Avoiding an echo chamber
This website will fail in its aim of keeping you well-informed if we let it become an echo chamber for any one interest group or perspective. I want this website to reflect a diversity of views about how we might reduce the risk of dangerous climate change, even though I may disagree with some of these viewpoints. While we might all be willing to agree to a long-term emissions reduction in 2050, when it comes to what we should do now there is huge disagreement. If you close yourself off to these points of view you risk being blindsided. This is the case whether you are in a business or a policy analyst role. All points of view have powerful arguments and some degree of success in influencing government in Australia and overseas.
From my standpoint I see the following viewpoints:
1) Free market purists: this camp thinks we should implement a price on carbon pollution through either a carbon trading scheme or a carbon tax and do nothing else. They believe that targeted support or mandates for particular technologies will always be more costly than relying on a carbon price alone. Indeed they contend that these ‘picking winners’ exercises could even be counter-productive through undermining investor confidence in the carbon pricing scheme.
2) Free market purists but with some reluctant concessions: As above, but reluctantly willing to concede a role for government in providing small-scale support for early-stage technologies. Also willing to accept a role for government to help inform consumers about energy efficiency, such as through appliance energy rating labels.
3) Pragmatists: Viewing a price on carbon pollution as the most important policy mechanism to reduce emissions, pragmatists also place strong weight on additional policy measures as part of a cost effective response to global warming. They believe government should provide targeted support such as feed-in tariffs or mandated targets to drive significant use of low emission technologies such as wind and capturing CO2 from coal power plants (referred to as Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS). They also believe that government should implement mandates to drive uptake of energy efficient equipment and practices, not just provide information. These people tend to come from a background in energy rather than general economic theory.
4) Technologists: This camp sees little value in a price on carbon. They discount the importance of achieving incremental, albeit easy, near-term reductions in emissions. Instead, they are focused almost entirely on developing and deploying technologies that will produce electricity with zero, or close to zero emissions. These people tend to divide into those who think renewables are the answer or nuclear or burying CO2 underground. A few in this camp will advocate for all these technologies, but most seem to have a particular favourite.
5) Scatterguns: This group is for throwing every type of policy measure at the problem and aren’t too concerned for cost or how policies might overlap or even counteract each other. They like highly tangible and direct interventions such as closing down a coal-fired power station or providing a rebate for installing solar panels or banning incandescent light-bulbs. They are often sceptical about market-based policy instruments such as a carbon trading scheme, which they suspect will be subject to loop-holes and rorting.
6) Climate change deniers: These people don’t think that human activity is leading to global warming, or if it is, they don’t think this poses any serious danger. In an effort to prevent any meaningful effort to reduce emissions, they will dress themselves up as technologists or free market purists.
I am keen for Climate Spectator to reflect the views from people across all viewpoints except number 6. We will provide a fair hearing to the complaints of major carbon emitters, but we won’t provide a platform to people who aren’t genuinely interested in reducing carbon pollution. Those that believe global warming is a myth should concentrate on getting their analyses published in scientific journals of high standing such as Nature and Science.
As for everyone else, I welcome contributions.
And of course in my own column I’ll be applying the blowtorch to everyone, irrespective of the stripes they wear.
Comments on this article
The Echo Chamber
Tristan,
You have just created an Echo Chamber ! The science isn't settled on the absolute effect mankind has on the climate and the debate over the cost/benefit ratio still needs to be had. Fortunately for those of us who are in skeptic camp (I believe you like to call us "deniers") action on a global scale looks, thankfully, like a pipe dream - just don't get too depressed when you are "blindsided" by this reality.
you left out......
You left out...... the minimalists upon us! The easiest and cheapest way to achieve emissions reductions is to just stop consuming. It's easy, it's cheap, and it leads to a vastly more content lifestyle......
Viewpoints
The editor's biases are evident in his descriptions of the pidgeonholes that he attempts to place various viewpoints about approaches to AGW. I am a scientist, and I don't see myself fitting comfortably in any of these categories - certainly not the first two, I would like to suggest another viewpoint, namely that of a scientist. I, and most of my colleagues, see anthropogenic global warming as well established and, even more importantly, a very urgent issue. We do not have time to to endlessly debate this, and certainly we cannot wait until 2050 to get solutions in place. CCS, even it is feasible, which I doubt, is too far off and probably not even cost competitive. The answers about what to do are grounded in science and technology, not freemarket ideology, and there are already technologies that need to be implemented as fast as is possible. If that means I favour a scattergun approach, than so be it.
Free... really?
Free market purists are typically ideological. That is they want free market rules applied in all circumstances even when it is obvious there has been market failure. It is clear we are dealing with multiple market failures when discussing the costing of externalities that are affecting our environment in general... not just C02e.
Applying free market rules to failed markets is like trying to play rugby while being refereed according to the soccer rulebook. It is an absurd result. Just look at our banking system as a classic example.
When dealing with failed markets using tools such as taxes, carbon prices, FiTs, targets et al, we are simply imposing govt interventions/regulations, not free market tools. There may be a carbon market, but by no means will it ever be a free one.
Let's be frank, we haven't invented an economic model yet that will cause a truly free market to value the environment.
"free market"
Derek,
The problem with the "free market" is that it isn't free, but comes with lots of baggage and this takes a lot to dislodge.
eg Aussie Govts (both state and fed) clearly see revenues from coal and gas as driving our economy for the next 50 years... they want to make sure this happens ... even though it is quite inconsistent with a low carbon economy (esp if you take a global view).
Another eg is coal industry investment in CCS ... less than 0.5% (c/f 10%+ for renewable company investment in developing the technology). This probably means that the coal industry doesn't believe in CCS, nor do they think they need to worry.
Finally, the value of workers in old industries (think steel, aluminium etc) seem to have an inherently higher value than those in the renewables sector. Not a peep about job losses in solar due to short term policies, whereas screams in steel & aluminium sectors.
The pragmatist case
I see the following problems with free market purity:
- A properly functioning free market requires drawing in all externalities. That entails pricing them correctly. What is the right price on carbon? Probably over $100/t. Then there are other externalities, like health costs of coal etc.
- Given the high R&D and early deployment costs before a technology is mature, the payback time is very long. Markets don't handle that well.
Feed-in tariffs help to progress the technology much faster. These incentives should be technology-agnostic where possible; e.g. for CCS abolish the grants and provide a feed-in tariff for the sequestered CO2 to match those for RE (molecule for molecule).
Other incentives, like low-interest or guaranteed loans, work well too, but it's harder to make those blind to the technology. Sometimes governments do need to make a judgment.
Good luck!!
It is the ignorant, stubborn and self interesed in viewpoint 6 that makes this my first post on any site for a long time.
There is an absence of genuine, constructive conversation on many sites as those of us who support intelligent, science-based discussion spend so much time trying to answer those who, for various reasons, won't or can't see what is plainly in front of their faces.
For you aims I can only offer you encouragement.
Of course, the cynic and realist in me wonders how you will actually stop them from hijacking said intelligent dialog... :)
All the best.