by Alex Evans | Oct 10, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Influence and networks
Google has a superb new toy called Google Trends, which allows you to track how often a particular term is searched for on Google (here its .co.uk variant), and how often it crops up in the news. Here’s a little sample which shows the frequency of searches on ‘climate change’ (blue) and ‘global warming’ (red) – high resolution version here.
Annoyingly, Google Trends doesn’t quite manage to label all of the spikes properly. (As far as I can tell, the little spike in early 2005 is Kyoto entering into force; the big spike mid-05 is the Gleneagles G8, combined with Hurricane Katrina; and the increasing incidence of news stories in late 2006 is a combination of Schwarzenegger announcing clean tech plans, media stories about glacial melting and the Gulf Stream, and – above all – the Stern Review.) But what a great tool, all the same.
By the way: David and I are currently working on a research paper for the London Accord, which will be ready in a couple of weeks. It’s designed to look at the social and behavioural trends that really underpin climate change, and to identify ways of getting better at understanding what drives them (as David likes to put it, “we’ve spent millions on understanding the science and technological dimensions of climate change, and about 54p on understanding the social dynamics”). We’ll post it here when it’s ready.
by Alex Evans | Oct 1, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Economics and development, Global system
Hurrah – Dani Rodrik has a blog. Rodrik is a great international development thinker and a co-author – together with Nancy Birdsall and Arvind Subramanian – of my favourite development think piece of 2005, which was absolutely required reading in DFID when it came out.
Anyway, Rodrik’s just been blogging about food prices and poverty, where he observes the existence of two camps cheerfully talking past one another. On one hand, advocates of the Doha Development Round trumpted that higher food prices from agricultural liberalisation will benefit the poor. On the other hand, people worried about the effect of biofuels on food prices (like me) argue that higher food prices will be bad news for the poor. But Rodrik points out that:
The real answer of course is that it depends on whether a poor household is a net seller or buyer of food (that is, whether it grows more or less food than it consumes). This means that the rural poor generally tends to benefit from higher food prices, whereas the urban poor generally get hurt. How large the impact is depends, in turn, on the size of the food account as a share of total expenditures or income of a household. And whether the change is good or bad for a nation’s poor as a whole depends on the geography of poverty in a country.
So as an economist loves to say, it depends. But it depends in predictable ways on household and country characteristics.
A fair point. But Rodrik overlooks the gorilla in the room: climate change. As we’ve argued here before, the effect of biofuels is just one driver of rising food prices – along with other factors like weather variability, water scarcity, rising demand in China and India and so on. While biofuels is the the key driver among these for now, it’s climate change that is likely to become the real biggie over time.
And the thing about climate change, as IPCC assessment reports make clear, is that while climate change will likely lead to higher food prices, farmers in the poorest countries are likely to become worse rather than better off – since they’ll be hardest hit by the effects of climate change. William Cline, an expert at the Center for Global Development, has a new book out about this which should be required reading in donor agencies:
Developing countries, many of which have average temperatures that are already near or above crop tolerance levels, are predicted to suffer an average 10 to 25 percent decline in agricultural productivity by the 2080s, assuming a so-called “business as usual” scenario in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, according to the study. Rich countries, which typically have lower average temperatures, will experience a much milder or even positive average effect, ranging from an 8 percent increase in productivity to a 6 percent decline.
Individual developing countries face even larger declines. India, for example, could see a drop of 30 to 40 percent. Some smaller countries suffer what could only be described as an agricultural productivity collapse. Sudan, already wracked by civil war fueled in part by failing rains, is projected to suffer as much as a 56 percent reduction in agricultural production potential; Senegal, a 52 percent fall.
by Alex Evans | Sep 27, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity
So, what to make of the UN Secretary-General’s high level event on climate change in New York earlier this week? First, a few quick observations in no particular order:
- Heavyweight proposal of the day: Angela Merkel stepped up her call for future climate policy to be based on the principle of national emissions entitlements converging towards equal per capita levels, calling for this approach not only at the climate summit but in a subsequent speech to the entire UN General Assembly too.
- Intriguing leftfield idea of the day: Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa offered to leave 920 million barrels of oil in the ground, to avoid the emissions that would result from burning it. And in return: “Ecuador requests to the humanity a small contribution of 5 dollars per barrel” – $4.6 billion, in other words. By a very rough reckoning, that works out at a little over $10 per tonne of CO2 of emissions reduction – when current market prices for crude are $80 a barrel. Someone draw up a contract, quick.
- Speaker of the day: Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana, who strode up the podium and spoke brilliantly, without notes, making eye contact with everyone in the room. And everyone sat up and took notice. Especially good was the moment when Jagdeo singled out EC President Barroso and with exquisite politeness, kicked him round the room for Brussels’ cack-handed reform of the EU Sugar Protocol. Just goes to show: oratorical skills still count. Especially at UN summits where everyone else mumbles through their script.
- Charmer of the day: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Anyone who begins their speech to the UN General Assembly by asking a room full of heads of state to “give a big hand” to his wife has considerable panache (video here).
Here‘s the SG’s full summary document, which makes explicit reference to limiting warming to two degrees C – which is excellent – and to the need to halve emissions by 2050. The latter is a bit odd, given that in its fourth assessment report, the IPCC’s policy working groupmakes clear that as far as limiting warming to between 2 and 2.4 degrees is concerned, a global cut of 50 per cent by 2050 is the bare minimum (the range the IPCC uses is between 50 and 85 per cent by 2050); but still, there’s time to correct this confusion before the Bali summit in December.
