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The New Carbon Cash, Explained

BC's about to dive into a vast market that limits and trades emissions. How it will work (or not).

By Tom Barrett, 14 Mar 2008, TheTyee.ca

Global Cash

Coming fast: 'Cap and trade' profits.

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With B.C.'s carbon tax causing a ruckus inside and outside the province, the second big piece in the government's climate change puzzle has been getting less attention.

That would be cap and trade -- a system that bureaucrats are working flat out to bring to life by August.

Such systems have worked well in places, but they have also had serious problems. As people tend to observe in these situations, there's a close relationship between the devil and the details.

Recently, the Los Angeles Times ran an editorial that warned of the dangers of getting the details wrong.

It compared cap and trade to California's ill-fated energy deregulation scheme and called it "a staggeringly complex undertaking that will once again create opportunities for dishonest traders to manipulate the market. . . .

"If California, which leads the country in addressing the threat of global warming, gets this program wrong, it could discredit efforts to fight the problem nationwide, if not worldwide," the Times said.

How it works

Cap and trade works like this: Governments place a limit, or cap, on the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted. Big emitters must obtain permits to cover their emissions. A company that reduces its emissions below the level of its permits can sell its surplus permits to companies that are over their targets.

A price is set on emissions and a market is created for emissions permits. Companies that aggressively reduce their emissions can make money by selling permits on the market.

For companies that don't meet their limit, the cost of having to buy permits on the market acts as an incentive to make long-term decisions that will reduce emissions.

Meanwhile, overall emissions are kept to a regulated level. Over time, governments lower the overall cap so that the big emitters produce less and less greenhouse gas.

That's the theory. However, there are many questions being thrashed out right now that will determine how well the system will work.

What sectors of the economy will be covered?

How big a polluter do you have to be before you're covered by the program?

How do you make sure the permits accurately reflect emissions?

Do you give away the permits or auction them?

How much flexibility do you allow emitters?

What about offsets? Should emitters be allowed to meet their targets by paying for, say, tree planting?

How do you keep companies from moving to another province or state to avoid the system?

Western Climate Initiative: remember that name

These questions are being thrashed out by the Western Climate Initiative, a group that includes B.C. and Manitoba as well as Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

The member governments of the WCI have been holding meetings and churning out papers on possible ways to design the system. Members will be in Vancouver March 26 to talk about offsets.

The B.C. government says that by joining the WCI, rather than developing a system of its own, the province will become part of a large market that "provides more opportunities for low-cost emissions reduction solutions."

According to last month's budget, "WCI members now have a population of 63 million people, significantly more than the population of Canada, and [the WCI] is likely to grow. Participating in this larger market also helps ensure that B.C. businesses face the same policies as their competitors in other WCI jurisdictions."

One of the biggest questions being debated is the scope of the WCI system. A recent paper from the sub-committee looking at this question has upset some environmentalists by suggesting that transportation fuels may have to be left out of the system until more studies can be completed.

(This is less of an issue in B.C., which is bringing in a carbon tax on fossil fuels this summer.)

Similarly, the WCI must wrestle with the question of how big an emitter needs to be before it's covered in the scheme. Obviously, if only the very biggest emitters are covered, fewer emissions will be captured. However, including smaller emitters adds to the administrative difficulty and cost.

Exploiting the system

Overall, the WCI's goal is to reduce emissions by 15 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

A big question is how to issue the permits. Do you give them out or do you auction them? Or do you start by handing them out free and move to an auction?

Matt Horne, an analyst with the Pembina Institute, has been watching the WCI closely. He notes that social and environmental groups tend to favour an auction system. Industry, not surprisingly, prefers a free system.

There are concerns, Horne says, that free allocation could lead to windfall profits. And what if a company takes its free permits, sells them off, then shuts down?

An auction system, Horne says, could forestall a problem raised in a recent Globe and Mail story.

The story, by Justine Hunter, says that Howe Sound Pulp and Paper has switched to coal from cleaner-burning natural gas as a supplementary energy source.

B.C. government officials, the story said, "sound peeved by the company's actions.

"They don't directly accuse the mill's owners -- Canfor Corp. and Oji Paper Co. -- of attempting to drive up their emission base prior to the cap-and-trade regulations," the story said.

"But the suggestion is implied in the government's reaction. A senior official, asked about the introduction of coal at the Howe Sound mill, said his team is working to ensure that a company can't inflate its pollution levels before the baseline is set for an emissions cap.

"'We'll close the loopholes in the design,' the official said, 'and make sure we set the base levels so that there are not deliberate attempts to distort emissions.'"

