Tag: "global warming"

Increased Human Emissions has its Benefits

Politically-funded and agenda-driven scientists who have built their careers on the theory that the exhaust from the burning of fossil fuels leads to a dramatic increase in temperatures and “the greenhouse effect” and who live well on the $2.6 billion dollars a year of Federal grants for global warming and climate change research cling to this theory and bend the data spread to support the glorified claims in their reports and papers. This is a well-informed, well-reasoned understanding of the National Climate Assessment (NCA) report, which is an exercise in political science, not climate science. Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute rightly called it “an alarmist document to scare people and build political support for unpopular policies such as carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, and EPA regulatory mandates,” in his May 6 analysis on FoxNews.com.

While the NCA (and Obama talking points), use the term carbon “pollution,” the “greenhouse gas” supposedly causing most of the trouble, carbon dioxide (CO2) is a natural substance essential for the survival of all life on the planet. Plants need CO2 to grow and conduct photosynthesis, the natural process that creates food for animals and fish at the bottom of the food chain.

In fact, the increased atmospheric concentration of CO2 increased agricultural output and production by $3.2 trillion between 1961 and 2011. Thus, the documented effects of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been positive so far.

Even with increasing human CO2 emissions, carbon dioxide is still a trace gas in the environment, constituting just 0.04 percent of the atmosphere Figure I shows that greenhouse gases compose 1-5 percent of the atmosphere, and Figure II demonstrates that CO2 composes only 3.62 percent of greenhouse gases. We still live in a world starving for carbon dioxide, especially given the crucial importance of CO2 to plant and animal life. Data shows that during the Pre-Cambrian period (about 550 million years ago) CO2 concentration levels were 15 times greater than today with no record of any catastrophic results, shown in Figure III. Human and natural emissions of CO2 are only 4-5 percent of total global emissions.

In addition, uncontested global temperature data shows there has been no global warming for 17 years and 8 months now, even as human global CO2 emissions have continued to accelerate to unprecedented levels. The Economist reported last year that from 2000 to 2010, human carbon dioxide emissions totaled roughly 100 billion tons of CO2, which equaled about one-fourth of all human emissions since the industrial revolution in 1750.

Jul 14, 2014 | 4 comments | by Lloyd Bentsen

National Climate Assessment Misses the Mark

Although the National Climate Assessment (NCA) attempts to provide a comprehensive report on the state of global warming and climate change, it misses the mark in every possible way. First, the report claims nothing but negative effects of rising anthropogenic CO2 levels. However, CO2 composes a minute percentage of atmospheric gases, and the rise in emissions has actually been economically beneficial by exponentially increasing crop yield. Moreover, data reveals that the environment is currently entering a period void of any global warming. Second, the assessment states that the rising temperatures are causing more frequent and severe natural disasters. Yet, experts testify that no significant trends in floods, droughts, tornados, or hurricanes exist. In fact, according to these experts, the frequency of tornadoes and severity of hurricanes have decreased over time in the United States. Third, the NCA reports that rising sea levels have severely damaged domestic infrastructure. However, data reveals a deceleration in sea level rise, one that will remain negligible in the coming century. In light of this propaganda, the Obama administration is using this assessment to prevent natural gas and oil exploration which could support tens of thousands of jobs during a staggering economy. As will be explained in future blog posts, it seems like the National Climate Assessment has done nothing but perpetuate lies and hurt the economy.

Jul 09, 2014 | 7 comments | by Lloyd Bentsen

The Global Warming Uncertainty: Is “Doing Something” More Ethical Than “Doing Nothing”?

However great your task or the challenge ahead, it’s better to do something rather than nothing. We may only be as small as a grain of sand on the beach, but we can make a lasting impact especially if we work together.

