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The greenhouse effect: Formulating a convention
Conference report~Book reviews what they had probably always been, scenarios based on uncertain facts and wishful thinking. To the technical people present, vast markets for energy efficient technology appeared to be opening up in return for decisions in favour of accelerated technical innovation and continued economic growth. If the new technologies so urgently needed in the East are to be paid for by the export of natural gas from the USSR or its successors, would it follow that the countries in the East will have to remain either tied to their traditional energy supplier or become members of a Middle European co-prosperity zone based primarily on electricity and the Deutschmark? One positive concept uniting the representatives of the common European home was 'rationality', as in rational use of energy. I failed to fully u n d e r s t a n d its m e a n i n g unless it meant planning by either state, corporations or both. Perhaps this explains the lack of interest in market solutions and the use of market instruments (except by the Hungarians). The view that harmful climate change is considered unlikely by senior Soviet c l i m a t o l o g i s t s was r e p o r t e d , but strongly contrasted with the catastrophic views of the German scientist engaged in modelling climate change. Some sympathy for the Russian view was heard, however, in private from a member of the audience knowledgeable about the beneficial effects of increased CO2 in real greenhouses. The solar people present were not entirely happy about the proposed emphasis on nuclear contributions. Nor were a small number of local environmentalists who had dared to enter. Perhaps the main message to an observer from the UK came from the floor and was expressed with surprising authority. Germany will not, it was claimed, adopt carbon taxes, but will introduce steep 'fines' on waste heat from all industrial sources. The legal command to not waste heat is indeed already enshrined in 1986 framework legislation. After two years of intensive debate this has apparently been agreed by the Federal Ministry for E n v i r o n m e n t a l , Nature Protection and Reactor Safety (BMU) as being
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the most environment-friendly solution. This would be designed not to increase fossil fuel prices according to their carbon content, but to promote the efficient use of energy in all energy producing and consuming processes. In this way COz would be reduced by using less energy. In German terminology, a major step towards the ecological transformation of industrial society would have been taken. Formally, however, the German decisionmaking process in response to global warming is still underway and the symposium itself was probably mainly directed at this process. The outcome is expected soon and will have implications for Europe. The long d e b a t e about how to promote energy efficiency which is now nearing completion in Germany contrasts with weaker U K efforts. This appears to involve government reducing its own energy consumption by 15% over five years and to enrole soap operas on TV and radio as hid-
den persuaders. These, according to the Energy Secretary, should tell the country to take up energy efficiency as a 'bargain-basement offer'. 1 The Germans would surely disagree. While perhaps not quite as opposed as the British Minister to 'trying to bribe people to do something that is in their own interest', I suspect that German interministerial working groups and their large numbers of expert advisors, are (once again) getting ready to regulate industry to do a lot that is in the interest of the country's economic future. In the process they hope to reduce everybody's energy costs in the longer term, rather than raising costs in the short term through a carbon tax. The 'waste heat' tax approach surely deserves to be discussed more widely.
Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen SPRU Brighton, UK ~The Independent, 18 October 1990, p 27.
