This has been the pattern since adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Year after year, global leaders pledge to control emissions, but their words are not matched with deeds. Even in Europe, where sanctimonious critiques of U.S. climate policy (or the lack thereof) are cheap sport, there has been no real progress toward Kyoto’s emission reduction goals. Indeed, the European Union’s rate of decarbonization post-Kyoto has not been meaningfully greater than in the years before the protocol was adopted.
The persistence of climate talk without action supports what Roger Pielke Jr. calls the “Iron Law of Climate Policy”: “when policies focused on economic growth confront policies focused on emission reduction, it is economic growth that will win out every time.” What this means, Pielke argues in The Climate Fix, is that there will be little progress at reducing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases until it becomes relatively cheap and easy. The United States will not enact costly greenhouse gas emission controls — that is to be sure — but neither will Europe; nor will rapidly industrializing nations such as India and China, let alone the rest of the developing world.
The failure of policymakers and pundits to confront the Iron Law of Climate Policy frustrates the search for effective climate stabilization strategies. The Climate Fix is Pielke’s effort to reorient the climate policy debate so it may lead in a more positive direction. He believes there is a need to control greenhouse gas emissions, but challenges most other aspects of the conventional climate wisdom. In his view, “accelerating decarbonization of the global economy and improving adaptation to climate change make good sense quite independent of long-term projections of future climate.” But climate policy should also proceed with an appreciation of the possible and a concern for human dignity.
Politicized science | For Pielke, too much of the debate focuses on climate science. Partisans spend too much time debating whether computer models provide sufficiently accurate forecasts of future climate change and what specific effects such changes could bring. While there remain differences of opinion about the climate system’s sensitivity to greenhouse forcing and the probable consequences of increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, “adversaries on either side of [the] debate have agreed about core aspects of the science” for years. Yet scientists and policymakers alike pretend as if resolving the remaining scientific uncertainties will generate a policy consensus. The residual degree of uncertainty about the magnitude and effects of human contributions to climate change is substantial, and is unlikely to go away. Such uncertainty does not justify “inaction” nor does it “compel action.” Rather, it should “force us to clarify that which we value and to make choices accordingly.” As he argued in his earlier book The Honest Broker, “science can alert us to a potential problem and provide some insight about the consequences of different policy choices, but science cannot decide what choices we ultimately make.”
Though sometimes labeled a climate “skeptic” (or, worse, a “denier”), Pielke insists he has “never questioned the climatic importance of human emissions of carbon dioxide” and believes there is a “need to dramatically accelerate the decarbonization of the global economy.” But he also believes climate science has become a “fully politicized enterprise, desperately in need of reform if integrity is to be restored and sustained.” In his view, scientists share much of the blame for the politicized nature of the climate debate and he strongly objects to the way some of his own research has been used (and misrepresented) for political ends, including by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
While environmental advocates devote their efforts to convincing the public the world is on the brink of a climate catastrophe, policy measures fail to move forward. This effort to use fear to build support for desired climate or other environmental policies is misguided. The fear-based strategy “collapses under its own weight, because science does not compel action, and arguments that cannot be well supported by science will be found out.” As Pielke sees things, the problem is not that the public lacks concern about climate change, but that policy proponents have yet to develop policies that are consonant with public opinion.
International agreements set a goal of avoiding “dangerous interference” in the global climate system, but what is this supposed to mean? How much interference is too much? And what degree of climate change, with all its potential consequent effects, is tolerable? Science cannot answer these questions. As Pielke explains, “the degree to which climate is ‘dangerous’ differs around the world and further depends upon how different communities value security and risk.” There is no consensus upon how much interference in the climate system is “dangerous” or on what sacrifices should be made to prevent it. Worse, he suggests, the very notion of “dangerous interference” dresses up a policy question as a scientific matter and compels “science to serve as the arbiter of what ultimately are political considerations that science cannot resolve.” Framing the climate policy challenge in this way pressures science to define what is or is not acceptable and devalues those policy responses, such as adaptation, that might reduce the consequences of climate change, human-caused or otherwise.
