In the Green

Ignorant Observer of the Wild(e)

Right! It's Friday, I thought I'd end the week by pasting together something akin to a parable in order to link the best proverbs that I could find relating to the general enviro-movement. The waffle in between is merely to link the passages together, which may have been better presented in bullet point form. Indeed it is perhaps a hinderance. But alas, the weekend awaits and I must go.

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"It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little."
Oscar Wilde, "De Profundis", 1905

Whilst an eloquent, poetic even, portrayal of our interaction with nature, Wilde is perhaps ignorant of the true impact that the recently passed industrial revolution was having on the global environment. To live with nature is surely to be one within it and one who interacts with it and thus we must surely live with nature (as the 'natural' world) now more than ever before in that our influence upon it has grown ever larger and more damaging. Whilst we look upon nature and observe her beauty, our ignorance is our bliss. However:

"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit."
Edward Abbey (1927-1989)

Indeed, we strive for unspoilt wilderness. Its very concept is defined in that it impassions us with a sense of romance, of serenity, of peace. Although it is oft used to promote sense of loss, of singularity, of isolation, it is this very return to the state of nature, as defined by Locke, that embodies perhaps our most fundamental concept of us, we, human kind, the greatest ape. But does the model of society, of culture fit with this ethos? Perhaps not within the fragmented communities of our cities, towns and villages. But we need not travel far back to find social peoples to whom nature offered such comforts. In perceiving the future loss, they wrote strong proverb, to warn, to take heed:

"Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints. Kill nothing but time. "
Anonymous

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. "
Navajo Proverb

The concept of sustainability appeared to be one borne into the very notion of nature and within a guiding principle for the societies of the recent past. But when was the break point reached? At what point did we retreat to Wilde's ignorant observer?

" Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money."
Cree Indian Proverb

"When the well's dry, we know the worth of water. "
Benjamin Franklin, (1706-1790), Poor Richard's Almanac

Both of the above quotes are interpreted from an economic standing as a call for the costing of natural resources. They attack the ignorant observer in that to observe nature, to garner transcendental enlightenment from its wilderness without paying or appreciating its price, to see nature as source and sink and not as the fundamental envelope within which the system of society and culture exists. The observer locates himself as exogenous to nature looking inward, manipulating. Yet he is drunk on influence and if he were to look up would see nature expand far beyond his realm; encompassing through a complexity unbounded.

"Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It's called "rain". "
Michael McClary

At which point the realisation is made. Our influence derives from the exploration within the wilderness of complexity; not from some transcendental enlightenment. We must reassess our position, to one within the system of nature, not one of influence upon.

"Energy Policy will be and should be driven by environmental policy in the future."
Timothy Wirth, U.S. Senator, February 20, 1991

And thus our collective energies as a species are encompassed by the environment from which we feed. Nature is both source and sink, it is the also background, the stage upon which we are set. This requires a dramatic shift in our observation of man within nature, but to be enacted by whom?

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead (1901-1978) quoted in John M. Richardson, ed. Making it Happen, 1982

Mead clearly ignores the global changes wrought by the mass populous in our addiction to energy, but perhaps provides us with hope, a vigor recharged. Escape form Wilde's ignorant observer is our quest and we must not back down. The time to leave nothing but footprints passed, we have taken many pictures and have killed far more than time.

€21 incentive not enough

I just picked this up from the Environmental Economics blog. It refers to a story about Sao Paolo generating UN carbon credits and selling them on to Fortis bank. I found the comment at the bottom interesting:

UN certified credits like the ones sold in Sao Paulo have been trading at around $20.56.

The average U.S. car--driven 12,000 miles a year--produces about seven tons of carbon dioxide a year. 

Are you willing to cut your drving by 1/7th for $20.56?"

Well, my rough calculations for a 4x4 emitting 300 gCO2/km suggest that  the EU ETS would today offer you €21 to cut your annual driving by a fifth!

