Tim Worstall

Monkton on Climate Change

The second piece is now up.

Something of a pity that he still hasn’t pointed to the most glaring error in the Stern Review. The use of the A2 family as the business as usual model.

We can in fact leave the world both richer and cooler without making any mitigating efforts: although we can add those if we want as well. That would imply moving from the A2 path (which we already know we’re not following anyway) to the A1 path (just as an example B1 and B2 also have the same qualities). This is what so few seem to understand from the SRES (the economic models upon which the whole edifice is built): more globalization will make the world richer and better able to adapt: it will also reduce the emissions and thus the temperature rise to which adaptation will be necessary.

In

4 responses

  1. sanbikinoraion Avatar
    sanbikinoraion

    I don’t really understand myself how raising millions (billions?) out of poverty and into buying Agas, plasma tellies and Chryslers is going to reduce carbon emissions….
    Tim adds: Three things: The Review points out that deforestation is a bigger contributor to emissions than transport: rich people grow forests, not cut them down. So that’s one.
    The other is that ALL of the IPCC scenarios assume that everyone is going to get rich. In the lowest growth (but very much not the lowest emissions) model, in 2100 per capita GDP for the globe is $16k or so. More than twice today’s. The question is HOW they get rich: efficiently, with the least use of resources (ie with the global division of labour, that is globalization) or inefficiently with the use of more?
    Thirdly, what is population growth going to be? 15 billion people at $16 k GDP would do as much (perhaps more) damage as 7 billion at $32k.
    Rich people have fewer children. So, get rich now, get through global peak population earlier and reduce the problems.
    One thing that you really do have to note about all of the IPCC scenarios. They ALL assume that we’ll all get rich. If two thirds of humanity remain mired in destitution then there’s very little problem from climate change.

    Reply
  2. hmj Avatar
    hmj

    Tim,
    I read CM’s first piece in last week’s Telegraph and have to say I found it pretty incomprehensible, even though I have a basic understanding of the science.
    I was just wondering why we should be interested in Monckton’s views, given that, I gather from this week’s Private Eye, he has no scientific qualifications whatsoever?

    Reply
  3. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    “One thing that you really do have to note about all of the IPCC scenarios. They ALL assume that we’ll all get rich.”
    No they don’t. If average per capita GDP in 2100 is forecast to be $16k, some areas will have much more than that and – guess what? – some areas much less. Under that A2 scenario, ‘Asia’ has a per capita GDP of $7,800 in 2100 and the Middle East – Latin America – Africa bloc has $15,200. Considering that quite a few of the countries in each of those ‘regions’ is expected to be very rich indeed by 2100, what do you think that means for the ones at the other end of the scale? That’s right, they won’t be rich. In fact, since the A2 scenario seems to imply around a 2% growth rate in the region including Africa, I reckon that would leave the poorer countries in Africa at somewhere between $3k and $4k per capita GDP in 2100.
    Secondly,
    “If two thirds of humanity remain mired in destitution then there’s very little problem from climate change.”
    Tell that to the people mired in destitution who are already suffering as a result of climate change, and that’s with only 0.6C of warming or whatever it is we’ve had so far. Or did you just mean “a problem for me”?
    Tim adds: IF 2/3 rds of humanity remain mired in destitution that is obviously a problem: we don’t want them to be mired in destitution, do we? But it would mean that Greenland and Antarctica weren’t going to melt, so not a problem in that sense.

    Reply
  4. teme Avatar
    teme

    I’ll skip Monckton, life is short and it is just plain crap, and instead concentrate on what Tim and the commentators have said.
    Like it or not, global markets imply global governance. Part of that will have to be carbon regulation. Without it, protectionist will get environmental tarifs, because the votes for both economic and environmental laissez-faire just are not there.
    And I believe the economically liberal people understand this, but where many err is thinking that they can stop this by attacking the science. This has a track record of utter failure, namely because the scientist have a powerful ally called physical reality.
    I think Stern is right in the fundamental point that this is a market failure. And as with any market failure, there are those that want to fix the market and those who want to abolish the market. Those insisting against all evidence that there is no market failure are effectively playing for the anti-market team.
    “Rich people have fewer children.”
    Not exactly, educated woman have fewer children, about the only reliable correlation to fertility is female literacy.

    Reply

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