HAS THE STERN REVIEW MISLED GOVERNMENTS AND THE PUBLIC?

Journal abstract and Introduction below:

Mistreatment of the economic impacts of extreme events in the Stern Review: Report on the Economics of Climate Change

By Roger Pielke Jr.

Abstract

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change has focused debate on the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action on climate change. This refocusing has helped to move debate away from science of the climate system and on to issues of policy. However, a careful examination of the Stern Review's treatment of the economics of extreme events in developed countries, such as floods and tropical cyclones, shows that the report is selective in its presentation of relevant impact studies and repeats a common error in impacts studies by confusing sensitivity analyses with projections of future impacts. The Stern Review's treatment of extreme events is misleading because it overestimates the future costs of extreme weather events in developed countries by an order of magnitude. Because the Stern Report extends these findings globally, the overestimate propagates through the report's estimate of future global losses. When extreme events are viewed more comprehensively the resulting perspective can be used to expand the scope of choice available to decision makers seeking to grapple with future disasters in the context of climate change. In particular, a more comprehensive analysis underscores the importance of adaptation in any comprehensive portfolio of responses to climate change.

Article Outline

1. Introduction: exploiting an excess of objectivity
2. Stern error #1: Selected Reference
3. Error #2: exploiting the unreality of a static society
4. How the Stern Review might have addressed the economics of extreme events: robust science for robust decision making
5. Conclusion: science advisors: issue advocate or honest broker?

1. Introduction: exploiting an excess of objectivity

In a provocative article titled "How Science Makes Environmental Controversies Worse" Daniel Sarewitz explains that scientific research results in an "excess of objectivity" in political debates (Sarewitz, 2004). What he means with this phrase is that in most (if not all) cases of political conflict involving science, available research is sufficiently diverse so as to provide a robust resource for political advocates to start with a conclusion and then selectively pick and choose among existing scientific studies to buttress their case. Simply put, to cherry pick, to take the best leave the rest. An "excess of objectivity," Sarewitz argues, stems not simply from the presence of scientific uncertainty, but also from the fact that, "...nature itself-the reality out there-is sufficiently rich and complex to support a science enterprise of enormous methodological, disciplinary, and institutional diversity. ...science, in doing its job well, presents this richness, through a proliferation of facts assembled via a variety of disciplinary lenses, in ways that can legitimately support, and are causally indistinguishable from, a range of competing, value-based political positions. ... from this perspective, scientific uncertainty, which so often occupies a central place in environmental controversies, can be understood not as a lack of scientific understanding but as the lack of coherence among competing scientific understandings."

Accepting Sarewitz's position complicates the challenge of effectively using science, or other facts, to argue for a particular course of action. The main peril is that an advocate for a particular agenda will first decide upon a course of action and then seek science useful in justifying that course of action. Of course, the advocate's political opponent will also settle on a (different) particular agenda and seek out their own justifying science. What then typically happens is that the political debate is transferred to the science used as justifications, rather than taking place explicitly in terms of the values or outcomes at stake that motivated the political controversy in the first place. Scientific debate then becomes a proxy for political debate, and gridlock and inaction often result because science alone cannot resolve political disputes.

One way out of this situation is for advisors to clearly associate scientific understandings with a wide range of possible policy options (Pielke, 2007). Rather than narrowing the scope of possible action justified by appeals to selected science, the point of such advice is to expand, or at least comprehensively map, policy options and their relationship to the diversity of current scientific understandings. Such an approach clearly distinguishes the role of advisor from advocate, and advisor from decision maker.

In the area of climate change, there have been countless efforts to provide scientific advice to decision makers. The Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change is one such effort (Stern, 2007). The Stern Review has already achieved several notable successes. Among them, it has focused attention on the challenge of climate change and helped to redirect attention away from debates over science and toward debates over the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action. However, in making its case for the significant future economic costs of extreme weather events in developed countries the Stern Review commits two significant errors that affect its estimates.

In its Chapter 5 the Stern Review concludes, "The costs of climate change for developed countries could reach several percent of GDP as higher temperatures lead to a sharp increase in extreme weather events and large-scale changes." (Stern, 2007, p. 137). This conclusion cannot be supported by the Review's own analysis and references to literature. One error is a serious misrepresentation of the scientific literature, and the second is more subtle, but no less significant. The serious misrepresentation takes the form of inaccurately presenting the conclusions of an unpublished paper on trends in disaster losses.

