What’s happening with Global Warming? Why are we holding

society hostage to Luck?Robert H. Wade

LSE

Jan 8 2015

Is GW biggest challenge our global society faces?

• Near-consensus among climate scientists:

• GW real

• poses acute dangers to human civilization & larger ecosystem

• caused in large part by human activities (esp fossil fuels)

“GW paradox”

• Public & politicians not prepared undertake costly actions now (“sacrifice economic growth”), b/c GW not clearly visible or acute now.

• But by time GW is visible & acute, too late to stop catastrophic consequences – unless a stroke of Luck. (A. Giddens, The Politics of CC, 2009)

Pessimism reigns

• Daniel Kahneman: “I am deeply pessimistic [on action to reduce GW]. I see no path to success”

• (quoted in G. Marshall, “Think about it – how our brains are wired to ignore climate change”, Guardian 24 Sep 2014, p.39)

But maybe GW sceptics right?

• Agricultural economist, ex-Ford Foundation, Delhi, ex head of International Water Mgt Institute, PhD in Economics from LSE:

• “There has been zero trend in temperature over past 14 yrs with 24% increase in atmospheric CO2. I regard the hiatus as a refutation of the 260 some climate models, since none of them even hinted at such an event.

• “Global warming is, as someone said, ‘A beautiful young theory raped by a gang of brutal facts” (email to Wade, 13 Nov 2014)

I am not climate scientist …

• … but when I read what my friend asserted with complete certainty I thought I should look at the evidence for & against GW

List of GW sceptics

• Wikipedia list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming

Sceptical politicians

• Prime Minister Abbott, Australia: “Climate change is a load of crap”, 2013

• Senator James Inhofe, Oklahoma: “The evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of those who don’t see global warming posing grave harm to the planet and who don’t think human beings have significant influence on the climate system”, 2003

Sceptical blogger

• James Delingpole, ”If you still believe in ’climate change’ read this”, Sep 3 2013 at (www.jamesdelingpole.com)

• “If any business were to submit a prospectus as patently false and deliberately dishonest as the ones used to advance the cause of the global warming industry, its directors wld all be in prison by now”.

Sceptical climate scientist

• Richard Lindzen, MIT, via Watts Up With That?

• “None of the projected disastrous effects of climate change exists in the present but only in an imaginary future… So we ought, when considering our expensive prevention/ mitigation policies, factor in the key point that ‘future generations’ are going to be richer than we are and therefore better able to pay for any problems that ‘climate change’ may cause them”

I. The evidence on GW

IPCC report, Nov 2014

• Risks of GW so high that generations of progress against hunger & poverty cld be stalled / reversed if GHG emissions not very significantly cut

• Overall situation becoming more acute as DCs join West in burning fossil fuels.

• Prospect of mass extinctions, food shortages, refugee crises, flooding of cities and islands,, infectious diseases, etc

Malthus, your time is coming!

• Malthus’s prediction based on sensible premise: Earth’s carrying capacity has a limit.

• IPCC 2014 provided the starkest warning yet of dangers of GW to world food supply.

Irreversibility

• Neither GHG emissions nor (many of) climate impacts are reversible.

• Melted glaciers, ocean corals, species being made extinct, islands and coastlines flooded over are gone “forever”.

• So the longer we wait the higher the irreversible damage.

IPCC warnings rest on following…

Basic science well-established

• (1) Earth has been receiving net heat gain of 0.5-1 watts/ square meter for past several decades. Earth has accumulated MORE HEAT in past 15 yrs than in prior 15 yrs.

• (2) Main cause: Increased concentration of CO2 in atmosphere, which has GW effect (“one way blanket”).

• KEELING CURVE

Robert Wade

On the Politics of

“That wheezing sound may be

Earth”

International Herald Tribune December 22nd 2010

Basic science well-established

• (3) CO2 density b/w 200-300 PPM for at least 800,000 years before 1880.

• (4) CO2 increased from 280 PPM in 1880 to 390-400 PPM today & going up fast.

