¶ Published Thursday, January 7th In Environment - No Comments »
Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Laureate and Professor in Economics at Columbia University, concludes that world leaders at the Copenhagen climate conference failed not only to reach a binding agreement, but also to agree on how to save the planet. An entirely new strategy is needed, he says, to effectively address climate change: “Perhaps it is time to try another approach: a commitment by each country to raise the price of emissions (whether through a carbon tax or emissions caps) to an agreed level, say, $80 per ton. Countries could use the revenues as an alternative to other taxes –Read the Rest…
¶ Published Wednesday, December 23rd In Environment - No Comments »
Both environmentalists and climate change skeptics should read this opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by Nigel Lawson, who for years was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Margaret Thatcher’s Government. Lawson is long-time critic of the Kyoto Protocol and, for a while at least, sided firmly with global warming skeptics. He’s nuanced his arguments in the last few years recognizing now that global warming is a reality that will have a negative, albeit moderate, impact on us. But he has little time for alarmist and apocalyptic statements from climatologists and climate change policy advocates. Lawson proposes we “abandon theRead the Rest…
¶ Published Saturday, December 19th In Environment, Legal Issues - No Comments »
Not sure how productive Copenhagen was, but this blow by blow account of the negotiations has Obama getting down in the trenches and making things happen, good read. Any agreement on emissions targets has two very large issues to confront: Attaining the targets and Verification of claims that targets were met. For example, most countries signed onto Kyoto, but pretty much none have reached the goals set out under the document. In fact, Europe has had carbon emissions increase, so what does this say about the power of these “binding” agreements. If no one enforces the application of an agreement,Read the Rest…
¶ Published Wednesday, December 16th In Environment - No Comments »
Aeronautics is a key high technology sector in Quebec. All in all it accounts for an estimated 250 companies and 40 000 jobs, mostly concentrated in the Montreal region. And another thing: it’s estimated that 80 per cent of its production is exported. Has someone explained to Jean Charest that the aviation industry accounts for 4-9% of the total climate change impact of human activity?
¶ Published Wednesday, December 16th In Environment - No Comments »
Eric Reguly of the Globe and Mail reports from Copenhagen that Canada is clearly in the proverbial doghouse. And indeed, one gets the feeling it’s Canada’s amateur hour at the talks. Still, the seemingly unanimous chorus of disapproval is odd, considering that our reduction targets are broadly similar to those of the U.S. But the difference is: Canada ratified Kyoto. The Americans didn’t. They took their licks when the Bush administration decided to withdraw U.S. support for the Protocol. Defenders of Canada’s position tend to argue that we must not share the burden alone, or that China should do more.Read the Rest…
¶ Published Monday, December 14th In Environment - No Comments »
It’s like we were lepers or something. More fallout from the fake press release and, it now appears, the fake reaction from the Ugandan delegation that we referenced below. It seems our Environment Minister Jim Prentice can barely manage a photo op with the United States’ Energy Secretary. I understand that every government has a PR machine, but this is ridiculous — proof positive that Canada is seriously lacking in the gravitas department. One does get a sense that the Feds are panicking and running around with their heads cut off. In a feeble attempt to deliver a substantive comment,Read the Rest…
¶ Published Monday, December 14th In Environment - No Comments »
“This is the day that will define our century. Canada is fully acknowledging its historical climate debt and the legal responsibilities that follow. Today, we no longer have to wait for a COP20 or COP100 before the voices of our children are heard. Now that we are friends, I can say it is high time Canada changed.” – Margaret Matembe, MP and member of the Climate Committee of Uganda Too bad “the staged response” was in response to the fake news release claiming that Canada had done an about turnaround on its carbon emissions targets. The hoax has created suchRead the Rest…
¶ Published Friday, December 11th In Environment - No Comments »
As previously mentioned on this blog (here, here, and here), we have many issues with a cap-and-trade system. They are very difficult to account for. The video below, clearly explains the risks of carbon markets. With Copenhagen on everyone’s mind, it is important to realize the inherent problems with carbon markets. The logic is that large emitters will finance renewable energy through the purchase of carbon credits. If carbon credits are to be a form of financing for projects, we have big problems ahead of us. Heavy industry, with powerful lobbies, receive too many credits – which they then sellRead the Rest…
¶ Published Monday, December 7th In Environment - No Comments »
The Copenhagen climate change summit opens today and will run until December 18. Depending on who you read, either the Canadian government won’t buy into “the hype” and won’t be rushed, or will “push for a binding deal.” Though Climategate still looms in the forefront, members of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) have released the Copenhagen Diagnosis — a review of hundreds of peer-reviewed research papers published since the IPCC’s last assessment in 2007 — which concludes that the climate situation is much worse than the IPCC has so far reported. The lesson in all this isRead the Rest…
¶ Published Sunday, December 6th In Environment - No Comments »
Martin Wolf of the Financial Times offers three criteria for post-Copenhagen climate change policies to be truly effective. First, we need prices for carbon that apply over relevant planning horizons. That price cannot be fixed forever, but must change with events. But it needs to be far more stable than in the European Union’s market for permits (see chart). A tax seems more attractive to me than “cap and trade”, for this reason. Second, where the abatement occurs must be separated from who pays for it. Abatement needs to happen where it is most efficient. That is why emissions ofRead the Rest…
¶ Published Monday, November 16th In Environment - No Comments »
A lot of bleak headlines today about how climate change talks in Copenhagen will fail. But the eulogies are a bit premature. True, over the past year, world leaders have really been lowering the bar. Today, another round of dampening expectations made headlines, as leaders at this week’s APEC meeting are saying that a binding global accord in Copenhagen is out of reach. No one in their right mind believes that next month’s conference will produce a final treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. But let’s not fool ourselves. Those leaders were only saying out loud what everyone has beenRead the Rest…
¶ Published Monday, November 16th In Environment - No Comments »
Last week in Hong Kong, a friend and I received tickets to an Intelligence Squared debate on climate change. Intelligence Squared is a non-profit organization that holds debates with leading experts around the world on pressing issues. Many of these debates are aired on BBC. The debate I attended concerned the following statement, ““THE WEST IS FULL OF HOT AIR; ASIA IS SAVING THE WORLD FROM CLIMATE POLICY DISASTER”. Coming into the debate, the crowd was already against the motion, but after 90 minutes of discussion, the crowd had become even more against. The panelists for the motion argued thatRead the Rest…
¶ Published Monday, September 21st In Environment - No Comments »
While leaders have the power to change things, they rarely do. How do you make world leaders act? They are bogged down by political considerations, powerful lobbies, historical issues and gigantic bureaucracies with entrenched interests. To break the deadlock, the UN is planning on mixing things up at the upcoming Copenhagen climate change conference (Guardian Article). One interesting idea is to strip the leaders of the attachés, assistants, and entourage and place them at a table with the leaders of countries their pollution is affecting most. In effect, they hope to strip the leaders of their protective bubble and return themRead the Rest…
¶ Published Sunday, September 20th In Environment - No Comments »
Connie Hedegaard, Denmark’s minister of climate and energy, will be hosting the UN-sponsored global climate treaty negotiations, to be held in Copenhagen in December. In the coming months, expect her to get a lot of media attention. The New York Times profiles her here.