What to make of the summit overall?
First, this was a big win for Ban Ki-Moon. He garnered a great tally of heads of state and heads of government, and successfully raised the stakes on climate change ahead of Bali – which was the central objective in holding this summit.
Second, virtually all speeches made concurred on the level of urgency on tackling climate change, and that too is significant progress.
Third, the nascent battle between a future based on targets and timetables versus a future of voluntary action and technology partnerships is starting to get intense. Merkel is emerging as the most articulate and clear-sighted proponent of the former. But to see what she’s up against, see the speeches made by Condi Rice and – especially – Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer. The latter set out seven key principles for an “equitable and effective post-2012 international climate change arrangement”, as follows – with words like “binding” and “targets” notable by their absence (the word “aspirational”, on the other hand, appeared in Downer’s speech three times):
- First, the principle of comprehensiveness. This means that all economies contribute to shared global goals in ways that are equitable, and environmentally and economically effective.
- Second, is the need to respect different domestic circumstances and capacities.
- Third, is the importance of flexibility and recognising diverse approaches and practical actions.
- Fourth, is the important role for co-operation on low and zero emissions energy sources and technologies, particularly coal and other fossil fuels.
- Fifth, is the importance of addressing forests and land use in the post-2012 arrangement.
- Sixth, is the importance of promoting open trade and investment.
- And, seventh, is the importance of support for effective adaptation strategies.
Much of the media coverage of the summit interpreted Ban Ki-Moon’s summary comment that “All other processes or initiatives should be compatible with the UNFCCC process and should feed into it, facilitating its successful conclusion” as an implied swipe at the US / Australian approach. But the AP6-ers can handle that tactic. Over the autumn, we’ll probably find that they’re more than happy to pledge their loyalty to the UNFCCC process: it’s just that their vision for it is as the home for adaptation, financing and technology, while mitigation is “dealt with” elsewhere.
All in all, it’s going to be a pretty interesting few months between now and Bali…
by David Steven | Sep 25, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security, Influence and networks, North America
On National Review, Jay Richards continues his push back against Evangelical Christians who support action on climate change. His advice? Stop being gulled by left-wing strategists:
No one expects throngs of Evangelicals to start voting for pro-choice Democrats. But much of the media agrees with the Washington Post’s infamous description of Evangelicals as “poor, undereducated, and easily led.” If Democrats can get just a small percentage of Evangelicals to worry more about global warming and gasoline than the gay marriage and the proliferation of abortion, then they just might shift the demographics in their favor. So we should expect to see fawning coverage of liberal Evangelicals on the environment in the next fourteen months.
Richards is a research fellow at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty (motto: “integrating Judeo-Christian Truths with Free Market Principles”). Unsurprisingly, his fellowship was (and perhaps still is) funded by ExxonMobil.
Richards is also an advisor to the Interfaith Stewardship Council, a Jewish/Christian coalition that was founded, in part, to counter “unfounded or undue [environmental] concerns such as destructive manmade global warming, overpopulation, and rampant species loss.”
According to ISI, recent scientific findings have left the “catastrophic human-induced global warming (CHIGW) dogma” near collapse. It is putting together a network of churches to spread the word…
In his spare time from fighting the CHIGW, Richards is a booster for intelligent design (he used to work for the Discovery Institute). He also has Copernicus in his sights. While not quite a flat earther, one of his books demonstrates that:
COPERNICUS WAS WRONG: We are at the center of the cosmos after all… Well, not at the geographical center – but here is proof that one of the most cherished assumptions of materialism, that Earth is an insignificant dust speck in an obscure corner of the universe, is dead wrong. The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery provides proof that Earth is a lot more significant than virtually anyone has realized — except for tenacious post-Copernican theists.
Who will he take on next, I wonder? Newton?
by Alex Evans | Sep 3, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Influence and networks
John Llewelyn, a senior economic policy adviser at Lehman Brothers, had a great piece in the Observer yesterday identifying five distinct categories of belief on climate change:
The Ideological Mainstreamers: this group has been around the longest. Its members did not have to wait for evidence. They were certain there was a problem well before the rump of scientists reached today’s near-consensus.
The Ideological Contrarians: these people require standards of proof no higher than those of the ideological mainstreamers, but hold the opposite view. If they have an intellectual belief, it is that they are smarter than the crowd. More often, though, it is just a game of attracting attention by attacking the majority.
The Grey Conservatives: members of this coterie specialise in appearing reasonable. They are neither pro nor anti, they gravely insist: the problem is simply that there is not enough evidence to support policy action of any sort. Do more research, collect more data and continue the debate, they counsel sagely.
The Non-Sequiturians: various arguments are advanced by this group, but they share a structure. Warming was caused by sunspots, or fluctuations in the Earth’s orbit, or volcanic eruptions. Therefore it cannot be caused by mankind. The ‘therefore’ is the giveaway, the delicious non sequitur: just because Earth has warmed for one or another reason in the past is no reason why it cannot warm for a completely different reason in the future.
The Busy Executives: their argumentation is loftier, but no fuller than it needs to be. Elevating pragmatism to a virtue, they take the position that what matters is not whether the science is right or wrong, but what policymakers are going to do. Given that it increasingly seems that policymakers are going to do various things, the argument runs, skip the argumentation and go straight to the implications for business.
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