Semi-Daily Journal

The Economist on Global Climate Change

The Economist sets out the challenge of global warming, and what we need to start doing about it.

Most of the article is smart, but there is a sentence at the end that makes me wonder if the Economist's writers should be allowed to run loose without keepers. When they look at George Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, and Bill Frist, do they really believe that there is "hope that today's peacetime politicians may rise to the occasion"--even a glimmer of hope--or are they just being ironic?

Economist.com: This is a vast challenge, and it is worth bearing in mind that mankind's contribution to warming is the only factor that can be controlled. So the sooner we start drawing up a long-term strategy for climate change, the better.

What should such a grand plan look like? First and foremost, it must be global. Since CO2 lingers in the atmosphere for a century or more, any plan must also extend across several generations.

The plan must recognise, too, that climate change is nothing new: the climate has fluctuated through history, and mankind has adapted to those changes--and must continue doing so. In the rich world, some of the more obvious measures will include building bigger dykes and flood defences. But since the most vulnerable people are those in poor countries, they too have to be helped to adapt to rising seas and unpredictable storms. Infrastructure improvements will be useful, but the best investment will probably be to help the developing world get wealthier.

It is essential to be clear about the plan's long-term objective. A growing chorus of scientists now argues that we need to keep temperatures from rising by much more than 2-3°C in all. That will require the stabilisation of atmospheric concentrations of GHGs. James Edmonds of the University of Maryland points out that because of the long life of CO2, stabilisation of CO2 concentrations is not at all the same thing as stabilisation of CO2 emissions. That, says Mr Edmonds, points to an unavoidable conclusion: "In the very long term, global net CO2 emissions must eventually peak and gradually decline toward zero, regardless of whether we go for a target of 350ppm or 1,000ppm."

That is why the long-term objective for climate policy must be a transition to a low-carbon energy system. Such a transition can be very gradual and need not necessarily lead to a world powered only by bicycles and windmills, for two reasons that are often overlooked.

One involves the precise form in which the carbon in the ground is distributed. According to Michael Grubb of the Carbon Trust, a British quasi-governmental body, the long-term problem is coal. In theory, we can burn all of the conventional oil and natural gas in the ground and still meet the most ambitious goals for tackling climate change. If we do that, we must ensure that the far greater amounts of carbon trapped as coal (and unconventional resources like tar sands) never enter the atmosphere.

The snag is that poor countries are likely to continue burning cheap domestic reserves of coal for decades. That suggests the rich world should speed the development and diffusion of "low carbon" technologies using the energy content of coal without releasing its carbon into the atmosphere. This could be far off, so it still makes sense to keep a watchful eye on the soaring carbon emissions from oil and gas.

The other reason, as Mr Edmonds took care to point out, is that it is net emissions of CO2 that need to peak and decline. That leaves scope for the continued use of fossil fuels as the main source of modern energy if only some magical way can be found to capture and dispose of the associated CO2. Happily, scientists already have some magic in the works.

One option is the biological "sequestration" of carbon in forests and agricultural land. Another promising idea is capturing and storing CO2--underground, as a solid or even at the bottom of the ocean. Planting “energy crops” such as switch-grass and using them in conjunction with sequestration techniques could even result in negative net CO2 emissions, because such plants use carbon from the atmosphere. If sequestration is combined with techniques for stripping the hydrogen out of this hydrocarbon, then coal could even offer a way to sustainable hydrogen energy.

But is anyone going to pay attention to these long-term principles? After all, over the past couple of years all participants in the Kyoto debate have excelled at producing short-sighted, selfish and disingenuous arguments. And the political rift continues: the EU and Japan pushed ahead with ratification of the Kyoto treaty a month ago, whereas President Bush reaffirmed his opposition.

However, go back a decade and you will find precisely those principles enshrined in a treaty approved by the elder George Bush and since reaffirmed by his son: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). This treaty was perhaps the most important outcome of the Rio summit, and it remains the basis for the international climate-policy regime, including Kyoto.

The treaty is global in nature and long-term in perspective. It commits signatories to pursuing "the stabilisation of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous interference with the climate system." Note that the agreement covers GHG concentrations, not merely emissions. In effect, this commits even gas-guzzling America to the goal of declining emissions.

Crucially, the FCCC treaty not only lays down the ends but also specifies the means: any strategy to achieve stabilisation of GHG concentrations, it insists, "must not be disruptive of the global economy". That was the stumbling block for the Kyoto treaty, which is built upon the FCCC agreement: its targets and timetables proved unrealistic.

Any revised Kyoto treaty or follow-up accord (which must include the United States and the big developing countries) should rest on three basic pillars. First, governments everywhere (but especially in Europe) must understand that a reduction in emissions has to start modestly. That is because the capital stock involved in the global energy system is vast and long-lived, so a dash to scrap fossil-fuel production would be hugely expensive. However, as Mr Grubb points out, that pragmatism must be flanked by policies that encourage a switch to low-carbon technologies when replacing existing plants.

Second, governments everywhere (but especially in America) must send a powerful signal that carbon is going out of fashion. The best way to do this is to levy a carbon tax. However, whether it is done through taxes, mandated restrictions on GHG emissions or market mechanisms is less important than that the signal is sent clearly, forcefully and unambiguously. This is where President Bush's mixed signals have done a lot of harm: America's industry, unlike Europe's, has little incentive to invest in low-carbon technology. The irony is that even some coal-fired utilities in America are now clamouring for CO2 regulation so that they can invest in new plants with confidence.

The third pillar is to promote science and technology. That means encouraging basic climate and energy research, and giving incentives for spreading the results. Rich countries and aid agencies must also find ways to help the poor world adapt to climate change. This is especially important if the world starts off with small cuts in emissions, leaving deeper cuts for later. That, observes Mr Wigley, means that by mid-century "very large investments would have to have been made--and yet the ‘return' on these investments would not be visible. Continued investment is going to require more faith in climate science than currently appears to be the case."

Even a visionary like Churchill might have lost heart in the face of all this uncertainty. Nevertheless, there is a glimmer of hope that today's peacetime politicians may rise to the occasion...