A carbon price that works at a particular price for one sector will clearly not be effective in ensuring behavioural change in vehicle use. Better get that Fuel Duty Escalator working again next week; it takes a long time to make a serious impact on the composition of the personal car fleet.

come senators congressmen please heed the call… and don’t criticise what you can’t understand

In the 2004 remake of the Manchurian Candidate, an evil corporation controls the mind of the leading presidential candidate in a classic this-goes-all-the-way-to-the-top conspiracy. But just when the omnipotent bad guys are about to seize power, the 'Feds' appear implausibly from absolutely nowhere to assassinate the wrongdoer with the laser-guided rifle of justice. i.e. benign democratic institutions triumph over thoroughly rotten democratic government - a plot twist considerably more absurd than the movie's initial brainwashing premise - or so I thought...

However, a couple of court decisions over the past few weeks are giving me cause to think the system could be working after all. Could it be that Justice with a super-capital J (or at least a benign conspiracy between Blue States in the US, those ‘ahead of the curve’ regulators at the European Commission and even multinational corporations) has both the power and the will to address some of our most systematic, and hence intractable environmental problems?

Consider first the US Supreme Court’s decision, reported in this blog, to mandate the US EPA to regulate on CO₂ emissions – a considerable achievement in itself given the reported policitisation of both the Court and the EPA during the Bush era.  This was followed in September by a ruling in Vermont that appears to allow individual states to impose tailpipe GHG emission standards on vehicles. The opponent, Chrysler, reckoned that GHG standards are a de facto fuel economy standard and therefore can only be set at federal level. But the fuel economy regs date from the 1970s. At that time, the smog in California was so bad that the state was allowed to set higher standards for itself. California has since converted these standards into a vehicle GHG policy, other states are following suit and so far the US legal system seems to be backing them up. Yee har!

So if a number of US States (and the EU) are enacting GHG standards, hopefully it's not such a leap to imagine that vehicle manufacturers and fuel producers wishing to sell across international markets will adopt these standards as a matter of course. Cue the European Union, (the world's chief regulator) with its REACH regulations on chemical safety, moves to certify the sustainability of biofuels, and policies such as the WEEE (Waste Electronic and Electrical Items) and ELV (End-of-Life Vehicles) Directives. Could we be entering a brave new world where smart regulations in a few key markets drive improvements in products, their components and maybe even the emissions involved in their manufacture and consumption? A world where firms who have invested in the greenest, most cost-effective practices lobby for tighter regulations purely to flex their competitive advantage? If this thing really gets going, would it be enough to unleash the forces of sustainable innovation worldwide as firms seek to clean up in as many markets as possible?

Ok, maybe I'm getting carried away but we have just seen the European Commission take on Microsoft and win over some Media Player thing. Would similar action on environmental standards be such a stretch? And would it even be necessary? Not if this description of Robert Schapiro's new book on toxic chemical regs, taken from the Economist's Charlemagne column, is anything to go by.

When he (Schapiro) began his research, he found firms resisting the notion that the American market would follow EU standards for items like cosmetics, insisting that their American products were already safe. But as the book neared completion, firm after firm gave in and began applying EU standards worldwide, as third countries copied European rules on things like suspected carcinogens in lipstick. Even China is leaning to the European approach, one Procter & Gamble executive tells Mr Schapiro, adding wistfully: “And that's a pretty big country.”

So maybe I was wrong.  Maybe the Feds, on both sides of the Atlantic, can ride to rescue after all. Now, who's going to play Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas when this is made into a movie? I'd go for Larry David.

Managing climate change risk

Climate change poses two main risk to business- reputation risk and financial risk. Energy risk journal has provides some guidelines for managing the both risk. Managing climate change and the environmental impacts of carbon emission is an issue of dramatic importance for our planet’s future. The long-term risk for society as a whole are now almost universally accepted. But climate change also presents some more immediate concerns for the business community.

The more short-term risks that organisations face can be grouped into two basic categories. The first converse a business’s impact on climate change, any contributions the company makes to minimise it, and how well this is communicates and understood by the public. The second covers that energy costs and financial risk.