The second error is more complex and involves conflating an analysis of the sensitivity of society to future changes in extreme events, assuming that society does not change, with a projection of how extreme event impacts will increase in the future under the integrated conditions of climatic and societal change.

The result of the errors in the Stern Review is a significant overstatement of the future costs of extreme climate events not simply in the developed world, but globally-by an order of magnitude. In light of these errors if the Stern Review is to be viewed as a means of supporting a particular political agenda, then it undercuts its own credibility and this risks its effectiveness. If instead the Stern Review is to be viewed as a policy analysis of the costs and benefits of alternative courses of actions on climate change, then at least in the case of extreme events it has missed an opportunity to clarify the scope of such actions and their possible consequences, and arguably misdirects attention away from those actions most likely to be effective with respect to future catastrophe losses.

In either case, on the issue of extreme events and climate change, the Stern Review must be judged a failure. This short paper documents these errors and suggests how an alternative approach might have been structured.

FULL PAPER at Global Environmental Change, Article in Press, 2007.




Doubts over 'green' solar panels

SOLAR panels fitted to homes may be harming the environment more than convenional sources of energy, according to a study by scientists. More energy is used to build, run, and recycle solar panels compared with that for fossil fuel systems, according to researchers.

The findings indicate that although large scale solar panel systems are beneficial, the environmental advantages of smaller scale systems such as the ones which can be fitted to ordinary homes are slim or non-existant.

The research was carried out by a team in Greece which looked at the reasons why renewable energy technology has not yet reached a high enough standard to compete with fossil fuel systems. They conclude a vast amount of energy is consumed during the manufacturing process of solar panels. The equipment, made from a variety of materials including aluminium, glass, Tedlar and EVA (a sealant product) and the waste products from such processes are damaging the environment. Glass and aluminium consume a lot of energy on production lines.

In contrast, the report says wind and geothermal energy are the most environmentally friendly. But it says renewable energy sources involve significantly less dangerous pollutants, and silicon - one of the main raw materials in solar panels - is available in abundance compared to fossil fuels.

Owen Davis, spokesman for Friends Of The Earth Scotland said: "There have always been concerns about the manufacturing of solar panels but if you compare, say over 25 years, the amount of pollution and energy used by a solar panel is minute compared to fossil fuels."

Source





STUDY ESTIMATES GLOBAL WARMING COSTS ON US ECONOMY

Making big cuts in emissions linked to global warming could come at considerable cost to the U.S. economy: between $400 billion and $1.8 trillion in reduced growth over the next four decades, a new study says.

The study published Monday by a nonprofit research group partially funded by the power industry concludes that reducing emissions of carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas linked to global warming -- will require "fundamental" changes in energy production and consumption. The Electric Power Research Institute said the most cost-effective way to reduce the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to make many changes at once, including expanding nuclear power, developing renewable technologies and building systems to capture and store carbon dioxide emitted from coal plants. Reducing demand for fossil-fuel power is also key, the institute said.

The EPRI cost estimate is based on a 50 percent economy-wide cut in carbon emissions from 2010 levels by 2050. Without such a cut and the shifts in technology it would bring, the Energy Department projects that U.S. carbon emissions will rise from about 6 billion metric tons a year in 2005 to 8 billion metric tons by 2030. The report calls for more modest cuts in emissions than some proposals currently being considered in Congress. Bigger cuts could well be more expensive.

However, environmentalists said the study misses a key point: the economic costs of not doing anything to stop global warming -- which they warn will lead to problems as diverse as flooding damage, refugee crises and less snow at ski resorts. "We think it will be more expensive to do nothing," David G. Hawkins, director of the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said. "We think the economy is going to be threatened by unabated global warming."

Revis James, one of the EPRI report's authors, said it would be difficult but possible for the electric power industry to cut back on its share of greenhouse gas emissions, which make up about one-third of total U.S. emissions. "It's not like hoping for a miracle," James said. "The manned space flight program happened because there was a very strong national consensus that it was important and it needed to be done...I think we are dealing with something here that is similar to that. It's going to take 25 years of concerted effort."

The report also concludes that making cuts in emissions more slowly rather than mandating big cuts right away, is the most cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because doing so gives advanced technologies more time to develop. EPRI uses 2000 dollars in its calculations, so adjusting for inflation, the economic effects would be far higher.