• (5) Annual emissions of GHG have risen almost 2x as fast in 2000-2010 as in last several decades of 20th C.

CO2 & temperature

• Av global surface atmospheric temp is 0.8C higher than in 1880;

• 2/3 of this 0.8C increase since 1975.

• Striking that evidence on damaging effects of GW to date comes after only 0.8C rise.

• Global temp correlates fairly closely to CO2 density. CHART

II. Answers to sceptics

(1) “pause” in GW since 1997?

• True that earth’s surface temp increased at slower rate in past 15 yrs than since 1951.

• But …

• GRAPHS of global surface temperature change since 1970

• Source:Dana Nuccitelli, “Arctic sea ice delusions strike the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph”, Guardian 9 Sep 2013.

• J. Abraham, J. Fasullo, G. Laden, “Continued global warming in the midst of natural climate fluctuations”, Reports of the National Center for Scientific Education, 34, 6, 2014)

•

How “Skeptics“ View Global Warming

How Realists View Global Warming

Conclusion: temperature “pause” is not real

• (1) Relationship b/w CO2 concentration & temperature is stochastic

• (2) Surface atmospheric temps have increased since 1997, but at slower pace than in prior 15 yrs.

• (3) Cause of slow-down: increased transfer of surface heat to oceans, a cyclical process which will come to end -- & accelerate GW.

More on oceans

• 90% of net heat gain absorbed in oceans.

• New data indicates Southern Hemisphere ocean temperatures have been increasing at faster rate over past 35 yrs than previously measured

• Sea-level increasing at 3.2 mm/year since 1993

• G. Vaidyanathan & ClimateWire, “Mystery of ocean heat deepends as climate changes”, Scientific American Oct 7, 2014

(2) Arctic ice rebound?

• (2) Arctic ice was 60% more extensive by Aug 2013 compared to Aug 2012. Therefore, sceptics say: “recovery”, no continuing shrinkage

• GRAPHS of trend in ice extension from 1980

How “Skeptics“ View Arctic Sea Ice Decline

How Realists View Arctic Sea Ice Decline

Conclusion: Arctic ice “recovery” not real

• Conclusions: (1) Sep 2012 was record for minimum ice, so regression to mean is normal.

• (2) Long-term clear: Arctic has lost 75% of summer sea ice volume over past 3 decades, due mainly to human-induced GW (with short term effects from weather patterns and ocean cycles).

III. What has to be achieved?

What has to be achieved?

• UN target (2010): limit temperature rise (above 1880) to 2C

• Current rise on 1880 = 0.8C • Emissions to date = 1 trillion tons of CO2. • Meeting UN target requires that emissions

from additional fossil fuel burning be restricted to 1 trillion tons of CO2

• At current rate, 1 tr tons exhausted in 30 yrs from now

• We must cut emissions by 50-70% by 2050

IV. Progress so far?

Movement on ground in wrong direction

• “Absolute decoupling” is not occurring• Energy companies have already booked

reserves of oil & coal = several times the 1 TR tons of GHG headroom

• Nothing done so far to curb $1,000bn/year on bringing oil reserves into production.

• In 25 yrs of negotiations no measures to limit fossil fuel production have even been discussed.

Coal

• Coal remains main fuel for electricity; global consumption growing at 2% / year

• Govts subsidize consumption of fossil fuels at $600 bn/year

Global treaties on CC

• Exercises in empty promises. • International agreements call for targets,

plans; but hailed as successful simply if don’t stop.

• Key issue: No sign that govts willing to discuss allocating 1 tr ton emissions budget among countries.

UN COP 20 Lima Dec 2014

• 194 c’ies represented.• Achieved bit more than Copenhagen 2009• (1) C’ies agreed to submit national plans for

cutting CO2 by March 2015• (2) C’ies beyond EU agreed to meet their

share of burden; esp China, whose emissions/head > EU’s.

