Some IPCC nonsense

[royc...@comcast.net]

One of the most potent arguments used by the IPCC's mitigation experts to scorn geoengineering is that, without any help from geoengineering, the price we will have to pay to meet limits on the maximum loading of greenhouse gases is surprisingly small. In a letter today to the editor of the Financial Times, Dr. Terry Barker, Co-ordinating Lead Author of the IPCC's mitigation group, pointed out that on page 18 of the Summary for Policy Makers of Working Group 3 a crucial finding is that "the maximum cost of the most stringent mitigation targets reported is a reduction in the global growth rate of 0.12 per cent a year to 2050: a reduction from an average rate of 2 per cent per year to 1.88 per cent per year. Table SPM.6 on that page states that the reduction in the world's GDP in the year 2050 is no higher than 5.5 per cent. They divide 5.5 per cent by the 46-year interval between 2004 and 2050 to arrive at the figure of 0.12 per cent.

 

But that makes no sense. Suppose that the damage to the GDP in 2004 is zero and then increases linearly to 5.5 per cent in 2050. The damage in the years 2010, 2020, 2030, and 2040 would be 0.72, 1.91, 3.10, and 4.30 percent, respectively, with an average of 2.75 per cent in the year 2027. The damage in the year 2004 would actually not be zero, so that the real average would be somewhat more than 2.75 per cent, a far cry from 0.12 per cent.

 

The news media accepted the IPCC's figure. On 2 June 2007 The Economist said. "The IPCC reckons that stabilising at 550 ppm would knock around 0.1% off global economic growth annually." On 14 May 2007 U.S. News and World Report said, "The U.N.'s latest report on climate change determined that acting now would cost 0.12 percent of the annual global GDP. The damage from unchecked warming? As much as 20 percent annually."  On 5 May 2007 the Washington Post used the figure 0.12 percent.

 

Publicizing this error would help induce government leaders and others to view geoengineering in a more favorable light. 

.

[David Schnare]

Notably, the "low GDP" predictions all require universal carbon
reduction assumptions. EPA's analysis of the Liberman-Warner bill is
an example. Absent a mechanism to ensure this and similar asumptions
hold true, the economic estimates simply collapse. Unlike the
"consensus" on AGW, there is no consensus on economic impacts. See
Nordhaus.

[Hawkins, Dave]

You are confusing estimates of the cumulative impact on GDP with an annual impact.  The 5.5% figure you cite is a cumulative impact estimate, ie, under the assumptions in the model that produced this estimate, with the specified mitigation effort the world's economy would reach a level in 2050 that would be 5.5% less than it would have reached with no mitigation effort (all of this ignoring the impact on GDP of failing to mitigate climate disruption).

 

It is worth noting that this estimated impact is well within the uncertainty range of different "world class" models' estimates of "reference case" economic growth.  The three models excercised in the US Climate Change Science Program report on integrated mitigation scenarios, produced reference case (non-mitigation) global GDP estimates for 2050 that were 3.16, 3.42, and 4.26 times global GDP in the year 2000.  http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap2-1/finalreport/default.htm

Applying the 5.5% impact estimate you mention to the mid-range reference case GDP estimate from this report would mean that the world would be 3.23 times richer in 2050 with GHG mitigation rather than 3.42 times richer.

 

The reality is that all of the forecasted macroeconomic impacts of mitigation programs are within the noise of the models used to generate them.  They are also premised on a hard-wired assumption that is based more on ideology than empirical data: that the status quo structure of the market (not a "free" market but one with assumed reference case interventions and subsidies) will always maximize GDP compared to any other alternative; therefore any policy that alters investments from what would occur in the reference case will generate an economic loss.

 

We should simply accept the fact that our economic modelling tools are not up to using them to make a robust case regarding the economic impacts of mitgation efforts over a period of decades.  There are good arguments for paying more attention to understanding geoengineering possibilities but arguing that we cannot afford mitigation is not one of them.

