Climate sensitivity, agricultural productivity and the social cost of carbon in FUND
I have reproduced below only the concluding section of the academic journal article, as the careful statistics would be impenetrable to most readers here. Basically, the article is a complex "proof" of the statement that the likely benfits of global warming outweigh the costs. Global warming is good for us!
By Kevin D. Dayaratna, Ross McKitrick & Patrick J. Michaels
Environmental Economics and Policy Studies volume 22, pages 433–448 (2020
Discussion: IAMs as if–then statements
IAMs cannot provide a single, canonical social cost of carbon. As Weyant (2017) notes, they are best thought of as elaborate “if–then” statements. Researchers must decide on their preferred premises, and the IAMs provide the implied SCC range. As shown herein, user judgment is unavoidable, and a researcher prescribing an SCC for policy purposes must be able to defend the “if” statements that give rise to it.
It is already well known that if the appropriate discount rate is 5% or higher, then the SCC will be relatively small compared to 2.5% or 3% cases. We do not propose to resolve herein the ethical arguments over time preference; instead, we note that once climate sensitivity is changed to an empirically constrained distribution, the choice of discount rate matters a lot less.
While some studies have considered ranges of ECS values, the IAM literature as a whole has been wedded to climate model-based distributions with modal values around 3 °C and thick upper tails extending above 6 °C. However, there is now a substantial climatological literature showing that distributions with modal values below 2 °C and small upper tails match historical (post-1850) data better. The debate over which distribution best describes the real climate system must ultimately be resolved within the climatology literature, but economists need to be aware that it exists and the outcome has significant ramifications for SCC estimates. If ECS values like those estimated in Lewis and Curry (2018) turn out to be approximately correct, then the FUND model indicates that CO2 is for all practical purposes not a negative global externality through mid-century. Even if we consider possible catastrophic tipping points, the possibility of reaching such a threshold any time in the next 1000 years diminishes substantially.
IAM practitioners should therefore study the empirically constrained ECS estimates rather than relying exclusively on model-derived distributions. Kiehl (2007) noted the puzzle that climate models can differ in their implied ECS by a factor of 3 yet all fit the historical surface temperature record equally well. One of the compensating parameterizations emphasized by Lewis and Curry (2018) is aerosol cooling: a model with high ECS paired with strong aerosol cooling fits the surface trend as well as one with low ECS and weak aerosol cooling. The Lewis and Curry (2018) empirical ECS distribution is conditioned on the IPCC’s updated estimates of observed historical aerosol forcing, lending it increased credibility. Specifically, the IPCC’s preferred estimate of aerosol forcing (cooling) has declined over time, which leads to a lower preferred ECS estimate in empirical energy balance models. The methodology of Christy and McNider (2017) provides an independent and model-free check on this approach. Also, while climate models with high ECS values can be made to fit the surface warming trend, they have shown demonstrably excess warming elsewhere, especially in the troposphere over the tropics (Fu et al. 2011; McKitrick and Christy 2018). We therefore believe that the LC18 results in Table 2 are more credible than the ones conditioned on the Roe–Baker distribution.
Another if–then statement concerns CO2 fertilization of agriculture. If adding CO2 to the air has no effect on plant growth, then the assumption in DICE and PAGE that the effect is non-existent is appropriate. However, there is overwhelming evidence that CO2 increases do have a beneficial effect on plant growth, so models that fail to take these benefits into account overstate the SCC. Indeed, the initial studies on which the FUND parameterizations were based cautioned against ignoring this line of benefit (Kane et al. 1992; Tsigas et al. 1997). The recent literature on global greening and the response of agricultural crops to enhanced CO2 availability suggests that the productivity boost is likely stronger than that parameterized in FUND. If the effect is 30% stronger, and if the Lewis and Curry ECS distribution is valid, then the mean social cost of carbon is negative even at discount rates as low as 2.5% at least through mid-century.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10018-020-00263-w
**********************************************GLOBAL COOLING?
It's certainly a lot more harmful than global warming
Parts of the US brace for another 12 inches of snow as a 'ferocious' winter storm has left at least 60 dead with 'hospitals full of bodies' and more frozen corpses feared.
In Buffalo, 50 inches of snow have been measured and emergency services have gone 'car to car' searching for survivors.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz described the blizzard as 'the worst storm probably in our lifetime', warning: 'This is not the end yet.'
He added: 'We've had so many bodies that various hospitals are full and we're just having to go through and determine if the individuals have died from a blizzard-related death.'
In New York state, authorities have described ferocious conditions, particularly in Buffalo, with hours-long whiteouts.
People have reportedly died from a host of causes as a result of the extreme weather, such as a woman from Wisconsin who fell through river ice.
In Niagara County, New York, a 27-year-old man suffered carbon monoxide poisoning after snow blocked his furnace, in Ohio, a utility worker was electrocuted, and Kansas saw a deadly homeless camp fire.
A falling branch killed a Vermont resident, while least six people have been killed in car crashes in Missouri, Kentucky and Oklahoma.
