Billions for Climate Change

[Florence]

I see that the Climate Change Conference in Paris has decided that the "developed" countries will contribute $100 billion to the "undeveloped" countries to help them mitigate their expenses lowering their carbon emissions. At least I think that is the rationale. A couple of points:

How can unelected bureaucrats commit the U.S. to pay out billions of dollars? Doesn't Congress have anything to say about this?

What percentage of the $100 billion will do anything useful vs. the percentage that will go to graft and corruption?

Why can't we use that money to put solar panels on our own roofs? Or build up our own renewable energy sources?

[Gregg]

I see that the Climate Change Conference in Paris has decided that the "developed" countries will contribute $100 billion to the "undeveloped" countries to help them mitigate their expenses lowering their carbon emissions. At least I think that is the rationale. A couple of points:

How can unelected bureaucrats commit the U.S. to pay out billions of dollars? Doesn't Congress have anything to say about this?

What percentage of the $100 billion will do anything useful vs. the percentage that will go to graft and corruption?

Why can't we use that money to put solar panels on our own roofs? Or build up our own renewable energy sources?

1. Unelected bureaucrats commit other people's money all the time. The UN, NATO, the World Bank, the WHO, the WTO...

2. My guess is that absolutely none of the $100B will accomplish anything of value, but a few people will become fantastically wealthy.

3. Because the political ties to the fossil fuel industry run way too deep for anything beyond lip service to be paid to alternatives at a federal level. The only real hope for solar and other alternatives, IMO, is to work through member owned utilities first and then add some incentives from local or state governments. Those local utilities are the only ones with monetary incentives to get on board.

In the real world $100B won't even scratch the surface of what needs to be done. I heard a podcast yesterday where the speaker noted that $100B is roughly 1/15th of the GDP of Great Britain. Global GDP is somewhere just shy of $80 TRILLION. The $100B pledge is 1/800th of that. In comparison, if you make $80,000/year that level of allocation would give you $100 to spend to begin to change the way you do almost everything. Its probably not going to get you very far. Besides, China and India (understandably) already want concessions and exclusions that will allow their economies to develop using the cheapest energy available. India has plans to open a new coal fired power plant every month through 2020. Btw, they would still be behind the US in coal fired power generation. Anyway, the scale of investment required to meet the 'ambition coalition' goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5*C would be exponentially higher than $100B, probably in the tens of trillions. And considering global temperatures are generally accepted to have already risen by 1*C or so we would need to start spending that kind of money yesterday.

[catherine]

Great analysis, Gregg. Not very hopeful, but you're probably right.

[ApatheticNoMore]

1. Unelected bureaucrats commit other people's money all the time. The UN, NATO, the World Bank, the WHO, the WTO...

+1, yes that's how things work, even the Federal Reserve committed TRILLIONS (read that TRILLIONS) in the last financial crises, and not TARP which was voted on, Federal Reserve money. But I don't think that is typical of what the Federal Reserve does, that is bail out the whole world, however the World Bank, IMF, etc. - it IS what they do all the time, commit money without congress at anytime, it's how the world works.

#2 too cynical, I think it will do some good, but not enough good. Some may be lost to graft and corruption but that's the way the world works. I mean think of a percentage lost to this as the cost of doing business or what have you (like a retailer does "shrinkage" - that is shoplifting), but put controls in place to minimize it whenever possible of course. The perfect world where none is lost to this doesn't exist (sometimes I think maybe "corrupt" is the most fundamental description of what human society at least post agriculture has always been - it's been violent and even unfathomably malevolent sometimes, but corrupt consistently). But they should do what they can to make sure it is spent wisely, controls like I say (of course I have no direct control over this).

#3 that is a good point, since a few countries are the major sources of fossil fuel use (U.S., China, India, Europe etc.), improvements in them will do a world of good. So yes I don't know what analysis this was based on and I hope it did compare the relative benefits of spending it to reduce U.S. fossil fuel use etc.

The thing is global temperature rise much beyond what they are even trying to prevent will make life miserable indeed and some may very well make most life on earth impossible.

[catherine]

Charles Eisenstein posted an essay today--he's speaking in Paris tonight, and his thoughts reflect mine--that tracking CO2 is not the main environmental issue--it's a measuring stick, but it's not the cure. (Sorry for the long quote--I thought there was a link to the essay, but there isn't, so here is a sizable excerpt of the FB post.)

One obvious problem with that is that horrible things can be justified with CO2 arguments, or tolerated because they have little obvious impact on CO2. This ersatz 'green' argument has been applied to tracking, nuclear power, big hydro, GMOs, and the conversation of forests into wood chips for biofuel. Now you might say these are specious arguments that depend on faulty carbon accounting (is nuclear power really that carbon friendly when you account for the immense amount of energy needed to mine the uranium, refine the uranium, procure the cement, contain the waste, etc.?) but I am afraid there is a deeper problem. It is that when we base policy on a global metric, i.e. by the numbers, then the numbers are always subject to manipulation by those with the power to do so. Data can be manipulated, factors can be ignored, and projections can be skewed toward optimistic best-case scenarios. This is an inherent problem with basing policy on a metric like tons of CO2 or GGEs (greenhouse gas equivalents).

