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 Al Gore continues to build a remarkably mixed legacy as the leader
of the movement to combat global climate change. For many years, the
climate debate focused primarily on the scientific questions; today,
that controversy continues but it is increasingly marginal in political
circles, where attention has turned to the far more difficult task of
developing an effective policy response to warming.
Mr. Gore's activism on the science of climate change has earned him
the attention of the world; when he speaks, everyone listens. But what
they hear from him on climate policy is sheer nonsense. Worse, it is
dangerous nonsense; Gore deliberately obscures the critical questions
that need to be carefully considered when crafting climate policy.
Gore's proposal to produce 100 percent of American electricity from
renewable sources within a decade should be rejected--indeed,
ridiculed--even by those who share Gore's goal of combating climate
change.
Almost no one believes Gore's proposal is even technically feasible,
much less economically realistic. This is the sort of goal that a
politician plucks out of thin air just because it sounds bold; it has
no bearing on reality whatsoever. Renewables produce roughly 2.3
percent of our power today; it may be possible to increase that number
significantly, but the idea of generating all of America's electricity
with renewables within a decade is simply laughable. Underscoring the
absurdity of this agenda is Gore's silence on the one source of energy
that realistically could quickly produce significant amounts of
reliable, affordable, zero-emissions energy: nuclear.
Gore's sympathizers might naturally argue that it makes sense to
look at climate policy questions from the perspective of this
idealistic goal--in other words, we need an absurdly ambitious goal in
order to prompt more modest action. That is a charitable interpretation
of Gore's strategy--and unfortunately, one without foundation. Gore is
not clarifying the choices we must make in crafting a realistic climate
policy, he is obscuring them. Caught between Gore's obfuscations and
Bush's inarticulate inaction, it is no wonder that Americans are confused about what a realistic climate policy might involve.
Gore claims that "the real solutions to the climate crisis are the
very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of
ever-rising energy prices." Nothing, in fact, could be further from the
truth, and lying about it to the American people is no way to advance
the public's understanding of this difficult issue.
Here is a simple truth that everyone who actually cares about
climate change should understand: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions
costs money. Reducing them a lot will cost a lot of money. Drastically
reducing them very quickly will cost vast amounts of money. And, no
matter what we do, cutting them enough to stop warming without the
cooperation of major developing economies such as China and India will
be impossible. These facts do not mean that we should do nothing to cut
emissions, by any means--but understanding these inconvenient truths
must be the first step towards crafting a realistic climate policy.
Yes, there are opportunities for businesses and consumers to
conserve energy or produce more of it from zero- or low-emission
sources. Many creative people are pursuing these ideas, and as the cost
of oil rises, more alternatives have become cost-effective. America,
the world's climate pariah, is actually doing quite well at finding
these opportunities to cost-effectively reduce its greenhouse gas
emissions--far better than the European countries that ratified Kyoto.
Sensible government policies can certainly accelerate this process.
But the real challenge of climate change lies in the scale of the
problem. It is relatively easy to make very modest reductions in
emissions; in the short term, it is virtually impossible
to cut them deeply enough and quickly enough to actually stop warming.
We can save money and cut emissions by picking the low-hanging
fruit--taking advantage of opportunities to eliminate waste and
conserve energy. That is happening, and it will continue. But when
that's done, we will still need to climb the biggest tree imaginable
and pick it clean if we want to curtail warming--and that is not going
to be an economical proposition in the immediate future, no matter what
Gore tells you. No government policy could make it so. Honesty about
these costs is a prerequisite to any serious conversation about whether
they are justified.
Gore promises that switching to renewable energy sources will save
us from high energy prices--conveniently ignoring that renewables cost
more than the high-carbon content fuels that Gore wants to eliminate.
You don't make energy cheaper by eliminating the most abundant and
affordable sources of it. It is not possible to cut the cost of energy
by shutting down every power plant in the country that runs on the
cheapest, most abundant, domestically available fuel--coal (which
generates 49 percent of our electric power)--as well as the second
largest source of the same, natural gas (20 percent). Prematurely
retiring more than $500 billion worth of energy infrastructure is not
the key to renewed economic growth, to say the least. It couldn't be
done, but if it were attempted, it would cause economic ruin. If
America thinks that this is really what climate policy demands--and
what it promises--it may well decide it prefers the Bush approach after
all. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what happened the last time
that Gore controlled climate policy.
Democratically elected governments tend to focus on policies that
provide short-term, tangible rewards. They are notoriously poor at
confronting long-term problems such as the Social Security deficit.
Drastic, rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will impose
significant costs while producing no tangible rewards in the short
term. To be effective, these policies must be maintained for many
years. Voters may well elect representatives who will enact costly
measures to cut emissions--but the chances of maintaining those
policies for long in the face of rapidly escalating costs are virtually
nonexistent. Even if Congress enacted Gore's agenda, when the bills
came due in a few years--at a time when China's emissions will be
experiencing double-digit annual growth with no end in sight--the
backlash from voters would set the green movement back decades.
If we are to have any hope at all of crafting sensible climate
policy in the coming years, we must at least learn from our worst
mistakes, and have a healthy respect for the risks that poor policy may
entail. An important new book
from one of the nation's foremost environmental economists, William
Nordhaus, makes this abundantly clear. If we do nothing to halt it,
global warming is likely to cause $23 trillion in damages by the end of
the century. Sound policies to address it would be highly
beneficial--generating as much as $3 trillion in net benefits--but
poorly designed climate policies could be nearly as damaging as warming
itself. Gore's proposal to cut U.S. emissions by 90 percent by 2050,
Nordhaus calculates, would have a net social cost of $21 trillion--the
equivalent of taking $63,000 from every person in America. The danger
that climate change poses is twofold, therefore: the risk of
environmental damage, and the risk of economic disaster arising from
poorly designed climate policies.
We hear frequently from environmental advocates that only greedy oil
companies and cowardly politicians stand between us and a sound climate
policy. That is a convenient story line--but it is far from true.
Arguably, the single biggest obstacle to sound climate policy today is
the nonsense that we hear from naïve advocates like Gore who refuse to
even acknowledge the real-world complexities of the issue. The world
has essentially wasted the last fifteen years pursuing Kyoto; we have
almost nothing to show for it, and Gore to thank for that. Now, Gore
asks Americans to believe that we can eliminate our greenhouse gas
emissions virtually overnight and get rich at the same time. (Strangely
enough, he asserts this while ignoring the fact that his own carbon
footprint has been growing, not shrinking, despite his enormous
wealth.) An honest environmental advocate would admit that rapid,
large-scale emissions reductions will be very expensive; if we could
agree on that basic fact, we could begin to analyze what approach to
achieving those reductions might be most efficient and effective in the
long run. That is a complicated and important question that serious
scholars are working hard to answer. Wouldn't it be nice to have an
honest national conversation about it? It's a shame Gore won't be part
of it. Source
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