I have just found the following statement amongst emails from December last year. Why didn’t the ‘leading economists’ mention the Kyoto Protocol? Is the Protocol too prescriptive and regulatory in nature? Would they endorse the upcoming meeting in Sydney on Wednesday of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate?
Policy Solutions
United States Needs Incentive Based Policy to Reduce Carbon Emissions
________________________________________
Statement by leading economists
December 7, 2005
The signatories below are all senior economists with expertise in the application of economics to environmental policy. We believe it important that the United States should move to control greenhouse gas emissions. There is now no credible scientific doubt that the composition of Earth’s atmosphere is changing, that this change is driven in part by the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities, and that this change in atmospheric composition is changing Earth’s climate. The United States’ emissions of greenhouse gases constitute a major contribution to this process. The consequences of the climate change can be expected to be disruptive. Specific details of these effects at this stage remain uncertain. Nonetheless it is clear that any delay in the pace of change reduces the costs of adjustment. It serves as public insurance against more dramatic impacts and damages that can be expected when opportunities to adapt are limited.
It is important that greenhouse gas emissions be managed using an incentive based policy, such as a market-based approach to capping and reducing such emissions. This type of strategy provides clear incentives for changes in business practices and the development of new technologies. It assures that economic forces are directed to keeping the cost of reducing emissions as low as they can be. Many industrial nations have now adopted policies intended to limit greenhouse gases. As a result we can expect that the market for clean technologies will continue to grow over time. Adding industries in the United States to the other sources of these demands will help to reinforce this process.
George Akerlof, University of California at Berkeley
Kenneth J. Arrow, Stanford University
Edward Barbier, University of Wyoming
Robert T. Deacon, University of California at Santa Barbara
Walter P. Falcon, Stanford University
Hossein Farzin, University of California at Davis
Anthony C. Fisher, University of California at Berkeley
A. Myrick Freeman III, Bowdoin College
Lawrence H. Goulder, Stanford University
Theodore Groves, University of California at San Diego
Peter Hammond, Stanford University
Michael Hanemann, University of California at Berkeley
Geoffrey Heal, Columbia Business School
Gloria Helfand, University of Michigan
Larry S. Karp, University of California at Berkeley
Paul R. Kleindorfer, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania
Charles Kolstad, University of California at Santa Barbara
Roz Naylor, Stanford University
Jason F. Shogren, University of Wyoming
V. Kerry Smith, North Carolina State
David A. Starrett, Stanford University
Joe Stiglitz, Columbia University
David J. Vail, Bowdoin College
Jeffrey Vincent, University of California at San Diego
James E. Wilen, University of California at Davis
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
No offence Jen , but where are the industrial economists? Why is everything that comes out of a university credible or always to be treated as credible? Why a list of signatures, surely science is not a matter of a list of credentials, wouldn’t it be more appropriate for them to sign off a scientific paper about economics of various strategies, as for being proven etc, isn’t this the usual anti Galileo kind of old science about a science they have no expertise to comment on.
We are all agreed therefore we are right, argument was wrong for the critics of Copernicus and Galileo and it remains historically wrong.
My science when I had some expertise once was mathmatics, and saying its right does not make it so, for something to be correct it must be firstly proven and then verified or else this is called hypothesis or postulation, amusing interesting perhaps but not proven and not true science?
Hi Jack, I wasn’t endorsing their science or their ‘consensus’ – and I placed the word ‘leading’ in inverted commas in my intro to the statement. I posted the statement because I was interested in comment on their economics. The statement is obviously carefully worded. What exactly does it mean – w.r.t. to Kyoto and the new Clean Energy/Development Partnership?
Their statement is, i reckon, fully compatible with kyoto.
* provide clear policy direction (ie a target – like kyoto)
* provide a means to achieve the policy but on a level playing field (ie emissions trading)
* let the market do its thing.
IF you accept that greenhouse mitigation is something that needs to be done, then i think most economists would be content with this approach.
