the impact of strategies such as coastal defences are only part of the problem. When other assumptions, such as the economic cost of species extinctions, are included, Hulme feels that the uncertainties become so great that he would not be able to defend the end result."

He says that Stern's team seems to have done a good job, but with so many assumptions involved, and the review having been conducted by a political appointee: "This is not the last word of scientists and economists, it's the last word of civil servants."

The Tyndall Centre? The last time we saw them they were writing a report on climate change for Friends of the Earth so criticism from that angle must be unwelcome.

Richard Tol is also mentioned there at Nature and his critique is up at the blog of Roger Pielke Jr, Prometheus. It's a list, among other things, of where he thinks the Stern Review has gone cherry picking. All numbers and values are taken from the most extreme ones in the literature. There's more on that blog as well along the same lines on things like damage from extreme weather events.

Environmental Economics really cannot believe the numbers that the Review comes up with. They appear so out of line with others reported that he's sure that something very strange is being done to get to them. Adam Smithee explains at least part of it: the use of extremely low discount rates. (Note: the discount rate used is extremely important. A high discount rate means that spending now to save in the future means that such spending is very hard to justify. Stern uses a very low discount rate, much lower than almost anyone else has even proposed.) Wat Tyler takes a more cynical view based upon his, well, cynical view of the way in which the British State works (or if you prefer, his robust view of public choice economics).

Perhaps the most surprising point made is from William Connelly who is actually a code cruncher on the climate change models (and how he will be alarmed at being quoted here):

Before I get back to that, I notice "If the Greenland or West Antarctic Ice Sheets began to melt irreversibly, the rate of sea level rise could more than double, committing the world to an eventual sea level rise of 5 - 12 m over several centuries.". Errrm... centuries? Current SRL is 2-3 mm/yr, ie 20-30 cm/century. Double that to 40-60 and you're a fair few centuries into the future before you hit 5m, let alone 12. SRL is the "great white hope" of impacts, since its unequivocally bad (at least I've never seen anyone assert it to be a good). 5m is SRL in a millennium might well cause problems, true, but I'm not really happy looking that far ahead - tech could do anything by then.

Even climate researchers aren't all that impressed with trying to predict out that far into the future. As an analogy, think back into history. Should the Northern Europeans not have started to use the horse collar, thus allowing them to plough the heavy soils, because 1,000 years later there's so many of us that CO2 levels are rising?

As you can see people aren't arguing about what should be done if the Review's predictions are correct. They're actually arguing about whether the Review is correct or not which is really a much larger problem for its supporters. Because I really don't think that the Review is indeed correct, either in its predictions for future temperature rises nor in the logic that it uses to urge us into mitigating actions.

FULL COMMENT here







"WE'VE GOT ENOUGH TIME" - AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD TOL

An interview with eminent climate economist Richard Tol on climate alarmism and the right strategies for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Translated roughly from the German. It displays a German level of credulity (they believed Hitler too) about the overall GW phenomenon but nonetheless points out important policy doubts:

WiWo: Mr. Tol, You have called the report on the financial consequences of climatic change by economics professor Sir Nicholas Stern a "alarmist". How did you arrive at this judgement?

Tol: I speak of alarmism because Stern, in the summary of his report, estimated the damage [from climate change] to cost between 5 to 20 per cent of global GDP, but he is basing this on extremely pessimistic scenarios. He ignored other studies that estimate damages to be far below one per cent. This is how he arrives at the scary numbers. At the same time, the summary also gives the impression that the five per cent [of GDP damage] commences immediately and will continue for eternity if noting is done to counter it immediately. In the unabridged version, however, it is stated that the five per cent will be reached in 2075 at the earliest. This procedure is temerarious and an unacceptable way of political advice-giving.

WiWo: Now that the ice caps of the poles melt faster than even the leading sceptics have feared, isn't it essential to ring the alarm bells?

Tol: First of all, the report does not review these developments at all, and secondly any alarm does not help. It will take 50 to 100 years to lower the emission of greenhouse gases to an agreeable level. In order to achieve this goal, soberness is demanded.

WiWo: Why did Nicholas Stern sound the alarm nevertheless? He was the chief economist at the World Bank and is generally considered to be a sober person.

Tol: At the outset, the study was a purely academic exercise. Then the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, who commissioned the Stern Review, discerned that the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, put the Labour Party increasingly under environmental pressure by portraying himself as greener than the government. In order to raise its [environmental] profile, the government thus strongly influenced the tenor of the study.

WiWo: The fact that the earth is warming up due to human behaviour is scientifically beyond doubt. Isn't it then sensible to forcefully steer against it, as Nicholas Stern suggests?

Tol: We must do something and should begin now, that's where I agree with Stern. But there is no risk of damage that would force us to act injudiciously. We've got enough time to look for the economically most effective options rather than dash into 'actionism' which then becomes very expensive.

WiWo: Stern calculates that a forceful fight against global warming is today twenty times cheaper than doing nothing.