Secondly, by focusing on a measurable quantity we devalue that which we cannot measure or choose not to measure. Such issues such as mining, biodiversity, toxic pollution, ecosystem disruption, etc. recede in urgency, because after all, unlike global levels of CO2 they do not pose an existential threat. Certainly one can make carbon-based arguments on all these issues, but to do so is to step onto dangerous ground. Imagine that you are trying to stop a strip mine by citing the fuel use of the equipment and the lost carbon sink of the forest that needs to be cleared, and the mining company says, "OK, we're going to do this in the most green way possible; we are going to fuel our bulldozers with biofuels, run our computers on solar power, and plant two trees for every tree we chop down." You get into a tangle of arithmetic, none of which touches the real reason you want to stop the mine -- because you love that mountaintop, that forest, those waters that would be poisoned.

I am certain we will not "save our planet" (or at least the ecological basis of civilization) by merely being more clever in our deployment of Earth's "resources". We will not escape this crisis so long as we see the planet and everything on it as instruments of our utility. The present climate change narrative veers too close to instrumental utilitarian logic -- that we should value the earth because of what will happen to us if we don't. Where did we develop the habit of making choices based on maximizing or minimizing a number? We got it from the money world. We are seeking to apply our numbers games to a new target, CO2 rather than dollars. I don't think that is a deep enough revolution. We need a revolution in means, not only a revolution in ends.

[Ultralight]

Charles Eisenstein posted an essay today--he's speaking in Paris tonight, and his thoughts reflect mine--that tracking CO2 is not the main environmental issue--it's a measuring stick, but it's not the cure. (Sorry for the long quote--I thought there was a link to the essay, but there isn't, so here is a sizable excerpt of the FB post.)

Yup...we're in some real trouble.

[Williamsmith]

This is all about keeping the fan base happy. There is no real money changing hands here. The developed leaders just promise the undeveloped leaders a big pile of invisible money. The undeveloped Maoists are happy as a dog with a milk bone and their leader retains power. The developed demo saps are tickled pink that we are showing remorse in our resource hogging and planetary polluting. We don't need to really change things, just pay people off.

Im not a denier, just a healthy skeptic. What with all the racketeers in Paris, whose minding the night clubs back home?

I got an idea. Mince the scientists don't seem to want to actively campaign for the veracity of climate change......I mean shouldn't they all be in the streets with signs saying, "the sky is falling". And since Obama basically blew the whole environmental network off for the past five years......Do the climate changers really have that solid a foundation to stand on?

I propose a compromise. How bout we spend some real money on technology that will cool the earth in the event we do get some global warming. But just in case, let's not go all in for climate change. It was supposed to be raining all day here today......all I see is sunshine. These guys can't even get the weather right.

[Gregg]

#2 too cynical, I think it will do some good, but not enough good. Some may be lost to graft and corruption but that's the way the world works. I mean think of a percentage lost to this as the cost of doing business or what have you (like a retailer does "shrinkage" - that is shoplifting), but put controls in place to minimize it whenever possible of course. The perfect world where none is lost to this doesn't exist (sometimes I think maybe "corrupt" is the most fundamental description of what human society at least post agriculture has always been - it's been violent and even unfathomably malevolent sometimes, but corrupt consistently). But they should do what they can to make sure it is spent wisely, controls like I say (of course I have no direct control over this).

I probably am too cynical about the $100B slush fund, but its because there are just too many examples of huge amounts of money evaporating when there isn't an extremely specific plan and an airtight program of checks and balances that has people with opposing views doing the checking up. More to the point, $100B isn't enough to do any real good in any way I can think of with the possible exception of education via a saturated global media. When the owners of that global media have interests that run contrary to the message that should be broadcast it makes me doubtful that anything will happen there. Beyond that the real "cure" would involve first world countries helping ALL the developing nations leapfrog conventional technology while at the same time pushing themselves into a more sustainable future. That is going to take a whole lot of money out of everyone's pocket, but especially the wealthiest nations (and a little less directly the wealthiest people). We don't have a good track record there, either.

[Ultralight]

I think that:

1. It is really too late to turn this ship around. We're probably in "runaway" climate change now, by what most of the research is showing.
2. Even if we could turn the ship around, we wouldn't.

So I just try to keep my hands reasonably clean and figure out ways that I can mitigate the effects of climate change in my own life -- choosing carefully where I live, living simply, avoiding more debts, learning some practical skills, and most of all -- being stoic when possible.

[catherine]

I got an idea. Mince the scientists don't seem to want to actively campaign for the veracity of climate change......I mean shouldn't they all be in the streets with signs saying, "the sky is falling".

So, is the reason you have not joined the climate change camp because you haven't been convinced that the scientists actually are committed what they're espousing? What would you need to see from them for you to say, "Holy cow, I guess 95% of the scientists are right--we're up s**t's creek!"?

How bout we spend some real money on technology that will cool the earth in the event we do get some global warming.

That seems like palliative care. How is that going to save the salmon and the cod when we will still be shoving them aside for our own desires?