That’s the dumb thing about the stance of countries like australia and the US: We are apparently about protecting our economies, but this ‘technology-based’ approach we keep crapping on about is an inefficient way to deal with the problem. Why would you let the govt try and pick winning technologies when the market can do it better?
The technology-based approach isn’t about protecting the economy, it is about protecting the coal and aluminium industries specifically, at the expense of the wider australian economy.
I think the economists statement is more supportive of kyoto than a winner-picking, technology-based, non-market-oriented “solution” that the aust/us/friends partnership will come up with.
Just to make myself clear: i think these economists would support kyoto because it is NOT prescriptive as far as particular solutions are concerned, and they WOULDNT want anything to do with the Sydney talkfest.
Jen I wasn’t attacking you, my comment should have been universal because the threads on a lot of stuff has been about credentials on this site.
I have no expertise in the area of Ecology or Eco politicks but the little science I have, always sez listen to experts but there should always be a debate and science must win not the personality or the personalities.
Jen, a word I hardly ever use is the word ” sorry” I made a mistake, my attack is against elite thuggery using scientific creds that don;t exist.
When I see a list of people with quals I think ho ho, a protest in a letter. To my mind a debate on science is about science nothing more or less, science is about understanding not bullying.
I apologise for any misunderstanding.
I come here to listen mostly. Every day.
They can talk about the economics of the solutions but the proof that the problem exists and to what extent is not their area of expertise.
we must defer to enviro scientists. Not rock stars, not any establishment of any sort the people closest to a clue about the issue, real scientists with best guesses.
I’ll shut up now had a few tubies.
Just to make it even mucho abundantly clearer, these economists specifically omitted the word KYOTO.
What is even more notable is that the majority are from are from California and that professors from 47 states did not sign the petition.
Rog, these economists are talking about their preferred means to reduce emissions. That being, incentive based market based solutions.
IF you had a clue, you would know that this means they are talking about emissions trading.
They are talking about the kind of scheme that would work with kyoto targets.
If you think it is somehow meaningful that they specifically omitted the word kyoto, then perhaps you think it is equally meaningful that they omitted the terms ‘nuclear power’, ‘clean coal’, ‘george w. bush’, ‘rog’.???
SCUZEMWA JENN:
IM A “Y A N K” & NOOOOO I DIDNT VOTE FOR GEORGE DOUBWYA BUSH. HE ISA GUTLESS WONDER = SPOILED BRAT WITH MORE MONEY THAN BRAINS.
ANNNNND HE COULD CARE LESS ABOUT OUR ECOLOGY & ENVIRONMENT & THE WORKING CLASS PEOPLE.
CORPORATE WORLD RULES & DONT YOU FORGET IT.
HE STIRS UP CRAP & CORRUPTION THEN – SENDS HIS WIFE & MIZZ RICE – AROUND THE WORLD TO MAKE PEACE & CLEAN UP HIS MESS’S???
ANNNNNND IF MIZZ RICE FEELS THAT SHE CANT GET IT HER WAY ????
SHE HIDES BEHIND HIM. = A “NO~SHOW~COWARD”.
IF YOU RECALL MIZZ RICE WAS THE ONE THAT TOOK THE 5TH AMENDMENT DURING THE 9-11 HEARINGS.
IE “SEE~NO~EVIL = HEAR~NO~EVIL” & STUFF.
THE NEXT PRESIDENTIAL RUNNING WILL BE {HILLARY &
CONDY} …. ITS GONNA BE INTERESTING DONT YA THINK ???
It seems to me that the first paragraph is necessary to establish the value of government intervention — i.e., climate change is a public policy issue worthy of federal action.
The second points to ways the government can influence private sector solutions — i.e., incentives. These can come in multiple, combined forms. The only working geosequestration project in the world, for example, is “economically sound” only because it avoids punitive taxes on CO2 emissions.
I don’t read this as endorsing Kyoto-type solutions over AP6 type solutions, but rather as an argument for government to make AP6 technologies cost effective to develop and implement through the use of government leverage.
Wow, Your blog is awesome. TaraX