One of the particular characteristics of the environmental challenge is that individuals have a very personal connection to it. This means that although buying green energy on the market, instead of traditional energy, may be appealing to industrial and commercial companies, their customers may well understand the limitation if their tactic., and start demanding more be done.

There is growing awareness that what happen in the traded market is just energy changing hands, wheatear it be green energy or CO2  emission credits, and that this results in a very low level of new, incremental investment being made in real green alternatives.

Unfortunately, the absence of both China and the USA from the Kyoto protocol agreements reduces the potential of the different certificates and markets launched by UN or EU initiative. With the world’s biggest producers of carbon emissions pursuing their own agenda, the push to substitute investment in green generation and resourcing for brown energy will have a negligible impact on corporate behaviour. 

Depending on national policies that alternative is to pay tax to the government to compensate for CO2 emission. But that is hardly likely convince customers that your efforts to minimise your own carbon footprint are effective and appropriate- particularly if the cost are passed on to them. If this is the case you are unlikely to convince them of your low-carbon credentials. Also, even if it does manage to change corporate behaviour, tax is generally not cost-efficient, and it never allows industry participants to monitor surplus quantities effectively. Its effect is therefore limited and it will be perceived as such.

The  solution to this particular form of risk for the energy intensive company is to take a series of portfolio measure: sourcing energy in a way that will increase the overall amount of renewable generation and thus displace the use of fossil fuels. This includes measures that range from investing directly in carbon-free or renewable generation, such as wind turbine.

Organisation can also look at their own role as consumers. For example, they can choose to buy products from their wholesalers that have a lover CO2 content; or consume less carbon in their manufacture or decrease the energy consumption.

The second category of risk, which includes energy costs and financial risks, also has to be carefully managed.
Even without further taxes, there are already costs attached to carbon emission, which in turn have a strong impact on power prices.   

Biofuels saga, a new chapter: ALGAE

Couple of days ago some of us attended an interesting talk of Alex Farrell on Technologies and governance for a sustainable biofuels industry.

I quite liked how he grouped the biofuels crops, basically in function of the relative land use:
1. arable land crops (such as soy, corn, palm etc)
2. degraded land crops (such as jatropha – see previous post)
3. crops which requires no land (such as algae)

Needless to say, he pointed out that a sustainable biofuels industry should focus research and efforts on crops belonging to groups 2 and 3. He also gave some sort of technological roadmap for such crops use in biofuels production, which sounded relatively optimistic, at least to a non biofuel expert as I am. And this sounded to me even nicer, because, as it happened a while ago with jatropha, I’m increasingly bumping into news about the use of algae as biofuels, such as  this or this.

Biofuels people, what are your views on algae? Are they really so efficient and sustainable biofuels crops as they sound (at least in theory)? Any already known problems and possible side effects? costs and future prospects?

In the Green to be featured on Typepad front page

Simon, who checks our email from time to time, forwarded me a recent email from Sixapart (who own Typepad - or the other way around) which says we've been selected as a featured blog:

Dear Nathan,
I am pleased to inform you that your TypePad blog, In the Green, has been selected to be featured on TypePad's homepage: http://www.typepad.com/.

Your blog will be seen by all who visit this homepage and as a result your blog could experience more traffic due to this placement. Your blog will be featured on Sunday, October 14th at 10 AM PST

I'm really pleased. I don't know what the criteria are for selection, but I will hazard the suggestion that it is a testament to our high quality commentary and insight!

I've added the "featured" stamp on our side-bar. I guess this makes us cool.

Climate change opinion on Newnight

Newsnight had a great bit on public opinion on climate change last night. It involved an American pollster discussing the topic with about 30 members of the UK public. I recommend watching it here.

Couple of comments:

Unsurprisingly, the group did not trust or respect the climate change commitments by Brown and Cameron. Most felt that climate change was just being used to support their political careers. Similar to campaigns by celebrities. On the other hand, the audience trusted comments by Prince Charles - a long time conservationist campaigner. This surprised me, actually. I suspect a lot of 'ivory tower' academics do not take seriously (or pay attention to) Prince Charles' environmental comments. This, appears, is unwise.

