Tuesday, May 08, 2007



Climate change: cutting it fine

For the past eighteen months the government has been working on a new climate-change policy to replace the now-discarded carbon tax. I've been monitoring the policy development process using the OIA, and since last year cabinet papers have been noting the need for Cabinet to pull all the sector-based strands of policy together into a unified whole around this time. That process has now begun, but it will take around three more months before a final policy emerges. It's good to know things are on track, but at the same time this is cutting things a little fine: three months puts us in August, and the Kyoto Protocol's first Commitment Period begins in January. Even allowing for the use of urgency (and they'd probably have a case for it), that doesn't leave a hell of a lot of time to get the required legislation through the House, let alone for the affected parts of the business community to plan for their obligations (and OTOH, if they're not planning already for a future price on carbon and factoring it into their decisions, they're morons and their shareholders should sack them).

Meanwhile, National is criticising the government for taking too long, arguing that they've been in power for seven and a half years and should therefore have something better than an announcement that there will be more announcements in the future. But as much as I want them to move quickly on this, I also understand that crafting policy takes time, and if its not spent you get the sort of abortion of, say, National's electricity or health "reforms". It's also a little rich for National to be bitching about the delay all of a sudden; in case anyone has forgotten, the government had a policy two years ago, but National undermined it and forced it to be abandoned. For them to suddenly turn around and decry its absence is the height of hypocrisy. OTOH, it does allow us to ask a very important qestion: when the government's policy is finalised, will National vote for it? Because if the answer is anything other than "yes", then I think we can take their complaints that there is still no policy with a grain of salt.

11 comments:

If National are true to their word (a big if), then it is increasingly difficult to see how ACT could be part of a Key cabinet (as opposed to supporting National on confidence and supply). Dunne would also have problems, but can probably be bought off easily enough with a bauble.

MSM commentators rightly draw attention to Labour/Green differences in this policy area. But when are they going to catch up with the contradictions on the right, and therefore, the implications for the direction and composition of a future government?

Posted by Anonymous : 5/08/2007 07:33:00 PM

mfI think the whole Climate Change is just a scam.

What suprises me is that so many people think on an issue as if we live in a world of freedom.

I am a conspiracy theorists because there is so much more going on than whether we pass this bill or that bill or swing this way for a term and then that way for the next term. Right or Left, it does not matter.

What about feminists and socialists and what about the world banking system?

Do we ever consider what else is happening right under our noses? And do we ever ask what agendas are in play?

Posted by julie : 5/08/2007 09:20:00 PM

I?S

You should keep a close eye on how they are fudging or ignoring costs, or completely make them up to look good as Clayton Cosgrove and HC did with the recent home insulation announcment.

Or the dissing of the basic maths around our Kyoto liability, which follows the overhyping of our credit despite the warnings

The Govt just doesn't want to face up the real costs (or doesn't want voters to see them)

Insider

Posted by Anonymous : 5/08/2007 10:14:00 PM

Anon: If Labour manages to successfully implement policy (and that's the big if, given past performance and the attitudes of their coalition "partners"), then I don't expect National to roll it back. Their position has always been about avoiding the political cost to themselves (and maximising it for Labour) than anything else. And I think ACT will be the same (Dunne even more so).

Insider: Treasury seems to be deliberately underestimating the cost of credits. The level of emissions depends on what assumptions you make (especially around the effects of policy); at least the current batch are a little more transparent in what we should expect.

As for "overhyping our credit", previous governments seem to have made a genuine error in calculating our baseline, which led them all to believe that we would be in credit; Labour can hardly be faulted for using the numbers MfE's experts gave them in 2001 - 2002. Their policy was significantly weaker than necessary as a result, but it was based on the information they had available at the time.

The new policies at least seem to be grounded in better figures, which is something we should all appreciate.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 5/08/2007 11:40:00 PM

"the government had a policy two years ago, but National undermined it and forced it to be abandoned"

Isnt the better way to comment on this, is that it went to the NZ public at an election and there weren't teh numbers to pass it? While national didnt support it, it isnt their fault that the voters didnt support it.

Posted by Anonymous : 5/09/2007 09:29:00 AM

I/S

The information from Mfe I was given was that they were told to provide the ‘best’ figures possible, despite concerns about its reliability. Whether there is a paper trail of those doubts I don’t know. It’s how govts sometimes work I suppose.

Sort of like Parker upping the biofuels mandate without consultation saying he knew it was possible, then suddenly this week I see an EECA report that has never been announced or circulated or tested (maybe I wasn’t on the mailing list), justifying the business case for ethanol when every other report commissioned beforehand had the opposite conclusion. Well, well, what a coincidence.

Insider

Posted by Anonymous : 5/09/2007 10:06:00 AM

Idiot/Savant,

I enjoy reading your blog. I (and probably a lot of other readers) really think you should have the chance to monetize it - your efforts more than merit it - Please think about it.

I highly recommend you watch the documentary 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. The documentary covers the potential error in the scientific assumptions that the research of global warming has been based on. It moves on to talk about the loss of objective detachment and professional risks taken in putting forward results that do not support the general findings of the mainstream scientific community.

