Obvious Headline Award of the Day Goes to...

By Kindred Winecoff

And the award goes to... (drumroll)... The New York Times, for "Biggest Obstacle to Global Climate Deal May Be How to Pay for It"!

Quite frankly, that's the only obstacle to a global climate deal. What else is there? Some states are just baddies who want to ruin the globe for everyone else?

But it's just a headline, and those are usually created by someone who didn't write the actual article, so surely the meat is better. Let's take a peek at the lede:

As world leaders struggle to hash out a new global climate deal by December, they face a hurdle perhaps more formidable than getting big polluters like the United States and China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: how to pay for the new accord.

Oh. I see. Elizabeth Rosenthal of the NY Times thinks that there are two distinct hurdles: 1. Cutting emissions; 2. Paying for cutting emissions. But the only reason why #1 is an issue is because of #2. They are the same hurdle. This is pretty much a single-hurdle issue.

Maybe it gets better. 2nd paragraph (bold added):

The price tag for a new climate agreement will be a staggering $100 billion a year by 2020, many economists estimate; some put the cost at closer to $1 trillion. That money is needed to help fast-developing countries like India and Brazil convert to costly but cleaner technologies as they industrialize, as well as to assist the poorest countries in coping with the consequences of climate change, like droughts and rising seas.

Two things of note here. First, as one of the liberal econobloggers (is it Mark Thomas or Dean Baker? I can't remember) is fond of saying, just who are these "many" and "some" economists? Do they have jobs? Research experience on the questions at hand? Any political agendas? Why the anonymity? These questions might not matter much in every article, but because of the second point, I think it is very important. Namely: the difference between $100bn and $1tn is 1,000%. This is not a rounding error; this is a difference of $900bn each year, starting in 2020 and projecting into the future in perpetuity (I'm guessing it's real dollars, but The Times doesn't bother mentioning it).

Now, "some" economists may lowball their estimate to encourage aggressive action on climate change to suit their political priors, and "many" other economists might overestimate to discourage same, but we'd never know because we have no idea who these people are.

In the third paragraph we get more nameless experts, only this time they are "negotiators and scientists". It isn't until paragraph five that we get any meaningful information at all, and it is not very meaningful, but at least this source has a name and some words have quotes around them:

But to date there is no concrete strategy to raise such huge sums. There is not even agreement about which nations should pay or in what proportion.

“The level of ambition in funding is not matching up to the sense of urgency everyone now has,” said Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, the lead climate negotiator for Brazil, which hopes to get financing to preserve its rain forest.

He added, “Financing and an inadequate level of financing are a deal breaker for us.”

Financing is a deal breaker for everyone, which is why there has (so far) been no deal. This bit, like the rest of the article, implicitly bemoans the fact that states tend to be self-interested, that there are collective action problems, that states have difficulties making credible commitments, and that cheap talk is rampant. Strange concepts to a journalist, apparently, but any actual economist ought to have been able to come up with at least two of those. Someone who studies international interactions might even be able to fill in the gaps. Such a person might even have a name.

Comments

[JeffDB:]

An entertaining take on her article.

Oct 15 04:36 PM

[jerrydd:]

How do you pay for fuels if we don't do climate change? Facts are fossil fuels are going up in price, $78/bbl this morning!! Doing climate change mostly means using less but more costly fossil fuels.

This of course means by going more eff/conservation or changing fuels/energy cuts costs. Luckily this is the same thing needed for lower GHG's.

Now add most RE is either equipment or labor and it obviously means there will be far more jobs. I see many in the future living off their own RE production sales.

So take the facts fossil fuels are going up, either with a tax going our gov or to companies, countries like Iran, Russia, oil dictator. Who would you rather the money go to? Next the cost of RE equipment, especially in the profitable, cost effective home, small business sizes are dropping fast.

A windgen is only a 2kw alternator, 3 blades, a tower, just not that expensive. Now selling for under $2k/kw installed and last 50 yrs.

A Solar CSP is just a 5hp steam/heat engine, a 200sq' trough collector and a 3kw alt. This not only supplies power but a home's heat/hot water too. This can be under $3k/kw once built in mass production. Same engine can use wood pellets or any other fuel if the sun don't shine and you need power or heat for 50 yrs.

Most homes/small businesses can use these/combo's for under $10k once they are in mass production to make all the power a home and EV would need for 50 yrs with minor maintaining yrly.

Small electric cars, basically enclosed 2-3wheel MC's can be built very low cost with very good performance. They could get 75mph and 100 mile range using forklift tech and could be used for 80% of all US car trips. With battery swaps or fast charging, even long distance. They would get 100-500mpg equivalent energy use.

More utility size is every coal/NG powerplant boiler needs a gas turbine engine in front of it increase the units eff from 35-40% to 55-60%. This method cleans the gas before it's burned so far cleaner,less pollution costs and 50% more power from the same fuel cost thus more profit, not less. Switching the coal for NG does 30% better.

So as you can see there is no reason for cutting CO2 to cost more. Done right it can cost far less compared to a fossil fuel future. There are many other practical, cost effective energy sources depending on your site which one is best. For instance you may want a double size solar collector to get enough power/heat in the winter in the north, river, stream, tidal generators are very cost effective.

Oct 16 08:10 AM

[Dan Powers:]

Nice post Jerrydd. My only comment is that $100 billion per year world wide is a pretty small fraction of the global economy. Even a trillion is manageable.

Oct 16 09:35 AM

[Alan Young:]

But wait, here's the real stunner, which you overlooked:
"That money is needed to help ... convert to costly but cleaner technologies..., as well as to assist the poorest countries in coping with the consequences of climate change..."
Don't you see? Some money is going to prevention; other money is going to mitigate damage after the fact. Everyone knows it's going to be expensive; everyone can see the damage coming; surely the concept of "an ounce of prevention" is in everyone's face. Yet the two concepts are referred to as if they were competing on equal terms. Maybe the paragraph should be contrasting "$100,000,000,000 of prevention" vs. "$1,000,000,000,000 of cure."

Oct 16 01:03 PM

[terravario:]

I agree with posts. An investment (not a cost) of $100 billion is less than 1% of the US economy. For us in the Great Lakes which produces 10-15% of the world's GHG, it is less than 5% of our economy. And Jerryd correctly observes that much of that investment will result in more jobs, here and abroad. While I suspect the investment will need to be somewhat greater than $100 billion, it is a deal at 10 times the price.

Oct 16 01:45 PM

[Kindred Win...:]

What you just described was an argument over how to share the costs of cutting emissions.

Oct 17 03:54 PM