While there was a range of opinions about climate change, and concerns about the uncertainties in the science, only ONE guy brought up the solar theory. And even then, he just commented it was a possibility. No finger pointing, no denialism, no arguing. He took part in the discussion on other issues as normal. So evidently Durkin didn't get to these people with TGGWS.

Most of the group felt that action was required, but there was little evidence that they were willing to pay for it. The questions on willingness to pay were somewhat imprecise, and there was a bit of a disconnect in the audience between their belief of needing to reduce emissions and the need to pay for them. But the sense in general was that there was an unwillingness to accept taxes on energy use. What would they think about a tax-rebate scheme, or a personal carbon credit scheme? Who knows. Evidently economists have to do much to educate the public.

Let's play "Energy Policy" together!

I found it avertised in "The Economist". Chevron ("the human energy"!!!) has launched a website with an interesting interactive game: basically you get to decide how to power a city of your choice from now until 2030, by means of different energy sources. To be honest, I think it is technically very well done. With regards to its methodology and purpose we could argue for months. I mean Chevron doesn't sell Brazilian nuts...yet. Thus, in spite of what the LibDem say these days, petrol remains a key source in this game. Even though this is just a game, I found interesting how it shows the trade-offs between economic, security and environment. I would encourage you to play (2 minutes) and then make your comments on this blog, rather than on the game's discussion forum.

Oil together now...

In case anyone needed further persuasion that everything is inseparable from everything else, it seems that today's oil price peak is a result of increased investments in commodities as a result of market risk elsewhere. Evidently, there is plenty going on in the oil market at the moment to mean that a) the current economic problems are the last thing it needs, and b) peak oil is the last thing it needs to worry about right now.

Meanwhile Goldman Sachs are predicting $85/barrel by the end of the year, and even Ron Oxburgh is predicting $150/barrel in the next 20 years due to supply constraints. We could well be in for some interesting times.

EU considers fuels quality

Something actually important may be at stake in Brussels at the moment. With this week's announcement from the Parliament it seems that the revision of 1998 Fuels Quality Directive might break some ground on environmental criteria in the upstream sector.

The revision began in January when the Commission proposed a revision to the standards, which cover such issues as sulphur and polyaromatics content. In addition to the usual cranking up of standards, the Commission inserted some broader climate-oriented goals:

• To permit 10% alcohol in petrol.
• To clearly   label all blends available on the market.
• To introduce   mandatory monitoring of lifecycle greenhouse gases from 2009.
• To reduce   GHG emissions in fuel production by 1% a year as from 2011 (10% by 2020).

In their co-decision response the Parliament have  backed the Commission's ideas and then topped them. In a Draft Report they say:

• "It is desirable to introduce not only biodiversity criteria for the production of biofuels but also social criteria"
• "life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions [should be reduced] per unit of energy"
• The LCA of fuels should take into account the impact of land-use changes, the production and application of agrochemical substances per unit of energy and the impact of by-products"

It will be interesting to follow the developments of this legislation. Two important milestones could be passed. Firstly the inclusion of some kind of standardised procedure for including sustainability critieria in biofuels production (undermining policies that consider them to be carbon neutral). Secondly, the implementation of an inter-industry life-cycle responsibility from cradle to grave.

The mighty Europia (the oil producers association) are clearly concerned about this, and there are issues relating to conflicts with other legislation to be addressed, but some chance remains that a precedent for well-to-wheels LCA and biofuels certification could somehow be established via this back door - i.e. without direct involvement of the car manufacturers or agricultural lobby.

Lib Dems - The Neutral Party?

Following this week's headlines from the Lib Dems conference and Miles's recent post about their aspirations for the UK to be carbon neutral by 2050,  I just had a quick butcher's at their policy document myself.