Auctioning off emissions permits -- thereby making companies pay a price for their current emissions -- would be a way to plug this loophole, said Horne.

Who's in the WCI

-The seven states that belong to the WCI make up just under 20 per cent of the U.S. population.

-Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan are official WCI observers. They are, respectively, the second, third and fourth largest GHG emitters in Canada. (B.C.'s number five.)

-While there's been speculation that Ontario and Quebec may join WCI, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has been quoted as saying he's not enthusiastic about cap and trade, which he describes as just "moving the emissions around."

-Even so, if Ontario and Quebec join the WCI, it would mean that just under 80 per cent of Canada's population would be represented -- although only half of Canada's emissions would be captured. (Alberta, with its oil and gas industry, produces just over 30 per cent of Canada's total emissions; Saskatchewan produces just under 10 per cent.)

System 'safety valves': will they work?

Then there's the controversial question of "safety valves" or "circuit breakers" in the system.

Such mechanisms would protect companies if the market for emissions permits becomes too expensive. The WCI could guarantee that if the price for permits in the trading market goes above, say, $50 a tonne, companies wouldn't have to pay the higher price. Instead, they would be allowed to purchase permits from the government, rather than the market, at $50 a tonne.

For the companies' point of view, such a guarantee represents certainty. From some environmentalists' point of view, it's a free pass for more emissions.

There are similar concerns around offsets. Say the system allows a permit-holder to meet its limits by buying credits from a forest company, for example, that is planting trees that absorb carbon dioxide.

If the forest company was planning to plant those trees anyway, with or without the cash from the permit-holder, letting them sell offsets won't make any difference in the overall emissions levels.

In other words, while it's nice to reward actions that reduce emissions, paying someone to do something they would have done in any event doesn't get rid of any extra emissions.

And then there is 'leakage'

WCI officials are also concerned about what they call "leakage" -- companies that might move to other jurisdictions rather than pay for cap-and-trade permits.

While this could be a problem in the long term, the Pembina Institute's Horne believes that in the early years of the program, carbon prices won't be high enough to drive companies to jurisdictions that don't have cap and trade.

And, presumably, if cap and trade programs become more widespread, leakage will become less of a problem.

Carbon markets are becoming increasingly common, although the experience hasn't always been smooth. The European Commission created a system in 2005, but it's been dogged with problems. The EU's emissions data were badly flawed; too many permits were issued and their value fell through the floor.

But cap and trade has worked well in some places.

During the 1990s, the U.S. used a cap-and-trade system to limit the emissions that cause acid rain. Under the system, sulphur dioxide emissions dropped by 45 per cent compared to 1980 levels.

Related Tyee stories:

[Tyee]

Tom Barrett is a Tyee contributing editor with a focus on global warming issues.

35 Comments:

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  • clubofrome

    4 years ago

    Big Emitters Beware!

    I wonder if this will filter down past the corporations to us insignificant mortals? If so, as a sailor I could sell cap space to power boaters! Heh heh....

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    The Sacrifical Temptation

    Physics > Physics and Society
    Title: Global Warming: the Sacrificial Temptation
    Authors: Serge Galam
    (Submitted on 10 Mar 2008)

    Abstract: The claimed unanimity of the scientific community about the human culpability for global warming is questioned. Up today there exists no scientific proof of human culpability. It is not the number of authors of a paper, which validates its scientific content. The use of probability to assert the degree of certainty with respect the global warming problem is shown to be misleading. The debate about global warming has taken on emotional tones driven by passion and irrationality while it should be a scientific debate. The degree of hostility used to mull any dissonance voice demonstrates that the current debate has acquired a quasi-religious nature. Scientists are behaving as priests in their will "to save the planet". We are facing a dangerous social phenomenon, which must be addressed from the social point of view. The current unanimity of citizens, scientists, journalists, intellectuals and politicians is intrinsically worrying. The calls to sacrifice our way of life to calm down the upset nature is an emotional ancestral reminiscence of archaic fears, which should be analyzed as such.
    http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.1239

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    The fact is global warming is waning!

    http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=130951
    "Recent studies supported by satellite data show that global warming is waning. Contrary to popular belief, new researches prove that carbon dioxide is not the villain that it is made out to be. IPCC is however not acknowledging the truth."

