FUELLING PROGRESS NOT POVERTY:

Real Solutions to Climate Change and Development

October 21, 2002

Venue: Lecture Hall, India International Centre (Annexe), Max Mueller Marg, New Delhi

Time: 2pm-5pm

Following is the summary of the presentations at a seminar for policy makers and media, on the occasion of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Eighth Conference of Parties in New Delhi from Oct 23 to 30, 2002

Panelists included:

• Shreekant Gupta, Delhi School of Economics
• Barun Mitra, Liberty Institute, New Delhi, India
• Lorraine Mooney, European Science and Environment Forum, Cambridge, UK
• Pramit Palchoudhuri, Foreign Editor, The Hindustan Times newspaper, New Delhi
• Richard Tren, Africa Fighting Malaria, Johannesburg, South Africa

The participants discussed several important questions facing policymakers in the climate change debate:

• Is the climate changing, and if so, is it because of human intervention?
• What is the best energy strategy for poor countries to pursue: 'clean development' and 'renewable energy', or simply increased energy consumption?
• What implications does climate change have for development? Will climate change lead to increased incidence of diseases such as malaria?

Climate Science and Policy: Making the Connection

Lorraine Mooney, European Science and Environment Forum

Global climate change policy is being based on incomplete data and estimation models.

Globally, climate science policy is being based primarily on the studies and assessments of the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, these studies do not adequately account for existing gaps and uncertainties in the science of climate change. As a result, policy initiatives intended to check `global warming’ may be misguided or out of proportion.

The myth of global warming

Global warming is a `myth’, and is based on three assumptions popularized by the IPCC. These are a) that the Earth’s temperature will rise by upto 6 per cent by 2100; b) that human greenhouse gas emissions have caused this warming; and c) that a `sustainable’climate will result only if human emissions of greenhouse gas are controlled.

While scientists worldwide agree that greenhouse gases have contributed to global warming, they differ on how central a role these emissions have played. The IPCC, on the other hand, holds that human activities have caused most of the temperature rise seen in the last fifty years. For its data, it has compared observed recent average global surface temperatures with those generated in model simulations. However, these simulations fail to reproduce temperature differences in the lower to mid-troposphere, and at the surface, over the past twenty years. While a tropospheric warming occurred rather abruptly around 1976, it is not consistent with the gradual change in tropospheric temperature that would be expected from greenhouse gas warming. Similarly, since 1979, there has not been any significant increase in tropospheric temperature.

Moreover, the prevailing idea that the systemic feedbacks generated by warming will always be positive is likely to be false. It is not necessary that warming will lead to more warming. Recent work on clouds and moisture, for example, clearly indicate the precise opposite. It is thus possible that the IPCC’s projections of future warming may be far higher than warranted.

Need for Better Science

Existing simulations do not adequately characterize the effects of solar cycles and the transfer of radiation in the atmosphere, clouds and water vapour (the most important greenhouse gas of all), aerosols, black soot, and ocean currents. They are, therefore, unable to accurately determine their relationship to global climate change. Similarly, surface temperature data is uncertain due to uneven geographic coverage, the urban heat island effect, and gaps in the historical record for sea surface temperature.

To reduce these uncertainties, a significant shift is required in the way climate change research is carried out. Critical factors must be identified and measured, and climate-observing requirements must be built into all relevant national and international operational programmes. Moreover, models should be designed to focus on key variables, so as to reduce the range of error and resulting uncertainty.

Malaria and Climate Change

Richard Tren

Global warming will not necessarily cause a burgeoning in malaria or other infectious diseases.

Many people believe that global warming will cause a burgeoning in malaria, since it will raise temperatures and increase rainfall and humidity. However, the effect of climate change on malaria is far from certain. As with other diseases, the spread and control of malaria is determined by many factors. These include the efficacy of drugs and insecticides, topography, and levels of economic development.

Although climatic factors can affect the intensity and distribution of malaria, the relationship is highly complex. For instance, while malaria today is associated with hot, tropical countries, the disease was widespread through Europe and North America in the early 1950s. Moreover, in 1935, a severe malaria epidemic in Sri Lanka came after two exceptionally dry years.

The Complexity of Malaria

Malaria is a highly complex disease. There are 3,500 species of malarial mosquitoes, each of which breeds, feeds and reacts differently to insecticides. Moreover, mosquitoes are extremely adaptable and can survive extreme heat or cold.

