Camilla Cavendish writing in the Financial Times
has some advice for “How to break out of the climate doom loop.” It is basically all wrong. Let’s take a few passages as examples.
“This is the climate change paradox. The more obvious it becomes that the weather is changing, the more we seem determined to enjoy the last hurrah.”
??? Who is this “we.” Perhaps what Cavendish sees is just free riding/resentment. If politicians are not going to create a set of incentives to reconcile self-interest with the social good – a global tax on net CO2 emissions -- why should any one individual give up THEIR good? The sacrifice (deadweight loss), if all sacrifice, is small, but any specific sacrifice by an individual can be large. This goes directly back to CO2 emissions being an externality. The emitter receives the full benefit of the emission, but their decision does not account for the damage done.
“we have been told that technology would find a fix or governments would solve it, which has let us off the hook.”
I do not know what they tell FT writers, but the truth is that technology CAN be a fix _given_ the proper policies, which we do not yet have. Unlike at the individual level, however, even for a small country, the deadweight loss of a tax on net emissions is small enough as to make it morally worthwhile even if other countries do not have the same policies. [The case is of course much stronger for the US which would be much more likely to be able to persuade others to adopt taxation of net emissions if it did so.]
“Anger at the hypocrisy of elites — and the incompetence of governments — is bubbling up. In Europe, rightwing populists are harnessing a backlash against leaders imposing green policies on poorer people while appearing to make no sacrifices themselves. Farmers in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Poland demonstrate against fuel taxes and attempts to ban chemical fertilisers, which threaten their livelihoods.”
I don’t know if “hypocrisy” is quite the right criticism of these unfortunate policies. The “elites” who impose them will share in the reduction of real income, though not as much as those most directly affected. As before, main problem is policies that create higher costs than necessary to achieve the needed reduction in net CO2 emissions, but exacerbated by asking certain people or groups to bear a disproportional amount of the costs when _this disproportionality itself_ adds to the cost.
And the ban on fertilizers in Sri Lanka, pace Tucker Carleson, was an own goal (and probably not even motivated by any desire to reduce net emissions of CO2, anyway), not imposed by ESG.
“There was less coverage of the stark truth that the world is way off track to meeting the Paris goals, according to the UN.”
This is an ironic compliant coming from a journalist writing for one of the most influential newspapers in the world! A more pertinent complaint would have been that “Paris goals” are formulated in such a way -- pledges of far future result rather than of immediate policies to advance those goals -- as to almost guarantee that least cost policies will not be adopted and consequently that the goals themselves will not be met.
See https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/why-not-lng-exports and
https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/cop-28-and-counting
“A majority of European voters want action on climate change. But they are not stupid. Their taxes are being used to fund fossil fuel subsidies in record amounts, despite pledges to phase them out. The EU is cutting down ancient forests to burn wood pellets, some of them shipped from America, in biomass plants that have somehow got themselves labelled as “renewable”. Germany is burning brown coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, having left itself woefully dependent on Russian oil after closing all its nuclear power plants. Meanwhile politicians urge people to buy expensive electric vehicles, despite growing concerns about the whole-life carbon emissions of cars powered by lithium batteries. Celebrities grandstand, while failing to practise what they preach. In such circumstances, why should ordinary people bother to make sacrifices?”
More to the point why should they be asked to make sacrifices that are larger then necessary, just because “environmentalists” would rather advocate for symbolic victories than for policies that actually reduce emissions at the lowest possible cost?
“At a seminar on climate grief recently, [NB: not a seminar about doing anything to diminish climate damage, but about how to _feel_ about it] experts advised that one way to ward off [despair] is to take action, however small, to regain some sense of control. Give up meat they suggested, plant a tree, or join a local group.”
If giving up meat and planning a tree makes the reader feel better, good, but if they want promote reduction of net CO2 emissions, make sure that local group they join advocates for taxation of net CO2 emissions.
[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.]
Sorry, I can't really be a good commenter because everything you wrote seems good within the bounds of my knowledge. Maybe I would add that you don't want to just "reduce emissions at the lowest possible cost", but also create 'indefinitely' sustainable alternative actions and processes as well, regardless of the impact on immediate emissions reduction.