• But very vague on: how burden to be shared; funding from rich to poor. “Free-rider’s charter”

US-China climate accord

• Nov 2014 Pres Xi & Pres Obama, deal: China will slow, then start to reverse carbon emissions by 2030, & increase renewables to 20% of energy consumption by 2030.

• US will set new goal of reducing net carbon emissions by 26-28% below 2005 level by 2025 (up from target of 17% by 2020 announced June 2014).

• Unambitious: likely to bring emissions to level consistent with 3C rise in global temperature (making plausible assumptions abt other c’ies).

US

• Obama: “US must decarbonize its energy system”.

• Energy Dept – no strategy document outlining HOW this might be done.

• New Republican chair of Senate environment cttee says climate science “a giant hoax”

• US govt continues to subsidize fossil fuels => incentive for CO2 emissions

• 2014 defence appropriate bill – fracking legal on all US public land

India

• India = 3rd largest emitter of CO2• India firms have long complained that env regs

“choke econ growth”• Modi govt moving fast to remove env regs on

industry, mining, power, armed forces• High-level cttee assigned to rewrite env laws

says India must rely on firms voluntarily to disclose the pollution their projects will generate & monitor their own compliance

India’s coal rush

• Power minister: “India’s devt imperatives cannot be sacrificed at the altar of potential climate changes many years in future. The West will have to recognize we have the needs of the poor”. He promised India will double use of domestic coal by 2019 (Gardiner Harris, “As others try to clean air, India raises

bet on coal”, INYT 18 Nov 2014)

• Env minister: The new govt is not phasing out all env regs, just “those which, in the name of caring for nature, were stopping progress”

• (Ellen Barry & N Thiranbagri, “Favoring growth, India pares back rules to safeguard the environment”, INYT 6-7 Dec 2014)

India & global GW negotiations

• “India is the biggest challenge in global climate negotiations, not China” (Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Devt)

• But,

• Modi has promised to build vast array of solar power stations…

Good news: GW action getting rapidly cheaper

• Dramatic recent progress in renewable energy sources. Eg costs of solar power per unit of output plunged by half since 2010.

• Progress in electricity storage• New fuel cell which produces electricity

AND captures CO2• More knowledge of co-benefits of cutting

emissions, beyond climate risks: eg health

V. Why no serious policy response in ACs?

• “Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come” (Victor Hugo)

• GW is not an idea whose time has come, despite scientific near-consensus that it is a threat to human civilization.

• This = “GW paradox”

Research framing

• For any research question, ask: “What is this [fact, or relationship] an instance, or example, of?”

• “Why no serious policy response to GW?” is an instance of, “When & why do ideas or issues or problems become ‘hot’, in sense of being put onto ‘political agenda’ and then ‘decision agenda’ of govt?”

• Neglected Q in development studies!

(1) Public opinion on GW is …

• Not convinced that GW is real, acute, actionable

• Polling evidence: (Nisbet, M, & Myers, T., Public Opin Quart. 71, 444-470, 2007)

• (1) No sigt change in public acceptance of scientific conclusions since 1980s. Public opinion in West less concerned than a decade ago.

• (2) High % have no understanding of causes (eg agree that “ozone hole main cause of CC”)

Polling evidence• Eg 2009: two thirds of Americans “disagree” or

“don’t know” in response to: “GW is a fact & is mostly caused by emissions from vehicles & industrial facilities” (Angus Reid poll) (Oreskes & Conway, “Defeating the merchants of doubt”, Nature, 465, 686-87, 10 June 2010).

• Eg 2008: 60% of UK “strongly agreed” or “agreed” that “many scientific experts still question if humans are contributing to climate change”; 77% agreed that “most people are not prepared to make big sacrifices” to help stop climate change (Giddens, Politics, p.103)

(2) Sceptics have excellent media access

• They have manufactured a “debate”, convincing media that journalists obliged to present “both sides” of it

• Yet media not feel obliged to present “balance” on question of whether Earth revolves around Sun, or vice versa

• “Balance” gives sceptics influence disproportionate to small numbers

(3) Campaigns to raise “doubt”

• Public unmoved, confused & rejectionist b/c people & orgns have waged organized “campaigns of doubt” against climate science.