— Peter Hawkins

Although Dr. Hawkins was not addressing climatology with his quote, it accurately expresses a common philosophy employed by most environmentalists. Are the skeptics of mankind’s complicities in causing global warming (or climate disruption, or whatever is the term du jour) guilty of negligence in the face of potential global catastrophe? Are the “deniers” who disdain costly regulations over individual liberty guilty of the sin of “doing nothing” when it would be far more ethical “to do something”? Let’s take a look at recent climatological history.

As late as the 1970s, the world’s leading scientists predicted that the earth was headed for an ice age that would wreak havoc on civilization if we were not adequately prepared. Real Science and Popular Technology.net have collected numerous news articles (with their accompanying “scientific” graphs) that predicted a global catastrophe was imminent, lest we do something immediately to prepare for it. Here are just a few:

A New York Times article (1/5/78) sported the headline, “International team of Specialists Finds No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend in Northern Hemisphere.” While a minority of the climate scientists was not concerned, the majority urged that federal policy be instituted to make preparations. A majority of scientists couldn’t be wrong, could they?
A Newsweek article (4/28/75) cites April of 1973 as having produced “the most devastating outbreak (of tornadoes) ever recorded.” It also noted that NOAA’s satellite pictures confirm a “sudden, large increase in northern hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72.” Further, NOAA’s scientists found that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. “diminished by 1.3 percent between 1964 and 1972.” All these examples and more were used as clear and compelling evidence that global cooling was inevitable.
The journal Science (7/71) published an article fearing that typical consumer aerosols were contributing to observed global cooling, stating that they “reduce the surface temperature of Earth.” Curbing aerosol use was presumed to help stem the pending global freeze.
A CIA report (1974) concludes that the global cooling trend that started in the 1960s has been “confirmed” by science. For the first time, the CIA officially considered a pending climate threat with such a concern that it altered its international relations policies due to the destabilizing political impacts expected to arise from vast crop harvest failures and tremendous population relocations that were sure to follow.

Does this theme of climate alarmism sound familiar? Contemporary science had “concluded” that we were all doomed to a frigid life of local starvation and global political unrest if we did not take immediate and significant actions. Yet what would the world have look like today, had we felt compelled then to “do something — anything” at the time, based on the best available research promoted by an impressive consensus of scientists?

What if we had employed the actions promoted by concerned climate activists, such as covering the arctic ice cap with black soot, increasing its melting rate in order to maintain the sea levels? Or stockpiling millions of tons of American grains in silos at the expense of exporting it to foreign countries that could not produce enough grain to feed their own people? Or pumping tons of extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to counteract the coming freeze by inducing… global warming? Would it really have been more ethical for us to just “do something — anything” in the face of less than universal scientific consensus, in the holy name of saving our planet? I do not think this is what Dr. Hawkins meant when he encouraged us into “making a lasting impact.”

Jun 23, 2014 | 4 comments | by Michael Stroup

Understanding CFR’s Global Governance Report Card

This month, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) reported its Global Governance Report Card for its broad range of international issues, including climate change. This time around, the organization gave the global climate change regime a D-rating. Here were the overall grades that the regime received:

CLIMATE CHANGE REGIME		CLASS EVALUATION
Understanding Climate Change Threats	Excellent	Leader:	European Union, Pacific Islands Forum
Curbing Emissions and Promoting Low Carbon Development	Poor	Gold Star:	Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change
Monitoring and Enforcing Emissions Cuts	Average	Most Improved:	None
Financing Emissions Cuts and Adaptation	Poor	Laggard:	China, United States
Adapting to Climate Change	Poor	Truant:	Russia, Australia
Utilizing Carbon Sinks	Good	Detention:	Canada

Clearly, the international regime has deprioritized climate change. But while this may not seem all too worrisome, the most startling grades are those that regard adaptation, both of which received poor grades. Please read my other blog post about adaptation strategies for climate change and their importance in today’s era to better understand my concern for these ratings. In essence, climate change does not seem quite imminent but does is occurring. Thus, the private sector or the government should begin investing in adaptation strategies that will ensure the longevity of society before the impacts of climate change enter into full effect. Last year, adaptation projects represented only 17 percent of global climate finance, indicating a widespread lack of prioritization for this type of strategy. However, if climate change is to be adequately dealt with, this percentage should be the opposite, with adaptation strategies representing at least 83 percent of climate finance.