Some have died from cardiac stress while shovelling snow, others when emergency crews could not respond in time to medical crises.
The National Weather Service said Monday that up to twelve more inches of snow could fall in some areas today.
Buffalo mayor Byron Brown described the heartbreaking task of retrieving storm victims from cars, homes and streets.
'Our police officers are human. It is painful to find members of your community that are deceased,' the mayor said, adding the blizzard's victims 'were trying to walk out during storm conditions, got disoriented and passed away out in the street'.
At least 60 lives have been lost in weather-related incidents nationwide, according to an NBC News tally.
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NYC Says New Electric Garbage Trucks Are No Match for Wicked New England Weather
As the Buffalo, New York, region digs out following a historic snowstorm, lessons are coming in from across the state suggesting that despite advancements in electric vehicles, the future of snow removal is probably diesel.
New York City has set a goal of transforming its fleet of municipal vehicles to be fully electric by 2040, but the 2022 blizzard is sending a reminder that electric vehicles can’t yet do every job.
The commissioner of the New York Department of Sanitation, Jessica Tish, said during a City Council hearing last month that the city’s new electric garbage trucks will not be able to keep up with their diesel predecessors in their secondary function as snowplows.
“In our test of the non-diesel rear-loaders, we found that they could not plow the snow effectively,” Ms. Tish said. “They basically conked out after four hours — we need them to go 12 hours.”
The city has ordered just seven such electric garbage trucks — they cost just more than $500,000 each — a small fraction of the sanitation department’s 2,100 garbage trucks and 6,000 total vehicles. Under the city’s long-range plan to combat climate change, the council has ordered that the vast majority of those vehicles be “clean” energy versions by 2035, with a total conversion to electric vehicles by 2040.
According to the department’s tests, the electric garbage trucks are only able to operate for about four hours when plowing snow, while diesel trucks are able to plow for around 12 to 24 hours at a time.
“Given the current state of the technology, I don’t see today a path forward to fully electrifying the rear-loader portion of the fleet by 2040,” Ms. Tish said.
“Now, things could change, the technology could develop and advance, but I don’t want to sit here and say to you that I see it in my crystal ball today,” she said.
While the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, the public transit authority for the Buffalo region, put into use its first electric buses in 2022, neither the Nickel City nor Erie County has announced similar plans.
The reason likely boils down to some of the limitations of electric vehicles — at least in their current state. Despite general advancements in the technology, they underperform in cold weather.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which is overseen by the Department of Energy, predicts that heavy electric vehicles will reach “total-cost-of-driving parity with conventional diesel vehicles by 2035.” The laboratory, however, acknowledges that these predictions are subject to change as electric vehicle technology advances and the cost of fossil fuels fluctuates.
The lab says its predictions are “sensitive to technology improvement trajectories, adoption decision-making, and uncertain assumptions about future freight demand, logistics, and vehicle use.”
What the prediction of “total-cost-of-driving parity” doesn’t address, though, are certain applications for heavy vehicles, like snow removal, which appear unlikely to go electric for the foreseeable future.
Part of the problem is that the range and reliability of electric vehicles suffer in cold temperatures, in part because of the chemistry of the batteries and in part because of the demands of heating the cabin and defrosting windows.
While New York City’s sanitation department found that its heavy electric trucks could only run for about a third of the time of the diesel trucks, all electric vehicles seem to suffer performance-wise in the cold.
A Consumer Reports test of two electric vehicles from 2019 found that electric vehicles had about half of their estimated range in temperatures between 0° F and 10° F. Consumer Reports tested a Tesla Model 3 and a Nissan Leaf in such conditions and found that they used 121 miles and 141 miles of their estimated ranges, respectively, to complete a 64-mile trip.
A senior analyst at the automotive research firm Navigant, Sam Abuelsamid, told Consumer Reports that range reductions in electric vehicles are “largely a factor of increased electrical loads on the battery.”
“Breathing means condensation on cold glass, which requires use of electric defoggers,” Mr. Abuelsamid said. “Longer nights mean more use of headlights. And cold tires, snow, and slush will increase rolling resistance, all of which will reduce range.”
With the shorter range of electric vehicles and the need for specialized chargers, like those used for New York City’s electric garbage trucks, charging could present another challenge for electric plows.
The New York State Thruway Authority, which is responsible for maintaining about 570 miles of thruways across four divisions — New York, Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo — could run into issues with charging its fleet, were it to be electrified.
The authority operates 11 tow plows, 260 large plows, and 142 small plows. Currently, there are no plans to electrify the fleet.
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Austraia: Fossil-fuel enmity cutting back investment in natural gas mining
Future gas and LNG projects valued at $32bn are under threat of having investment stalled or pulled under the Albanese government’s “hostile attitude to Australia’s resources sector” after the Gina Rinehart-backed Senex paused its $1bn Surat Basin expansion project.
Up to 12 gas projects listed in the government’s resources and energy major projects investment pipeline report on Monday are considered to be facing “significant uncertainty” following the government’s crackdown on gas companies.