• N. Oreskes & E. Conway, Merchants of Doubt, Bloomsbury: NY, 2010

Doubt campaigns

• GW is only latest of long line of “doubt campaigns”.

• (1) 1950s -- 1980s: cigarettes cancer • (2) 1970s -- 1980s: man-made pollution

acid rain & ozone hole • (3) 2000s: pesticide DDT harm to

humans, bald eagle, etc. Campaign argued govt shd not have banned DDT

Premise of doubt campaigns:

• Campaigns focus on getting public & politicians to reject scientific evidence that threatens ideology or profits.

• Mantra: “the science is too uncertain to justify action”.

• Mantra works, b/c if people think the science is contentious, they are unlikely to support public policies that rely on that science

“Doubt is our product”

• Playbook written by R.J. Reynolds: “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the minds of the general public” (senior tobacco industry executive, memo, 1969, quoted Oreskes & Conway, Merchants, p.34)

Organization of doubt campaigns

• In US, network of conservative & Libertarian think-tanks:

• EG Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, Marshall Institute

• They are anti-government, anti-regulation, pro “free market”.

• Anti “liberal environmentalists” = “internal enemy” = “watermelons: green outside, red inside”.

• Regard GW as scam to justify more “government intervention”

“Climategate”

• Online release of emails from climate scientists at University of E Anglia in UK turned into media event, “Climategate”.

• Investigations showed charges almost completely baseless. Polls showed that event precipitated doubts about reality of GW in large swathes of US & UK populations

Conclusion so far

• GW is not “hot” (its “time has not come”) b/c a very small number of sceptical scientists + a whole “industry” of doubt-campaigners have combined to keep the public & politicians mostly unmoved by GW

• That is not end of story. Also, GW is by its nature a “wicked”, not “tame” problem that most of us try to avoid contemplating

(3) GW = “wicked” problem

• GW is classic “wicked” rather than “tame” problem: we know general direction of solution, but:

• (1) efforts to solve create other huge problems;

• (2) solution requires billions of people to change mindsets & behaviors;

• (3) the “stakeholders” have very different worldviews

GW = “wicked” problem (ctd)

• (4) Evidence that might be construed as “the problem of GW” (eg more frequent floods, droughts, etc.) can plausibly be attributed to “weather”; so GW not seen as “problem”

• (5) Solution requires many countries to act to cut emissions – therefore vulnerable to “free riding”

• (6) Problem persists over centuries; appropriate

mitigation today depends on how we value future costs & benefits compared to today.

GW = “wicked” problem (ctd)

• (7) Deeper level: Human brain wired to mobilize/ cooperate in response to external enemy.

• If North Korea discovered to be lacing atmosphere with chemicals to destroy US agriculture, rapid mobilization: policy window wide open

• GW not caused by external enemy, but by “us” living normal, “innocent” lives; & “us” in DCs trying to secure fast econ growth, reduce poverty. So easy response: reject GW, or “someone else’s problem”

Why no serious policy response: conclusions

• GW is not “hot” problem for political action – “idea whose time has come” – because

• (a) visible disasters (floods, droughts etc) can always be presented as “weather”, not “climate”; (b) small band of sceptics good access to media; (c ) campaigns of doubt;

• (d ) “wicked” problem: especially, international; intergenerational

• Therefore public unmoved by GW (except as background worry)

Therefore politicians mostly uninterested in GW

• Climate expert asked, “When you go to Washington and tell them that the CO2 will double in 50 years and will have major impacts on the planet, what do they say?” “They … ask me to come back in 49 years” (O & C, p173)

• So GW policy entrepreneurs see no policy window of opportunity

VI. What to do

Paris 2015 as last chance

• Paris 2015 will be 21rst Conference of the Parties (COP21).

