For years, we have been spinning our wheels on what I call the Rio-Kyoto-Copenhagen road to nowhere, slavishly following the notion — first endorsed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and then extended in Kyoto 13 years later —that the only way to stop global warming is by means of draconian reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. All we have to show for this devotion is a continuing series of unmet targets, along with a startling increase in the number of people who no longer think climate change is worth worrying about.
That's right. I've written a lot, maybe even too much, about AGW in the past few weeks since the East Anglia revelations have come to the fore. But it's important to say this: those of us who are in the skeptic camp are skeptics for a variety of reasons. But if you want to turn people into skeptics, one of the best ways to do it is to propose ridiculous solutions. As Lomborg notes, the cure is worse than the disease it purports to treat:
In a paper for the Copenhagen Consensus Center, climate economist Richard Tol, a lead author for the U.N. climate panel, determined that to cut carbon emissions enough to meet the 2° goal, the leading industrial nations would have to slap a huge tax on carbon-emitting fuels — one that by the end of the century would reach something on the order of $4,000 per metric ton of carbon dioxide, or $35 per gallon of gas ($9 per liter). According to Tol, the impact of a tax hike of this magnitude could reduce world GDP 12.9% in 2100 — the equivalent of $40 trillion a year. In other words, to save ourselves $3 trillion a year, we'd be giving up $40 trillion a year. No wonder we're not getting anywhere.
I put gas in my vehicle this afternoon and paid about $2.38 per gallon -- I had a coupon that saved me a few cents. We had incredible anger when gas prices reached $4/gallon last year. Does anyone really believe that there would be any way for the typical citizen to afford to pay $37.43 per gallon for gasoline? It's not going to happen. While I can see the reasons a government would like to have that sort of money, and there'd certainly be some sort of refund mechanism in place to offset some of the cost, there's always a bureaucratic carrying charge.
Lomborg's view is that if we believe fossil fuels are imperiling the planet, the way to solve the problem is to find better alternatives. And how does one do that?
It's time to stop trying to put the cart before the horse. Instead of trying to make fossil fuels more expensive, we should focus on making alternative energy cheaper. The cost of fully implementing the Kyoto Protocol (in terms of lost economic growth) has been estimated at roughly $180 billion a year. For just a little more than half that amount, we could fund a fiftyfold increase in spending on R&D for the kind of game-changing technological breakthroughs — like smart grids, ultra-efficient batteries or even cheap, manageable fusion — we will need to end our addiction to fossil fuels. Such a commitment would resolve many of today's political challenges. Developing nations would be much more likely to embrace a positive path of innovation than a punitive one that handicaps their ability to grow their economies.
All true. And much of the research could take place in the private sector. Which is one reason that so many governmental figures oppose it.
Read the whole thing.
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