Avoiding Calamity on the Cheap

The New York Times | Editorial

Friday 03 November 2006

A much-anticipated study on climate change ordered up by Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain has attempted to calculate the economic costs of global warming. Though necessarily conjectural, the study warns that if we continue on our current course, atmospheric temperatures could rise four degrees or so in this century, producing a hugely disruptive mix of rising sea levels and withering droughts.

This in turn would drain the world economy of trillions of dollars, with social and economic costs on a scale "similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century."

The study, led by Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, says that the only way to avoid that dismal outcome is to slash worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide by investing hundreds of billions of dollars in cleaner technologies. The report has been criticized for overestimating the consequences of warming and underestimating the costs of mitigation. Still, its basic point seems unassailable: failure to act now will exact much greater penalties later on.

Developing and deploying the necessary technologies will require a collective global effort. But the world's leading producer of greenhouse gases, the United States, is doing scandalously little. A detailed examination by The Times's Andrew Revkin pointed out that Washington spends only $3 billion a year for all energy research and development. Of this, only a fraction - $416 million, according to the Energy Department - was spent last year on climate-friendly, renewable technologies like wind, solar power, cellulosic ethanol and hydrogen. By contrast, Washington spends $28 billion on medical research and $75 billion on military research.

The administration claims that it is in fact doing more, especially if various tax incentives for cleaner fuels like ethanol are included in the mix. Even so, in an age when people are worried not only about warming but also about the country's growing dependence on imported oil, the federal effort on alternative energy sources is pathetically small.

The Bush administration's lack of commitment to research might not be quite so lamentable if it had been prodding the private sector into investing in cleaner energy. Private capital is not likely to emerge in big enough quantities unless a significant cost is attached to carbon emissions - either in the form of a carbon tax or a mandatory cap on emissions. But the administration has refused to ask Congress to impose either.

Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, the atmosphere has served as a free dumping ground for carbon gases. If people and industries are made to pay heavily for the privilege, they will inevitably be driven to develop cleaner fuels, cars and factories. Most of the industrialized world has accepted the need for either carbon taxes or strict regulation, and Europe has already imposed a cap on emissions from its cars and factories.

Mr. Bush and many in Congress remain steadfastly opposed - still convinced, it appears, that calamity can be avoided on the cheap.

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