Tag Archives: climate change

More American Public Opinion.

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What do Americans think about pornography? Generally, they’re against it. Only 35 percent of men regard watching porn is morally acceptable; only 23 percent of women regard it as morally acceptable. However, a big chunk of Americans beg to differ. Cell-phone porn—“intimate” photographs of self or other—can be found on the phones of 20 percent of Americans. The number is almost twice as high—39 percent—for those under 30.[1]

What do Americans think about the death penalty? In 1996, 78 percent of Americans supported the death penalty. By 2014, support had fallen, but polls differed considerably as to by how much. One poll found that it had dropped to 55 percent. Among whites, 63 percent supported the death penalty, while only 36 percent of African-Americans supported it. Another poll found that 65 percent supported the death penalty ‘for convicted murderers.” Among Republicans, 82 percent supported the death penalty, while 53 percent of Democrats supported it.[2] So, maybe this is another case of how you phrase the question.

What do people at the outer ends of the political spectrum think about opportunity in America? If you work hard, you can get ahead say 80 percent of conservative Republicans, while a mere 36 percent of liberal Democrats believe that to be true. Government programs can help reduce poverty say 62 percent of liberal Democrats, while only 21 percent of conservative Republicans believe this to be true.[3]

What do Americans think about vaccination? The vast majority—83 percent—think that vaccines are safe, versus only 9 percent who think that they are unsafe. However, young people who never saw someone walking in braces from the effects of polio or vomited all over the white dress shirt of the kid in front of him during a Christmas concert because chicken-pox picked a damned poor time to arrive are much more likely to doubt vaccination. Some 21 percent of adults under thirty believe that vaccination can cause autism. In contrast, only 11 percent of adults aged 45 to 64 and 3 percent of those over 65 believe this nonsense.[4]

What do Americans believe about climate change? Most of them believe that government should be doing something to fight it. Thus, 91 percent of Democrats, 78 percent of Independents, and 51 percent of Republicans think that government should be taking action to counter climate change. That is, a majority of people of every political allegiance believe climate change to be a reality and one that can be countered by public policy.[5]

What do Americans think about military interventions in the Middle East? Back in Fall 2013, 67 percent of Americans supported President Obama’s climb-down over air strikes against the Assad regime after it had been alleged that the government had used chemical weapons against rebels. The Russians then brokered a deal to get rid of Assad’s arsenal of chemical weapons. Scarcely a third—37 percent—favored launching air strikes if the Syrians reneged on that deal. A year later, 76 percent supported air strikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but 61 percent opposed sending ground forces even though 70 percent thought that ISIS had the means to attack the United States itself. The legacy of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is evident: only 35 percent of the military veterans of those wars believe that both were worth fighting.[6]

[1] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 21 March 2014, p. 17; “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 September 2014, p. 19.

[2] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 11 April 2014, p. 15; “Poll Watch,” The Week, 16 May 2014, p. 19.

[3] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 14 March 2014, p. 19.

[4] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 13 February 2015, p. 15; “Poll Watch,” The Week, 20 February 2015, p. 19.

[5] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 13 February 2015, p. 15.

[6] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 27 September 2013, p. 17; “Poll Watch,” The Week, 11 April 2014, p. 15; “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 September 2014, p. 19.

Climate of Fear XIV.

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In November 2014, China and the United States reached a bi-lateral non-treaty agreement on reducing carbon emissions. President Obama committed the United States to cut carbon emission by 26-28 percent below the level of 2005 by 2025.[1] President Xi Jinping committed China to reach peak carbon emissions by or before 2030. In addition, China agreed to raise its nuclear, wind, and solar energy generation to about 20 percent of the total by 2030.

The Sino-American agreement prompted diplomats negotiating the draft framework for a new international climate-change agreement to change their own approach.[2] They adopted the idea of allowing each country to commit to reducing carbon emissions without specifying how or by how much they will do so. Countries are supposed to announce during March 2015 how much they will cut emissions after 2020. No one thinks they will set ambitious targets. All 196 nations will agree to sign the new agreement in Paris in November and December 2015.

 

All well and good. What are some of the key problems for which people should be looking during 2015?

Currently, China gets about 10 percent of its energy from non-carbon sources. Experts seem to believe that China will need to deploy an additional 800-1,000 gigawatts of “zero emission generation capacity” to get to 20 percent non-carbon energy-generation by 2030. This is more than all the coal-fired power plants that exist in China today. If China is going to massively expand its non-carbon energy generation just to get to 20 percent of the total, then that suggests that China will also massively expand its carbon energy generation at the same time.