Book reviews Streetwise diplomat v economic finesse T H E G R E E N H O U S E EFFECT: Formulating a Convention by William A. Nitze
Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1990, 66 pp, £10 This is the third of a stimulating series of publications from Chatham House under the auspices of its Energy and Environmental Programme. Earlier publications examined the science and politics of negotiating targets, and the scope for limiting CO2 emissions by an imaginative use of allocative permits and payments via technology transfer. Bill Nitze is in many ways well qualified to address the thorny issue of formulating a greenhouse gas reduction convention. Until 1988 he was President Reagan's chief arms control negotiator. He knows more than most about the real world of zero sum
games and prisoner's dilemma strategies aimed at achieving workable consensus under suitable safeguards to avoid the free rider effect. Any greenhouse gas convention of a kind hoped to be negotiated in time for the June 1992 Global Environment and Development Conference has to face at least four hurdles. These are the integrity of the science; the accuracy of data on emissions for each of the principle forcing agents; the effectiveness of monitoring compliance and subsequent sanctions against miscreants; and the issue of fairness, or redistribution from the big emitters to the low emitters to avoid discrimination against p r o s p e c t s for future growth. Nitze addresses these and associated factors with vigour and refreshing clarity. He has obviously enjoyed the challenge of his task. His conclusions are as follows:
ENERGY POLICY September 1991
Book reviews
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There should be a centralized assessment mechanism for continually updating the underlying cause and effect based on best scientific evidence; There should be a strict timetable of staged agreements aiming at a goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions to levels occurring at the date of agreement within a 10-year period; For the industrialized nations the permissible emission level should be that of the average for the five years preceding the agreement. Each party would also have to reduce the ratio of CO2 emissions to fossil fuel burning by 2%/year over the succeeding 10-years; All parties would be obliged to ensure no net loss of forests on an annual basis again by the end of the post agreement 10-year run-in phase; Each party would be required to produce a national strategy to meet these objectives, updated every two years, and accountable to national legislatures; There needs to be a technical data gathering, training and technology transfer mechanism funded via the W o r l d Bank from the O E C D countries.
Nitze recognizes that political bargaining and compromise necessary to achieve any protocol will weaken all these, fairly modest, objectives. He also avoids any linkage with liability of defaulting and enforcement of noncompliers on the grounds that aggressive action could prove counter productive, and that the most suitable sanctions are full disclosure and the pressure of public opinion. In addition he argues that the possible imposition of taxes on an emission permit and technology trading strategy should not be incorporated into the convention, but should follow through separately negotiated protocols. Nitze's proposals are modest by standards sought from the mainline environmental organizations. He seeks, however, to argue with realism. Some targets are necessary, even if o n l y to f o r c e g o v e r n m e n t i n t o accountable action and impede the
excesses of the warring p r e s s u r e groups who might otherwise stall the process with endless bickering. The 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development suggests an important symbolic market for subsequent action. The 10-year adjustment period is arguably too long to achieve compliance, but it at least set a target date for significant compliance. The scientific executive body would be modelled on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lines, with an administrative bureau, a powerful executive council and four permanent committees: two corresponding to the IPCC working groups on science and impacts, one on emission reduction strategies, and one on adaptation measures. The whole programme would be administered by a small but powerful secretariat. Nitze's proposals smack of realism, but inevitable compromise. He recognizes that the major parties will not accept a tough convention so long as the science is unsure. Since it will take at least 10 years (and possibly much more) to arrive at genuinely plausible estimates, frankly it is highly unlikely that even his very modest proposals will get a full airing before 1992. The Gulf War might certainly scotch any prospects of a carbon tax, though any
subsequent oil price rise might be maintained as oil prices 'naturally' fall. Nitze plays down the proposals of his fellow Chatham House author Michael Grubb a who firmly advocates tradeable carbon emissions permits. He believe that early, modest, emissions targets for all countries, set by nationally devised programmes of reduction (including economic and command target) would be better, even if suboptimal in economic terms. For those economists who wish to see economic sense imposed at the outset this will be a disappointing conclusion, for Nitze's proposals allow the first round of targets to be determined with no formal recourse to economic valuation measures. To get something begun, and to be seen to make it work will involve political bargaining of a high order. Nitze speaks the language of the streetwise diplomat. Economic finesse has its place, but only, it seems once the bandwagon has started rolling.
Timothy O'Riordan School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia, UK 1Michael Grubb, The Greenhouse Effect: Negotiating Targets, Royal Institute for International Affairs, London, UK, 1990.