To some degree the documentary is the antithesis of Gore's doco. It really does make you pause and think about whether (the hypothetical) you have also fallen into a positive feedback loop where opposing views seem detrimental to the environment and therefore offering no view or supporting bad science seems to be the optimal path moving forward. This feedback loop is compounded by an incredible factor when you consider the industry that the environmental-industrial-complex that has been created through political pressure brought about by doom and gloom reports. The reports themselves are often media distortions or selective representation of science that may or may not be based on bad science to begin with.

If stamped 'APPROVED' peer reviewed research requires you to make the same assumptions as the majority of your peers you have to wonder how strong the evidence will have to be before the scientific community can start showing objectivity in what has become a politico-scientific field.

With all that said I am a strong supporter of environmental economics and I think the end-sum of mechanisms such as JI and CDM are beneficial to the environment even with the lack of objectivity and commercial abuses of the mechanisms that have been put in place.

Posted by Unknown : 5/10/2007 11:03:00 AM

Stuart,

I'm sorry, but to this reader your comment didn't make any sense. Also not sure what the acronyms stood for...

That particular documentary has come under a bit of fire...the director sounds like a loose cannon, as witnessed here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1517515.ece
And there are a few links here:
http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2007/05/10/swindled/

About assessing the science yourself, allow me to argue that you shouldn't bother.

We live in a time-poor world, and people like ourselves are uqualified and incapable of assessing the very complicated science involved. It makes sense to delegate the scientific assessments to the right people. But who are the right people? We should design an institution for finding them. Suppose you got to design the institution - would you design something different from the IPCC?

The IPCC is the only, and hence the best, mechanism we have for assessing the climate change threat. Unless someone can make a clear argument that there are unforeseen and systemic problems with that institution that would cause it to be biased in its assessments, then we can assume it's doing a good job, because it has the best institutional design that 'we' were capable of creating (lots of safeguards against error - ie a large number of scientists, extensive peer review, conservatism in judgements, disattachment from policymakers,etc).

In terms of problems with it, some people seem to be spinning that the scientists involved have some kind of monetary or other incentive to 'work up' the threat. But this argument isn't very well developed, and seems implausible, because:
(a) the pay packets for scientists in govt and research institutions never get exhorbitant - although large grants get given the institutions hosting the scientists are always reputable and it's unlikely they would be blowing cash everywhere. There isn't a large financial interest, as there would need to be for a scientist to risk his credentials, standing, and conscience and knowingly overstate a threat for his own gain. No-one has yet developed a theory that I'm aware of that would explain why such people might unknowingly overstate their conclusions.
(b) the people involved with the supposed conflict of interest did their training and followed the career path of climate science a long long time ago, well before climate change was fashionable or prestigious. Like most academics or researchers in unfashionable areas, they made the decision to enter that area out of respect for truth, curiousity, intellectual honesty and other good virtues, and absent any strong argument to the contrary we can assume they are applying those virtues to their current climate change work. Why wouldn't they? Many are or were university researchers, and universities are generally good, although not perfect, at upholding these virtues. It is also not easy for this group of intellectually honest people to be 'infiltrated' - ie its not simple to jump on the climate science bandwagon and pretend to be an expert to get grant money / prestige. The peer review process puts paid to that. (Ok, you can't jump on the IPCC side, you can definitely sell yourself to lobby groups and "scientific" think tanks...these organisations have not 1% of the academic credibility of universities or long-established scientific agencies like NASA, for which thorough politicisation takes a long time, longer than GW Bush's term in office)
(c) the people making the claims of corruptible and self-interested IPCC scientists are themselves, clearly, involved in a vastly larger situation of vested interest. I would wager that pay packets for ExxonMobil's lobby groups are stupendous, probably vastly in excess of what an equally qualified scientist could earn NOT doing the devil's work. Organisations which depend for funding on businesses who stand to lose a lot from policy responses to climate change obviously have an organisational incentive to skew their 'findings'. Does the IPCC organisation, or domestic scientific bodies and universities, have a similar incentive to favour the fortunes of their funders? Maybe in some areas, but certainly not in this area. Governments are loathe to hear about this type of bad news, because it requires hard decisions to be made to ensure long-term prosperity, at the expense of the short term - something most politicians profess to be willing to do. And we know all the reasons why our political systems produce risk-averse, short-term favouring, politicians. So arguing that the IPCC climate scientists face institutional pressure to 'sex up' their findings is bound to fail - it is much more likely that the pressure on these people is in the other direction (there is ample evidence of this in the hammering out of language in the IPCC policymakers reports). Conversely, those making the claims of vested-interest clearly have the largest vested interest themselves. No doubt there are a few genuine disbelievers, and unless there were evidence that NZ's Climate 'Science' Coalition were in the pocket of denialists, then we should give them the benefit of the doubt, and instead of discounting their opinions because of vested interest, treat them proportionately to qualifications and their position among the scientific community (either way of viewing the NZ CSC comes out pretty badly for them though!)