    Last paragraph:
    "The mainstream media seems to be purposely ignoring the bulk of the findings by renowned researchers throughout the globe that the current global warming fear attributed solely to carbon dioxide rise is utterly unfounded. Why is the IPCC, which has been blamed for relying on climate models based on wrong assumptions, continuing with its false prophecy? Is there more to it than what meets the eye? Has the politics of carbon trade got anything to do with it? Critics say that carbon trading as propounded by IPCC, as a mean to combat global warming is a smokescreen. It will allow corporate polluters in rich countries to evade their emission reduction obligations at home by buying up and trading carbon emission quotas and credits from other countries, projects or industries. It is meant to create further global economic disparities by robbing the poor of their rights while the rich will manage to extract maximum benefit from the mechanism."

  • alive

    4 years ago

    again the ignorant win!

    Same old story:
    If you were a big polluting scource and did nothing, up to now, then you can "improve" your status by instituting simple precautions that your competitors installed a long time ago!

    While the conscientious firms that already have invested heavily in order to be a responsible member of society, now have to do more sophisticated and expensive attempts to meet these new rules.

    There need to be an industry - wide standard for each industry, using present best efforts as the minimum standard.

    I can see a slew of pencil pushers being hired to manipulate numbers, costing as much as actually improving the emissions.

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    You miss the point wonderfully

    There is no reason to do anything about CO2, so why would a rational organization put money into something irrelevant unless they were forced to?

    As to costs, the pencil pushers have already calculated the cost/benefit for various bills in the US. All CO2 restrictions are all cost and no benefit.

    Doesn't that give you a clue that you are being scammed?

    http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=de8b6989-802a-23ad-4788-fb4fa9b0217a&Issue_id=
    CARBON MANDATES DON'T REDUCE TEMPERATURES

    "First, going on a carbon diet would do nothing to avert climate change. After the U.S. signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, Al Gore's own scientist, Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, calculated that Kyoto would reduce emissions by only 0.07 degrees Celsius by the year 2050. That's all. 0.07 degrees. And that's if the United States had ratified Kyoto and the other signatories met their targets.

    But we didn't and they won't. Of the 15 original EU countries, only two are on track to meet their targets. And even one of those, Britain, has started increasing its emissions again, not decreasing.

    Similar calculations have been done to estimate other climate bills. The Climate Change Stewardship Act that was defeated 38-60 last year would have only reduced temperatures by 0.029 degrees Celsius, and another bill modeled on the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP) report would have only reduced temperatures by 0.008 degrees Celsius. That's right - 0.008 degrees Celsius, or less than one percent of one degree."

  • ME2

    4 years ago

    Scam

    Yes its a scam, and the simple fact that the biggest polluters favour cap and trade should be warning enough for anyone.

  • alive

    4 years ago

    cheaters choice!

    Quote:
    All CO2 restrictions are all cost and no benefit.

    In other words, as far as you are concerned there is no climate change?

    For the rest of us:
    As to benefits: what we gain is that our children may breathe in the future!

    There is no time to worry about monetary gains by saving the world, just for once money cannot buy anything you point at!

    Obviously the large polluters will love any measure where they can cheat, instead of actually spending money on stuff that does not reflect on their bottomline.

  • G West

    4 years ago

    Very Authoritative

    Merinews was established a year ago. It is a platform that allows citizens to express their views in form of content. Our first priority is the simple yet complex principle of ‘freedom of expression’.

    Lovely scientific stuff all right!

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    Alive, can you read? Can you add?

    Let's read that again, shall we?

    "Al Gore's own scientist, Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, calculated that Kyoto would reduce emissions by only 0.07 degrees Celsius by the year 2050. That's all. 0.07 degrees. And that's if the United States had ratified Kyoto and the other signatories met their targets."

    West does his standard sneer, but the article is only reiterating what has been known for months. The information in the article is correct and the real question is why isn't it being covered by other more prominent media.

    http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=84e9e44a-802a-23ad-493a-b35d0842fed8
    August 20, 2007
    Washington DC – An abundance of new peer-reviewed studies, analyses, and data error discoveries in the last several months has prompted scientists to declare that fear of catastrophic man-made global warming “bites the dust” and the scientific underpinnings for alarm may be “falling apart.” The latest study to cast doubt on climate fears finds that even a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would not have the previously predicted dire impacts on global temperatures.[b] This new study is not unique, as a host of recent peer-reviewed studies have cast a chill on global warming fears.

    “Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming bites the dust,” declared astronomer Dr. Ian Wilson after reviewing the new study which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Another scientist said the peer-reviewed study overturned “in one fell swoop” the climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore. The study entitled “Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth’s Climate System,” was authored by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz.

