The May-June issue of Foreign Affairs leads off with an interesting article by economist Thomas Schelling which examines and recommends future paths dealing with the Greenhouse Gas problem. I think Schelling presents a sensible and long-term (over the next century) view of the subject from an economist's point-of-view.
Even though I usually use italics to indicate quoted material, I think long passages of italics are difficult to read so I will only use it for short quotes. I will format the textual material and my comments to clearly indicate which is which. Bold highlights within the text are mine.
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FL: In his opening, Schelling reviews the events of the last decade. In 1997 the US agreed (subject to Senate ratification) to cutting emissions significantly below their 1990 level by 2010 -- which required a 25 or 30 percent reduction in projected emissions levels. This was the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which was layered on top of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
In an effort to get the main developing countries, China, Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria, and others to get on board the global effort, the Senate passed a resolution calling for the full participation of the main developing countries in the protocol's emissions-cutting requirements, that pause was supposed to allow time for negotiation to bring those countries on board. But nobody thought any such negotiation could produce results, and no negotiation was ever attempted. The Kyoto proposal was not submitted to the Senate by Clinton and specifically rejected by Bush as discussed below.
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What Makes Greenhouse Sense?
by Thomas C. Schelling
From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2002
Thomas C. Schelling is Distinguished University Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at the University of Maryland.
The Kyoto Protocol should not be a partisan issue. The percentage reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions to which the United States committed itself by signing the 1997 Protocol to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was probably unachievable when the protocol was adopted. The protocol then languished in Washington for the final three years of the Clinton administration, which chose not to present it to the Senate for ratification. In accordance with a Senate resolution calling for the full participation of the main developing countries in the protocol's emissions-cutting requirements, that pause was supposed to allow time for negotiation to bring those countries on board. But nobody thought any such negotiation could produce results, and no negotiation was ever attempted. George W. Bush, succeeding to the presidency three years after the protocol's signing, had some choices and may not have made the best choice when he rejected the plan outright last year. But the one option he did not have was to submit the protocol to the Senate for ratification.
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FL: But the one option he did not have was to submit the protocol to the Senate for ratification. And why could Bush not do that? Read on...
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The U.S. "commitment" to the protocol meant cutting emissions significantly below their 1990 level by 2010 -- which required a 25 or 30 percent reduction in projected emissions levels. Such a cut was almost certainly infeasible when the Clinton administration signed the protocol in 1997. Three years later, with no action toward reducing emissions, no evidence of any planning on how to reduce emissions, and no attempt to inform the public or Congress about what might be required to meet that commitment, what might barely have been possible to achieve over 15 years -- 1997 to 2012 -- had become unreasonable.
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FL: Now here's an interesting comment:
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The Senate will not confirm a treaty unless it knows what actions the "commitment" entails, and no president could answer that question without a year's preparation. No such preparation appears to have been done in the Clinton administration. Bush, in stating that he would not submit the treaty to the Senate, at least avoided hypocrisy.
In declining to support the Kyoto Protocol, Bush outlined three concerns regarding any future greenhouse-gas agreement.
First, the main developing countries need to adhere as full participants, as the Senate had earlier resolved; so far, developing countries have made clear they have no intention of doing so.
Second, he cited the immense uncertainty about the likely extent of climate change and its impact on society.
Third, he expressed a preference for "voluntarism" over enforceable regulation, even though he did not make clear whether his "voluntarism" referred to domestic or international commitments.
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FL: I've added 1-2-3 to the headings below.
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(1) A FAIR DEAL?
There is no likelihood that China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, or Nigeria will fully participate in any greenhouse-gas regime for the next few decades. They have done their best to make that point clear, and it serves no purpose to disbelieve them. Although their spokespersons regularly allege that rich countries are the most worried about climate change, developing nations have the most to lose from climate change. They are much more dependent on agriculture and will therefore suffer much more from global warming. Constrained by poverty and technological backwardness, their ability to adapt to climate change is limited. The best way for developing countries to mitigate global warming, therefore, is through economic growth.
There are undoubtedly opportunities in those countries for improved energy efficiencies that may simultaneously cut carbon dioxide emissions and improve public health; China, for example, couldeasily reduce its dependence on coal. But any major reductions in worldwide carbon dioxide emissions over the next few decades will have to be at the expense of the rich countries. Calling for the immediate participation of the big developing nations is futile. Once the developed countries have demonstrated that they can cooperate in reducing greenhouse gases, they can undertake arrangements to include developing countries in a greenhouse-gas regime, aiding them with economic incentives.
(2) THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE
As Bush has emphasied, there are many uncertainties in the greenhouse-gas debate.But what is least uncertain is that climate change is real and likely to be serious. In any case, residual ambiguity about this question should not delay essential research and development in nonfossil energy sources, energy conservation, and policies to exploit the most cost-effective ways to reduce emissions.