Earlier this month, Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., outlined a plan to cut U.S. economywide emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to 70 percent of current levels by 2050.

Over the past year, power industry officials have been gearing up for what many see as an inevitable move to regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. Several utility executives have testified in Congress in recent months in an effort to make sure their views will be considered. EPRI's researchers envision the power industry cutting greenhouse emissions though a fivefold increase in nuclear power from Energy Department projections, twice as much renewable power, more efficient coal plants, widespread adoption of technology to capture and store carbon emissions from coal plants and the spread of plug-in cars that can send electricity back to the power grid. In addition, demand growth would be held to 1.1 percent per year, compared with the 1.5 percent annual growth that the Energy Department projects.

Source





CARBON MARKET ENCOURAGES CHOPPING DOWN FORESTS

The current carbon market actually encourages cutting down some of the world's biggest forests, which would unleash tonnes of climate-warming carbon into the atmosphere, a new study reported on Monday.

Under the Kyoto Protocol aimed at stemming climate change, there is no profitable reason for the 10 countries and one French territory with 20 percent of Earth's intact tropical forest to maintain this resource, according to a study in the journal Public Library of Science Biology. The Kyoto treaty and other talks on global warming focus on so-called carbon credits for countries and companies that plant new trees where forests have been destroyed.

Trees and other plants absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas emitted by petroleum-fueled vehicles, coal-fired power plants and humans. At this point, there is no credit for countries that keep the forests they have, the study said. "The countries that haven't really been the target of deforestation have nothing to sell because they haven't deforested anything," said Gustavo Fonseca, one of the study's authors.

"So that creates a perverse incentive for them to actually start deforesting, so that in the future, they might be allowed to actually cap-and-trade, as they call it: you put a cap on your deforestation and you trade that piece that hasn't been deforested," Fonseca said in a telephone interview.

The countries most at risk for this kind of deforestation, because they all have more than half their original forests intact, are Panama, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Peru, Belize, Gabon, Guyana, Suriname, Bhutan and Zambia, along with the French territory of French Guiana.

FULL STORY here




EU INDUSTRY COMMISSIONER: CAR MAKERS MORE IMPORTANT THAN GREEN IDEALS

EU industry commissioner Guenter Verheugen has spoken out in defence of manufacturers of large German cars saying they must not bear the greatest burden in the fight to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Speaking to German newspaper Bild, Mr Verheugen, himself a German, made it clear that he does not believe that large car manufacturers alone should be the ones making the biggest sacrifices in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. "We should not forget that luxury cars and upper mid-range cars are our particular strength."

He said that although he was expecting the greatest progress from the biggest models, he pointed out that smaller car makers also have a lot to do. "The threshold cannot be the same for every car," said the commissioner. His words come as the European Commission prepares what is to be a highly controversial plan on how car manufacturers should reach the headline goal of reducing CO2 emissions of all new cars to an average limit of 130 g/km by 2012. The goal was proposed in spring this year and is part of general EU plans to improve the bloc's environment record. The detailed plans are due by December at the latest.

Already the idea has pitted manufacturers of large cars - generally German - against those of smaller, often more fuel efficient cars - such as Italy's Fiat or France's Peugeot. French and Italian car-makers tend to argue that all car makers should meet the new EU limit, regardless of size. Germany is arguing that manufacturers such as Porsche should have more leeway on meeting the limits.

The German car industry - supported by Mr Verheugen - has mounted a lobbying action in Brussels to get their concerns taken into account. The run-up to the publishing of the 130 g/km goal in Spring was tarnished by a major spat between Mr Verheugen and his environment colleague Stavros Dimas. Earlier this week, newspaper reports suggested that car emission limits would be tailored according to the weight of the car. This is seen as more favourable to German car makers. Audi chief executive Rupert Stadler told German economic weekly Wirtschaftwoche that he would be in favour of a weight-based emissions initiative.

Source

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The Lockwood paper was designed to rebut Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle" film but it is in fact an absolute gift to climate atheists. What the paper says was of course all well-known already but the concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years really is invaluable. And the one fact that the paper documents so well -- that solar output is on the downturn -- is also hilarious, given its source. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that the sun's influence has not stopped and that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! Unprecedented July 2007 cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even be the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards. See my post of 7.14.07 for more detail on the Lockwood paper

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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