According to the CFR, the United States, China, and the European Union all made modest gains with regards to adaptation strategies, but they wholly failed at assisting developing nations working to come up with similar strategies. As I note in my blog post regarding developing and developed nations, developing countries are more susceptible to the impacts of climate change. Although developed nations have more abundant finances to invest in adaptation strategies, developing nations have more to lose if they fail to implement strategies of their own. Thus, with the assistance of developed nations, these developing nations should start implementing green growth strategies that could help protect their particularly vulnerable societies. The U.S. must move form a laggard status to a leader on climate change, as its leadership on solutions to environmental issues is crucial.

As the international regime’s understanding of climate change threats is “excellent,” it is time that the regime starts actively pursuing strategies that can minimize the effects that the impacts have on society. Perhaps by this time next year, the rating will move.

Tanner Davis is a research associate at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Jun 23, 2014 | Leave a Comment | by Lloyd Bentsen

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics: The 2014 National Climate Assessment Report

The 2014 U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA) report has been receiving much attention since President Obama heralded it in his speech back in May. The administration realizes that the push for ever greater climate change regulations requires convincing evidence of sufficient alarm to justify this authoritarian push. While this report delivers the alarm, it falls short on verifiable evidence. Indeed, a scientific rebuttal of many parts of the NCA report appears here.

However, an astute follower of our NCPA Energy and Environment blog, Tom Isaacson, has also reviewed the NCA report and has found it wanting. He points out that the evidence used in the report to verify the impact of mankind’s activity on global temperatures is badly misrepresented. And he uses the information cited in the NCA report as proof to back his claim. Page 8 of the NCA report contains this graphic:

Isaacson points out that this graphic portrays two confidence bands produced by the accepted climate models to predict annual average global temperature changes over the years. The lower band (in green) represents the range of temperature changes that the models predict would have occurred naturally without any human factors. The upper band (in blue) represents the range of predicted temperature changes when both natural and human factors are combined. The solid black line indicates the actual observed temperature changes for each year, ending in 2005.

The NCA report notes that the annual temperature changes over the past half century have been almost entirely within the band of predicted changes arising from both human and natural impacts, but almost entirely outside the band of predicted changes arising from only natural impacts. This implies that not only are the accepted climate models accurate and trustworthy, but they also provide evidence supporting the conclusion that the actions of mankind are indeed responsible for global warming.

However, this is where Isaacson points out the “sleight of hand” used in the statistical analysis: the NCA analysis and graphic both use the wrong prediction bands to build credibility for the models and to support their conclusions. His proof: the NCA report bases their analysis and above graphic on an 2011 article written by Markus Huber and Reto Knutti (H&K) in the journal, Nature Geoscience. Their graphic appears below:

The lower prediction band (in blue) represents the predicted range of temperature changes that would have occurred naturally without any human factors. The middle band (in orange) represents the range of changes if only human factors are reflected. The upper band (in grey) represents the range of changes if both human and natural factors are combined. Now let us have a look up the sleeve of the NCA magicians…

Note how the grey prediction band from H&K graphic representing both human and natural factor impacts is narrower than the orange band representing only human factor impacts, which in turn is slightly narrower than the band representing natural factors alone. These relative band size relationships are clearly notretained in the NCA report graphic, which shows the prediction band for the combined human and natural factors as being much wider than for the natural factors alone.

In other words, it appears that the authors of the NCA report use an incorrect, wider confidence band to make the temperature predictions of the climate models to appear artificially accurate, thereby making the climate models appear to be more trustworthy. To illustrate, note that the spike in average global temperature change in 1998, and the dip in 2000, both fell completely outside the grey prediction band in the H&K chart, but fall completely inside the blue prediction band in the NCA report.