Tol: That is completely exaggerated. Stern has set the costs of damage much too high and the costs of emission reduction much too low. This employment of incorrect numbers makes it easy for opponents of climatic protection to evade accepting consent. They correctly assert: What the Stern Review claims is rubbish. You can only have an effective climate policy if everyone takes part. We need a long-term solution, and it has to be global one. The Stern Review perturbs this agreement process to the extent that it performs a disservice to the goals of climate protection.

WiWo: How seriously, according to your estimates, are the economic consequences of global warming?

Tol: The situation is serious, but definitely not as serious as Stern claims. According to my computations the greenhouse effect can cause annual damage of around 0.5 per cent of global GDP. In the next century, when the impact of global warming will be felt fully, the damage could amount to two to four per cent, if nothing would be done about it.

WiWo: What do you suggest as counter measure?

Tol: The means of my choice would be to raise world-wide taxes on emissions. But that is politically not feasible. Thus, emission trading remains as the second best solution. The state allocates certificates to businesses which - at the outset - permit them free emissions of carbon dioxide, as they do it today, and without setting secondary costs. However, if they want to produce more, they must either produce more [energy] efficiently or buy from other businesses (which have reduced their carbon dioxide output) certificates at a kind stock exchange. Such a free market system helps the environment.

WiWo: In Europe, such a regulatory system has been in place since last year. Nevertheless, it hasn't had much of an effect.

Tol: That is because of the fact that too many certificates were allocated. Consequently, little money can be made from the sales of certificates at the moment. Thus there are no incentives for lowering CO2-emissions. In order to have any lasting effect, the certificate trade would have to incorporate traffic, households and agriculture, additional greenhouse gases and the whole world economy. Europe alone cannot save the climate.

WiWo: Why should China and India, whose industries still produce a great deal with outdated technologies, join in the certificate trade?

WiWo: It is exactly this outdated technology that makes it possible for China and India to achieve large CO2 reductions by way of relatively small investments. They could sell the emissions they reduce to Europe or the USA and could thus make a lot of money.

WiWo: The United Nations is currently trying to agree a new international climate treaty. How promising are such agreements?

WiWo: They don't accomplish much as the Kyoto Treaty has already revealed. Only few countries committed themselves to concrete goals at all, only few uphold their obligations, and some, like Canada recently, simply pull out again. And why not - there is no threat of sanctions!

WiWo: Does that mean that 6000 UN delegates in Nairobi are gathering for a useless chit-chat?

Tol: They should concentrate on organising an international trade with certificates and close co-operation regarding the introduction of low-carbon technologies. Unfortunately neither issue is on the agenda. In fact, according to our calculations, world-wide greenhouse gas emissions could be halved in one fell swoop if the world would employ the best available technologies.

WiWo: Isn't it rather uptopian to believe that all the countries in the world would agree on uniform technical standards?

Tol: It would often be sufficient if a few market-dominating countries made advances in this direction. All the cars of this world, for example, are manufactured in just ten countries. If these countries would agree to reduce pollution output per HP by half in say ten years, that would relieve the environment enormously. The rest of the world would have no choice than to join in. Something similar applies to power stations, for which even fewer countries possess the technology. A bulk of problems would be solved if we succeeded to decouple energy consumption and emission output by means of modern technologies.

WiWo: Should the governments subsidise certain technologies financially?

Tol: We should certainly prevent civil servants to determine what is good or bad in this respect. Policy should be limited to determine certain goals, just like California, for instance, did with regards to car emissions. This would accelerate research and development most effectively.

WiWo: The German government subsidizes renewable energies such as wind and sun. Wouldn't a rapid expansion of nuclear energy protect global climate substantially better?

Tol: The huge amount of money that is flowing into wind energy in Germany is an off-putting example of what happens when governments select the technology. The people who are now earning very well on account of wind turbines had close relations with the formerly Green [Party-run] Department of the Environment. Much money is flowing although wind energy is very unreliable and will never provide more than ten per cent of the total energy requirement. In addition, wind energy is expensive and technical progress already today seems to be exhausted to a large extent. Nuclear power can be a solution. In any case, it is more reliable and, most likely, also cheaper in the long term.

WiWo: Some experts believe that it costs less to adapt to climate change instead of stopping it. Are they right?

Tol: We should do both. In order to prevent that rising sea levels flood coastal areas, the building of dykes is an inexpensive solution. But we should not let global warming proceed unconstrained, otherwise we risk that one day the water in the oceans evaporates.

WiWo: Next year, the IPCC, the scientific committee of the UN in charge of assessing climate change, will issue its next report. Is there sufficient economic expertise readily available in the IPCC?

Tol: Unfortunately not at all. Over the years, the IPCC has become ever greener and the few economists, who were previously involved have been pushed out. Obviously, this casts doubt on the quality of the results.

WiWo: On a personal note, how confident are you that the climate can be still salvaged?

Tol: I do not see any reason to panic. We've got enough time to act in response. And, it would appear that the Americans and Chinese, the two biggest climate sinners, will soon more invest much more in modes of climatic protection. The results of the American elections will strengthen climate activists in the USA so that I envisage new concrete climate programmes in the next three years. The Chinese will follow suit in the next decade, not least because otherwise they will be threatened by catastrophic environmental damage. That will generate a huge drive.

Source

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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