tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post4998743160614259670..comments2023-09-28T08:13:11.489-07:00Comments on Only In It For The Gold: Should Emissions be Allocated Per Capita?Michael Tobishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-39540393173282698112009-10-16T15:14:43.632-07:002009-10-16T15:14:43.632-07:00Both Eli and Michael have pointed out the obvious ...Both Eli and Michael have pointed out the obvious solution of fixing the per-capita allocation to a certain date so there's no incentive to overpopulate.<br /><br />As to this:<br /><br />"The second point proceeds from the point of view that because poor nations are more at risk from climate change, they get more benefit from the activity"<br /><br />We could have a lot of fun applying that principle - maybe a domestic violence reduction program funded by a tax on women and children because they benefit most from a reduction in domestic violence.<br /><br />Migrants should be able to take their per capita allocation with them to the receiving nation, or again you create bad incentives and punish the ethical behavior of accepting immigrants.<br /><br />The per-capita allocations have to be distributed on a national level. Oh well, don't let the unachievable perfect be the enemy of the good.<br /><br />I guess I should read the actual paper, but I'm unimpressed so far.Brianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09301230860904555513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-80498138324113626252009-10-15T22:32:23.364-07:002009-10-15T22:32:23.364-07:00Ray Pierrehumbert, via email, says:
This paper so...Ray Pierrehumbert, via email, says:<br /><br />This paper sounds like classic Sunstein. Shallow, pompous, long-winded and mostly wrong. Wait 'till you see their book on the subject. More of the same, but drawn out over a few hundred pages.<br /><br />The only valid moral argument against per-capita quotas is that it gives no incentive for population control, and Peter Singer pointed out that (and the fix) more cogently years ago, in his essay One Atmosphere. Actually, if you're worried about needs to discourage excess population<br />growth, it's the US that is the one that needs incentives. We have a high fertility for a first-world country and will probably add another 100 million people in the next 50 years or so. Given our per capita emissions, thats something like a half billion Chinese.<br /><br />And the Chinese never get enough credit for the effect of their draconian population policies (some quite morally questionable, I admit) on CO2 abatement. Arguably, this has done more than anything else anybody has done, in the way of reducing CO2 emissions.Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-64266975693488077202009-10-14T04:58:12.615-07:002009-10-14T04:58:12.615-07:00If human individuals would get CO2 quotas and they...If human individuals would get CO2 quotas and they could trade them on the international market personally (not their nation). Then perhaps there wouldn't be "leaks". Industries anywhere would and could buy their quotas from China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia...<br /><br />You would still have to do the reductions in personal quota size from an overviewing level to drive down CO2 emissions. Just relying on the effect that some people wouldn't sell their quotas (as a charity move) would be unfair.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-56079834591089174102009-10-14T00:14:23.242-07:002009-10-14T00:14:23.242-07:00It's easy in this discussion of the merits of ...It's easy in this discussion of the merits of per capita allocations to lose sight of part of what's really at stake here. Most of Michael's readers will likely never read the article itself. However, since I in fact "assigned" the article to Michael (it's optional reading in a class of mine he's auditing over the internet), I've been forced to read it - most of it twice now - What's stunning is, given how smart Posner and Sunstein are, just how bad it really is. <br /><br />It's so bad, that it comes across as almost disingenuous - these folks are so anxious to show that supporters of per capita rights are actually the source of the problem, that they don't even bother to check whether their arguments are coherent or consistent.<br /><br />Perhaps its a reflection of the fact that they are both lawyers, and the goal of a courtroom lawyer is simply to sow doubt in the guilt of his or her client. Of course, neither of them is primarily a courtroom lawyer, I think. Sunstein, rather scarily, is now the Administrator of the White House office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.<br /><br />If you read the article you'd see further that they simply dismiss the idea that people might care about equal per capita rights because it's actually fair; rather they slip right into assuming that any such people must actually be welfarists who really just want to distribute money to poor people. And of course if that's your goal, equal per capita allocations aren't the most efficient. But, as the authors note, that aid ain't comin'... and, unlike "foreign aid," poor countries don't actually have to be "given" permits. As I have often said, poor countries don't need our permission to burn their coal (or their trees).