So - trust the organisation most capable of assessing the science - beacuse there are no good reasons not to, and plenty of reaons to be skeptical of those who attack it.

Oh, and I've just seen the comment from 'Julie' above, and... wow...! Wicked satire.. I think?

Posted by Anonymous : 5/10/2007 02:56:00 PM

Anon: While national didnt support it, it isnt their fault that the voters didnt support it.

It is if they did their damndest to promote that outcome - which they did. Remember their campaigns against the (misnamed) "fart tax" and carbon tax (the abandonment of which they are now publicily criticising the government for)? Their whole attempt to blame the government for not implementing policies they opposed at the time and fought tooth and nail against is strikingly hypocritical.

Insider: If you think there's a paper trail, then you can always use the OIA totry and dig it up. It would be interesting, to say the least.

As for the biofuels mandate, I hear that that EECA paper isn't the best. And OTOH, there are actual businessses (including Steve Tindall) who think they can make a profit out of it. If the indications are there that the market can meet a higher target, why not go for it?

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 5/11/2007 02:20:00 PM

abc, Savant,

I hope you are both keeping well.

abc,
Fair point with stating that my comment was a little hard to decipher. I think my rhetoric was a little too strong and ended up distorting the point I was trying to make. So I will try to restate and extend on what I previously said.

The Kyoto treaty CDM and JI mechanisms are fairly easy to find information on - defining them is perhaps a little out of scope for this discussion though.

My personal observation (a weak way to begin my argument ... but bear with me) is that there is a growing minority that now believe the current global warming has not been caused by human factors. This in itself creates an interesting situation.

It is too easy for someone from the majority position to state that a large % hold their position and therefore it must be true. Unfortunately for quoting consensus as evidence and not considering that facts can only support one hypothesis over alternative ones, is the most unscientific one can get.

I am proposing that a trend of people/scientists changing their opinion from the majority position of an argument to the minority position of an argument is a stronger piece of supporting evidence to an argument over the simple statistic of X% support this majority position.

Thoughts that come to mind when I think of this proposition include:
1. People changing to the minority position have to have strong enough convictions/confidence to move away from the attractor forces of
their initial beliefs; the majoriity consensus; the status quo.
2. Early adopters: Term used in technology to describe someone at the cutting edge of their field who is willing to accept new technology before the masses adopt to it - perhaps this same thinking can be adapted to include early adopters of minority positions.
3. Majority positions tend to grow strong footholds in society due to:
people taking the majority position if they have no true position of their own. People are easily persuaded by a majority due to mass-pack mentalities.

In this particular case of Global warming we have the added warm fuzziness (excuse the pun) or being able to take a 'green' position that is against the likes of the oil industry amongst others. There is a certain amount of satisfaction in this for most people - myself included. This in turn becomes a political issue for government and at a later stage has influence over funding for research.

In regards to the research, if the research community as a whole decides that global warming is caused by human based emissions it is at that stage that most research efforts look at new research problems that those previous results have produced. With assuming the previous analysis is correct there is a strong inertia against moving back 3 steps to reassess previous research. Especially if you have made an assumption in your current research that the previous analysis is correct.

This whole concept came to me after discussions with opposing opinions with 2 friends who work in this new carbon trading industry. I ended up forwarding my above proposition to a quant friend who had this to say about it:

"I like your idea though. You consider the differential of the number/percent of people that support an idea rather than the number itself. While this at first glance appears noisier, it could remove a large component of the social inertia by removing part of the autocorrelation of idea adoption (e.g. in the ARIMA model integrating a time series has the effect of making it more stationary and thus more predictable). Another thing we could look at is if looking at rates of adoption implies some degree of underlying independence between the new adopters which would then imply itself that the position is more likely to be correct."

I know this has probably not kept the discussion to what is happening in the industry/research of global warming. Still, I hope it has helped in presenting my logical thinking and why I have the concerns I stated in my first comment.

Warm regards from Tokyo,
Stuart

Posted by Unknown : 6/05/2007 02:15:00 AM

Stuart - thanks

"I am proposing that a trend of people/scientists changing their opinion from the majority position of an argument to the minority position of an argument is a stronger piece of supporting evidence to an argument over the simple statistic of X% support this majority position."
(and your supporting statements)

Thats a really well made point, I think, and I guess I'd agree (subject to a few conditions being met)

Those conditions would be that the trend of movement really is happening, and that the shifts in opinion can't be explained by something else, something other than individual reappraisals of the science.

For the latter, I guess I have in mind the financial rewards you could get by selling yourself to a think-tank, or to a politicised government position in the US, for instance. I don't know enough to really argue that either of those is true - they're just examples.

Anyway, these questions - of whether we (ie, our governments) should take the final IPCC assessments at face value, or look in more detail at preliminary reports and the 'whittling down' process, or even assess the basic science independently - are pretty fascinating. On an issue of such importance, I would say the answer should be "all 3", and I just hope the NZ government has been engaging the best people in the country to do just that.

Ta

Posted by Anonymous : 6/05/2007 11:33:00 AM