Further, Isaacson notes that the NCA report cuts off their chart in 2005, while the H&K chart continues on out to 2010. Indeed, the attenuated NCA chart fails to show that the low temperatures recorded in the H&K chart for 2007, 2008 and 2009 all lie below and outside the grey prediction band. This means that the model creates a prediction band that fails to include 5 of the last 12 years of the observed annual data — because the temperatures were lower than predicted.

I am sorry, but Tom and I both feel that being wrong 41 percent of the time over the last twelve years is certainly not a good enough track record to justify using these findings to impose many billions of dollars’ worth of climate change regulations onto a sputtering American economy.

Jun 16, 2014 | Leave a Comment | by Michael Stroup

Adaptation Strategies for Climate Change

Although negligibly, climate change is happening, and addressing the issue in the short-term may prevent drastic future effects. When determining how to actually address climate change, two main strategies exist: mitigation and adaptation. While these two may appear similar, a nuanced difference distinguishes the two. Mitigation addresses the causes of climate change, while adaptation addresses the effects of climate change. Even though adaptation is a form of mitigation, it attempts to mitigate the harmful effects, not the causes. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), adaptation strategies can be either protective (guarding against the negative impacts of climate change) or opportunistic (taking advantage of any beneficial effects of climate change).

While an exact range is not agreed upon, most studies predict that the global mean in temperature has and will continue to rise. Some predict marginal gains, while others predict a drastic spike. Nevertheless, most agree that climate change is happening, and the evidence clearly reveals a trend in increasing temperatures. However, even though a consensus exists with regards to the veracity of climate change, no consensus exists on its causes. If the exact causes are unknown, nations spending money on mitigation strategies are taking shots in the dark at trying to stop climate change. Thus, nations may find adaptation measures more economically sensible than mitigation, as these strategies are a guaranteed way of protecting society.

As adaptation clearly appears the appropriate method of addressing climate change, many different strategies have been proposed to protect various sectors and industries. However, while the strategies may differ, the process of planning effective adaptation strategies tends to follow a similar, cyclical pattern for most nations. Here are the most common and effective six steps, according to the National Research Council:

Identify current and future climate changes relevant to the system.
Assess the vulnerabilities and risks to the system.
Develop an adaptation strategy using risk-based prioritization schemes.
Identify opportunities for co-benefits and synergies across sectors.
Implement adaptation options.
Monitor and reevaluate implemented adaptation options.

With this established methodology for discovering and implementing adaptation strategies, the EPA has given various examples of policies for each sector.

SECTOR	ADAPTATION STRATEGY
Agriculture and Food Supply	Breed crop varieties that are more tolerant of heat, drought, and water logging from heavy rainfall or flooding Protect livestock from higher summer temperatures by providing more shade and improving air flow in barns
Coasts	Promote shore protection techniques and open space preserves that allow beaches and coastal wetlands to gradually move inland as sea levels may rise. Identify and improve evacuation routes and evacuation plans for low-lying areas, to prepare for increased storm surge and flooding.
Ecosystems	Protect and increase migration corridors to allow species to migrate as the climate changes. Promote land and wildlife management practices that enhance ecosystem resilience.
Energy	Increase energy efficiency to help offset increases in energy consumption. Harden energy production facilities to withstand increased flood, wind, lightning, and other storm-related stresses.
Forests	Removing invasive species. Promoting biodiversity and landscape diversity. Collaborating across borders to create habitat linkages. Managing wildfire risk through controlled burns and thinning.
Human Health	Implement early warning systems and emergency response plans to prepare for changes in the frequency, duration, and intensity of extreme weather events. Plant trees and expand green spaces in urban settings to moderate heat increases.
Society	Developing plans to help elderly populations deal with more extreme weather. Relocating communities where in-place adaptation is not feasible. Considering how the private sector can support and promote adaptation. Understanding the specific needs of sensitive populations.
Transportation	Raising the level of critical infrastructure. Changing construction and design standards of transportation infrastructure, such as bridges, levees, roads, railways, and airports. Abandoning or rebuilding important infrastructure in less vulnerable areas.
Water Resources	Improve water use efficiency and build additional water storage capacity. Protect and restore stream and river banks to ensure good water quality and safe guard water quantity

