Count on the Financial Times to make a clear, compelling argument. From its editorial “CO2 needs a price but taxes are the best way to set it:“ The Kyoto protocol to fight climate change expires in 2012. The shape of a successor treaty is still in doubt, but one aspect seems certain: carbon trading will […]
Read more...The Financial Times has managed to be too polite. A more accurate title for this story would be “United States Again Refuses to Commit to Anything Regarding Global Warming.” Now this continuation of the US head-in-the-sand posture might be fine if the Administration hadn’t raised expectations by agreeing to a climate change summit. So its […]
Read more...It seems China is becoming the pivotal player on many fronts. Apologies for being a day late on this story, but we could not access it on the Financial Times website and had to have the text e-mailed. As we have noted before, the proliferation of fuel technologies is slowing widespread adoption of cleaner cars. […]
Read more...Usually I worry about appearing unduly Financial Times-centric; today, it’s the BBC that gets prominent billing. It looks like American’s preference for the easy way out won’t serve it very well. We reported earlier that Detroit’s enthusiasm for ethanol (so-called E85, which is 85% ethanol, 15% gas) as a way to reduce carbon emissions was […]
Read more...If you want to get a look at what the future might look like, consider Australia. A mere 3 years ago, its CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) published the results of a ten-year study, a model of the physical inputs and outputs of the country. One of its conclusions was that it would […]
Read more...Earlier this week, Britan convened a UN Security Council meeting on the issue of global warming, both to galvanize opinion and to discuss the threat it represented to the stability of member nations. The session instead exposed rifts between the first and third world, with developing countries led by China very much opposed to interference. […]
Read more...I am normally loath to publish someone else’s post more or less in its entirety, but Brad DeLong’s discussion of some of the more persuasive arguments for investing to arrest global warming is first rate. (And candidly, he references an article by Martin Weitzmen on the Stern Review, the UK report that was the first […]
Read more...While I am loath to look Financial-Times centric, there are days when it has a lot of good material, and today is one of those days. Gideon Rachman, in “Climate change is not a global crisis – that is the problem,” works through the implications of the fact that global warming will create winners and […]
Read more...The Financial Times reports today on a report prepared by 11 retired US admirals and generals on the security implications of global warming. The authors concluded that global warming would worsen regional conflicts, worsen living standards, and undermine stability. These findings are consistent with earlier reports that discussed the large-scale dislocation that would result from […]
Read more...A front page story in today’s Financial Times, “Foreign carmakers doubt Detroit’s ethanol,” report on a split of opinon within the auto industry as to which technology to pursue to reduce carbon emissions. US automakers are keenly promoting E85, which is a mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline; foreign companies are investing in diesel, […]
Read more...The summary of the second report is due out this Friday. Oddly, this sneak preview appears, at least so far, only in the Financial Times (I checked the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times). As described below, the second report delves deeper into the nature and scope of likely changes, and how they […]
Read more...I was sent a link to this Onion classic, “Nation’s Snowmen March Against Global Warming,” and thought it was timely in light of this week’s Congressional hearings. Braving balmy temperatures and sunny skies, millions of scarfless snowmen and snowwomen gathered in cities across the world Tuesday to raise public awareness about the heavy toll global […]
Read more...Some powerful organizations are taking up the banner of climate change. According to today’s Wall Street Journal, a group of influential investors, including Allainz, Calpers, and Merrill, ….waded into the fray, pressing for legislation mandating emissions cuts ranging from 60% to 90% by the middle of this century and requiring companies to disclose investor risks […]
Read more...This excellent post by reader Stormy appeared at Angry Bear today. It makes the point that whether or not you believe that human activity is contributing to global warming, CO2 emissions are making the oceans more acid. This makes them increasingly hostile environments for shellfish and coral reefs. No kidding, we are talking about a […]
Read more...We’ve discussed before that, despite the popular coverage that it gets in the business press, carbon trading, or “cap and trade” is not as efficient or effective a way to reduce greenhouse gases as taxation. If you would like official confirmation, Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw (who is far from being liberal; he’s an advisor […]
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