The Obama Administration is pressing for a non-treaty agreement because of the doubts it could pass the Senate. However, a non-treaty is non-binding on all of the signatories. Furthermore, China has always resisted international monitoring of its economy.[3] This could end up like the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) “outlawing war.”

Reducing the amount of coal burned will have effects on several societies as well as on the environment. As of 2012, China got 81 percent of its electricity generation from coal; India got 71 percent; Australia got 69 percent; Indonesia got 48 percent; Germany got 44 percent; the UK got 39 percent; and the US got 38 percent. Shifting some of these countries off coal-burning will require heavy investment in new technologies. There is no sign that any cheap alternative to fossil fuels is at hand. Then coal is an important export for some counties. In 2013 Indonesia exported 426 million tons of coal; Australia 336 million tons; Russia 141 million tons; and the US 107 million tons. Dissuading countries from burning coal for energy will have an effect on the incomes of these countries. If coal turns out to be too dug- in[4] to be abandoned, then attention will have to turn to “clean coal” technologies, and to emissions capture and storage.

In the absence of serious commitments to substantially reduce carbon emissions, climate scientists now believe that it will be impossible to hold back some of the effects of climate change. Glaciers will melt, sea levels will rise, and problems with drought and harvests will increase.

[1] In June 2014, EPA proposed guidelines for existing power plants that would reduce emissions 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.

[2] Coral Davenport, “With Compromises, a Global Accord to Fight Climate Change Is in Sight,” NYT, 10 December 2014; William Mauldin, “Coal Clouds Talks on Climate,” WSJ, 13-14 December 2014.

[3] “A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”—attributed to Sam Goldwyn.

[4] HA! Is joke.

Climate of Fear XIII.

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A decade ago, back when climate change began to emerge as a serious concern, scientists and environmentalists composed a menu of possible future alternatives to burning carbon. Both solar power and wind power seemed likely to be massively expensive. In contrast, biofuels—the conversion of plants into fuel—seemed like it might be a low-cost winner. Both the government of the United States and European governments have invested billions of dollars in developing biofuels. In Britain, for example, subsidies and mandates were used to stimulate a shift to burning wood pellets made from sawdust and tree waste.[1] In the United States, the government mandated and subsidized the mixing of ethanol—a biofuel made from corn—with gasoline. Anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of America’s corn crop now goes to ethanol.

In fact, costs for wind and solar power dropped sharply over the same period that biofuels were being developed. However, until we transform battery technology it will not be possible to use solar or wind power for transportation. Many people continue to count on biofuels as a substitute for carbon-burning.[2] A 2014 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) urged replacing carbon with biofuels as an affordable means to hold back climate change. The International Energy Agency speculates that it may be possible to provide over a quarter of world transportation fuel needs by 2050. More immediately, the United States projects that 12 percent of its transportation fuel will come from biofuels within a decade. Similarly, the European Union projects a sharp increase in the role of biofuels to power transportation between today (2.5 percent) and 2020 (10 percent).

Now people are re-thinking this strategy.[3] For one thing, biofuel production has turned out to be massively inefficient: a huge amount of land is required to produce a meager amount of energy. (The 30-40 percent of the American corn crop devoted to ethanol reduces gas consumption by only about 6 percent.) The energy content of all current biomass (food crops, fodder for animals, lumber, biofuels) is about 220 exajoules. The IPCC estimates that the biofuels component alone will have to reach 250 to 300 exajoules by the end of the 21st Century to hold back climate change. This implies a massive expansion of biofuel acreage.

Skeptics believe it unlikely that farm productivity can actually be increased much on the ground, as opposed to on a chalk-board. The world faces an increasing demand for food as both population and incomes in developing countries rise. These will more than eat up any increase in productivity, leading to continued expansion of lands devoted to crops. The American bet on ethanol has driven up world food prices. Harvesting trees for biofuel seems like even more of a losing proposition. It reduces the amount of carbon dioxide captured by trees while increasing the amount of carbon dioxide emitted.

Clearly, there are no simple solutions to the climate problem. It is going to take time to discover the best approaches, even though we seem to be short of time. Government hasn’t entirely succeeded at picking “winners” from among contending solutions. Decisions can have unanticipated consequences that turn out to be hard to un-do. Rather like the origins of the climate problem in the first place.