    [b]“Effectively, this (new study) means that the global economy will spend trillions of dollars trying to avoid a warming of ~ 1.0 K by 2100 A.D.” Dr. Wilson wrote in a note to the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee on August 19, 2007. Wilson, a former operations astronomer at the Hubble Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore MD, was referring to the trillions of dollars that would be spent under such international global warming treaties like the Kyoto Protocol.

    “Previously, I have indicated that the widely accepted values for temperature increase associated with a doubling of CO2 were far too high i.e. 2 – 4.5 Kelvin. This new peer-reviewed paper claims a value of 1.1 +/- 0.5 K increase for a doubling of CO2,” he added.

    Clearly, reducing CO2 would have no effect worth mentioning since even doubling CO2 has so little effect either.

    So, why are we allowing ourselves to be hornswoggled?

  • SlipKnot

    4 years ago

    Cap and Trade

    I guess we're a part of the global community whether we like it or not: WCI? Can't we look after out own mess? Maybe even model a new and more effective method for other parts of the world to emulate?
    Reductio ad absurdum: Cap and Trade: Pollution is part of life so we might as well make money from it.
    Does that strike anyone else as odd? Does the "market" actually fix our messes, or is this another example of parasitic opportunism? This is not what Adam Smith was talking about, however, interpret his opus as you will.
    How about this instead: You're polluting/emitting /etc. and it's got to stop. Find yourself another way of making whatever it is you're making, but make it in such a way that it does not harm our world. Yes, sacrifices will have to be made, but that's because of the incredible lack of foresight that went into industrialization to begin with. Now we (along with our children, and their children...) have to deal with the mess.
    There's ample money to be made from research and development of new power sources, old and sustainable power sources, and on and on... Why pump money into programs that only deal with the symptoms of a decaying mentality? The creature is diseased and it's time to let it die.

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    Greenhouse Equations Totaly Wrong

    New derivation of equations governing the greenhouse effect reveals "runaway warming" impossible

    Miklós Zágoni isn't just a physicist and environmental researcher. He is also a global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol. Or was.

    That was until he learned the details of a new theory of the greenhouse effect, one that not only gave far more accurate climate predictions here on Earth, but Mars too. The theory was developed by another Hungarian scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA's Langley Research Center.

    After studying it, Zágoni stopped calling global warming a crisis, and has instead focused on presenting the new theory to other climatologists. The data fit extremely well. "I fell in love," he stated at the International Climate Change Conference this week.

    "Runaway greenhouse theories contradict energy balance equations," Miskolczi states. Just as the theory of relativity sets an upper limit on velocity, his theory sets an upper limit on the greenhouse effect, a limit which prevents it from warming the Earth more than a certain amount.

    How did modern researchers make such a mistake? They relied upon equations derived over 80 years ago, equations which left off one term from the final solution.

    Miskolczi's story reads like a book. Looking at a series of differential equations for the greenhouse effect, he noticed the solution -- originally done in 1922 by Arthur Milne, but still used by climate researchers today -- ignored boundary conditions by assuming an "infinitely thick" atmosphere. Similar assumptions are common when solving differential equations; they simplify the calculations and often result in a result that still very closely matches reality. But not always.

    So Miskolczi re-derived the solution, this time using the proper boundary conditions for an atmosphere that is not infinite. His result included a new term, which acts as a negative feedback to counter the positive forcing. At low levels, the new term means a small difference ... but as greenhouse gases rise, the negative feedback predominates, forcing values back down.

    NASA refused to release the results. Miskolczi believes their motivation is simple. "Money", he tells DailyTech. Research that contradicts the view of an impending crisis jeopardizes funding, not only for his own atmosphere-monitoring project, but all climate-change research. Currently, funding for climate research tops $5 billion per year.
    cont'd
    http://www.dailytech.com/Researcher+Basic+Greenhouse+Equations+Totally+Wrong/article10973.htm

  • alive

    4 years ago

    Do you value life?

    On any given subject, you can find scientists who will argue for or against depending on who is funding their research!

    For instance to me it is not that important if the World Trade Towers were brought down by a conspiracy or not, yet arguments continue.

    However when it comes to keeping the entire world alive, then I do sit up and take notice!

    So, dear posters: just consider that maybe your faith in certain information turns out to be wrong?

    Certainly I agree that any effort proposed to date is barely enough to stabilize, much less reduce greenhouse gas, but that is hardly a reason to scoff about it.

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    Oh, PULEEZE!

    When one is confronted by such an obvious scam, to continue spouting the claptrack of "What if they are wrong" without ever turning that around and asking about what we get for the sacrifices made could be construed as "aiding and abetting".

