Comments on India Development Blog: New Stern report: Key Elements of a Global Deal on...

More details about the BBC investigation are avail...

2008-06-07T15:12:00.000+05:30

More details about the BBC investigation are available in this news report.

BBC aired an excellent program on carbon trading r...

2008-06-07T15:08:00.000+05:30

BBC aired an excellent program on carbon trading recently in which they talked to project developers and the UN. It reveals the truth about carbon trading as it's been implemented under the clean development mechanism of UN's Kyoto protocol.

BBC radio program on CDM

Shaanti, it is a very frightening situation. More ...

2008-05-05T17:06:00.000+05:30

Shaanti, it is a very frightening situation. More than most people realise. In an interview last year, Al Gore said the scientists are now uncharacteristically scared. He went on to add that "those who are most expert in the science are way more concerned than the general public" on the issue of climate change.

I know people who understand the science far better than I do who have given up all hope for a recovery. I do not share their pessimism though. I believe we can still save ourselves take action right way. My message is not of doom and gloom but at the same time it's very important to convey the severity of this issue. Particularly because don't have much time.

Last night I watched a speech by Dr. Pachauri delivered at MIT in which he said that we have less than seven years to get our act together. Considering how conservative the IPCC is, we can imagine how much time we actually have.

Anyway, more than his speech, I was moved by the words of Susan Hockfield, president MIT, who spoke briefly before Dr. Pachauri. This is what she said...
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The public dialogue has evolved from "nothing is wrong so we need to do nothing" to "everything is so wrong that there's nothing we can do." Yet I believe what that pessimism really represents is a crying call for leadership.

On these issues, the public is really starving for some sense of a focus, clarity and direction. And I believe that all of you here in this room are well equipped to provide that kind of leadership. For those of who know something about the climate and sustainability issue, it's clear that the time has really come to pump up the volume.

At this moment we need to speak louder, particularly along three dimensions:

* The first is, we need to elevate the public debate.

* The second, we need to tell the truth. Not only about the power of technology but also about its limitations.

* And third, we need to focus public attention on the fundamental challenges of scale and speed.

Let me expand just a little bit on all three of these. When I talk about elevating the public debate, I mean everywhere. I absolutely certainly mean here in the United States. We need to have a serious national conversation about sustainability because of the US' ravenous consumption of resources and energy. And we need strong leadership from those who understand in the words of that wild eyed environmentalist Rupert Murdoch - "the climate will not wait for us."

For us at the academy, another part of the challenge is speak clearly avoiding the jargon that surrounds many environmental subjects. The jargon stops a great deal of useful thinking even before you can begin. Even a simple word like efficiency is so misundestood that it almost ceases to be useful.

To you and me, efficiency holds huge promise. We consider it the fifth fuel. Efficiency means broad sustemic gains in processes that are rife with waste. But to a great many people efficiency means being doomed to drive a pokey little car or wearing an extra sweater. These are not exactly very powerful rallying cries.

Second, we need to tell the truth about technology. As many professors know all too well, the hardest thing to teach an MIT student is that the best technology doesn't always win. Other much more powerful factors often come into play.

In the same spirit, we need to help the public understand that innovation will be critical to achieving sustainability. But some of the hardest challenges ahead aren't technical. They're social. They're political. They're economic. It's not only whether you can make the gears work better but whether you can also work the levers of political power and social change.

Third and finally, as we work together to develop pathways to a sustainable future, we need to focus the public on scale and speed. In terms of energy solutions, the single issue in most of the public debates is scale. Yet scale is the undeniable central challenge for both the developed and the developing world.

Scale, in my view is the hard reality that can doom a clever idea to nothing more than delatance distraction. The same holds true for countless ideas in other areas. From water to recycling. Until the world faces the hard facts of scale and speed we're not going to be talking of real solutions.

If we can use the lever of knowledge to help shift the public debate in these ways, that would be an achievement in itself. We need to communicate the simple idea that everyone on earth has a part in sustaining our earth. It's about individual choices and behaviour certainly. But it's also about where the government puts its money, how it shapes policy and how creatively industry responds. And it's about making sure that we do everything we can to release the potential of next generation of action oriented change agents.
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I agree with every word.

Thanks for your thoughtful and, frankly, frighteni...

2008-05-05T15:31:00.000+05:30

Thanks for your thoughtful and, frankly, frightening comments, Manu.

It's scary that we're all crossing our fingers and hoping that Stern is right, but not surprising. Our human nature is to avoid unpleasant, distasteful and staggering thoughts and situations in the face of which we seem powerless. One thing that Stern has done quite well is highlight the opportunities to be found in mitigation and adaptation rather than dwell exclusively on the risks. I may be naive, but I think we have to emphasize opportunities to get the private sector to step up to the challenge, especially given the current state of inadequate action by policy-makers, although one is by no means a substitute for the other. It's hard to grasp what millions of tons of methane being released into the atmosphere will look or feel like or even how ecosystems will be altered if the world becomes 2 degrees warmer (though it's certainly been pretty hot in Chennai of late; despite the evidence and studies these remain abstract ideas for most of us. But it's easy for us to grasp financial opportunity.

Environmental movements in the past have been faulted for dwelling on doom and gloom scenarios. I don't mean to contradict the science behind any of the reports you mention, I just feel that the way we convey the message is as important as the subject matter.

When Stern was giving a press release to launch hi...

2008-05-03T01:32:00.000+05:30

When Stern was giving a press release to launch his new report, another economist in a different part of the world was writing his own that would put Stern and IPCC reports to shame.

The Garnaut review, commissioned by the Australian Government, will show that GHG emissions are actually set to double by 2030 - two decades ahead of Stern's predictions and 11 percent higher than the IPCC's worst-case scenario.

James Hansen recently said, and it bears repeating, that 2050 targets have little relevance in the present context. It's like a doc asking a profusely bleeding patient to come back the next day. The arctic is disappearing at a record pace already and the methane buried under it -- 3000 times as much as the atmosphere -- is a ticking time bomb. Studies show that it's already on its way out.

We ought to be tackling this issue on a war footing. Let's forget about 2050 targets and start off right away by setting up annual targets and hope that it's not too late.

As to why carbon taxation is superior to cap & trade - Carbon Tax Center has put forth a bunch of elegant arguments on this issue. The most important among those are #2, 3 & 4.

* It can be implemented very quickly - no waiting for years and years of setting up and negotiating benchmarks for various sectors. Time we can't afford right now.

* It is a very simple and easy to understand policy instrument as opposed to complex and unpredictable cap & trade.

* Most importantly, it's corruption-proof. There's no way for corporations to profit from it. Cap & trade on the other hand is just the opposite. It has built up a despicable industry of consultants and organisations around it that have no interest in helping you lower emissions but all interest in helping you profit from it. (see here, here and here)

Stern has tried to deflect some of the arguments that favor a carbon tax in this report but he says nothing about the failure of CDM measures as highlighted above.