Energy needs | The debate over whether governments should aim to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases at the equivalent of 550 parts per million of carbon dioxide, 450 ppm, or even 350 ppm misses the point. The sobering reality is that “stabilizing concentrations at any level means transforming the global energy system.” At the same time, we live in a world in which demand for energy — electricity in particular — is on the rise. India and China are rapidly industrializing, while other nations are only just setting out on the path to economic development. Despite tremendous economic progress, approximately 1.5 billion people still lacked access to electricity in 2008. For many of those people it is difficult to argue that climate change is a more pressing threat than their poverty and deprivation. As Pielke explains, “even if the most dire predictions about global warming come true, some of the poorest people in the world may still be better off tomorrow if they are able to enjoy some of the fruits of development, such as education, health care, and electricity.”
In those nations where access to electricity is limited, there is little support for carbon-control measures that could increase the cost of expanding access to electricity. “An approach focused on expanding access to energy while also diversifying supply would almost certainly be better received by developing countries than one that implicitly or explicitly questions their desire for continued economic growth,” Pielke writes. Such policies could help accelerate the rate of “decarbonization,” but they are unlikely to be enough. All else equal, alleviating poverty in developing nations will result in higher greenhouse gas emissions.
Whereas most environmentalists focus on limiting the use of carbon-based fuels, Pielke approaches climate policy from the opposite direction. The goal is not to reduce the use of carbon-based energy so much as it is to expand greatly the use of low- or zero-carbon energy sources. “The world needs more energy. Much more,” he explains. Given the urgent need for growth and development, “we can stabilize concentrations of carbon dioxide at a low level only via a massive expansion of the availability of carbon-free energy supply.” He further rejects the ideas that “we use too much energy” or that “fossil fuels are too cheap.” Rather, he wants to increase economic growth and low-carbon energy at the same time:
A focus on expanding the energy supply thus unites two virtues — addressing fundamental human needs while providing inescapable motivation for accelerating decarbonization of the global economy — and eliminates the pathological trade-off between development and emissions reductions implicit (and at times explicit) in conventional climate policies.
Pielke demolishes pollyannaish claims that the United States and other nations can dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions at modest economic costs: “assertions that we have all the technology we need (or soon will) simply do not square with the numbers in any practical sense.” While there was significant decarbonization in the later part of the 20th century, largely due to increased energy efficiency, the world has been recarbonizing in the beginning of the 21st; he notes, “even as the world attention has been focused on climate policy, the global economy became ironically and frustratingly more carbon intensive for every additional dollar of economic activity.”
The world achieved a 1.5 rate of decarbonization from 1980 to 2006, while experiencing 3.5 percent average rate of economic growth. To reduce emissions 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 would require nearly three times that rate of decarbonization, even if average economic growth were only 3 percent. This has never been done, and there is no self-evident roadmap to accomplish it.
Pielke crunches the numbers to show how difficult reducing greenhouse gas emissions without restricting energy use really is. Replacing all coal use projected through 2020 with natural gas only nets a 16 percent reduction in emissions below 2005 levels. Achieving similar reductions through the expansion of wind and solar power would require multiplying 2008 levels of production more than 20-fold. Reducing global emissions of carbon dioxide 50 percent below the common 1990 baseline with nuclear energy would require increasing the number of reactors more than 10-fold; the equivalent of opening one new reactor per day for the next few decades. For those who doubt Pielke’s calculations, he provides basic data on energy consumption patterns for the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, so the doubters can “do the math” themselves.
Magical innovation | If this dilemma is to be solved, technological advance is key. Absent substantial breakthroughs in low-carbon energy technologies or methods for removing carbon dioxide from emission streams or the ambient air, emissions will continue to rise along with GDP.