[1] The chief beneficiary of this effort may have been the members of the U.S. Industrial Pellet Association, which supplies much of the European demand.

[2] Eduardo Porter, “A Biofuel Debate: Will Cutting Trees Cut Carbon,” NYT, 11 February 2015.

[3] Justin Gillis, “New Report Urges Western Governments to Reconsider Reliance on Biofuels,” NYT, 29 January 2015. The story reports on a World Resources Institute study released on Friday.

 

Thoughts for the New Year.

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I don’t know anything. So, here are my thoughts on a couple of issues.

Climate change is a grave reality. However, I doubt that people can entirely hold back (let alone turn back) global warming. Carbon-burning is central to the industrialization of developing-economies. There aren’t a lot of cheap and ready-to-use alternatives. Instead, there is going to be a long period of adaptation to worsened conditions. It is going to make environmentalists, intellectuals, and other “progressive” people very angry that there will turn out to be market-driven profit opportunities when statist restrictions might have provided more desirable outcomes.

In terms of foreign policy, Vladimir Putin is considerably more of an adult than are American leaders. Balance-of-power politics and spheres of influence are realities in world politics. Power and influence are not the single and permanent prerogative of the United States. For one thing, Ukraine is to Russia as Mexico is to the United States. (“Pity poor Mexico. So far from God, so near the United States.”) For another thing, Putin has tried to help the US out of a couple of ditches into which American leaders have driven it. Syrian chemical weapons and a possible solution to the Iranian nuclear problem are the key examples. All the while he has been vilified because he isn’t a democrat at home and he’s resisting the onward march of Western power around the borders of Russia.

In the Middle East we are witnessing a re-writing the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Iraq is fragmenting into Shi’ite, Sunni, and Kurdish enclaves. This fragmentation is being papered-over during the current emergency. The Shi’ites will never be able to repair their behavior during the Maliki period. Syria is going to fragment into Alawite, Sunni, and Kurdish enclaves. A Kurdish state will emerge. This new country will have trouble with both Turkey and Iran. Will Jordan or Saudi Arabia absorb the unstable and impoverished new Sunni micro-state in western Iraq?

The “two-state solution” to the Israel-Palestine conflict isn’t. Israel cannot afford to have a Palestinian state created. That state would be implacably revanchist, regardless of whatever professions its spokesmen might make in order to obtain sovereignty. Over the centuries, many people have felt that the problems of the world could be resolved if only the Jews would die and stop bothering people. Well, the Israelis aren’t buying this line.

The United States gets much less from the US-Israel alliance than does Israel.

ISIS isn’t a serious problem. The enthusiasm for “jihad” among many Muslims is a serious problem. It is likely to be around for a long time. I’m not sure that it can be de-legitimized by Western propaganda. I’m not sure that playing military whack-a-mole with every new outbreak will solve the problem.

Much as I agree with the objectives being pursued by President Obama on some key issues, I don’t believe that he has the authority for some of his actions. The Supreme Court is likely to overturn the authority-grab carried out by the EPA. The immigration problem wasn’t/isn’t a crisis. It’s just a stick with which to beat the Republicans and an effort to keep Hispanic-American voters on the side of the Democrats. American liberals are going to rue the day that they celebrated his unilateral actions on coal-burning energy generation and immigration. One day, a Republican president will invoke the Obama example.

A Marina on Baffin Island.

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Global warming is causing the polar ice-caps to melt. There is forty percent less summer ice now than in the 1970s. By 2030 the Arctic could be free of ice during summer. And I ask, “What is the good in this?” Well, it creates all sorts of opportunities. Some of these come from resources exploitation. Some of them come from adapting to climate change.

