~~Addressing Global Warming~~
Arpit Gupta

The Midway Review - Spring 2006

“Global Warming is a moral issue, not an environmental one,” claims Al Gore, one of the most outspoken supporters of a growing campaign to decrease emissions of greenhouse gases. Amid such political rhetoric surrounding global warming, it may be useful to analyze the global warming thesis for reducing greenhouse gas emissions into its core premises:

First, that recent climate change is largely attributable to human emissions of greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide. Second, that reducing emissions of such greenhouse gasses is feasible and will have a meaningful impact on climate change. Third, that the benefits of a more moderate climate change outweigh the costs of greenhouse gas emissions cuts.

The first premise is a scientific claim. In general, skepticism is warranted against alarmist claims by experts with vested interests (the same scientific consensus arrayed in support this claim once argued during the 1970s that the Earth was in danger of general cooling). It is difficult to separate the human-caused portion of global warming from natural trends of cyclical warming and cooling; it is even more difficult to create models that accurately forecast the future. Despite the uncertainty, there is a vocal majority view that global temperature has increased around 0.6º Celsius since the late 19th century and human activity is largely to blame. Various climate models predict rising temperatures between 1.4 and 5.8 Celsius through the next century.

Establishing that climate change exists, however, is insufficient grounds for justifying the vast policy changes espoused by supporters of the global warming thesis. It is important to address the second premise and determine how feasible are attempts to combat global warming. The impact of any one country will probably be minimal, but even international efforts to combat global warming do not have the impact environmentalists may hope for—the Kyoto Protocol, for instance, is projected to cost the United States $150 billion per year, while delaying to 2106 the warming that would otherwise be experienced in 2100. Supporters of the treaty claim that Kyoto is just a first step; but if the costs of such a moderate decrease in emissions are on the order of magnitude of trillions, a sharper reduction in emissions would presumably cost far more.

While an overall policy of combating global warming through political mandate might be excessive, there are a number of reasons to think that more moderate attempts of environmentalism are justified. One strategy is developing sources of renewable or clean sources of energy (such as nuclear, wind, solar, hydropower, ethanol, etc.) that do not depend on the burning of dirty fossil. Money for such a project could come from the vast subsidies currently doled out to the coal and oil industries. There exist, however, independent reasons to favor these approaches, such as the volatile nature of petroleum imports and the inevitable exhaustion of nonrenewable sources of energy. While the threat of global warming may be used as an additional incentive to pursue such policies, it is not the sole justification. Levying carbon taxes on emitters of greenhouse gasses is an approach that has the benefits of raising government revenue and encouraging companies to cut first the emissions that are most wasteful and are the least expensive to curb. Technologies that limit all forms of pollution produced by fossil fuel plants—including greenhouse gasses—have the potential not only to reduce emissions, but also to lower particulate air pollution. Such action should be done moderately; a study by a group of researchers from Stanford and the Electric Power Research Institute concluded that improvements in technology over time mean that for the same cost, three times as much emissions of carbon dioxide could be cut by waiting two decades.

Possessing the ability to limit climate change does not imply that action is obligatory; supporters of global warming must also prove the third premise. There exist clear dangers associated with drastic climate change, but after implementing the reasonable policies outlined above, the benefits of additional cuts in emissions dwindles while implementation costs rise. Also, climate change is a process that produces both winners and losers. The fisherman on a small, isolated Pacific island loses, while a Canadian farmer might see expanding yields. Calculating the net loss associated with inaction and comparing it with the net loss due to policies done solely to combat global warming is anything but straightforward, especially since the effects of increases in the average temperature of the globe remain unclear.

Against such economic uncertainties, promoters of global warming thesis have made a number of economic arguments. First, they have claimed that a changing climate will affect crop yields. A recent study suggests otherwise, claiming that the U.S. will benefit to the tune of 1.1 billion a year by profiting from longer growth seasons and increased precipitation. Even if the net impact was negative in the U.S. or elsewhere, mitigating the harms is possible by bringing in more land under cultivation or improving agricultural technology. Second, supporters claim that increased temperatures will lead to a rise in average sea levels. Any meaningful sea level rise has not been observed in the past 100 years as temperature has risen—but even if some change were to materialize in the next 100 years, the US has the ability to institute policies that would mitigate the effect, such as relocation or coastal defenses. In fact, rich countries overall are not significantly impacted by global warming, because of the various benefits of warming trends and their ability to use wealth to adapt to changing conditions. It is often poorer, coastal countries that will bear the brunt of global warming.

If altruistic motives of helping developing nations are our real concern, however, then other strategies of aid are probably more beneficial than preventing global warming. Poorer countries deal with any number of serious problems—endemic poverty, diseases such as AIDS and malaria, malnutrition, and so forth. The Copenhagen Consensus recently ranked such concerns and found that actions such as putting money towards preventing AIDS, combating hunger, and liberalizing trade markets had the greatest benefit for the poor while pursuing Kyoto was the least effective. Such a ranking reflects the priority of many such countries, which often pursue economic growth at the expense of environmental concerns. There are a number of intelligent ways of reducing emissions while at the same time achieving a number of other socially desirable goals. But if helping developing nations is the prime motive, then there exist many better ways of doing so. In fact, measures that help alleviate poverty and enhance opportunity ought to be part of the solution since they will enable developing countries to better bear the costs of mitigating or adapting to global warming.

Similarly, climate change will alter many ecosystems and drive threatened species towards extinction. But species are being driven to extinction for any number of reasons—deforestation, pollution, and population growth—and it is easier and cheaper to control and combat these man-made crises rather than the more difficult to manage threat of global warming.

Global warming may well be a moral question, but not in the way that Al Gore proposes. Inaction is dangerous; not only from the threat of global warming, but from more simple threats of energy insecurity. However, drastic changes in policy bring problems of their own, and may distract us from various man-made crises that are the real causes of human suffering around the world. A solution somewhere in between would have the moral benefit of helping as many people as possible.


Sources:

§ The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report.

§ Bjorn Lomborg. The Skeptical Environmentalist. London: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

§ “A Cooling off period,” Economist 29 November 1997, pp. 83-85.

§ Olivier Deschenes and Michael Greenstone. “The Economic Impacts of Climate Change: Evidence from Agricultural Output and Random Fluctuations in Weather”. AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies.

§ “The Economics of Climate Change”. House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs.

§ "Copenhagen Consensus 2004."