 

David

---

From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of royc...@comcast.net
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 11:31 PM
To: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [geo] Some IPCC nonsense

[royc...@comcast.net]

I stand corrected, and I withdraw my criticism of the news media, who reported straightforwardly what the IPCC said. IPCC mitigators evidently devised an unrealistic scenario in which we could keep the earth passably cool but hold the cumulative damage to the world's economy by 2050 to about $2 trillion, or about $50 billion per year. The Stern report, the U.N. Development Report, the bellows of outrage by European industrialists, and common sense say that the damage to the economy would be far higher unless there were a startling breakthrough in technology or geoengineering were employed. I think that $2 trillion per year is a reasonable estimate of the damage in 2050, and I thought that realists in the IPCC agreed.

[Alex Shenderov]

I think what matters is not arithmetic but assumptions. The scenarios
considered in their economic modelling all assume that the standard of
living of the rest of the world will either i) stay as far below US-
Europe-Japan as it does now, or ii) catch up but somehow avoid the
attendant 5-fold increase in energy consumption. I think the scenario
where everyone rushes to burn more fossil fuels to deliver the highest
possible standard of living, without any investment in energy-
efficient technologies, is at least as likely as any other - but it
was just too dreadful for IPCC to consider. In my opinion, that, and
not arithmetic, is what's wrong with their analysis.

On Apr 16, 7:25 am, "Hawkins, Dave" <dhawk...@nrdc.org> wrote:
> You are confusing estimates of the cumulative impact on GDP with an
> annual impact.  The 5.5% figure you cite is a cumulative impact
> estimate, ie, under the assumptions in the model that produced this
> estimate, with the specified mitigation effort the world's economy would
> reach a level in 2050 that would be 5.5% less than it would have reached
> with no mitigation effort (all of this ignoring the impact on GDP of
> failing to mitigate climate disruption).
>
> It is worth noting that this estimated impact is well within the
> uncertainty range of different "world class" models' estimates of
> "reference case" economic growth.  The three models excercised in the US
> Climate Change Science Program report on integrated mitigation
> scenarios, produced reference case (non-mitigation) global GDP estimates
> for 2050 that were 3.16, 3.42, and 4.26 times global GDP in the year

> 2000.http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap2-1/finalreport/default.htm

[eugg...@comcast.net]

Just play back the Stern report which is independent of the IPCC:

 

 

The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, is a 700-page report released on October 30, 2006 by economist Sir Nicholas Stern for the British government, which discusses the effect of climate change and global warming on the world economy. Although not the first economic report on global warming, it is significant as the largest and most widely known and discussed report of its kind.

Its main conclusions are that one percent of global GDP is required to be invested a year in order to mitigate the effects of climate change, and that failure to do so could risk global GDP being up to twenty percent lower than it otherwise might be.

Stern's report suggests that climate change threatens to be the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen, and it provides prescriptions including environmental taxes to minimize the economic and social disruptions. He stated that "our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the e conomic depression of the first half of the 20th century."

 

[Difiglio, Carmen]

One thing to rember about Stern is the very low discount rate that he used (e.g., compared to Nordhaus).  No editorial here except that this is the main reason Stern gets these results that are widely quoted.  One can argue that we shouldn't discount the environment but that doesn't also mean that Stern's results are valid since he is making an economics argument.  

Via BlackBerry
Carmen



Carmen Difiglio, Ph.D.                
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Analysis         
U.S. Department of Energy

----- Original Message -----
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
To: royc...@comcast.net <royc...@comcast.net>; geoengi...@googlegroups.com <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wed Apr 16 07:23:29 2008
Subject: [geo] Re: Some IPCC nonsense

Just play back the Stern report which is independent of the IPCC:


The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, is a 700-page report released on October 30, 2006 by economist Sir Nicholas Stern for the British government, which discusses the effect of climate change and global warming on the world economy. Although not the first economic report on global warming, it is significant as the largest and most widely known and discussed report of its kind.
Its main conclusions are that one percent of global GDP is required to be invested a year in order to mitigate the effects of climate change, and that failure to do so could risk global GDP being up to twenty percent lower than it otherwise might be.

