"Lose-lose: the penalties of acting alone stall collective effort on climate change" is an article the Financial Times ran a while back. While the piece gives a panoramic analysis of the international prisoner's dilemma, there are two other angles that are missing. The first is the penalties of no one acting. According to the UK's environmental minister, the economic rationale for inaction is that the first country to act risks undergoing some degree of economic hardship. This, he explains, is "the last refuge of the deniers -- the idea that it's not worth anyone doing anything unless everyone does it."
It seems that actors are falsely interpreting an outcome that avoids economic costs as a win -- but not so fast! The whole point of this debate is to avoid the costs of continually unregulated global warming.
Maybe someone needs to brief policymakers again on what the future is bound to look like when sea levels rise 20 feet, populations are famished from crop-damaging drought, and loved landmarks have been destroyed by hurricanes or wildfires.
The second flaw in the argument has to do with the traditional first-mover advantage for new technologies and new industries. Countries that go first in reducing emissions will develop the expertise and the technologies needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, ensuring global leadership in the job-creating clean industries of the future.
The time to act is now!
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
New interactive map shows devastating effects of global temperature rise
Comments
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Billhook Posted 6:46 pm
26 May 2007
The FT's article included this quote:
"Although the Bush administration looks unlikely to bend its strongly anti-Kyoto stance, the growing pressure for action on climate change in Congress may alter Washington's position before negotiations on the continuation of Kyoto beyond 2012 reach their crunch point, in 2009.
That would probably not lead to the US adopting Kyoto targets before 2012 but would suggest that the treaty might have a successor of some form after that date."
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"might have a successor of some form" seems a pretty relaxed attitude
to what is evidently a global emergency.
The bind is not only the "After you Claude" problem which ignores the two factors you note,
it is also the very politeness it maintains,
which ignores the fact that a quorum of nations can,
and in my view should,
go ahead with negotiating and ratifying an effective treaty on equitable terms,
leaving the great laggards of China & US to play catch up,
if those nations are still set upon further suicidal brinkmanship
over relative emission entitlements.
While I may hope that Bush will be rapidly impeached for reckless endangerment
(alongside Cheyney for malfeasance)
and I'd hope that the next regime would negotiate responsibly,
I guess it will need someone of at least Gorbachev's courage
to agree the terms for a viable global climate treaty.
For this reason I'd urge US activists to look beyond parochial action within US borders,
be that 5% p.a., 80% x 2050, electric hummers, or whatever,
and to focus public attention on the necessity
of a rapidly declining US share
of the simultaneously declining global GHG emissions budget.
Without a degree of US public recognition of, and support for,
that sea-change in US dominance,
the chance of a US president finding the courage to agree a viable treaty seem negligeable.
If that courage is lacking, then a polylateral treaty,
that is open to latecomers meeting a just recompense,
will surely be the requisite next step.
Regards,
Bill
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amazingdrx Posted 12:43 am
27 May 2007
And they seem to be beating every other nation in economic growth as well.
While economists fiddle. Over complication and obsfucation get the corporate think tank "grants" in this system of corporate feudal failure.
As bonnie prince duuhbya and the evil lord cheney of halliburton rise, so falls the house of oil. (Thanks E.A. Poe.)
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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leszekp Posted 2:55 am
27 May 2007
Maybe if you show them something like this:
http://freegeotools.blogspot.com/2007/05/truth-effect-in- ...
Customized for their area of interest.
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Delay And Deny Posted 5:19 am
27 May 2007
So, according to your analysis, the Bush Administration, which, as early as 2001, made billion dollar investments in fuel cells and hydrogen technology and infrastructure, should be a big winner both for our country and citizens worldwide.
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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BruceMcF Posted 7:46 am
28 May 2007
If he had added that to the Potemkin Village hydrogen economy R&D, the country would be reaping those first mover rewards.
Virtually Yours, BruceMcF
Energize America 2020
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