A Sustainable Climate Policy

In the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest to ever make landfall, the Philippine delegate to the climate talks in Warsaw made a desperate plea for nations to act on climate change. President Aquino when asked by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour whether he believed the warming of the planet had a direct link to the severe weather event affirmed the position. British Prime Minister David Cameron made a similar statement.

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change says that severe weather events will be the consequence if carbon pollution is not abated. And yet what we find is advanced countries like Australia, Canada andJapan, that are all led by conservative governments, back-tracking or weakening their stance on the issue. 

Governments around the world from Beijing to Washington are grappling with the problem to avoid what economists call “the tragedy of the commons”. This is a situation where when a certain market activity has a negative by-product (such as emitting GHG into the atmosphere) and people are free to do (no cost is attached to it), then it will be engaged in excessively to the detriment of all. The only way to avoid this outcome is to make economic agents absorb the cost associated with abating the negative by-product.

The question that policymakers worldwide are grappling with is who should absorb the cost and what mechanisms are needed to make them absorb it? A carbon tax gives residents the right to free air and imposes the cost of abatement on the polluter. The problem is that polluters will then pass on the cost on to consumers.  An alternative would be to pay polluters to stop polluting using taxpayer’s money.

From an economic perspective, it does not matter which mechanism is used as long as no one has the ability to "game" or influence the system. From a political point of view, however, framing the policy as a tax or incentive may have enormous consequences as the Australian Labor Party painfully realised in the last election.

Beyond the theatre and drama of the climate change debate, the political players have to find some kind of common ground, though to make whichever solution is opted for credible and sustainable. One prime example of this is the climate change policy adopted by British Columbia (BC), which has been in place since 2008 and whose popularity remains intact and has even increased.

It involves a tax that puts a price on carbon that is returned to citizens and businesses through reduced income taxes and increased tax credits or benefits. The tax is broad based covering the use of fossil fuels for electricity and vehicles. The policy has reduced the consumption of taxed fuels per capita by 19 per cent in the BC relative to the rest of Canada. GHG emissions in the province fell 10 per cent between 2008 and 2011, compared to a fall of 1.1 per cent for the rest of Canada.

The carbon tax was originally set at C$10 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions and was increased by C$5 each year until it reached C$30 in 2012, when it was subject to a review and fixed following the release of a report in 2013. The report suggested that the tax did not seem to have an impact on BC’s economy, although certain sectors such as the agri-food and agriculture sector needed additional relief, which is forthcoming.

The success of BC’s climate change policy matches that of Quebec and California, which introduced a cap on GHG and an emissions trading scheme. BC and other North American states in the Pacific coast, Oregon and Washington have been encouraged to set up similar schemes and to link their systems together. They could soon be joined by provinces along the coast of China. China is working to develop a nationwide approach after 2015.

Getting to a harmonised global scheme is quite challenging, but not impossible as the efforts of some of these jurisdictions are showing. 

The Ecological "Arc" of the World Economy

The following entry contains nothing new about carbon emissions that hasn't already been picked up by the media; instead, it seeks to present the facts differently. 

The map below shows the total size of CO-2 emissions over five decades where each bubble represents total emissions by a country. If you hit the play button, you will see the gradual growth of emissions over time. Quite striking is the rise of China over the past decade dislodging the US as the biggest emitter with 6 million kilo tons (kt) of emissions compared to 5.7M for the US. Russia and India follow suit with about 1.5M kt each, and Japan ranks fifth with 1.3M kt.

The next chart plots the CO-2 emissions per capita of each country along the vertical axis with  average incomes (gross national income per capita) on the horizontal axis based on purchasing power parity (or PPP) measuring income in terms of what citizens can afford based on the cost of goods and services relative to wages. The bubbles represent the population size of each country.

One sees clearly an "arc" that gradually slopes upwards such that as countries get richer, each citizen consumes more resources and generates more pollution. From 1980, this arc gradually moves rightwards reflecting technological advances that have made industries more efficient in their use of resources, i.e. it takes less carbon to produce a dollar's worth of goods. In 1980, the point at which emissions per capita started to rise was at $1,000. In 2006, it was close to $4,000.

For the world economy to grow in a sustainable way, rapid technology development is needed to make production less reliant on carbon so that as poorer countries move up the income scale, they do not cause environmental damage at a rate similar to that of rich countries in the past. The arc needs to be flattened and pushed rightwards. It is not viable to prevent the rise of affluence in poorer nations as poverty tends to be correlated with faster population growth.

