The conclusion of another post, Half Baked, that political approaches to climate change using current technologies are empty exercises for the benefit of ideologues and bureaucrats, is similar to Roger Pielke's take.

Science magazine has published two articles this week that suggest that “the wheels of global climate change are in motion, and there is little we can do to stop them, at least in the short-term.” These articles, which no doubt are quality science done by accomplished researchers, suggest to me that discussion of climate change increasingly recirculates the same stories and same reactions – a clear sign of gridlock... I’ve seen no interpretations that suggest that the new studies suggest that we need a fundamentally new approach to climate.

But he points to this Steve Rayner piece that is relevant.

No one suggests that the global emissions reductions envisaged in the Kyoto targets will come anywhere close to limiting emissions at levels that would stabilize anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. The short-term targets give the appearance of serious action, but gloss over the absence of any viable plans for compliance at these levels, let alone those that would come into force with the inevitable tightening of targets. It has been pointed out that, even if all the current Kyoto commitments were met, it would require some 30 repeat performances to reach this goal. At the current rate of 7-10 years for each phase, we would achieve the goal of atmospheric stabilization in 200-300 years! Clearly this is not an acceptable strategy...

Unfortunately, support for Kyoto has become a litmus test for determining those who take the threat of climate change seriously. But, between Kyoto’s supporters and those who scoff at the dangers of leaving greenhouse gas emissions unchecked, there has been a tiny minority of commentators and analysts convinced of the urgency of the problem while remaining profoundly sceptical of the proposed solution. Their voices have largely gone unheard. Climate change policy has become a victim of the sunk costs fallacy. We are told that Kyoto is “the only game in town”. However, it is plausible to argue that implementing Kyoto has distracted attention and effort from real opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect society against climate impacts.

Kyoto is a dumb idea, a muddle headed approach to the problem mistakenly based on the approach used to protect stratospheric ozone though the problems are very different. In a classic case of the Concorde Fallacy true believers are unable to abandon a bad idea because they place so much value on the capital they have already sunk in the project, throwing good money after bad. See Unanimous Fallacies for more on sunk cost.

... they didn't want to abandon their projects in which they had invested so much already and they didn't want to disrupt their group consciousness. They couldn't bear that double loss even though in the end it meant that they would lose everything. It is the self justification noted by Brockner: "when the group is faced with a negative feedback, members will not suggest abandoning the earlier course of action, because this might disrupt the existing unanimity." The individual human susceptibility to the "Concorde fallacy" is amplified by group consciousness.

Kyoto is a bad idea in which much has been invested yet supporters continue to invest more to try to "chase back" investment already squandered and avoid disruption of group consciousness. It's a case study in global insanity.

So, what "fundamentally new approach to climate" might be of use? Rayner notes that for the past few decades energy R&D has been falling for a variety of reasons, not least that energy was abundant and cheap. R&D spending dropped "over 40% worldwide since 1980" of which "a mere 6% of the world’s energy R&D budget has been used to support renewable energy." Rayner advocates collaboration.

Since only 10 countries carry out 98% of the world’s energy research, a concerted programme of new investment in renewable energy is plausible. In principle, this could be achieved without any need for international - let alone global - treaties, as the government policies that are needed mainly consist of domestic programmes to induce firms to invest in renewable energy.

Some limited forms of international agreement would probably be necessary to help transfer advanced, low-emitting technologies to less industrialized countries so that they can avoid following the carbon intensive development path. However, these arrangements would be far less problematic than full implementation of the Kyoto architecture. Rapid dissemination of advanced technologies is essential. One approach might be to emphasize the world class R&D capabilities of China and, increasingly, India, so that they could be partners in this process.

Not a bad idea. It's different but not the "fundamentally new approach" Pielke seeks. I think Rayner's mistake is to dismiss nuclear energy and carbon sequestration as "stop-gap technology".

It is also worth noting that over 60% of all energy R&D undertaken around the world during the past forty years has been spent on developing nuclear power. This might be part of the solution, at least as an interim stop-gap technology, provided that the nuclear waste issue could be resolved. To achieve public acceptance, this would probably require the establishment of secure, monitorable and retrievable waste storage, the capacity of which would be strictly limited to accommodate only the waste of any licensed new facilities.

Another stop-gap technology is carbon sequestration, which could be used to buy time for an effective transition away from intensive use of fossil carbon for energy. The investments in this sector have been meagre, but the insurance value of such investments could be quite substantial.

Climate management isn't simply a matter of eliminating emissions from energy production. Climate will continue to change, even if we emit nothing at all from energy production, since we will unavoidably continue to alter the planet's albedo and biosphere. This is in addition to natural climate change due to a variety of factors. The "fundamentally new approach" is to think in terms of climate management rather than climate change elimination and mitigation. To do that we will need the ability to manage the atmosphere, to either increase or decrease selected gasses as required, with due consideration for inertial effects that can cause long time lapses between action and effect. Nuclear energy and carbon sequestration research are hardly stop-gap technologies when we see the whole problem.

The fantasy of climate hysterics seems to be that humans should become like hobbits or vegetables, living mindfully or mindlessly, in stasis, existing rather than progressing. It's a child's fantasy, a neverland fantasy of perpetual innocence. But, reality doesn't believe in static fantasies, reality likes change and calls the tune, so we need to wake from the daydream of innocent harmlessness and get real. We can either be the windscreen or the bug. We can either take steps to manage our world or get squashed as reality speeds ahead. Idiotic ideas like Kyoto must be abandoned even though we have sunk so much in them already. That money, energy and time is gone - a sunk cost - and is irrelevant to the decision of what we should do next. The current "climate consensus" isn't an asset, it is an impediment to useful thinking and action.

» Half Baked from Crumb Trail
Though it has been said for a long time and is common knowledge among those who have looked at the subject a bit new research models support the expectations for continuing effects from GHGs already emitted. Even if the......[read more]
Tracked: March 18, 2005 11:08 AM