• If IPCC report 2014 accurate, Paris 2015 may be last chance to stop CC from spinning out of control

Insure against extreme outcomes

• Sceptics say: “we don’t know enough, action now too expensive, leave it to later generations who will be wealthier, more knowlegable than us”

• Would you overtake on corners with justification that you cld not be certain a car was coming at you?

• We must insure against extremes

We are obliged to future generations

• We benefit from efforts of our ancestors to leave a better world than the one they inherited

• We have the same obligation to our descendants

• (M. Wolf, “An unethical bet in the climate casino”, Financial Times 12 Nov 2014)

We know broad direction of policy

• Solution:

• (1) well-known “polluter pays” principle: eg carbon tax, auctioned permits.

• (2) speed up innovation => “industrial policy”.

Role of government

• Govt must keep GW near top of political agenda.

• Concordat b/w main political parties that GW & energy policy will be sustained.

• Govt must lead in steering behavior of businesses & citizens. As catalyst, facilitator, & enforcer.

Role of govt (ctd)

• Govt must undertake long-term planning, & encourage same in businesses, NGOs, citizens.

• “Forecast” future seen from present; also “backcast” based on vision of desirable future & then translated into plans from the present.

• Need short-term as well as long-term targets

• Independent monitoring agency.• Obligatory 2 yearly review by Parliament

“Industrial policy”

• More active in microeconomics, not just macroeconomics

• Use tools of “industrial policy” (eg to promote low-carbon technologies).

Emphasize positives

• Present strategy -- win public acceptance by provoking fear & anxiety, urging people/ businesses to deprive themselves. Unlikely to work.

• Strategy shd emphasise positives & opportunities. Opportunities for energy efficiency: eg home insulation, under banner of “style”, “comfort”, “saving money”

• Opp’ies for energy security: eg local power production (solar, wind, etc).

• Opp’ies for better health

Enlist corporate support

• Corporate sector split on GW• Eg Obama plan to curb emissions from

power plants• Consumer businesses support: eg

Kelloggs, Mars, Starbucks, Levi-Strauss, Nike

• Industrial businesses oppose: eg American Petroleum Inst, Am Chemistry Council, National Assoc of Manufacturers

International cooperation

• ACs must take the lead & make bigger proportional cuts in emissions (than DCs)

• Most of required emission cuts could be made by small number of countries:

• 2 countries (China + US) = > half of global emissions;

• 15 c’ies + EU = 80% global emissions (R. Stavins,

“Climate realities”, NYT Sep 20 2014)

END

Which ideas have their time come, & why

• General: At any one time, govt cld pay attention to many subjects-problems; must limit attention to some rather than others.

• Those taken seriously by people in & around govt constitute “govt agenda”; the subset being considered for legislation constitute “decision agenda”.

• What determines which subjects-problems make it to either agenda? Ie … wh are “hot”, wh enjoy the status of “their time has come”?

How to tell when an idea’s time has come?

• (1) Sustained & marked changes in public opinion.

• (2) Repeated mobilization of people with strongly held preferences.

• (3) Bandwagons onto which politicians from across political spectrum climb.

John Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, 2nd ed., New York: Longman, 2011

• JK identifies 3 streams which together constitute the policy system (eg for education, health, transport, macroeconomic, environment): “problem” stream, “policy (or solutions)” stream; “politics” stream.

• Within any one policy domain, & across policy domains, there are periods when “policy windows of opportunity” open; analogous to “launch windows” for space rockets.