The US LWR experience
ENERGY POLICY September 1991
THE DEMISE OF NUCLEAR E N E R G Y ? Lessons for Democratic Control of Technology Joseph G. Morone and Edward J. Woodhouse
Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 172 pp This is a splendid book. Do not be put off by the title. (The question mark is important.) It is not another dreary anti-nuclear tirade - even though early in the book the authors say they have taken as given that nuclear power, in the U S A at any rate, is politically unacceptable and, with the odd exception, uneconomic. The central theme is clear and well expressed. The au-
thors set themselves the task of finding out why, despite a great deal of trouble and billions of dollars of expenditure, the U S A ended up with an unacceptable nuclear system and what lessons for the democratic control of technology this experience has to offer. The book is essentially Americocentric but it does contain lessons for other countries and does help to explain why some have had happier experiences than others. The analysis is conducted with great scholarship, insight and intellectual integrity, with refreshing absence of the supercilious condemnation, with the benefit of hindsight, of decisions taken decades ago that characterizes most attempts at similar reviews.
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the most environment-friendly solution. This would be designed not to increase fossil fuel prices according to their carbon content, but to promote the efficient use of energy in all energy producing and consuming processes. In this way COz would be reduced by using less energy. In German terminology, a major step towards the ecological transformation of industrial society would have been taken. Formally, however, the German decisionmaking process in response to global warming is still underway and the symposium itself was probably mainly directed at this process. The outcome is expected soon and will have implications for Europe. The long d e b a t e about how to promote energy efficiency which is now nearing completion in Germany contrasts with weaker U K efforts. This appears to involve government reducing its own energy consumption by 15% over five years and to enrole soap operas on TV and radio as hid-
den persuaders. These, according to the Energy Secretary, should tell the country to take up energy efficiency as a 'bargain-basement offer'. 1 The Germans would surely disagree. While perhaps not quite as opposed as the British Minister to 'trying to bribe people to do something that is in their own interest', I suspect that German interministerial working groups and their large numbers of expert advisors, are (once again) getting ready to regulate industry to do a lot that is in the interest of the country's economic future. In the process they hope to reduce everybody's energy costs in the longer term, rather than raising costs in the short term through a carbon tax. The 'waste heat' tax approach surely deserves to be discussed more widely.
Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen SPRU Brighton, UK ~The Independent, 18 October 1990, p 27.
Book reviews Streetwise diplomat v economic finesse T H E G R E E N H O U S E EFFECT: Formulating a Convention by William A. Nitze
Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1990, 66 pp, £10 This is the third of a stimulating series of publications from Chatham House under the auspices of its Energy and Environmental Programme. Earlier publications examined the science and politics of negotiating targets, and the scope for limiting CO2 emissions by an imaginative use of allocative permits and payments via technology transfer. Bill Nitze is in many ways well qualified to address the thorny issue of formulating a greenhouse gas reduction convention. Until 1988 he was President Reagan's chief arms control negotiator. He knows more than most about the real world of zero sum
games and prisoner's dilemma strategies aimed at achieving workable consensus under suitable safeguards to avoid the free rider effect. Any greenhouse gas convention of a kind hoped to be negotiated in time for the June 1992 Global Environment and Development Conference has to face at least four hurdles. These are the integrity of the science; the accuracy of data on emissions for each of the principle forcing agents; the effectiveness of monitoring compliance and subsequent sanctions against miscreants; and the issue of fairness, or redistribution from the big emitters to the low emitters to avoid discrimination against p r o s p e c t s for future growth. Nitze addresses these and associated factors with vigour and refreshing clarity. He has obviously enjoyed the challenge of his task. His conclusions are as follows:
ENERGY POLICY September 1991
Book reviews
•
•
•
•
•
•
There should be a centralized assessment mechanism for continually updating the underlying cause and effect based on best scientific evidence; There should be a strict timetable of staged agreements aiming at a goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions to levels occurring at the date of agreement within a 10-year period; For the industrialized nations the permissible emission level should be that of the average for the five years preceding the agreement. Each party would also have to reduce the ratio of CO2 emissions to fossil fuel burning by 2%/year over the succeeding 10-years; All parties would be obliged to ensure no net loss of forests on an annual basis again by the end of the post agreement 10-year run-in phase; Each party would be required to produce a national strategy to meet these objectives, updated every two years, and accountable to national legislatures; There needs to be a technical data gathering, training and technology transfer mechanism funded via the W o r l d Bank from the O E C D countries.