The main figures are:

• Zero carbon by 2050
• 30% clean, non-carbon emitting by 2020
• 100% clean, non-carbon emitting electricity by 2050
• 10% renewable transport fuel by 2015
• Zero carbon for all new cars by 2040
• Zero requirement for fossil fuels for space heating in new houses from 2011.

Forget for a minute the fact that they desperately needed some media attention to claim back the green ground from the other parties and consider the figures.  The approach is apparently that in order to prevent a >2ºC temperature rise  then we must go further than the government's current promise of 60% emissions cuts. We need to take precautionary action on a timescale that markets won't naturally respond to. In fact, so the argument goes, we must go much, much further in order to compensate for 'dirty' development elsewhere and take responsibility for our disproportionate historic share of emissions. This doesn't seem unreasonable, so why is it so alarming.

Some of the discomfort their policies provides is to do with their continued obsession with air travel, which is probably the single most alienating topic and also the one least likely to deliver long-term changes to the system - it is vitally important to reduce flights, but it will be painful for almost everyone in society to adjust to this. My other concern over these proposals relates to their electricity targets and how incredibly tough it will be to achieve these rightly ambitious goals.

By clean, they mean non-nuclear. This means that if elected next year, they will have 12 years to shift the renewables component of electricity from 4% to 30%, providing renewable replacements for each of the current nuclear stations as 11GW come off line over the next 10 years or so. Assuming that their two big hitters - CCS and a Severn Tidal Scheme - are still unavailable by 2020, except for maybe one CCS demonstration plant, this will incredibly tough. Their proposed feed-in tariff will have to work very hard to get enough wind and solar installed. Or we can just settle for co-combustion and biogas if a 50,000% increase in wind capacity is out of the question.

In spite of this, the 2050 target is even more interesting. Whilst, it is so far away that it is practically meaningless on any realistic political timetable, it allows more options into the equation, such as CCS and tidal barrages. The problem is, as the Lib Dems acknowledge in their policy document, that fossil-fuel CCS can capture up to 90% of the CO2. 10% will always be emitted. In addition, the home heating requirements can only be zero carbon if run off electricity (incl. H2) or biomass/biogas, as hydrocarbon-based CHP will always emit CO2 regardless of efficiency. This means that we will almost certainly need a 'negative' carbon source for electricity, ideally centralised biomass combustion plus CCS I suppose.

Without really looking into the ins and outs of the possibilities, it seems that enormous amounts of plant matter will be required to deliver overall carbon neutrality for electricity. This leads me to three questions:

1. Does it really serve any objective to aim for a practically impossible zero carbon economy in the UK when serious cuts could be achieved easier abroad? (limiting some awesome diminishing returns?)
2. Does anyone in the electorate actually evaluate these kerr-azy political targets?
3. Where in God's name will all the biomass come from?

And well, it turns out that

God might not be a bad person to ask after all.

Are low cost and holidays flights the only problem? - (P.s. Easyjet supports green air taxes)

Hi All, did you read this news?

 Another comment on flying.

It has been told that after September 11 BP has consistently reduced the amount of flight for business purposes and such change did not have any impact on BP business at all.  Simon could provide more reference on this (pardon me). The news is very interesting, but most of all, it flags up the fact that (in particular thanks to the new technologies) a lot could be done to reduce business flights without hurting “god growth”. We are probably all aware of this, but I just wanted to point that out. Low cost flights are not just the problem. And to reduce business flight probably a carbon tax wouldn’t be enough: behavioural change is hardly needed.

Generally, for the humans well being, wouldn’t be better to allow people to go on holiday in an exotic place more easily, and if possible engage with locals, rather than go in the same place for work, running from the airport to the hotel, than to an office, then restaurant, then hotel, then airport again… having the superficial feeling of getting to know a new place, but in reality being completely far from what reality is there? Wouldn’t be better for the local people too?

 I am generalising and a bit provocative, I know. But, to conclude: recently I got in contact with a friend of mine I did not see for a while as he wanted to work in an African country and had moved to Tanzania. Well, he is now back to London (to live), but still working in an African country: South Africa! doing "consultancy, banks..that kind of usual stuff " he said...