In the case of the North Poles, this is freeing up access—after a fashion and in relative terms—to the seas north of Canada, Russia, and the Scandinavian countries.[1] In 1982 the United Nations adopted a “Convention on the Law of the Sea.” This grants signatories ownership of undersea resources up to 200 miles off their shores. One area of interest is oil and natural gas drilling.[2] Because the ice cap and terrible weather prevented people from exploring for gas and oil beyond Alaska’s North Slope, geologists are not sure how much oil and gas might be found as the ice cap retreats. One estimate is that 20 percent of the world’s as-yet-undiscovered gas and oil lay under the Arctic ice. This might include a third of the world’s natural gas and 90 billion barrels of oil.[3] Oil companies have rushed in to explore where angels fear to tread: Exxon, BP, Statoil (Norway), and Eni (Italy) have all begun exploration of the fields north of Russia. Since the “Deepwater Horizon” disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, they have been giving a lot of thought to how to deal with the inevitable spills that will happen in such a harsh environment. So far, they don’t have any good answers.[4]

Similarly, the retreat of the polar ice caps is liable to open a mining boom in Arctic areas. Ice, snow, permafrost, and brutal winters have kept people from exploiting some of the Earth’s resources. Russia stands to profit from a warmer, greener Siberia. Separatists in Greenland are already speculating on seeking independence from Denmark.

Some of the adaptive responses have a comical note to them. Artificial snow-machine makers face rising demand from imperiled ski resorts. Others responses have potentially bigger pay-offs. Environmental disasters in the 1950s spawned ideas that have great relevance today. In 1952 the British forester and conservationist Richard Baker proposed creating a tree-belt along the southern edge of the Sahara to hold back desertification. In 1953 a gigantic storm in the North Sea led to massive flooding in Holland and eastern Britain. Holland responded with a thirty year campaign of dike and storm surge barrier construction; Britain built the Thames Barrier downstream from London.[5]

In 2002, the African Union adopted Baker’s idea of a tree barrier against the Sahara. Then it was taken up by the African Union. To make this plan work, somebody is going to pay to plant a belt of trees thirty miles deep and four thousand miles long. Foresters, nurseries, and irrigation engineers will be in demand. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy demonstrated New York City’s vulnerability to storm surges and rising sea levels. Builders experienced with massive sea-gate flood control projects are likely to be in demand in a host of places.

If people don’t adapt to climate change one way, they will adapt another way.

[1] It hasn’t become the Gulf of Mexico yet. In summer there is still a lot of drift ice floating around for the high winds to blow into off-shore rigs; in winter the temperature still drops to 50 degrees below zero and the whole place ices up.

[2] The US Senate has not ratified this convention. Which isn’t the same as saying that the US will not defend what it conceives to be its national interests.

[3] So, you burn the gas and oil; that heats up the planet even more; it gets progressively easier to access the gas and oil. Neat. Sort of.

[4] “The battle for the Arctic,” The Week,” 6 December 2013, p. 11.

[5] McKenzie Funk, Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming (New York: Penguin, 2014).

Climate of Fear XII.

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What is the “price” of one ton of carbon-dioxide pollution emitted into the atmosphere? According to Obama administration economists, it is $37.[1] If you add that cost into the price of carbon, then market forces will nudge people to burn less carbon and will create a market for alternative energy sources. A government can either tax carbon burning directly or it can dodge around the formal tax by establish a system in which companies have to buy what amount to licenses to pollute. (These are usually labeled “cap-and-trade: solutions.)

People who depend on carbon-burning for jobs, profits, and comfort see carbon-pricing as getting their ox gored for the sake of scientific predictions in which they cannot afford to believe. Australia is a good example. It produces 5.5% of the world’s coal, most of it for export. Prime Minister Julia Gillard, a climate change believer, pushed through a carbon tax. In 2013, she lost her office. Her successor immediately got the tax repealed.

In 1990 the Country-Formerly-Known-As-East-Germany merged with West Germany.[2] East German had been an environmentalist’s nightmare, owing to its reliance on burning coal for energy. Many of the polluting electricity-generating plants were soon shut down. Nevertheless, Germany relied on coal for much of its fuel. In 1997 Germany adhered to the Kyoto Protocol. Angela Merkel was then serving as environment minister. Since then she has committed herself to cutting greenhouse gases. In 2007, as chancellor, she committed Germany to making substantial cuts in emissions. Cutting across this effort, however, was a desire to move away from nuclear energy. Germany had 17 nuclear plants, but started to shut them down as they aged, without building additional production capacity. The disaster at Fukushima in 2011 gave this slow movement a strong shove. As a result, Germany’s reliance on coal has returned to the 2007 levels. In 2013 Germany got 45 percent of its energy from burning coal and 25 percent from renewable energy. Moreover, coal miners and electrical plant workers are a big and well-connected constituency. It remains to be seen whether Merkel can push through real cuts.

