Recently the University of Toronto hosted a climate change conference entitled “A Globally Integrated Climate Policy For Canada,” and the event was kicked off with Scott Barrett providing the opening keynote speech. Barrett is both a Professor of Environmental Economics and International Political Economy, and the Director of the International Policy Program at the Johns Hopkins University. He was also a lead author of the second assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Professor Barrett provided a thought provoking discussion of the climate threat we face, response to date, and our future options for dealing with the situation. Without going through his full presentation, he offered a number of intriguing ideas throughout his talk, some of which are more directly aligned with the climate debate than others.
1. The Montreal Protocol and Climate Change
Many are aware of the Montréal Protocol. The ozone depleting substances it covers impact the climate change process. Barrett provided a number of dramatic statistics demonstrating this. Barrett suggests that the resulting action of the Montréal Protocol will achieve four times the reduction of greenhouse gases in comparison to what the Kyoto Protocol could ever achieve, even if it was fully implemented in other countries, including the United States. Furthermore, he said that through the recent renegotiation of the Protocol, one change leading to a reduction of HCFCs alone will reduce greenhouse gases by twice as much as what the Kyoto Protocol would do if it were fully implemented, again, even with the participation of countries who have not fully implemented it, like the United States.
2. Geo-Engineering
Some scientists who were once considered completely outside the scientific mainstream have begun to gain attention for their suggestions that we might take large scale action (geo-engineering) to change global systems, in an attempt to reduce the potential impacts of climate change. Potential actions could include things like placing mirrors in space or injecting sulfur into the atmosphere with the intent of reflecting sunlight to help cool global temperatures. It is said that some of these kinds of macro-level changes already happen naturally. The most-frequently cited example is Mount Pinatubo. Upon erupting in 1991, Mount Pinatubo spewed thousands of tonnes of sulfur into the atmosphere. This sulphur in the atmosphere ultimately cooled global average temperatures by a half a degree centigrade over the course of the following year. Professor Barrett suggests that the idea could be seen as necessary should we reach climate change impacts of dramatic proportions.
Aside from the huge questions Barrett raised, scientific and otherwise, another interesting perspective Barrett raised were the economics of the situation. Frequently, when dealing with global environmental problems, people talk about free riders. What this means is that while one, or potentially many, actors use their resources to improve a situation (i.e. many countries paying to use fewer CFCs to help reduce the thinning of the ozone layer) some actors can reap the benefit of this action without making any contribution of their own (ie. a country enjoying the benefits of a reduction in the thinning of the ozone layer without paying anything to use less CFCs).
Professor Barrett said that often dealing with global environmental problems involves many countries contributing to the solution while some other countries will free ride. However, in the case of geo-engineering he notes that we could be seeing a very different scenario where just one country, on its own, could determine action for, and impacts on, the rest of the world. Professor Barrett said that he had read that the upper boundary regarding costs associated with injecting the sulfur into the atmosphere is only $50 billion. While this was considered a massive amount of money in the past, he said that this equals the cost of just 25 weeks of the Iraq war, and therefore could be undertaken by a single country. While no country may be ready to launch its own geo-engineering experiment, the fact that one actor could attempt this raises a whole new range of questions that we may need to begin to consider. Since attending this talk I have read figures online stating the potential costs for geo-engineering activities could cost even less than $50 billion.
On the second day of the conference Thomas Homer-Dixon (author of the award winning books ‘The Ingenuity Gap’ and ‘The Upside of Down’) also made a number of unexpected statement in regards to geo-engineering. He stated that he had always “vociferously” disagreed with the idea of geo-engineering. However, he said that based on recent evidence regarding the climate threat, discovered only over the past year, he has had to change his position on geo-engineering. Apparently he is not the only one. He said that during the week following the University of Toronto conference some of the world’s top climate scientists would be meeting at Harvard to discuss the technologies, risks, and political and economic prospects of climate geo-engineering. He expects some form of geo-engineering will be a central focus of policy discussions within 10 years and quite possibly executed within 20 years. He says that geo-engineering is in no way a substitute for real action now to prevent dangerous climate change. But, while significant action regarding mitigation and adaptation is still imperative, over time geo-engineering will come to be seen as essential.
3. Renewable vs. Non-Renewable Resources
During the question period a member of the audience asked Professor Barrett about supplies of oil in light of them being a non-renewable resource. Part of Barrett’s response was highly unusual. He stated that what we often find is that we run out of our renewable resources and yet we never seem to completely run out of our non-renewable resources. This seems highly questionable due to the fundamental elements that define these two terms inferring the opposite outcome. Professor Barrrett went on to say that we see numerous species, which should be “renewable resources” go extinct while we continually find new ways to access new non-renewable resources; they simply become more challenging and expensive to access.
While yes, ultimately, should we continue using them, we will end up using all of any particular non-renewable resource in its entirety. Yet, Barrett’s take on the situation, flipping the automatic assumption was intriguing.
4. The Cost of Averting the Climate Threat
This final point is not that unusual and has been discussed, but in light of current oil prices seems to be worth noting. Professor Barrett stated the obvious--despite current ‘high’ oil prices, which are at levels many did not think were possible not that long ago, demand for the product has not changed dramatically, and if anything has continued to increase. This is interesting when it comes to the discussion of imposing some form of additional cost on energy to discourage use, thereby reducing emissions, likely delivered through some sort of carbon tax or some cap-and-trade scheme. You hear people throwing around figures ranging anywhere from $10 to $50 to $100 per tonne of carbon, and even more. Not long ago $50 oil seemed to be something off in the distance and now we have blown through that barrier, and we see $100 oil very possible in the near future. It leaves one wondering how high a carbon-related charge would need to be in order to result in effective reduction of carbon-intensive energy use—the kind of pricing that would reduce carbon emissions by the significant amounts many believe to be absolutely necessary.
Thomas Homer-Dixon also spoke about oil prices. He said that for many years now we had been seeing a de-carbonization of our fuel supply whereby we had been emitting lower amounts of carbon per unit of energy used or per dollar of GDP earned. Unfortunately, this trend has reversed in the past five years. We now seem to be re-carbonizing our fuel supply. As we see oil prices increase, we see greater development and use of two dirtier, more carbon-intensive, sources – the tar sands and coal. Higher energy prices make projects in the tar sands financially feasible, while these same prices push people to look for savings, and the financially cheaper coal has turned into an even more attractive alternative. Just as we grapple with the challenge of reducing our carbon emissions, based on the current policy formulation, we have market forces pushing us entirely in the opposite direction.