Nitze recognizes that political bargaining and compromise necessary to achieve any protocol will weaken all these, fairly modest, objectives. He also avoids any linkage with liability of defaulting and enforcement of noncompliers on the grounds that aggressive action could prove counter productive, and that the most suitable sanctions are full disclosure and the pressure of public opinion. In addition he argues that the possible imposition of taxes on an emission permit and technology trading strategy should not be incorporated into the convention, but should follow through separately negotiated protocols. Nitze's proposals are modest by standards sought from the mainline environmental organizations. He seeks, however, to argue with realism. Some targets are necessary, even if o n l y to f o r c e g o v e r n m e n t i n t o accountable action and impede the
excesses of the warring p r e s s u r e groups who might otherwise stall the process with endless bickering. The 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development suggests an important symbolic market for subsequent action. The 10-year adjustment period is arguably too long to achieve compliance, but it at least set a target date for significant compliance. The scientific executive body would be modelled on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lines, with an administrative bureau, a powerful executive council and four permanent committees: two corresponding to the IPCC working groups on science and impacts, one on emission reduction strategies, and one on adaptation measures. The whole programme would be administered by a small but powerful secretariat. Nitze's proposals smack of realism, but inevitable compromise. He recognizes that the major parties will not accept a tough convention so long as the science is unsure. Since it will take at least 10 years (and possibly much more) to arrive at genuinely plausible estimates, frankly it is highly unlikely that even his very modest proposals will get a full airing before 1992. The Gulf War might certainly scotch any prospects of a carbon tax, though any
subsequent oil price rise might be maintained as oil prices 'naturally' fall. Nitze plays down the proposals of his fellow Chatham House author Michael Grubb a who firmly advocates tradeable carbon emissions permits. He believe that early, modest, emissions targets for all countries, set by nationally devised programmes of reduction (including economic and command target) would be better, even if suboptimal in economic terms. For those economists who wish to see economic sense imposed at the outset this will be a disappointing conclusion, for Nitze's proposals allow the first round of targets to be determined with no formal recourse to economic valuation measures. To get something begun, and to be seen to make it work will involve political bargaining of a high order. Nitze speaks the language of the streetwise diplomat. Economic finesse has its place, but only, it seems once the bandwagon has started rolling.
Timothy O'Riordan School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia, UK 1Michael Grubb, The Greenhouse Effect: Negotiating Targets, Royal Institute for International Affairs, London, UK, 1990.
The US LWR experience
ENERGY POLICY September 1991
THE DEMISE OF NUCLEAR E N E R G Y ? Lessons for Democratic Control of Technology Joseph G. Morone and Edward J. Woodhouse
Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 172 pp This is a splendid book. Do not be put off by the title. (The question mark is important.) It is not another dreary anti-nuclear tirade - even though early in the book the authors say they have taken as given that nuclear power, in the U S A at any rate, is politically unacceptable and, with the odd exception, uneconomic. The central theme is clear and well expressed. The au-
thors set themselves the task of finding out why, despite a great deal of trouble and billions of dollars of expenditure, the U S A ended up with an unacceptable nuclear system and what lessons for the democratic control of technology this experience has to offer. The book is essentially Americocentric but it does contain lessons for other countries and does help to explain why some have had happier experiences than others. The analysis is conducted with great scholarship, insight and intellectual integrity, with refreshing absence of the supercilious condemnation, with the benefit of hindsight, of decisions taken decades ago that characterizes most attempts at similar reviews.
697