The United States offers another good example. It produces 11.7% of the world’s coal.[3] In 2010, President Obama tried to get a cap-and-trade bill through the Senate, but was defeated by Republican opposition. The new Republican Congress isn’t likely to change course now.

If a carbon tax isn’t saleable in Western democracies with diverse economies, how will it fair in developing countries that rely heavily upon coal and oil to fuel their advance? India produces 7.7% of the world’s coal. China produces 46.4% of the world’s coal, all for domestic consumption. China signed a declaration sponsored by the World Bank that called for a price on carbon that reflected its real cost. China has begun cap-and-trade policies in some of its provinces. Loud snorts of derision followed the gestures: China continues to expand its burning of carbons and the declaration it signed was non-binding. Is it more than just window-dressing?

A German mining union official spoke for more than just German miners when he asked, “Is it worth it if we as a country succeed in reaching our targets in reducing carbon emissions, but sacrifice good jobs and our industrial base?”

 

[1] Coral Davenport, “President’s Drive For Carbon Pricing Fails to Win at Home,” NYT, 28 September 2014.

[2] Melissa Eddy, “Missing Its Own Goals, Germany Renews Effort to Cut Carbon Emissions,” NYT, 4 December 2014.

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coal_production

Climate of Fear XI.

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The International Energy Agency (IEA) issues reports on critical energy issues. It’s “Energy Technology Perspectives” reports offer an insight into climate change issues. So, is the glass half-full or is it empty?

The power industry produces almost 40 percent of America’s carbon dioxide emissions. There have been big technological gains in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These improvements are what allowed President Obama to order a 30 percent reduction in emissions from a 2005 baseline by coal-burning power plants by 2030. (His recent agreement with the Chinese apparently merely ratified changes already underway.)

People have stopped believing in some of the alternative energy sources touted by environmentalists. All these technologies hold promise, but they are not yet anywhere near price competitive with carbon energy generation. Funding for things like bio-energy, offshore wind,[1] and geo-thermal dropped more than twenty percent between 2011 and 2013. It can be dangerous to extrapolate from brief periods of change. The price of photovoltaic solar cells dropped sharply from 2008 to 2012 because a land-rush of producers into the market led to savage price competition. The subsequent shake-out has led to a stabilization of prices. The “levelized” costs of solar energy generation have fallen by 40 percent from their 2010 estimate. Thus, as part of the stimulus, the Obama administration heavily subsidized alternative energy generation sources. As a result, in 2010, the US added 5 gigawatts of energy generation from wind-power; in 2011 it added 7 gigawatts; and in 2012 it added a whopping 13 gigawatts. The end of the stimulus left wind-power generation becalmed: in 2013, the US added only 1 gigawatt from wind-power, and 2014 isn’t shaping up to be much of an improvement. Lesson: in the current state of technology, alternative fuels are only competitive with carbon-fueled energy generation when the government “levels the playing field” by tilting it in one direction.

What are the real possibilities?

By 2019, onshore wind generation could cost $71/megawatt, “even without subsidies.” By 2040, in exceptionally windy places (Washington, DC?) the cost might be as low as $63.40/megawatt. By 2040 nuclear-generated power might cost $80.00/megawatt. By 2040 solar might generate power at $86.50/megawatt. None of this is going to amount to much.

The IEA predicts that by 2040 only 16.5 percent of energy will be produced from renewable resources. More than 65 percent will come from the burning of coal and gas. This means that “carbon capture” technology must develop rapidly. However, “carbon capture” technologies are failing to develop at an adequate pace. Costs are high relative to the return, so no one is interested in investing. Similarly, we need a 24 percent increase in nuclear power generation by 2025 to fend off drastic climate change.[2] Instead, nuclear generating capacity is falling.

The best solution to this problem is a severe carbon tax. Today the US emits about 5.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide. If carbon emissions were taxed at $25/ton beginning in 2015, with a 5 percent/year increase (i.e. rising to about $60/ton by 2040), lots of alternative energy sources would start to look more attractive—if not attractive.

Eduardo Porter, “A Carbon Tax Could Bolster Green Energy,” NYT, 19 November 2014.

[1] Migrating birds and drunken pleasure-boaters alike are happy about this.

[2] Build a lot of nukes in Maine. No one lives there and the winds aloft will carry the fall-out from the inevitable accident across the Atlantic to Portugal and Spain. Bad for the cork oaks and cod donuts I’ll grant you.

