Larry Summers Slams Carbon Trading then Supports Imperial Powers

Summers, Lawrence. 2007. "We Need To Bring Climate Idealism Down To Earth."
Financial Times (30 April): p. 13.
"There is a very real danger that the global cap and trade approach directed at
achieving the rapid emissions reductions enshrined in the Kyoto protocol -- now
favoured by most European governments -- could be ineffective or even
counterpoductive by substituting for more realistic approaches to the problem.
Kyoto is now the only game in town for those who do not want to be ostriches with
respect to global climate change and so one has to hope for its ultimate success.
But it is surely useful to try to be clear about the potential pitfalls, as I am in
this column, and as a matter of prudence to consider alternative approaches if the
Kyoto approach does not succeed."
"First, the Kyoto approach depends on the questionable premise that nations will, in
fact, be bound by binding targets or penalties for not meeting them. It is
instructive in this regard to consider the history of the Maastricht Treaty within
the European Union. It addressed fiscal targets directly under the control of
governments over the relatively short term within a group of countries that had
already achieved a high degree of cohesion. It broke down almost immediately when it
looked like the targets would not be binding for big countries, with the goals
abandoned and no payment of even the modest penalties."
"Second, carbon markets are invitations to engage in pork-barrel corporate subsidy
politics on a massive scale. If greenhouse gas emissions are to be substantially
reduced, the value of the associated emissions rights will be in the tens of
billions of dollars. While in principle emission permits could be auctioned, in
practice they are always allocated administratively. It should not be surprising
that businesses that can pass on carbon costs to their consumers are excited about
schemes that compensate for these costs by allocating them permits related to their
existing emissions levels. As investigations by this newspaper have highlighted, the
clean development mechanism has resulted in substantial payments for emissions
reductions that would have occurred anyway or could have been achieved at negligible
cost. There is even reason to think that certain industrial gas emissions may have
been increased so that credit could be claimed for their abatement."
"The truth about climate change policy is that developing countries are where most
of the future action has to be. They will account for 75 per cent of the increase in
emissions over the next quarter century and are now making the infrastructure
investments that will shape their future economies."
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
michaelperelman.wordpress.com