While Pielke recognizes that technological innovation in the energy sector is essential, he says relatively little about how the requisite level of innovation could be achieved. “Progress on energy innovation will occur technology by technology, via investments in innovation,” he writes. Fair enough, but where are these investments going to come from? Insofar as government puts up the money for energy technology research, how are we to avoid wasteful boondoggles like the Synthetic Fuels Corporation? Without much support, Pielke claims that “innovation is something that governments at national and international levels have often managed well over periods of decades.” He further endorses a “public works model” to spur energy-climate innovation, yet recognizes the need for “technological agnosticism” in government financing “since we do not presently know where advances might lie.” There is a tension here he does not quite resolve. Transportation infrastructure is funded through a public works model, but the transportation sector is hardly a fount of innovation.
Pielke believes the federal government should spend somewhere between $30 and $80 billion on energy-climate innovation, and suggests a modest carbon tax as the primary funding source. He adds that the purpose of this tax is to raise revenue for innovation, not “to change people’s behavior, to restrict economic activity, or to price fossil fuels at a level higher than alternatives.” The tax he proposes would not be that high — but it still seems a bit unrealistic for an author who spends so much time trying to keep climate policy grounded in reality. Just as nations will not adopt climate policy measures that impose substantial economic burdens, so they are unlikely to impose multi-billion-dollar taxes for the purpose of funding new government programs. If the goal is to use federal spending to spur innovation, it would make sense to consider how to leverage existing investments, such as by leveraging the power of federal procurement to induce innovation (as is done by the military) or by converting some of the billions of dollars the U.S. government already spends on research grants into technology inducement prizes.
While controlling carbon dioxide emissions is important, carbon controls alone will not eliminate potentially harmful human influences on the climate system. There are myriad other ways human activities affect the climate, from emissions of other greenhouse gases to changes in land use. This means there is no quick and easy climate policy, no silver bullet. Focusing on carbon dioxide emissions to the exclusion of other factors may help set policy priorities, but it obscures the larger realities of climate change.
With this in mind, Pielke advocates greater consideration of adaptation strategies and even cautious consideration of some geo-engineering. The choice is not either/or, but all of the above: “Adaptation and mitigation are not trade-offs but complements that address different issues on very different timescales of costs and benefits.” He adopts an unnecessarily broad definition of geo-engineering to encompass everything from direct interventions to counteract the warming effect of greenhouse gas emissions, to what he calls “carbon remediation” technologies that would remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. He believes the former is fraught with peril because of the potential for unintended consequences, while the latter is more promising, but labeling them both as “geo-engineering” obscures the difference.
Pielke has high hopes for carbon remediation. “If accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere presents a problem requiring action, the we should just take it out of the atmosphere and store it somewhere safe and permanent,” he reasons. Air capture of carbon dioxide is still too expensive for widespread deployment, but it “compares favorably with the cost estimates” for emission reductions proposed by others. It is no silver bullet, but is definitely a weapon anyone truly concerned about the climate should want in his arsenal. Yet carbon remediation’s directness may also be its political liability, as it “offers very little benefit to those who see accumulating carbon dioxide as a symptom of a deeper problem or even as a vehicle to address related concerns, such as overconsumption or population growth.”
Conclusion | The Climate Fix is most effective when making the case that governments will not sacrifice economic growth for carbon emission reductions, and that atmospheric stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions will not happen without dramatic technological advance. Pielke is more successful in puncturing over-inflated ideas and identifying critical challenges than setting forth a positive agenda for climate policy. As he himself admits, he is only providing a “rough outline.”
Nonetheless, his clear-headed and non-ideological analysis is welcome in a field dominated by wild-eyed partisans and fear-mongers of various stripes. If one accepts climate change as a real threat, it is essential to acknowledge the lack of clean and easy answers. However urgent global warming may seem, policies to address it cannot be pursued to the exclusion of other concerns, including economic development and access to affordable energy sources. Understanding the depth of the challenge is not only a good place to start, it is essential for there to be any hope of success.