Someone's been reading our blog...

The New York Times has an op/ed by N. Gregory Mankiw, a professor at Harvard and current advisor to US presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In it, he proposes a $15/tCO2 carbon tax for the US, which will be used to offset payroll taxes uniformly across the population by about $3500. Prices of energy-intensive goods will go up, but people will have more money to spend on it. This removes the regressiveness of a carbon tax.

I joke in the headline that he's been reading our blog, because this is exactly the proposal I made in an earlier post about David Miliband's proposed ridiculous personal carbon credit scheme. While this isn't a new idea (I certainly didn't invent it), I'm glad it is getting attention in the mainstream media. Mankiw is advising Romney - a Republican candidate.

Above image by David G. Klein at the NYT.

To Fly or not to Fly

In response to comments on Chiara's post yesterday, and as a user of short-haul flights for European holidays,  I though that I would use this post to detail my personal response to the air transport debate.

Statement [1]: I am a rational economic agent. As are (or should be) all others around me and all firms with which I interact. On this basis I expect the free markets within which I operate to be efficient and to trade in response to price signals without subjective bias. I do not expect them to take into account non-costed negative externalities except for the case that these provide a 'kudos' value representative of the subjective internalised belief of a subset of market agents.

Fact [1]: A recent ticket cost me £0.79 to fly over 1782 miles (London - Rome). This will emit 375kg of Carbon. per passenger. Airport taxes are paid for runway maintenance and general airport overheads. No fuel tax is charged on my fuel. No VAT is charged on my fuel.

The failure to tax aviation sufficiently is actively creating the very market distortion that central government is expected to correct through fiscal, financial and administrative instruments. The market is not so much a beneficiary of Smith's Invisible Hand but is being force-fed under a blind mandate of social 'Liberty' and 'Vitality' for the economy. Provide, beyond the statement of expected growth and 'knock-on' effects, the details of the mechanism under which the economy and the aviation industry are inextricably linked. Show us the figures on negative economic growth in the financial sector under heavy fuel taxation, show us the detrimental impact on social welfare of a trip by rail to the Cornish coastline.

It may sound like a selfish argument but I stand by the following. I am a rational agent whom, whilst concerned with the environment, admit fully that the figures are still lacking with regards to the precise details of almost all sustainability issues backed by Agenda 21. My personal area of interest is bioenergy. Whilst I research this with fervour, I harbour inherent scepticism as to whether there exists a future, sustainable, steady-state balanced precariously upon a technological spire. However impact reduction is a feasible goal. Increase the cost of flying and I will cut down my air-miles; simple. Until that is done, I will increasingly intertwine my social (liberty) and career (economic prosperity) within a the low cost global transport technological infrastructure. I would be foolish not to, given the great joy that it brings me, my friends and family.

I therefore see this as a no-brainer from a policy perspective and see little reason as to why an argument exists on the issue (from the perspective of anyone but the most hardened climate / eco-economy sceptic). With demand elasticity for air-travel highly uncertain at between 0.5 and +1.5 (dependent on terminals, class, time of year etc.) taxation would need to be carefully modelled (through some level of empirical identification and statement of the mechanisms which link air-transport with the economy at large) and optimised in order to ensure that robust policy was implemented. Ideally this should come early in the next term of UK government, so as to allow a period of readjustment of the social norm within a single term. It should at least match the fuel tax, or equivalent passenger mile consumption value (cost service km rather than means), on road transport fuels (50.9p/L Unleaded). This would ensure that aviation (and the users of aviation) makes a fair contribution to the cost of running the health, education and police services. Secondly it would go some way to cover external costs which are now widely accepted prior to an anticipated shift to direct carbon pricing (as a subset of a broader ETS) in the long term. Fuel taxation, whilst a paradigm shift to the industry, would merely bring the market to the table of fair trade in the logistical good.