A huge uncertainty that will make any lasting regime impossible for many decades to come, however, is how much carbon dioxide can safely be emitted over the coming century. A reading of the evidence – including climate sensitivity,regional climate changes, likely severityof impact, and the effectiveness of adaptation — suggests that the highestceiling for carbon dioxide concentration,beyond which damage would be unacceptable, is probably between 600 and1,200 parts per million. (It is currently about 370 ppm.) Further uncertainty existsa bout how much carbon dioxide can be absorbed into various natural sinks—oceans and forests—or sequestered underground or deep in the ocean. Thus any estimate of the level at which totalcarbon dioxide emissions worldwide over the coming hundred years should be capped is wide-ranging, falling between 500 billion tons and 2 trillion tons.(Worldwide emissions are currently approaching 7 billion tons, half of which stays in the atmosphere.) In any event,what is ultimately unacceptable depends on the costs of moderating emissions,and these costs are also uncertain.
As a result, any "rationing scheme"would necessarily be subject to repeated revision and renegotiation. It is note worthy that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the international body, comprising more than a thousand scientists from scores of countries, that is the acknowledged (if controversial) authority on the subject has never proposed what concentration of greenhousegases would constitute unacceptable damage. Nor has any other representativebody yet dared to hazard an estimate.
IN THE LONG RUN
The Kyoto Protocol had a short-term focus. It assumed correctly that developed countries could achieve significant reductions in emissions fairly promptly.As the National Academy of Sciences emphasized ten years ago, there are a number of opportunities to reduce emissions at little or no cost. They are mostly one-time measures that are not indefinitelyexploitable. Had they been promptly attempted, they might have made theKyoto approach feasible. Postponing these steps merely loses time.
But the protocol was embedded in the 1992 Convention on Climate Change,which was oriented toward the long term.So it has been interpreted as heralding the beginning (for developed countries) of a long-term decline in carbon dioxide emissions. But any reasonable trajectoryof emissions in the future ought to show a rise for some decades and a rapid decline later in the century.
There are several reasons for such a trajectory. First, the technologies needed to drastically reduce fossil-fuel consumption through alternative energy sources, greater energy efficiency, and sequestration of carbon dioxide or its removal from fuel are not developed. Decades of investment are needed. The necessary investments will not happen by themselves; governmentaction and support, especially in arranging market incentives, will be essential.
Second, it is economical to use durable equipment until it is due for replacement; early scrapping is wasteful. Much capital,such as electric power plants, is very long-lived. Auto fleets can turn over in or 20 years, but most industrial plants cannot. Furthermore, deferring expenses saves interest on loans for capital invest-ment. Finally, the richer countries will almost certainly have higher incomes in the future and be better able to afford drastic changes in energy use.
The economical trajectory for emissions over the coming century will differ substantially among the developed countries.Thus any reasonable rationing scheme should contemplate a timeline of at least a century, not a few decades. But no possibIe consensus exists on how much total emissions should be allowed for the coming century. That confusion makes any scheme of fixed quotas, including "emissions trading," out of the question.
In short, the Kyoto Protocol's exclusivefocus on the short term neglected thecrucial importance of expanding worldwide research and development of technologies to make severe reductions feasible later in the century. It also adopted a format incompatible with the most economical trajectory of emissions over time: a rise fors ome decades followed by a sharp decline.
(3) FREE TO CHOOSE?
The Bush administration has favored"voluntary" measures over "mandatory" ones. But it is not clear whether these terms referred mainly to domestic or to international measures.
Domestically, a voluntary approach would make the greenhouse question unique among issues of environment and health, which fall under government jurisdiction. The research of the National Institutes of Health, for example, is universally acknowledged to be essential; leaving such research to the market or to voluntary industrial altruism would not appeal to anyone. The same approach should applyto research on new low-carbon or non-carbon energies or carbon sequestration.Major replacement of fossil fuels or reductions in energy demand, carbon dioxide "containment" efforts, or investment in new technologies to bring them about will not occur without serious market incentives. Domestically, "voluntarism"is an ineffectual approach that would put blame only on firms that have no market support for what they may be asked to do.
An international regime, in contrast,can be only voluntary. Commitments will not be "enforceable." At best they may be honored, because respectable governments prefer to keep commitments.The U.S. government has a strong aversion to any commitments it does not think it will keep. And neither the United States nor the other major developed countries will likely accept serious sanctions for missing emissions targets. There is talk of "binding commitments," as if "commitment" itself was not binding, but there is no expectation of penalties for shortfall.
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FL: To be continued...
My bold highlights may seem numerous but I wanted to let you know which passages in his developing argument seem most important to me.
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