Amid industry concerns over the government’s one-year $12-a-gigajoule gas price cap, mandatory code of conduct on gas producers and tougher environmental approval regulations, there are rising fears that other companies could suspend projects.
Senex’s decision to halt work on its coal seam gas projects is the latest hit to Queensland’s resources industry, where coalminers Glencore and BHP have shelved or frozen investment amid a running brawl with the state’s Labor government over a shock royalty hike announced in its July budget.
Opposition resources spokeswoman Susan McDonald said “more than $15bn in future east coast gas projects are under a cloud of uncertainty due to Labor’s hostile attitude towards Australia’s energy resources sector”.
Nine projects planned to supply east coast domestic gas, and another three LNG projects that could supply gas to the east coast, are valued at $32bn.
Senex, jointly owned by POSCO and Ms Rinehart’s Hancock Energy after they sealed a $900m takeover of the ASX-listed company in March, announced the $1bn coal seam expansion project four months ago around the same time the federal government was drafting its plans to combat high domestic gas prices.
The coal seam expansion was aimed at pumping more gas into the domestic market by lifting its Atlas project to 60 petajoules within two years.
Senex has left open the possibility of returning to the $1bn expansion if the federal government rethinks its gas industry plans. However, it has paused recruitment and spending on long lead items “pending the outcome of the Albanese government’s mandatory code of conduct consultation process” on February 7.
A spokesman for Resources Minister Madeleine King said the government was “confident Senex will continue to engage constructively with the government as they design and implement the gas code of conduct”. He said the government’s gas price cap applied only to existing projects and not “new projects like Atlas”.
“The government wants to design a measure that does not have a chilling effect on investment, and ensures investment continues to flow to new products,” Ms King’s spokesman said.
“The gas code of conduct, once it enters into force, is not about stripping profits off producers. It’s about ensuring that where gas enters the domestic market, Australian households and businesses are not subject to the exponentially skyrocketing prices that we have seen throughout the course of this year. “That’s not on, and the code will prevent those runaway prices that we have seen previously.”
Acting Treasurer Katy Gallagher this week authorised the gas price cap to begin from Friday, with the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission tasked with “closely monitoring” the east coast gas market and enforcing the cap.
Senator Gallagher said without capping gas and coal prices, “the average family would be paying $230 more on their electricity bill next year”.
Senator McDonald said the government was “joining forces with the Greens to implement unprecedented price controls, hand over more power to unions, increase environmental red-tape and fund anti-mining lawfare groups”.
“Coal and gas alone are forecast to earn Australia $223bn but under Labor’s war on conventional energy commodities, 18 coal and gas projects have been reopened for environmental assessment after already receiving approval, and 43 oil and gas projects have been required to redo their consultation,” Senator McDonald said.
“Our regional partners, like Japan and Korea, will be very concerned about Australia’s approach to providing the energy commodities they need to power their economies. All this sends strong signals to international companies that they are not welcome here, so we can expect them to consider halting their investment.”
Liberal Senator Paul Scarr says “basic economics” is all it takes to realise imposing gas price caps at “less than… the market-prevailing price” will create a shortage of investment and, consequently, energy reserve. “It’s an investment-killing concoction,” Mr Scarr told Sky News host Gary Hardgrave. “The consequences are disastrous, especially More
In the government’s major projects report, prepared before the national cabinet slapped a $125-a-tonne price cap on coal, 33 coal projects were stalled in the feasibility stage as lenders and investors, led by pension and equity funds, pull finance for thermal coal projects.
Global mining giant Glencore earlier this month pulled the plug on plans to build its $2bn Valeria thermal coalmine, citing Queensland’s royalty rate increase as a major cause. BHP is also considering the impact of the royalty rate hikes on the life of its Queensland coal operations.
The mining giant has already said it will not invest in Queensland growth projects while the windfall royalty rates are in place, and set aside $US750m in its annual financial accounts for potential early closure and rehabilitation costs.
Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association chief executive Samantha McCulloch said the Senex decision highlighted risks involved with the Albanese government’s gas market intervention.
“No new gas supply means no downward pressure on prices and an increased risk of future gas shortages,” Ms McCulloch said.
“Without this kind of investment, Australia misses out on crucial new gas supply to ease east coast energy system pressures as well as substantial economic returns including hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of local investment in regional communities.”
Opposition treasury spokesman Angus Taylor said market interventions were “adding to red tape and complexity for investors both domestically and abroad”.
“The billions of dollars of projects on hold or under question shows that when we are in a global race for capital, more regulation leads to less investment, which means fewer jobs, less work for small businesses and a slower economy,” Mr Taylor said.
After the Office of the Chief Economist on Monday revealed that resources and energy export earnings will fall by $68bn in 2023-24, down from a record $459bn this financial year, Mr Taylor said it was imperative for the budget bottom line to avoid future slides.
“This makes it all the more alarming that the government is cutting funding support for our resources sector and making extreme interventions that energy experts are warning will cool investment and decrease supply,” he said.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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