Climate of Fear X November 2014.

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For twenty years China has been driving hard for industrialization. About 70 percent of all Chinese energy comes from coal. Chinese industry burns coal for fuel and Chinese apartment buildings are heated by coal-burning generators. China burns about as much coal as every other country in the world combined. The newly-affluent Chine middle-class buys cars. There are already 120 million cars and as many other motor vehicles spewing out exhaust.

Of the twenty most-polluted cities in the world, sixteen are in China. All sorts of ludicrous examples of the “How bad is…?” variety can be cited. During one recent bout of smog in Beijing, for example, a factory caught on fire and burned for three hours before anyone noticed the flames. This is at least as bad as that time the river that runs through Cleveland caught fire.

The health effects are awful. Over the last thirty years, Chinese lung cancer rates have risen by 465 percent. Thousands of people stream into hospitals complaining of breathing problems whenever air pollution becomes particularly bad.

The Chinese government turned a blind eye to this problem for a long time. Recently, they have found it much harder to pretend that killer smogs are just “heavy fog.” For one thing, foreigners don’t want to visit China if it just means that they’re going to feel like they’ve been working through two packs of Camels a day for twenty years. Tourism has fallen off and foreign businessmen don’t want to base themselves in China. For another thing, ordinary Chinese people are starting to complain. Since Tiananmen Square back in 1989 most Chinese have been cautious about demonstrating for democratic government. However, the environmental problems are pushing people into the streets for reasons other than a stroll in the park. One count estimates that there are 30,000 to 50,000 protests a year over clean air, clean water, and clean food.

The pollution problems have become so severe, and have generated a measure of public unrest, that the government began preparing for a shift to nuclear power and renewable energy sources. Looking down-range fifteen to twenty years, they seem to have concluded that they would have to continue expanding the generation of electricity through carbon-burning while preparing for a transition to other forms of energy. Hence Chinas commitment in November 2014 to reach peak carbon burning and to draw 20 percent of their energy from non-carbon sources by 2030, formalized its existing policy.

Still, this commitment leaves a bunch of stuff—aside from ash particles—up in the air.     How much energy will China require in 2030? Are they close to meeting their projected needs already? If so, then reaching peak could be a simple matter. What if they’re only at their half-way mark? Is there any quantitative value assigned as the Chinese peak? Or do the Chinese just get to expand carbon burning as fast as they can until 2030, while also expanding non-carbon energy sources to 20 percent of whatever is the total peak? Will China be building nuclear power plants and solar collectors at a rapid pace for decades to come? If the Chinese government is responding now to public unhappiness with pollution, how will it respond in the future to public unhappiness with either slowing economic growth or trying to transition away from a major industry?

 

“The face-mask nation,” The Week, 15 November 2013, p. 9.

Henry Fountain and John Schwartz, “Climate Pact by U.S. and China Relies on Policies Now Largely in Place,” NYT, 13 November 2014.

Climate of Fear IX November 2014.

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India is bound to be a big loser from global climate change. The air pollution in Delhi is worse than that in Beijing; sea-level rise could forcibly displace 37 million Indians by 2050, and water for farmers could be affected by accelerated melting of glaciers in the Himalayas or disruption of the monsoons. So, India has a deep interest in limiting climate change. However, India is also one of the principle forces causing climate change.[1]

Burning coal for generating electricity is central to India’s strategy for economic development. The country has huge coal deposits (the fifth largest in the world), but little oil or natural gas. Consequently, India launched a ten year plan for building coal-burning generating plants back in 2009. Generating capacity has already expanded by 73 percent. In 2013 India burned 565 million tons of coal. Most Indian coal has a high ash-content, so it pollutes more than do some other commonly used types of coal. This makes India the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. By 2019 the government plans to burn more than a billion tons a year. “India’s development imperatives cannot be sacrificed at the altar of potential climate changes many years in the future,” the government’s Minister of Power has asserted.

It will be difficult to argue that India should adjourn its plans for development. Three hundred million Indians have no electricity at all, and many more have it only in fits and starts. On a per-capita basis, Indians consume only one-fourteenth as much electricity as do Americans. In a country with hundreds of millions of people living in grotesque poverty, making do with less isn’t much of an option. Electricity powers industry and industry raises incomes.

