Monthly, globally syndicated columns for Project Syndicate, translated into a dozen languages.
Although US President-elect Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans give climate advocates plenty to worry about, all hope is not lost. Clean-energy technologies still have decisive physical advantages over the alternatives, and economic common sense will eventually win out.
On climate and especially environmental policy, the return of Donald Trump to the White House is clearly bad news. But the outlook is uncertain, because Trump has sent mixed signals about the kinds of policy changes he might pursue, and it remains to be seen what effect he can have on broader technological and market trends.
Economists have long insisted that the only way to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases rapidly and at scale is to put a price on them. But while that is true, the key to a successful, politically sustainable climate policy is to ensure that the benefits precede the costs.
Improving energy efficiency is not enough for advocates of degrowth, who espouse energy sufficiency as the best way to fight climate change. But their argument is absurd: using limited inputs more efficiently is the definition of economic productivity – which, in turn, boosts growth.
While the availability of cheap electric vehicles is good news for the planet and for consumers everywhere, it is bad news for shareholders and employees of Western car companies, and both the United States and Europe are considering imposing import tariffs on Chinese EVs. But tariffs are the wrong approach.
Even if Donald Trump defeats President Joe Biden and tries to take a wrecking ball to US climate and environmental policies, he ultimately would be powerless to derail the inevitable renewables revolution that is gaining momentum worldwide. His anti-climate agenda would be another wall that never gets built.
Project Syndicate
Given that this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference was hosted by a petrostate and led by a fossil-fuel CEO, climate campaigners understandably had low expectations. Yet the summit did deliver some new commitments, and there is good reason to think that they are more than just empty words.
With China’s economic growth slowing at the same time that its emissions continue to rise, it is clear that its carbon-intensive investment model has run its course. Chinese leaders urgently need to follow advanced economies in shifting toward greater domestic consumption and reduced energy demand.
Heated academic debates between proponents and opponents of traditional economic growth under capitalism might make for good television, but they offer little in the way of solutions. Climate change demands that we achieve both growth and degrowth, depending on the activity and economic sector in question.
As long as coal plants are still operating, it is a good idea to require them capture their carbon dioxide emissions. But those designing policies to hasten such practices must tread carefully, lest they unwittingly extend the life of dirtier energy sources.
Hint: It's about minimizing risks and uncertainties.
To think that technology will save us from climate change is to invite riskier behavior, or moral hazard. Whether a climate technology creates new problems has little to do with the solution, and everything to do with us.
Rather than impeding the clean-energy race, the recent collapse of the US start-up community's go-to bank offers valuable lessons for managing the public-private minuet that the net-zero transition requires. The doomsayers are missing the bigger picture.
The US Inflation Reduction Act is a landmark legislative package that should be welcomed around the world, despite its putatively protectionist features. Owing to the positive learning-by-doing spillovers that follow from green subsidies, Europe and the rest of the world ultimately will benefit, too.
Speeding up the adoption of already proven and scalable technologies, and exposing the many hidden costs associated with fossil fuels, is a necessary goal. Achieving it will require new policies to guide investments in the right direction, and techno-optimists ought to be the loudest advocates.
Project Syndicate
Project Syndicate
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is considering a proposal to require some companies to disclose information relating to the risks they face from climate change. But the agency is coming under pressure to scrap or water down the proposal because of a recent Supreme Court decision.