There is an urgent need to curtail the expansion rate of the sector with the open skies pact coming online in April 2008. Once the US are integrated into the free-for-all transport network, the economic incentives for low cost air-travel can only be expected to increase. Calls too cheap to monitor, once a dream, are now a reality but they have few negative externalities. Flights too cheap to dissuade are a reality right now but can't be allowed to continue. Tax aviation fuel now. Bring up the price of air transport and I will consider other means as I am rational. The government has subsidised this industry long enough and I want them to help me from doing wrong. That is in part my perception of the role and responsibility of the maternal state.    

Else, ignore all of the above and see this excellent (if a little outdated) review (2003): The Hidden Cost of Flying

Cheap flights to extinction

I might be posting this because I fell guilty...I often fly, and almost always with Ryanair. I am not sure I agree with all Jeremy's points, but I think the issue is there to be addressed.

and, I have to admit, I liked the following incipit (as the title!):

"So, Michael O'Leary wants to fly people to the US for £7 in a fleet of new planes in three years' time. If society allows him to succeed in his latest scheme for the betterment of his business to the wilful detriment of the climate we will surely be on a suicidal course by the end of the decade."

you can read the rest here

Take a long, hard look at yourself

Here's an interesting article from the Observer a while ago by John Llewellyn, senior economic policy adviser at Lehman Brothers. It seeks to typecast the common attitudes that people have towards anthropogenic climate change. See if you can spot yourself!

Readers can refer to blog posts and fora passim ad nauseam for exchanges on the issue of climate science and policy itself.

However, this article very neatly summarises the positions us feeble humans have chosen to take on the issue.

It's easy when you don't have to do anything

The APEC conference is underway in Sydney, and as expected climate change is on the agenda. While it still appears to be agreed that the UN will still be the forum for the eventual successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the US and Australia still remain keen to wrestle the control of the climate change discourse away from the overly keen EU. APEC is a good forum for this, because the EU isn't included - but China is.

A draft statement at APEC is being worked out that seems likely to set "aspirational" targets of improving energy efficiency of APEC members by 25% by 2030. While this doesn't replace any post-Kyoto agreement, this is undoubtedly a means for Australia and US to shift the discussion away from absolute targets to efficiency targets.

Trouble is, this target of 25% energy efficiency (energy per unit GDP) over 25 or so years is no different from the BAU. Blogger Simon Donner (here and here) has pointed out, however, that this rate of improvement is actually slower than the world has seen in the recent decades. So, surprise surprise, the aspirational targets, are pointless. No pricing of carbon means nothing being done.

China doesn't seem pleased about this move away from Kyoto-style agreements. They are still keen on being exempt from a climate agreement while they are in their development. I see now that the deal has still gone ahead.

Thanks to Deltoid.

If you're looking to get out of mortgage-backed securities...

Malaysian palm oil output hits two year low due to flooding.

FAO Chief warns of social unrest as food prices rise
(although these kind of articles often exaggerate the speaker's opinion).

In Yemen, actual social unrest at high food prices occurs.

Wheat market tight with export bans and poor harvests around the world.

Soybean prices hit 'historic highs'.

Investment in (non-edible) jatropha projects all over the place. Here. Here. Here. Here.

Food crisis? Fuel crisis? Climate? End of days? Unprecedented business opportunity?

Sunday afternoon

There was a comment on Stoat, one of my favorite climate science blogs that I found quite interesting:

It is true libertarians tend to be denialist about AGW. As someone who leans libertarian myself, I can tell you why; it's hard to find a libertarian solution to AGW. The standard libertarian solution to the Tragedy of the Commons - privatize the commons - is often the optimal approach, but there doesn't seem to be a reasonable way to privatize the atmosphere. If there were, someone would have tried already.

Hey, do you think it's possible that one solution might not be the universal answer to all problems?

Gerard Harbison

This isn't particularly groundbreaking, but I thought it interesting as it came from a libertarian. Note he's not saying they tend to suggest we not act on climate change (which there are many coherent arguments for); they are denying the science of it.

I suppose it will be argued that action on climate change is preferred by many left-leaning types because it lends itself to social engineering. I'll leave that up to a commenter...