------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/19/opinion/paul-krugman-could-fighting-global-warming-be-cheap-and-free.html
This just in: Saving the planet would be cheap; it might even be free. But will anyone believe the good news?
I’ve just been reading two new reports on the economics of fighting climate change: a big study by a blue-ribbon international group, the New Climate Economy Project, and a working paper
from the International Monetary Fund. Both claim that strong measures
to limit carbon emissions would have hardly any negative effect on
economic growth, and might actually lead to faster growth. This may
sound too good to be true, but it isn’t. These are serious, careful
analyses.
But
you know that such assessments will be met with claims that it’s
impossible to break the link between economic growth and ever-rising
emissions of greenhouse gases, a position I think of as “climate
despair.” The most dangerous proponents of climate despair are on the
anti-environmentalist right. But they receive aid and comfort from other
groups, including some on the left, who have their own reasons for
getting it wrong.
Where
is the new optimism about climate change and growth coming from? It has
long been clear that a well-thought-out strategy of emissions control,
in particular one that puts a price on carbon via either an emissions
tax or a cap-and-trade scheme, would cost much less than the usual
suspects want you to think. But the economics of climate protection look
even better now than they did a few years ago.
On
one side, there has been dramatic progress in renewable energy
technology, with the costs of solar power, in particular, plunging, down by half just since 2010.
Renewables have their limitations — basically, the sun doesn’t always
shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow — but if you think that an
economy getting a lot of its power from wind farms and solar panels is a
hippie fantasy, you’re the one out of touch with reality.
On
the other side, it turns out that putting a price on carbon would have
large “co-benefits” — positive effects over and above the reduction in
climate risks — and that these benefits would come fairly quickly. The
most important of these co-benefits, according to the I.M.F. paper,
would involve public health: burning coal causes many respiratory
ailments, which drive up medical costs and reduce productivity.
And
thanks to these co-benefits, the paper argues, one argument often made
against carbon pricing — that it’s not worth doing unless we can get a
global agreement — is wrong. Even without an international agreement,
there are ample reasons to take action against the climate threat.
But
back to the main point: It’s easier to slash emissions than seemed
possible even a few years ago, and reduced emissions would produce large
benefits in the short-to-medium run. So saving the planet would be
cheap and maybe even come free.
Enter
the prophets of climate despair, who wave away all this analysis and
declare that the only way to limit carbon emissions is to bring an end
to economic growth.
You
mostly hear this from people on the right, who normally say that
free-market economies are endlessly flexible and creative. But when you
propose putting a price on carbon, suddenly they insist that industry
will be completely incapable of adapting to changed incentives. Why,
it’s almost as if they’re looking for excuses to avoid confronting
climate change, and, in particular, to avoid anything that hurts
fossil-fuel interests, no matter how beneficial to everyone else.
But
climate despair produces some odd bedfellows: Koch-fueled insistence
that emission limits would kill economic growth is echoed by some who
see this as an argument not against climate action, but against growth.
You can find this attitude in the mostly European “degrowth” movement, or in American groups like the Post Carbon Institute;
I’ve encountered claims that saving the planet requires an end to
growth at left-leaning meetings on “rethinking economics.” To be fair,
anti-growth environmentalism is a marginal position even on the left,
but it’s widespread enough to call out nonetheless.
And
you sometimes see hard scientists making arguments along the same
lines, largely (I think) because they don’t understand what economic
growth means. They think of it as a crude, physical thing, a matter
simply of producing more stuff, and don’t take into account the many choices — about what to consume, about which technologies to use — that go into producing a dollar’s worth of G.D.P.
So
here’s what you need to know: Climate despair is all wrong. The idea
that economic growth and climate action are incompatible may sound
hardheaded and realistic, but it’s actually a fuzzy-minded
misconception. If we ever get past the special interests and ideology
that have blocked action to save the planet, we’ll find that it’s
cheaper and easier than almost anyone imagines.
No comments:
Post a Comment