Often times, an effective strategy takes the dual-mandate approach, implementing adaptation and mitigation processes. However, with mitigation looking less effective each day, going all in on necessary adaptation strategies seems to be more appropriate. While mitigation strategies may buy a little more time in the long-run, adaptation strategies must take precedence as they will have definitive positive impacts. Rather than implementing new regulations to curb carbon emissions or regulate business, the federal government should work to prioritize the protection of these industries.

Tanner Davis is a research associate at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Jun 11, 2014 | 11 comments | by Lloyd Bentsen

Comparing Protocols: Successes, Failures, and Recommendations

A recent New York Times article — “Trying to Reclaim Leadership on Climate Change” — reports the longstanding indifference toward climate change. In fact, President Obama’s proposal of new rules to cut emissions at power plants makes him one of the few political leaders with a serious agenda on the issue. However, even Mr. Obama’s noble attempt will remain futile if the rest of the world is unwilling to follow suit. With the ineffectiveness at recent protocols, it is worth comparing two protocols to determine how to address the issue going forward and why Mr. Obama is trying to reclaim leadership on the issue.

Montreal Protocol

When: September 16, 1987
Where: Montreal, Canada
Issue: Depletion of the ozone layer and Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
Successful?: Yes

With the discovery that certain substances, notably CFCs, were rapidly depleting the ozone layer, many nations sought to solve the issue but recognized that this issue transcended every individual border. Since the ozone layer belongs to all nations not simply one, it was the responsibility of all nations to address the pressing issue. Thus, as a multilateral force, they concocted a plan to slow the depletion of the ozone layer so it could recover. As stated, the protocol would phase-out CFCs from commercial production, particularly in the aerosol industry. And it has worked!

Considered a major multilateral success, the Montreal Protocol is persistently touted as the prime example of how well nations can work together on global environmental issues. But why was it successful? The Montreal Protocol had the perfect combination of factors: hegemons (U.S. and U.K.) taking the lead, a short timeframe before the ozone was projected to dissolve, a great mutuality of interests among the attending parties, and concentrated benefits with distributed costs. Due to all of these factors, 197 parties have already ratified the protocol, making it the poster child for a successful multilateral operation on environmental regulation.

Kyoto Protocol

When: December 11, 1997
Where: Kyoto, Japan
Issue: Anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
Successful?: No

Attempting to ride the success of Montreal, nations reconvened to address another environmental matter: anthropogenic GHG emissions causing climate change. However, this time the result was not so successful, for a few reasons. First of all, the major hegemons were hesitant to take the lead, as limiting carbon emissions could severely harm industries and make energy prices very expensive. Second, since there was no general consensus as to when climate change would occur, who or what caused it, and how drastic the effects were going to be, many parties shied from ratifying a protocol that could potentially not offer any ecological benefit. Third, a carbon cap would hinder developing economies that were just now going through their own industrial revolutions more so than nations with already developed economies, resulting in a discordance of interests. Finally, because every nation would be sacrificing economic growth for uncertain environmental security, each nation would bear concentrated costs with diffused benefits. Nevertheless, 55 nations ratified the protocol, committing to reduce carbon emissions 5 percent by 2010 and 10 percent by 2020. However, CBC news confirmed the failure of Kyoto, citing a 58 percent increase in emissions within the past decade.

U.S. Policy Going Forward

Clearly, Montreal was much more successful than Kyoto for a variety of reasons. With the success in Montreal and other protocols attempting to address the issues raised by Kyoto, Obama proposed domestic rules to limit carbon emission in the United States. Whether or not his policy will curb climate change is up for debate. However, Obama recognizes that if another multilateral environmental success is to occur in the future, the United States must take the lead to ensure that others. Additionally, the U.S. must offer incentives for other nations to also commit to the same goals. Without the support of other nations, Obama’s proposal will result in substantial economic costs with minimal ecological benefits.