India’s coal-fired industrialization effort alarms environmentalists elsewhere. “If India goes deeper and deeper into coal, we’re all doomed.” said one climate scientist at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. There isn’t much ground for expecting push-back by Indian environmentalists. For the most part, Indians seem to accept both air pollution and the physical displacement of populations in the countryside to make space for more coal mines. The environmental movement in China seems to have more support behind it and, therefore, more influence with the government than is the case in India.

Nuclear power and solar generation offer alternative energy sources. A lot of Western India is cloudless for much of the year, so a lot of solar energy the ground. The government of Narendra Modi has said that it will launch a program of constructing solar-energy plants. Whether this can be carried forward fast enough and on a large enough scale to replace India’s reliance on coal is hard to tell.

So, that’s a problem. Still, China currently burns as much coal as every other country in the world combined. Can India’s coal-burning really pose more of a problem than does that of China?[2] The recent agreement between the United States and China called for China to cap its greenhouse gas emissions before 2030. The Chinese may continue to shovel on the coal until then, but they also might begin to shift from a reliance on coal to other energy sources. If that comes true, it will be a lot more significant for the climate than is India’s continuing development of coal. If the rest of the world moves in one direction, then India might find a way to follow. There’s a couple of big “Ifs” there. Still, the prospects look better than they did a little while ago.

[1] Gardiner Harris, “Coal Rush in India Could Tip Balance of Climate Change,” NYT, 18 November 2014.

 

[2] China produces 46 percent of the world’s coal and imports more; India produces 7.7 percent of the world’s coal, but has been developing its own reserves because of the cost of imports. See: “Climate of Fear IX.”

Climate of Fear VIII.

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In September 2014 the New York Times published a hard-headed essay by Robert Stavins, one of the authors for multiple reports by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.[1] He made some important points.

First, Americans first became sufficiently concerned about the environment to take action back in the late 1960s, when air and water pollution had become too obvious to be ignored. Then their attention turned to the issue of climate change during the 1980s and 1990s. Joining in a movement with other advanced economies, the United States signed a series of international agreements to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. As a result of those agreements, emissions by these countries were held flat or even reduced.

Second, developing nations (China, India, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa) refused to join in such agreements because their own industrialization is both carbon-fueled and essential to raise the living standards of their people. China leads this process: China produces 29 percent of the world’s annual carbon emissions and will pass the United States as the world’s leading total carbon emitter before mid-century. None of the developing countries want to check their own emissions because they fear that it will check economic growth. Their preferred solution is that the advanced countries restrict their emissions even more than they have to make space for the emissions of developing countries.

Third, unlike economists such as Robert Frank and Eduardo Porter (see: Climate of Fear II), Stavins doesn’t try to sugar-coat the costs of limiting emissions. The UN wants to hold the temperature rise to two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial temperature. That would entail reducing carbon emission by 40 to 70 percent by 2050. Stavins argues that this would reduce economic growth by 0.06 percent per year from now to the end of the 21st Century. In total, that would cumulate to an annual reduction of economic activity of 5 percent.

Furthermore, even those predictions depend to some extent upon the rapid development of cheap alternative energy sources and technologies to limit emissions. Absent such cheap new technologies and the cost estimates are more than twice as high. Stavins appears skeptical that this will happen. Furthermore, cutting carbon emissions will require a large-scale use of nuclear energy and a world-wide carbon tax.

Fourth, the politics of meeting popular expectations raise a huge barrier to action. This isn’t a “democracy versus autocracy” issue. The rulers of China and India are sensitive to the economic aspirations of their people, even if they aren’t real democracies or democracies at all. Greenhouse gases are invisible and their impact is slow to show itself, rather than dramatic in form. So what if the people of the Seychelles have to take to the boats? Imposing costs immediately to avoid something bad in the future (or to someone else in the present) isn’t going to be popular anywhere. Similarly, the UN is just trying to limit the rise in temperature in the future, not to roll-back the 0.8 degrees Celsius rise that has already taken place. “If you make big sacrifices, then things will stay the way that they are now or get a little worse.” Try putting that on a bumper-sticker, then run for office.

Couple of things worth thinking about. On the one hand, is the best we can hope for a patchwork of wavering national efforts to limit emissions through administrative action? On the other hand, is there a way to make higher energy prices and more nuclear reactors palatable to voters? Or do we just adapt by drilling for deep water and moving back from the coasts?

[1] Robert N. Stavins, “Climate Realities,” NYT, 21 September 2014.