Stern's report suggests that climate change threatens to be the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen, and it provides prescriptions including environmental taxes to minimize the economic and social disruptions. He stated that "our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century."

[eugg...@comcast.net]

For sure any such analysis depends on the assumptions that go into it and assumptions are needed because the basic factors are unknown or in doubt.

 

That is also true of anthropogenic global warming. The state of the science is poor or worse yet many accept the predictions as real. Both the science and the economics are seriously flawed. Why should we accept either as anything but interesting calculations embroidered with pseudoscience.

 

Better to stick to our knitting and focus on what might be done geoengineering wise if by some freak accident the consensus people are accidentally correct about AGW.

 

-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Difiglio, Carmen" <Carmen....@hq.doe.gov>

One thing to rember about Stern is the very low discount rate that he used (e.g., compared to Nordhaus).  No editorial here except that this is the main reason Stern gets these results that are widely quoted.  One can argue that we shouldn't discount the environment but that doesn't also mean that Stern's results are valid since he is making an economics argument.  

Via BlackBerry
Carmen



Carmen Difiglio, Ph.D.                
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Analysis         
U.S. Department of Energy

----- Original Message -----
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
To: royc...@comcast.net <royc...@comcast.net>; geoengi...@googlegroups.com <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wed Apr 16 07:23:29 2008
Subject: [geo] Re: Some IPCC nonsense

Just play back the Stern report which is independent of the IPCC:


The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, is a 700-page report released on October 30, 2006 by economist Sir Nicholas Stern for the British government, which discusses the effect of climate change and global warming on the world economy. Although not the first economic report on global warming, it is significant as the largest and most widely known and discussed report of its kind.
Its main conclusions are that one percent of global GDP is required to be invested a year in order to mitigate the effects of climate change, and that failure to do so could risk global GDP being up to twenty percent lower than it otherwise might be.
Stern's report suggests that climate change threatens to be the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen, and it provides prescriptions including environmental taxes to minimize the economic and social disruptions. He stated that "our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century."


-------------- Original message --------------
From: royc...@comcast.net

One of the most potent arguments used by the IPCC's mitigation experts to scorn geoengineering is that, without any help from geoengineering, the price we will have to pay to meet limits on the maximum loading of greenhouse gases is surprisingly small. In a letter today to the editor of the Financial Times, Dr. Terry Barker, Co-ordinating Lead Author of the IPCC's mitigation group, pointed out that on page 18 of the Summary for Policy Makers of Working Group 3 a crucial finding is that "the maximum cost of the most stringent mitigation targets reported is a reduction in the global growth rate of 0.12 p er cent a year to 2050: a reduction from an average rate of 2 per cent per year to 1.88 per cent per year. Table SPM.6 on that page states that the reduction in the world's GDP in the year 2050 is no higher than 5.5 per cent. They divide 5.5 per cent by the 46-year interval between 2004 and 2050 to arrive at the figure of 0.12 per cent.

But that makes no sense. Suppose that the damage to the GDP in 2004 is zero and then increases linearly to 5.5 per cent in 2050. The damage in the years 2010, 2020, 2030, and 2040 would be 0.72, 1.91, 3.10, and 4.30 percent, respectively, with an average of 2.75 per cent in the year 2027. The damage in the year 2004 would actually not be zero, so that the real average would be somewhat more than 2.75 per cent, a far cry from 0.12 per cent.

The news media accepted the IPCC's figure. On 2 June 2007 The Economist said. "The IPCC reckons that stabilising at 550 ppm would knock around 0.1% off global economic growth annually." On 14 May 200 7 U.S. News and World Report said, "The U.N.'s latest report on climate change determined that acting now would cost 0.12 percent of the annual global GDP. The damage from unchecked warming? As much as 20 percent annually."  On 5 May 2007 the Washington Post used the figure 0.12 percent.

Publicizing this error would help induce government leaders and others to view geoengineering in a more favorable light.
.

OCKQUOTE>