China with its 1.3 billion people earning $4,700 on average is already on the upward sloping part of the arc. Displacement of industries from rich countries that have stringent environmental policies is largely responsible. Egypt which has about the same level of income per person as China, emits 3-kt per capita compared to China's 5-kt reflecting a different mix of industries. India with an average income of $2,500 per person still lies on the flat portion of the arc and has a relatively low carbon footprint of 1-kt.

For the arc to flatten and shift rightwards, incentives are needed to encourage investments in new technology that will shift production away from carbon intensive methods and into cleaner ones. The rate of technological progress has to be faster than economic progress of poorer nations. The arc has to be bent downwards faster to accommodate the bigger but poorer nations who are "catching up" with the smaller but richer ones. If not, the future well-being of all those who live on the arc could be at-risk. 

For a discussion on the history of the science behind global warming, I found the following source quite illuminating: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/ from the American Institute of Physics.

Malcolm in the Middle

In the debate over the proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS), beleaguered Federal Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull seems to be between a rock and a hard place. Two camps seem to be putting the squeeze on him. Each one holding to a specific set of beliefs.

One the one hand, market reformists point to the phenomena known as global warming and climate change as indicative of the need to reform capitalism as we know it. On the other hand, market fundamentalists see the ETS as an intrusion by government into the affairs of the private sector which come with unnecessary distortions and costs to the Australian public. They allege no benefits will accrue unless a global deal is reached in Copenhagen by world leaders.

Proponents on the one hand see the need to internalise the undesirable side effects of productive activity as a way to improve the price signals to production and consumption that currently regard what nature endows as free. The political reality as pointed out by Mr Turnbull is that any attempt to spurn this publicly supported proposal will be met with scorn at the polls.

Opponents from within Malcolm's party see it as a "tax" or as onerous regulation. (It actually has elements of both in the form of a cap which sets limits on emissions--the regulatory part--and a trading scheme for emissions permits which will set a price for carbon--the tax part). They also want additional concessions for emitters although doing so would create additional distortions to the ETS. This amounts to a "free lunch" for emitters according to the Greens who oppose the legislation outright. Without their support, the Federal Opposition finds itself in a bind.

Rejecting the legislation could trigger an early election on the issue of climate change. By arguing in favour of passing the ETS legislation now, Mr Turnbull wants to position the Coalition that he heads safely into the next election as far as this issue is concerned. This has earned him the ire of his partymates who see delaying it as the only viable option.

On the other hand, he is receiving no help from the government which wants to play the symbollic game at the Copenhagen summit or perhaps make do with the self-destruction of the Opposition. Apparently, the middle ground seems to be melting beneath his feet. This "inconvenient truth" seems to be dawning on Malcolm and his supporters.

Of Thoroughbreds and Clunkers

Is it possible to design policies that simultaneously reduce carbon emissions and stimulate the economy?

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This past week saw the Australian Federal opposition led by Malcolm Turnbull and independent senator Nick Xenophon unveil a controversial alternate emissions trading scheme in a bid to outflank the Labor government in terms of its "green" credentials while at the same time shoring up its support from emitters in paticular the Minerals Council of Australia by limiting the effects the scheme would have on energy generators.

VIDEO: Opposition carbon plan

The minister for climate change Penny Wong quickly dismissed the proposal as a “mongrel” of a scheme while another minister and former union leader Greg Combet suggested that it sounded too good to be true. The Business Council of Austalia through Heather Ridout assailed it for passing the cost on to consumers and industry. The scheme it was said suffered from MPS or Magic Pudding Syndrome. The question is, are such schemes truly unworkable? Is it truly unrealistic to envisage something that reduces emissions and at the same time stimulates the economy?

Meanwhile in the US, the “cash for clunkers” program which saw many motorists trading in their old gas guzzling vehicles for cash as part of the American stimulus package got an additional appropriation of $2 billion from the US Congress as the original allotment of one billion was quickly exhausted in less than a week.

As made evident by its popularity such schemes are often unsustainable because they quickly run out of funds. The unfortunate thing was that the US government had to resort to deficit spending in order to finance it. But what if its financing came instead from another source? Such a question has been answered by Todd BenDor who modelled a workable system of Feebates, or rebates offered to retire old and undesirable vehicles (or to purchase fuel efficient ones) which are in turn funded by fees charged on fuel inefficient models.

BenDor's modelling shows that such a program would be sustainable and lead to immediate and long term reductions in vehicle emmissions. Much like the “sin taxes” imposed on tobacco and alcohol products and used to fund public health programs, this type of redistribution for the benefit of the environment is yet to be explored. There are other possible policies that can be designed with similar features. Can you think any? Post your ideas and comments here (scroll down to the bottom of the screen).

image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/threadedthoughts/3808715790/