Windows of opportunity

• Window may be opened by events in “problem” stream: eg sudden worsening of some indicator (eg unemployment), or disaster (eg airplane crash). May be opened by events in political stream (eg budget, new govt, shift in “public mood”)

• Then “policy entrepreneurs” or “policy advocates” in the policy stream can ride their favorite “solutions” to the now salient problem into the political stream & help to get it onto government agenda. “Strike while iron hot”

• Key: visible/acute problem + plausible policy solution government agenda

Kingdon: when do major new issues come onto “political

agenda”?• Political agenda at any one time results from interaction of 3 “streams”: problems, policies,

politics. • They often flow separately, with own rules, personnel, dynamics; sometimes converge. • Problem stream comes to attention of policy-makers thru shifts in key indicators (eg crime,

unemployment), focusing events (which catch headlines) or (negative) feedback• Policy stream goes on continuously, pursued by policy communities made up of specialists in

different subjects (like education, health, macroeconomics, CC) and partly independent of politics & public mood. Policy stream generates “solutions” looking for “problems” when “problems” come to attention of policy-makers. Some specialists become “policy entrepreneurs”, or prominent advocates for certain solutions.

• Problems which do not attract “solutions” (widely agreed in policy community) unlikely to stay on political agenda; will quickly fall down people’s ranking of what disturbs them the most.

• NGOs, business groups, other interest groups shape what problems are perceived and what policy solutions deemed appropriate.

• When problems converge with policy solutions, window of opportunity opens when policy entrepreneurs, or advocates for change, can make transformative departure, enlisting shifts in public mood in favor of action by politicians. But may not remain open for long. Especialy if it calls for action against the “public mood”. If public mood “anti-government”, public & politicians will discount state role.

Kingdon & GW policy: problem stream

• GW is an issue facing strong handicaps as a top policy priority

• Problem stream: “Wicked problem”. (1) Scientists identify the problem as resulting from the way people live & produce. Members of public only recognize toxic effects of their everyday consumption once they accept reality of GW; easier to reject GW. (2) Any “focusing event” (hurricane, drought) can be blamed on contingent factors (“weather”). The generic phenomenon of GW is abstract, not visible, not acute

Kingdon & GW: policy stream

• Policy stream: (1) Basic principle of “polluter pays” is simple & familiar; but very difficult to apply wrt de-carbonizing economy. (2) Rationale for action by one nation easily undercut by “free rider” incentive.

• Yet if broad agreement on policy “solutions” not in place within policy stream before events open a policy window, change advocates will not be able to take advantage of open window.

• Political stream: Politicians have strong incentives to think short-term, length of electoral cycles, not longer.

Fossil fuels, econ growth, & temperature

• 300 years of econ growth in ACs fueled by fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas)

• Econ growth in DCs over past 60+ yrs fueled by same.

• DCs determined to grow with fossil fuels, saying “we did not cause CC, you caused it, you solve”

The economic growth – survival dilemma

• Annual emissions of GHG have risen almost 2x as fast in 2000-2010 as in last several decades of 20th C.

• World on track to more than double current GHG concentration in atmosphere by end of century, relative to 1880. Doubling might push up av global temps by 3 – 8C relative to late 19th C.

• Devastating effects: glaciers, droughts, crop productivity, sea levels/flooding, vanished coastal land, storm frequency & intensity, species extinction, infectious diseases.

• So, fuel of econ growth might destroy growth -- & human civilization, & many non-human species

2C rise in global surface temperature as ceiling-target

• Av global surface temp is 0.8C higher than in 1880; 2/3 of this since 1975.

• Striking that evidence on damaging effects of GW to date come after only 0.8C rise.

• Medium (not extreme) forecasts suggest rise of global surface temperature of 2C relative to 1880, by 2040-50.

• Widely agreed international target [CHECK]: limit temp rise to 2C.

• Present rise is almost 1C. So only 1C “headroom” left.• But 2C is NOT “temperature cliff”: it is compromise on a

spectrum, b/w what is inevitable (1C rise) & what wld probably have extremely disruptive consequences for world (3C or more)

Effects of GW on DCs

• To extent that GW happens, costs born disproportionately by popns of DCs – who did least to cause the problem

• Likely (but not certain) that costs will overwhelm development (& recurrent) budgets of many DCs

The “pause”

• Why difference b/w surface temp trend & heat absorption trend in past 15 yrs?