Increased temperatures and higher rainfall would, therefore, have varying effects on malaria. While, in some areas, climate change may cause an intensification in malaria, in others it might cause breeding pools to be washed out and mosquito populations to decrease. In turn, such developments would impact the immunity of local human populations and their ability to resist the disease.

Key Factors Affecting Malaria

By far the most important factor affecting the spread and incidence of malaria are man’s activities, his level of economic development, and his efforts to control the disease.

The history of malaria in Europe and North America is indicative. Although it was the widespread use of DDT that finally eradicated malaria from these areas, the incidence of the disease had been declining since the late 19th century As these areas became more wealthy and developed, the area of land under agricultural production grew. Malarial breeding pools dropped. Households began to own more livestock, reducing the probability of transmission of the malaria parasite to humans since mosquitoes had more animals on which to feed. Housing improved, separating farmers from their livestock and making it more difficult for mosquitoes to enter. Urbanization provided a further barrier between humans and the malarial mosquito.

It is therefore misguided to use climate-based models to predict malarial incidence.

Carbon Efficiency and Climate Change

Barun Mitra, Liberty Institute

Global anti-climate change efforts will be more effective if governments focus on promoting carbon efficiency rather than on capping emissions.

The multilateral effort to minimize global warming hinges on capping the emissions of greenhouse gases and on phasing out those industries that emit them. Moreover, the underlying assumption is that more economic activity inherently leads to more pollution and should, therefore, be discouraged.

More Growth: Less Carbon Intensity

However, recent trends show that larger, faster growing economies, have cleaner environments. This is because larger economies are more energy efficient and, so, less carbon intensive than smaller ones. In other words, while richer countries consume more energy per capita, they also produce many more dollars for every ton of oil or kilo of carbon they use. Viewed from a micro-level perspective, the more a company produces the more incentive it has to cut costs by optimizing its use of energy.

While developed countries together consume some 40 per cent of all energy and emit 49 per cent of all pollutants, they produce 80 per cent of the world’s goods and services. Developing countries, by contrast, produce just 3 per cent of global goods and services.but emit 11 per cent of the world’s pollutants. While India produces some US$219 for every tonne of carbon its emits, the United States produces US$1,500 and Japan US$3,900.

Energy-Economy Decoupling

More importantly, we are seeing – for the first time in history – an energy-economy decoupling. Until twenty years ago, growth within individual economies was always matched by a growth in energy consumption. Energy was the engine that fed economic activity.

Since the 1980s, however, a number of economies have grown much faster than have their energy demand and emissions. Heading this list are Denmark, Norway and Finland, which have grown an average of 2 per cent a year although their energy use grew by just 1 per cent.

A More Effective Climate Change Policy

If such energy-economy decoupling is indeed indicative of a growing new trend, climate change policy should be modified to encourage it. Current policy, predicated only on reducing energy consumption and emissions, may severely hamper this emerging trend.

India, in particular, should think carefully when designing national energy and emissions policies and should not be guided purely by the multilateral climate change model. Indoor pollution, from which 6 to 8 Indians die annually, is India’s largest source of emissions and results from the burning of traditional fuels in unventilated houses. India must focus on this problem immediately, by ensuring that all its citizens can access good, clean energy like LPG and electricity.

Similarly, it should rethink its policies on energy generation. While Sweden generates 35 per cent of its electricity from wood, India - which has more forest land - discourages the commercial use of wood for electricity generation. As a result, India has neither sufficient electricity nor wood.

Global Emissions Trading

Shreekant Gupta

Emissions trading is the win-win approach in mitigating pollution and climate change

Emissions trading is one of many “incentive-based instruments”, that harness the power of market forces to address environmental problems. Incentive-based instruments hinge on the notion that differing sources of pollution have differing reduction costs and must be allowed enough flexibility to determine their own pace and level of abatement. Only in this way can a pareto-optimal situation be achieved.

How Emissions Trading Works

At the heart of emissions trading are tradeable pollution permits. These are assigned to individual polluters, within the context of an overall emissions `cap’ for their state or region. Permit holders that are able to reduce emissions below the level assigned to them can sell excess `pollution rights’ to polluters who exceed their permits. Since polluters can profitably sell their permits, they have a strong monetary incentive to reduce emissions.

Critics denigrate emissions trading for being a “pay and pollute” system. They forget that emissions trading hinges on the concept of ``cap and trade’’. That is, the global emissions ``cap’’ will always be less than current emissions. Also, a polluter can only pollute by buying somebody else’s right to do so. Emissions trading is a win-win system, since everyone gains.