Tanner Davis is a research associate at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Jun 04, 2014 | 2 comments | by Lloyd Bentsen

Economic Consequences of Climate Change Policies

According to The Growing Benefits of a Warmer World by the NCPA, global warming has many tangible benefits to the economy. Supplementing the argument, many negative economic consequences exist from climate change policy. Thus, a two-fold offensive argument exists: global warming helps the economy and policies to curb warming hurt the economy.

A study conducted by the Heritage Foundation found that carbon policies with very lofty targets and goals, such as the Waxman-Markey legislation (an 80 percent cut in CO2 emissions by 2050) passed by the House of Representatives in 2009, would have long-term detrimental economic effects:

An aggregate income loss to the U.S. of $207.8 trillion by 2100.
An aggregate income loss worldwide of $109.6 trillion by 2100.
A one-year worldwide loss of $3.5 trillion in 2100, equivalent to 4.75 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product.
Adverse impacts, on net, in every year of implementation.

Even more startling, these numbers assume that the U.S. is the only country to enact a carbon policy. The numbers skyrocket when including the rest of the world implementing similar policies. As such, while these policies may address environmental degradation, the negative economic effects greatly outweigh the positive results in all aspects of the “cost-benefit analysis.” In fact, having a stronger economy will help society to overcome the negative effects of climate change. Stronger economies have much easier accessibility to and flexibility with adaptation strategies.

Additionally, taken from a report by the Council on Foreign Relations,

Lawmakers and industry leaders worry that such greenhouse-gas caps in the United States will reduce the ability of U.S. companies to compete with foreign imports, leading U.S. companies to move to countries without greenhouse-gas restrictions, which is often termed ‘leakage’.

This same report offers many solutions to these qualms, but concludes that attempts to offset economic harm would pose a number of hurdles. While the end of this report also suggests economic benefits for these policies, the increased cost of domestic energy offsets any potential benefits.

Thus, instead of having the federal government apply more regulations and issue further policies to curb carbon emissions, the United States should encourage more private sector development to adapt to and mitigate the effects of impending climate change.

The U.S. should actually follow the example set forth by the United Nations via its Private Sector Initiative. By allowing for a unified database of case studies, companies all over the world can view actions implemented by other companies to reduce risks to their business operations. Many of these case studies also offer strategies for investing in adaptation action in vulnerable regions in a sustainable and profitable manner. This model for preventative and adaptive action is exactly what the U.S. should follow, as it filters and disperses innovative ideas throughout the private sector at a time when the federal government remains inefficient in addressing these issues.

Tanner Davis is a research associate at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

May 28, 2014 | 1 comment | by Lloyd Bentsen

Profiling Environmentalism

Since 97% of climate scientists believe that global warming results from human activity, targeting the human causes of environmental degradation, such as pollution, CO₂ emissions, resource depletion, etc. will be very effective at curbing the threats of global warming and climate change. In approaching an issue of the environment, a policymaker must think about the three main schools of thought on the spectrum of environmentalism: light, dark, and bright green. These three types of environmentalism provide the framework under which policy action will occur.

Light Green

Light green environmentalism targets consumer behavior, encouraging individuals to make incremental changes in their daily lives to reduce harm to the environment. Examples include reusing your own bags when shopping for groceries, recycling, turning the faucet off when brushing teeth, buying LED certified electronics, etc. This framework has clearly been the foundation for the sustainability movement; however, the lack of urgency for change has instilled fatigue and indifference.

Dark Green

Of the three perspectives, dark green environmentalism has the most pessimistic view of modern society, believing that industrialization, manufacturing, and development have solely negative consequences for the environment. Unlike light greens, this shade targets the community level, emphasizing the need to become self-sufficient, free from technological advancement. However, in a world where modernization and industrialization seem to be the norm, rejecting this trend appears economically regressive, since urbanization/industrialization encourages economic growth.