<br /><br />I'm not sure how to distribute the article to interested parties...Paul Baerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00296242925808155588noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-66258570494924627292009-10-13T17:56:00.629-07:002009-10-13T17:56:00.629-07:00Also, my second post on this comment thread seems ...Also, my second post on this comment thread seems to have vanished?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-91434093264651177522009-10-13T17:54:54.188-07:002009-10-13T17:54:54.188-07:00Marcus, the problem is with free quotas - in a cou...Marcus, the problem is with free quotas - in a country with more poor people you can get a larger free quota for a specific factory - hence the global incentive to move factories there or keep the there-residing low tech factories operating.<br /><br />This is all hypothetical of course, I haven't checked if it's such a big issue in practice. Might just be industry noise generation over minor numbers.<br /><br />Of course the poor contry can also make a buck selling the leftover quotas on the global market - Russia has done it with good profit since their industry collapsed just after the Kyoto reference year.<br /><br />But it still doesn't level the playing field.<br /><br />At least I think I think like that, I'm a bit sleep deprived today...<br /><br />-<br /><br />Monbiot misses one big point though - if the poor want to have a better material standard of living, they have a problem with numbers...<br /><br />Iain McClatchie has posted on something tangential though:<br />http://ambivalentengineer.blogspot.com/2009/08/limits-to-growth.html<br /><br />The gist is that if even the poor just rise to France-level in emissions, and the rich drop to that level, it might not be *that bad*.<br /><br />This means nuclear naturally.<br /><br />France is quite urbanized though, I fear, so many countries with for example large houses instead of small apartments for a large portion of the population have it harder to lower emissions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-62146482583436038552009-10-13T14:45:24.003-07:002009-10-13T14:45:24.003-07:00The Monbiot reference is a good and important cont...The Monbiot reference is a good and important contribution of his. I appreciate the reminder and the link.<br /><br />But it's a bit off topic for the present conversation, which is not about the nature of the disease but about the treatment plan.Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-3080343103383794942009-10-13T14:33:39.463-07:002009-10-13T14:33:39.463-07:00Another perspective from George Monbiot:
http://ww...Another perspective from George Monbiot:<br />http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/29/the-population-myth/the_heat_is_onhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13506787236855540288noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-46782672262528014712009-10-13T13:58:16.974-07:002009-10-13T13:58:16.974-07:00Gravityloss, I think you have a misconception of y...Gravityloss, I think you have a misconception of your own:<br /><br />Assuming that the permit allocation is done at the national level, scaled to population of the country, there is no reason why industry would need to move to the nation with excess permits: that nation could just as well sell the permits to the nation where the industry already resides, and just take the cash.<br /><br />Therefore, a truly global cap does not have the same leakage problems (eg, between nation leakage) that a limited region cap might. And because it is a cap, emissions within the capped sectors by definition cannot exceed the cap, so total pollution within the capped sectors cannot increase. Inefficient industries will suffer regardless of where they are.<br /><br />More worrisome is sectoral leakage: we see this in the bio-fuels area, where if deforestation and land-use aren't included properly, then the system could migrate from "well-counted" emissions to non-covered emissions...marcushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14549960911629202844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-85348269761354863252009-10-13T08:20:05.290-07:002009-10-13T08:20:05.290-07:00The encouraging of poverty would mean farming lots...The encouraging of poverty would mean farming lots of poor low CO2 people to enable the CO2 producing industry with their quotas. The industry being owned by some others than the said poor people.<br /><br />There is a mechanism that I see there quite clearly.<br /><br />It would be slightly more analogous to the tax avoiding businessman if it was one businessman who only got the income and the other who only paid the taxes of the same business! Of course the latter would avoid doing business.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-8651616486057843722009-10-13T07:15:30.049-07:002009-10-13T07:15:30.049-07:00That's negotiation. Eli only does theory.That's negotiation. Eli only does theory.EliRabetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-63275800796319460502009-10-13T01:37:15.936-07:002009-10-13T01:37:15.936-07:00Sigh...