The success of sulphur dioxide emissions trading in the United States is indicative. Power plants on the East Coast were given tradeable sulphur dioxide emissions permits, each equal to one tonne of sulphur dioxide. The objective was to reduce acid rain resulting from the use of high-sulphur coal in power plants, without spending millions of dollars in implementing new regulation. The programme has more than achieved its goals. At US$186 per tonne, the market clearing price for permits has been one-third of what critics predicted – that is, US$600 per tonne.

Preparing for An International Emission Trading System

However, developing countries are very wary of embarking on emissions trading. The real debate should not be about the pros and cons of emissions trading, but about how permits are allocated within countries. India should strategically prepare itself for a `cap’and `trade’ system, by researching the long-term price dynamics of tradeable emissions permits. On the one hand, it might be useful to negotiate an emissions quota far larger than current national emissions, so that it can sell its unused allowance in the global market. On the other, should pollution reduction technologies improve dramatically, the global market for emissions permits might collapse. India must take all these factors into account when negotiating internationally on climate change.

Complimentary Domestic Actions and The Asian `Brown Cloud’

India must look beyond the Kyoto Protocol and address more pressing issues of local air quality. To start with, immediate priority must be given to dealing with the Asian `Brown Cloud’ -- a concentration of non-greenhouse gas emissions that is affecting health and crop yields in India and Asia. Strangely, the Government is dragging its feet on this issue. Priority must also be given to removing the distortions in energy and technology pricing, that are resulting in unchecked emissions and compromised air quality.

Bjorn Lomborg’s “The Sceptical Environmentalist”: A Review

Pramit Palchaudhuri

Much of current policy on the environment is based on media-generated myth

Bjorn Lomborg’s key point, in his book “The Sceptical Environmentalist”, is that much of the global environmental debate is not really about science. It is about myth-making and the media’s injecting a false sense of fear into the public.

Lomborg’s Conversion

Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish professor of Statistics, started out as a left-wing member of Greenpeace. In 1997, he read an interview given by Julian Simon, an economist at the University of Maryland, in which Simon said that all the doomsday predictions by environmentalists were false. Resources would not run out and the standard of living would not go down. Lomborg was provoked by this statement and set out to debunk Simon. He researched over 2,000 footnotes, tracing each back to the original paper and source of information. After two years of study, he was surprised to find that most of Simon’s points stood up to investigation and he published his findings in `The Sceptical Environmentalist”. Overnight, Lomborg – the erstwhile Greenpeace comrade – became the hero of the sceptical environmentalist lobby.

Disproving environmentalists, the world is becoming a far better place, Lomborg argues. Poverty and hunger have declined dramatically. In 1970, 35 per cent of people were starving; in 1996, only 18 per cent were; and in 2010, only 12 per cent should be. Lomborg says, “We have more leisure time, greater security, fewer accidents, more education, more amenities, higher income, more food, and a healthier and longer life” than mankind has had at any other point in its history.

Lomborg on Climate Change

His book contains chapters on almost every facet of the environmental debate. He says that we will never run out of resources, since evolving technology will create new ones. While some species will become extent, they represent only 0.7 per cent of the current total.

The chapter on climate change is one of the most detailed in the book. Lomborg believes that climate change is occuring, but feels the projections are over-pessimistic. Air pollution, at least in the West, is currently at its lowest level since the Industrial Revolution. Moreover, he argues, `The typical cure of early and radical fossils fuel cutbacks is far worse in terms of its economic costs than the actual affliction of climate change itself.”

Environmentalist Myth-making

Despite the enormous body of research and empirical evidence produced by Lomborg, the public still refuses to believe that the world is not going to hell. Lomborg attributes this to the myth-making of the media and the environmental movement, both of whom have tended to blow facts out of all proportion.

In the field of the environment, more than anywhere else, policy is based not on science but on politics and public perception. Although, by and large, scientists produce good, unbiased work, lobby groups are able to manipulate policy. In India, the example is of BT cotton is very telling. Although journalists and scientists knew that environmentalists’ opposition was funded by the pesticide industry, no one dared blow the whistle.

A good follow-up to Lomborg’s book would be a study of how lobby groups manage to manipulate policy. This is especially important in India, where the gap between the lab and policy-making is even greater than it is in the West and where scientists do not explain new discoveries to the public. India, therefore, has to be doubly wary that policy is not made on the basis of interest groups, rather than science.