• Ocean heat absorption. Rising atmospheric heat absorption (generated largely by human activity releasing GHG) absorbed more in deep oceans than at surface. In previous several decades oceans absorbed less heat, causing faster surface warming.

• Why the difference? Ocean cycles. Cycles come to end; current cycle of deep ocean absorption will end, surface warming will accelerate.

Other ampliers of GW

• Positive feedback loops: eg ocean warming; permafrost melting

• Current human dietary trends: Human diet switches towards meat as incomes rise. Livestck emissions of GHG (methane) likely to almost double by 2050. Emissions cld be much reduced by switch in diet to Mediterranean, fish, vegan

GW effects of animal ag

• New documentary film, Cowspiracy, producers Kip Anderson & Keegan Kuhn

• Shows how livestock GW, via methane. • But this hardly known. Why? (1) Political power

of livestock industry. • (2) Environmental NGOs (eg Sierra Club) mostly

silent on role of livestock. Don’t think they can base a “win” campaign on it. Their funding organizations have threatened to withdraw.

• Solution simple: plant-based diets

Economists and GW

• Almost all prominent economic commentators take economic growth and consumption increases as the touchstones of progress; and think of “environmental sustainability”, if at all, in a separate box.

• Eg comments on big falls in oil prices, 2nd half of 2014. Most stress benefits, make no or marginal mention of environmental effects of higher oil consumption. Eg Martin Wolf, ___.

DCs: China

• China = 29% carbon emissions, highest. (US = 25%)• China expected to add equivalent of new 500 MW coal-

powered electric plant every 10 days for next decade (US govt projections)

• China a world leader in renewable energy innovation. Planning major expansion of emission-free power by 2030. But, large components of that are nuclear, & hydro. And 80% of China’s energy will still be from fossils.

• Strong current of opinion: “West trying to slow C’s industrial growth”

• But also, C govt worried (& public worried) abt local air pollution; most actions to improve also reduce carbon emissions.

DCs: India• 3rd largest global carbon emitter. Accounts for __% global.• 300 mn Indians no access to electricity, many mns more get it

fitfully. Average energy consumption = 7% of US’s. • India – 5th largest reserves of coal in world, little oil & gas. GOI

committed to “coal rush” (its coal 2 times as polluting as West’s). P. Goyal, power minister: “India’s development imperatives cannot be sacrificed at the altar of potential climate changes many yrs in the future. The West will have to recognize we have the needs of the poor” (quoted in G. Harris, “As others try to clean air, India raises bet on coal”, NYT, 18 Nov 2014

• Yet India’s cities already world’s most polluted. Delhi air 3 times more toxic by one crucial measure than Beijing’s.

• Its coal plans represent biggest obstacle to global agreement in Paris

ACs:USA

• US: Obama blocked by Congress. Has resorted to tighter regulations on emissions from cars & coal power stations – w’out much public support.

• Power shifting from paralysed federal level to state level, which may be more open to pressure from NGOs (eg to push solar).

• But, Keystone XL Pipeline [CHECK]: if it goes ahead, Obama = not-climate president

ACs: EU

• Has pledged to cut emissions by 40% by ___.

International action

• Current disputes b/w DCs & ACs rooted in international agreements signed in 1990s (esp Kyoto), when ACs alone agreed to reduce emissions. Since, ACs have kept emissions fairly flat, while DCs have fast increased theirs.

• Most DCs still insist that reductions shd be made by ACs only.

Possible reasons for no serious policy response?

• Not because we don’t know main lines of solution. We do: (1) switch to renewable/ non-fossil fuels (& leave most of world’s fossil fuel reserve in ground)

• (2) capture & bury fossil fuel emissions

• (3) switch consumption / economic growth towards non-material services, esp in ACs

Positives

• Tax measures crucial; but either tax revenue must be tied to environmental purposes, or taxes must be applied where there are clear options for behavior change – eg a progressive tax on cars according to gasoline consumption will lead people towards smaller cars or driving less.

• Subsidies for low-carbon innovations (eg hydrogen-powered cars)