Let this post demonstrate that I have nothing against the NYT pe se its poor coverage of climate issues, noted Here and Here
This is equally bad example from the “Heated” Substack.
In “COP29 Smells Like Oil” we are told,
Leaders from nearly 200 countries have come together at the United Nations climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan to strategize how to preserve a livable climate.
If this is true, the report does not mention any of the alternative strategies being considered. Although this could be just a gross failure of the journalist, I actually suspect that not many different strategies were in fact considered. Rather it seems that the only policy considers was that of previous years of having countries “commit” to arbitrary reductions in emissions. [See COP 28 and Counting]
After the obligatory pearl clutching over COP 29 being held in an oil exporting country, Azerbaijan, and the Chairman of the Conference being a politician from said country AND the conference venue literarily smelling of the vapors from nearby oil refineries we learn:
Here’s more of what’s happening (or not happening) at COP29,
Who pays for climate change? That’s the biggest question of the conference, and it’s a doozy. This year is called the “Finance COP” because rich countries are getting down to brass tacks about who funds the climate transition in countries that can’t afford it. Without help, poorer countries will be unable to transition away from fossil fuels, driving up emissions for the whole planet.
This is completely in error. The costs are low enough if least cost policy -- a uniform tax on CO2 emissions – is followed that even poor countries _can_ “afford” it. Least cost policy in practice means an excise tax on sale of fuels in proportion to their carbon content levied by each country on its own emissions, The revenues generated by this disincentive to use of CO2 emitting fuels can be used in whatever best way public revenues could be used in that country – consumer rebate, reduction in other taxes, investment in adaption to the effects of CO2 already emitted (mainly by currently rich countries) To prevent carbon emissions from “leaking in” via imports of goods whose manufacture entailed large CO2 content, the excise would take the form of a border adjustment levy on goods from countries that do not have a similar tax on net emissions.
Trump casts a long shadow over climate negotiations. "In January, we're going to inaugurate a president whose relationship to climate change is captured by the words 'hoax' and 'fossil fuels,’” said U.S. climate envoy John Podesta. The U.S. has previously played a critical role in shaping negotiations, and urging other countries to set more ambitious climate goals. That leaves a vacuum of leadership that another nation will have to step in to fill, most likely the European Union or China.
The “critical role” the US has played in shaping the negotiations is nothing to be proud of, but that is no reason to withdraw from the process. The COP approach of having countries commit to arbitrary reductions in CO2 emissions is conceptually mistaken. Countries should commit to policies that reduce net CO2 emotions – whether taxation of net emissions or other more costly ones. If other countries can fill this “vacuum of leadership” to turn COP in a more productive direction, more power. Neither China nor the EU are likely to do so, however.
But the president can’t reset climate action entirely. Washington Governor Jay Inslee told Time that “Donald Trump is going to be a speed bump on the march to a clean energy economy.”
This is an amazingly Pollyanna view. In effect Inslee is saying that current policies to reduce CO2 emissions are enough to achieve net zero by 20XX. While this may be closer to the truth than climate doomsayers is certainly in in marked contrast to the alternative view.
More lobbyists than delegates came to the climate talks. A whopping 1,700 coal, oil, and gas lobbyists attended COP29, outnumbering almost every country at the conference, according to an analysis by Kick Big Polluters Out.
But
lessfewer world leaders showed up.
Organizers should take this as positive. Lobbyists don’t bother with gatherings that have no effects at all. 😊 The idea that fossil fuel interests should not be involved in discussions of how to reduce net CO2 emissions is daft. They have a legitimate interest in wanting to minimize the cost to achieve net zero even the costs of least-cost policies.
Environmentalists are fundamentally mistake about the public’s resistant to absorbing the costs, even the minimal costs of taxation of net CO2 of reaching net zero. It is not generated by opposition from fossil fuel producers. It is environmentalist who have not made a transparent case that the benefits of avoiding the harm of future CO2 emissions is worth the deadweight loss of the policies to achieve it. And if they do not advocate for the polices with the smallest deadweight loss, this only makes the goal more difficult to achieve.
Saudi Arabia is trying to undercut the world’s fossil fuel phaseout. Last year, for the first time ever, countries agreed to ramp down the production of fossil fuels—a move scientists say is necessary to preserve a livable climate.
I still do not forgive them for murdering Adnan Khashoggi, but on this the Saudis are more right than wrong. Policies should be directed at reducing demand for CO2 emitting fossil fuels, not their supply. There are policies that can efficiently reduce demand; efficiently restricting supply is much more difficult.
And the “scientists” are wrong (or more likely, being misquoted). It is net emission of CO2 into the atmosphere militates against a livable climate, not the production or even the combustion of fossil fuels. Although removal of CO2 from the atmosphere is not cost effective now, we should not rule it out.
Instead, alternatives to phasing out fossil fuels became more popular. Nuclear energy was the talk of the conference, with six new countries joining the now 28-country pledge to triple the world's nuclear power by 2050.
The “instead” is a fatal tell. Generating electricity with nuclear fission is not an “alternative” to reducing CO2 emissions but a means. It is not even an alternative to reducing demand for fossil fuels. It is an alternative only to restricting supply of fossil fuels.
Young people, Indigenous leaders, and small island nations reminded everyone why they’re there. Against a backdrop of politicking and wheeling and dealing, the people most affected by climate change tried to remind everyone that the climate crisis was happening to them—right now. “We do feel abandoned,” Michai Robertson, the lead negotiator on finance for the Alliance of Small Islands States, told reporters. “And you have all the developed countries saying that we cannot include in the scope of this goal the financing to address that loss and damage,” he said. “That's a really tough pill to swallow."
The COP process could be useful if, instead of focusing on high-cost ways of avoiding net emissions of CO2 in the future it focused on low-cost ways and on mechanisms for compensating nations who are least able to afford investment to mitigate the effects of CO2 already emitted
and emitted mainly by currently high-income countries.
Image prompt: Gathering of affluent businesspeople deliberating around a table as younger and poorer people look on forlornly.
[Standard bleg: Although my style is know-it-all-ism, I do sometime entertain the thought that, here and there, I might be mistaken on some minor detail. I would welcome comments on these views.]
Excellent analysis