Comments on: Thoughts on an Immediate Freeze on Carbon Dioxide Emissions

By: Steve Hemphill

Steve Hemphill — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 00:42:08 +0000

As far as “then I should think it must in fact opt to lead” you apparently missed that U.S. CO2 emissions increased only 2.1% from 2000 to 2005 while EU 15 emissions increased *twice* that.

http://www.wupperinst.org/download/JIKO-Info_2006-4e.pdf

I wonder what the ratios are for *real* pollution?

By: winston

winston — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 22:15:21 +0000

There may be a price for the US to do something about reducing its per capita emissions but you don’t say what the value might be, Roger. If the US still has ambitions to lead the world on something worthwhile then I should think it must in fact opt to lead, mustn’t it?

By: D. F. Linton

D. F. Linton — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 21:52:38 +0000

This http://www.optimist123.com/optimist/2006/09/energy_post_3_y.html post provides an economist’s view of GDP and energy usage.

By: Joseph O'Sullivan

Joseph O'Sullivan — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 20:50:29 +0000

The continued discussion of individual nation’s climate policy is unfortunately divisive.

But, I think one issue about the US joining the efforts to reduce CO2 is the US’s historic role in environmental regulation, particularly pollution control regulation.

Before recent changes in political leadership, the US was been a leader and innovator in these areas. With more cooperation maybe better solutions will be found.

By: kevin v

kevin v — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 20:01:36 +0000

My take home message from the numbers is that Jevons’ Paradox is alive and well and will continue to be a factor in trying to reduce emissions. You show an expected 11% increase in per capita usage (and I’m sure that’s based on previous trends which have also been steadily upward) which is exactly counter to what we’d expect — that is, we’d expect that as our economy grows more efficient, the amount of energy to produce each dollar of GDP diminishes, so we should be using *less* energy per captia, not more. The fact that per captia emissions increase instead of decrease even in the face of increasing efficiency of usage points to a very real challenge in cutting emissions. It says to me that if we’re planning on relying solely on market mechanisms to adjust energy prices and bring down per-capita emissions we’d better be thinking more critically.

By: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Roger Pielke, Jr. — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:03:27 +0000

Hi Lisa!

Thanks for weighing in!. The point is that efforts to motivate energy efficiency and renewable energy via international cooperation are inextricably tied to issues of population so long as we talk about climate policy at the level of nations. If we separate these issues when we talk about climate policy we are missing a big pary of the policy and political picture.

Thanks!

By: LDilling

LDilling — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:55:12 +0000

I think the reason for the original framing is that the U.S. produces 25% of the world’s emissions (not exactly a “small” share) for only having 5% of the world’s population. So the original framing of the emissions problem was one of per capita equity– how much CO2 should one person be allowed to emit– and many feel that the U.S. exceeds its “share”. What this framing omits of course is that the U.S. GDP is also quite large, one figure I saw for 2002 said about 32% of the world’s economy. Since the U.S. GDP is tied to energy use and 85% of energy in the U.S. comes from fossil fuel (although energy intensity is improving steadily), emissions are accordingly higher than other countries. This doesn’t answer what emissions “should be” for one person, but is a second dimension to the numbers. A per nation focus or per person focus does obscure these other aspects. As far as population policy or immigration being discussed as climate policy, the Sierra club does have a focus on population as a topic: http://www.sierraclub.org/population/
Population and affluence are always key variables in modeling of future scenarios of emissions. However, I think population growth, immigration and any discussion of limits are such hot-button topics that they are unlikely to be a key feature of a climate policy. Much easier to talk about and tackle energy efficiency and renewable energy.