The Climategate Verdict: Redemption or Whitewash?

The long awaited report on last year’s Climategate has just been released. The panel that conducted the inquiry was chaired by former U.K. civil servant Muir Russell. It was in response to the leaking of more than 1,000 confidential emails from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU). Recommendations from the inquiry focused on minor concerns with the practices of the CRU: Sloppy data management and a lack of transparency in making their data publicly accessible.

Russell stated in his report, “we find that their rigor and honesty as scientists are not in doubt, we do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness.” Overall, the report did not find outright fraud by the unit in their reporting on climate change. Nonetheless, the report, much like Climategate itself, has created a lot of buzz. The responses so far to the report indicate the debate over this controversy is likely to continue even after its release.

I’ve posted links below which really give an array of reactions to the report:

• The team at Real Climate find vindication in the report.
• Climate Audit finds fault in the report and provides a detailed account of their contention with its findings.
• George Monbiot no longer has second thoughts about the CRU and climate change after reading the report.
• Gene Lyons declares “Mission Accomplished” after the panel’s report.
• Gerald Warner argues that even after this report the CRU brand remains toxic.
• The Guardian faults the CRU for too much secrecy in their operations which caused this problem in the first place.
• Terrence Corcoran argues that even though Russell’s report is in, it does not resolve the issue that climate science is in shambles.

The Politics Over The Process of Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

Over the past few months, the politics surrounding climate change continues to heat up . Recent efforts by global warming opponents have sought to disclaim the work, and credibility, of groups like the IPCC and CRU.  Opponents have been successful in their efforts to disclaim the work by these institutions by shifting the debate towards claims of cover ups and the mishandling of data by prominent climate scientists as proof of malfeasance. The goal of these efforts by global warming opponents is to redefine the debate over climate change.

By attempting to reshape the public’s perceptions of this issue, climate change opponents are attempting to provide an alternative explanation about some of the problems with the scientific consensus on global warming. This is a shift from previous attempts by global warming opponents to claim that climate change is either not happening or not a result of human activity. This strategy focuses on creating doubt among the public over the entire process in which scientific consensus was reached on this issue. Thus far opponents have done this in two ways. First, opponents have been successful in disclaiming the CRU. This led to the resignation of its Director, Phil Jones, over  leaked email messages that global warming opponents claimed was evidence of a corrupt peer-reviewed system by which scientific evidence on climate change was based.  Second, opponents have begun to discredit the IPCC over glacier-gate. Opponents claim the process that resulted in glacier-gate (faulty predictions over the melting of Himalayian glaciers) typifies a flawed process by which the IPCC makes their assessment on climate change; namely the IPCC’s process is driven by a political agenda and bureaucratic incompetence.  So, where does this leave us? Well, we should expect to see  global warming opponents up the ante in their efforts to challenge the process by which scientific consensus is reached over climate change.

Environmental Outliers

Today’s Environmental Outliers:

• Reuters discusses the likely policy alternatives for Congress in dealing with climate change legislation in 2010.
• Environmental ministers from BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) countries met in India to discuss the post Copenhagen scenario on climate change.
• Pew finds global warming ranks last in immediate priorities for the U.S. government to tackle.
• The lead climate change negotiator from China notes he has an “open mind” on whether climate change is caused by humans .
• Bill Gates discusses his concerns that funding for climate policies will come at the expense of health funding.
• Amy Harder gives an assessment of President Obama’s efforts on energy and environmental policies.
• The Wall Street journal opines on the continuing glacier-gate controversy

Glacial Politics: The IPCC and Climate Change

A slow-moving storm is brewing over a recent apology from the IPCC due to  an erroneous climate prediction of Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035. As this story unfolds there are multiple perspectives for what caused the controversy:

Dr. Murari Lal used the claim to pressure governments into action.

Dr. Syed Hasnain, who was the source of this info, was misquoted and the IPCC process for disseminating information on climate change is driven more by political considerations than it is by scientific evidence.

Nevertheless, politics appears to be behind claims made by the IPCC as well as by critics of the process. Further, an important lesson from this case is that it exemplifies some of the problems policymakers face when trying to shape public policy based on scientific evidence. No matter how certain the politics may be around this issue, the uncertainty principle continues to be a major factor in developing policies that relate to climate change.

Copenhagen Climate Conference and Carbon Prices: A Look At The Policy Options

One of the policy options being discussed at the U.N. Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, is the link between carbon prices and greenhouse gas emissions. The basis for this policy option is an efficient price of carbon serves as an effective means for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. And the rationale for using carbon pricing is that carbon emissions are considered a negative externality, a negative effect on a party not directly involved in a transaction, which results in a market failure.

Setting an appropriate price floor for carbon is not an easy task. The difficulty in setting a carbon price is that if it is too high, or too low, the unintended consequences of such an action results in an inability of government being able to protect many consumers who would be affected by this pricing scheme. In some cases, an inappropriate pricing mechanism can actually hurt the individuals who were intended to be protected. The problem of trying to set a carbon price is that it distorts the allocation of resources where prices that are too high tend to cause surpluses and prices which are too low tend to cause shortages.

To get a sense of carbon prices and emissions reductions, I have outlined a table that summarizes the work of William Nordhaus, a leading environmental economist at Yale whose Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (DICE) estimates the cost-benefit of various policy proposals for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The DICE model focuses on the economics of climate change that links factors affecting economic growth, CO2 emissions, the carbon cycle, climate change, climate damages, and climate-change policies. The underlying assumption of the model is that it views the economics of climate change from the perspective of growth theory; that is, economies make investments in capital, education, and technologies, thereby abstaining from consumption today, in order to increase consumption in the future. I have listed the results of few policy options that have been estimated using the DICE model in the table below.

The first policy option listed in the DICE table is the business-as-usual approach; this means no restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions. The estimated damage of doing nothing amounts to approximately $23 trillion in current dollars by the year 2100. The second kind is the “optimal policy,” judged by Nordhaus to be the most cost-effective, with a worldwide tax on carbon emissions adjusted each year to give the maximum aggregate economic gain as calculated by DICE. The third and fourth approaches are options based on the Stern and Gore approaches. The Stern policy option imposes severe limits on emissions that are much stronger than those included in the Kyoto Protocol. The Gore approach results in dramatic emissions reductions which reach 90 percent of current levels before the year 2050.

The economic problems with the Gore and Stern strategies, though they both have high emissions control rates and carbon prices, is that the high emissions controls (80-90% for 1990 levels) require carbon prices which range from $600 to $900 per ton of carbon. The total cost of the Stern Plan is $37T and the Gore Plan is $44T in 2005 dollars. The dislocations involved from either option results in prices that are extremely large, which result in severe economic costs.

So from these options, where do the two major proposals circulating in the U.S. Congress stand regarding carbon pricing? The Waxman-Markey and Boxer-Kerry have estimated carbon prices of about $20 per ton where 85% of the emissions permits would be given away to polluters and the Boxer-Kerry bill is about $15 per ton to at least 2019. Currently the recommended price is about $40 per ton with it doubling in 40 years. Unfortunately both U.S. bills do not provide adequate price floors to curb emissions. More to come…