So many misconceptions and bad ideas, so ...Sigh...<br /><br />So many misconceptions and bad ideas, so little time and energy.<br /><br />Per capita capping is problematic. Industries (most industries are global already and most stuff goes to export) move to countries with large poor populations, and they can pollute more there than they would have in their old country of residence. <br /><br />Yet for the climate it is irrelevant where the pollution happens.<br /><br />Hence it's not a good solution for climate - it could actually increase pollution, encouraging less efficient industries etc..<br /><br />Caps should be industry specific then... Distribution by auction, no quotas... No matter where the factory is.<br /><br />Or then a tax system.<br /><br /><br />It's surprising how inane all this discussion is. I guess the law community has to start from somewhere and we should be glad that there is some discussion in the first place!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-75732766107017039852009-10-13T00:44:00.505-07:002009-10-13T00:44:00.505-07:00An interesting approach is taken in this article:
...An interesting approach is taken in this article:<br />"Sharing global CO2 emission reductions among one billion high emitters"<br />http://www.pnas.org/content/106/29/11884<br />(disclaimer: There's a colleague of mine on the authorlist)<br /><br />From the abstract:<br />"All of the world's high CO2-emitting individuals are treated the same, regardless of where they live." (eg amongst half a billion of very poor people, there are 50 million rich, high emitters in India. They should be treated the same, as, say, the French.) <br />The last sentence of the abstract is also noteworthy (esp when rebutting Lomborg style arguments): "We also modify our methodology to place a floor on emissions of the world's lowest CO2 emitters and demonstrate that climate mitigation and alleviation of extreme poverty are largely decoupled."<br /><br />BartAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-66406040249017223782009-10-12T10:30:02.653-07:002009-10-12T10:30:02.653-07:00Both China and India had empires in the past, with...Both China and India had empires in the past, with large areas of economic dominance. They hoarded technology and wealth. They (along with the Persians, classic Greeks, and later Romans) wrote the rules and established the principles and traditions of empire governance. Now, they want us to play by different rules.<br /><br />I do not care. We have only one future. We must work very closely together or all will fail. All must sacrifice much. Nobody, but nobody has admitted in public how much sacrifice will be required. I do not belong to any respectable organization, so I can say it -- All will sacrifice much. Many will sacrifice all.<br /><br />Lawyers and diplomats may talk and negotiate, but Mother Nature makes the rules.Aaronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05150805906414546377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-31801294822201628732009-10-12T07:25:08.728-07:002009-10-12T07:25:08.728-07:00Hmm.
I'm partial to 1992 as a baseline, becau...Hmm.<br /><br />I'm partial to 1992 as a baseline, because that is the year when the international consensus emerged that a policy problem exists. We are all guilty of whatever we did since, regardless of whether our claim to innocence before that date rings hollow. <br /><br />I'm not sure how the migration thing would work. If there were a huge migration (say Mexico to the US) in the intervening years since the baseline, would that count to the advantage of Mexico or the other way around? <br /><br />Would you be so kind as to pick some round numbers for country A and country B and show what result you'd prefer?Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-75219393610740636012009-10-11T18:36:15.578-07:002009-10-11T18:36:15.578-07:00So Eli will play the bad bunny. The population of...So Eli will play the bad bunny. The population of China and India has grown by much more in the past ~50 years than the populations of the US and Europe. In fact, much of the growth of population growth of the US and Europe has been from immigration from India, China and underdeveloped countries. <br /><br />OK, lets allocate by population in 1950, suitably corrected for migration.EliRabetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-5717288618143423632009-10-11T18:03:24.584-07:002009-10-11T18:03:24.584-07:00Thanks!Thanks!Michael Tobishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08229460438349093944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8524070301101240472.post-10181142655280711392009-10-11T16:49:01.759-07:002009-10-11T16:49:01.759-07:00"top" --> "to"
emit"top" --> "to"<br /><br />emitDavid B. Bensonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02917182411282836875noreply@blogger.com