Bright Green

This term is the most recent of the three, coined in 2003 by Alex Steffen. Unlike light and dark, bright greens emphasize the use of technology to solve the environmental issues. As Steffen states in a more recent post, this perspective calls for “innovation, design, urban revitalization, and entrepreneurial zeal.” Bright greens believe in using green technology that will not harm the environment but will continue the trend of modernization to serve common interests. Clearly, bright green environmentalism combines the best of both worlds — environmentalism and economic development via modernization.

Which framework best serves the interests of the U.S.?

After examining these three frameworks, the United States should operate with the bright green mindset, as it provides not only ecological but economic benefits. Since bright green environmentalism embraces technological innovation, this framework encourages more development in order to solve the environment problem. As such, this framework achieves common goals in modern U.S. society: reducing environmental degradation and maximizing economic production. Even more, embracing this ideology could bring the U.S. out of its more recent economic slump. While bright green environmentalism serves the most effective purpose in modern society, which one do you think is the most effective? Which perspective do you most align with?

Tanner Davis is a research associate at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

May 14, 2014 | 2 comments | by Lloyd Bentsen

Global “Clean” Energy Expenditures are Down (and Respect for Economic Realities are Up) in 2013

It is refreshing to see that environmentalists and liberal governments are beginning to recognize the economic realities they face when manipulating energy markets to promote clean, renewable energy sources. For example, a recent Time Magazine article investigates why total public and private funding of “clean power” from the global renewable energy industry fell 14% in 2013. This amounts to a decline of 23% since the peak of such spending occurred in 2011. The data cited came from a study from the Frankfurt School-UNEP and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

This study points out that Europe decreased its spending on clean, renewable energy sources by 44% while the U.S. decreased it is spending by 10%. These reductions were found to largely arise from three economic realities:

The declining costs of producing “clean” energy.
The significant reduction in public subsidies.
Increased competition from renewable but “unclean” biofuels power sources.

Economic Reality #1: Subsidizing an activity can drive down the unit cost of production by creating economies of scale. For example, the average cost for installing a voltaic solar cell in the U.S. declined 60% in the last few years. Indeed, despite the reductions in total spending in 2013, global clean energy capacity in 2013 (from renewable energy sources other than existing hydroelectric power sources) had remained the same as it was in 2012. However…

Economic Reality #2: Public sector funding sources are scarce. As Europe is slowly recovering from the recent global recession, the central governments of these countries are finding it very difficult to justify costly public investments in clean energy subsidies when other popular social programs compete for survival in an environment of shrinking public sector budgets. In fact, Spain and Bulgaria made their subsidy cuts retroactive, shuttering their clean energy industries, despite the falling unit costs of providing clean energy. Further…

Economic Reality #3: Every choice has an opportunity cost that cannot be avoided. Clean power is defined as coming from renewable, sustainable fuel sources that create very low or no pollution or greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental scientists are beginning to realize that subsidized biofuel production:

Pushes up global food prices, because the fuel is grown with water sources and lands that could be used for growing food, which increases food prices and makes biofuels less “sustainable”.
Increases water pollution levels from pesticides and insecticides, making biofuels “unclean.” Indeed, an article in the magazine Scientific American notes that, “U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has for the first time acknowledged the risks of uncontrolled biofuels development.”

We seem to be living in a world where national governments are intent on accelerating our adoption of clean energy sources along a time line not supported by private energy markets. At least it is refreshing to see that both governments and environmentalists are slowly (if only involuntarily) admitting to economic reality: the true scarcity of valuable resources in our world creates real and unavoidable influences on the efficacy of government policies designed to accelerate clean energy industry development. We cannot simply wave the magic wand of “hope” to force the hand of the market in a manner that ignores such economic realities.

Apr 14, 2014 | Leave a Comment | by Michael Stroup

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