    There is no logic to the position, "Certainly I agree that any effort proposed to date is barely enough to stabilize, much less reduce greenhouse gas, but that is hardly a reason to scoff about it."

    May I paraphrase? "Just because doing something that will be terribly expensive will do nothing about the (imagined) problem, is no reason to make fun of it."

    That goes beyond fuzzy thinking into the realm of shear lunacy. I am not making fun of your position. This is a deadly serious argument and goes beyond your "touchy-feely" mindset. Forests have been destroyed and food price rises have made life more precarious for poor people as a consequence of the rapidity of decisions made on faulty evidence.

    Your "faith" translates into tragedy for others and enrichment of the usual few.

    This is an argument about science.SCIENCE IS NOT ABOUT FAITH.

  • alive

    4 years ago

    to heck with the future?

    OK mopled, so we all go buy a new Hummer, and to heck with the future?

    Actually at my age, I do not need to worry, I am well past my "best before" date as is, but I do have kids, grandkids and so on that also deserve to have a life.

    Besides, the evidence you present is in such a minority position, that we can use the advertising slogans about 9 out of 10 dentist recommend...etc.

    The sad aspect is that industry is looking at the bottomline and will cheat on any restrictions that may be imposed.

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    You're still not awake

    Ever hear of a "false consensus'?

    One has been deliberately manufactured by a phony organization called the International Panel on Climate Change manufactured by Maurice Strong and Ted Turner. Strong and Gore are both set to profit from carbon trading.

    There is no evidence for the whole Anthropogenic Global Warming/Climate Change. What there was was manufactured and has since been discredited.

    When there is no evidence for something, it doesn't matter how expensive the bandwagon is or how many people are on it.

    If you value the lives of your children and grandchildren you will stop pushing a lie that will punish them for breathing.

    Ad Council Uses Children in Horrific Global Warming Commercials
    http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/03/15/ad-council-uses-children-horrific-global-warming-commercials

  • alive

    4 years ago

    last verse

    There were people who said that a nuclear explosion was an impossible concept too!

    Just like climate change it seem to develop from nothing! Food for thought, eh?

  • G West

    4 years ago

    I agree

    You are a 'scam' mopled - we've seen all this stuff before and it was as unconvincing as the claim of oil on Titan and water on Mars.

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    Gore, Strong and Martin

    http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1889#

    ".....UN poster boy Maurice Strong, an architect of the Kyoto Protocol, is a former CEO of Canada’s largest shipping company, Canada Steamship Lines (CSL).

    Although CSL is privately held and therefore not required to publicly disclose its financial records, CanWest News reported in early 2003 that CSL controlled assets worth upwards of $693 million and had annual revenues of $283 million.

    The company owned by the family of former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, a former Strong employee, operates a fleet of self-unloading bulk carrier ships on the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence. Its parent company—CSL Group Inc.—is headquartered in Montreal, and operates offices in Halifax, Winnipeg, Burlington, Boston, Singapore and Sydney, Australia. The company operates 37 bulk carriers across the world under the banner of Canada Steamship Lines and CSL International based in Massachusetts. According to company literature, it’s “the largest fleet of dry bulk self-unloading vessels in the world.”
    These conflicts of interest in the world of UN-propped Maurice Strong/ Al Gore global warming don’t stop there.

    Strong is on the board of directors of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Wikipedia-described as “the world’s first and North America’s only legally binding greenhouse gas emission registry reduction system for emission sources and offset projects in North America and Brazil.”

    Gore buys his carbon off-sets from himself—the Generation Investment Management LLP, “ an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 with offices in London and Washington, D.C., of which he is both chairman and founding partner."

    Wasn't it during Martin's reign that Canada
    signed on to Kyoto?

    It's not a conspiracy, it's a business plan.

  • G West

    4 years ago

    Oh comeon mopled

    It used to be the Rockefellers and the Jews - now it's Strong and PAUL MARTIN..

    Do you believe in alien possession too?

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    Gatekeeping again?

    The belief in the impossible would seem to be more up your alley West, given your uncritical acceptance of the Global Warming Scam.

    Global Warming Claims Unsupported by Facts

    Reports by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the earth is experiencing unprecedented global warming are flawed and cannot be supported, investigators now report.

    In a study reported in the Washington Times, a panel of statisticians, chaired by Edward J. Wegman of George Mason University, found significant problems with the methods of analysis used by the researchers and with the IPCC's peer review process.

    According to the Times, "IPCC reports have predicted average world temperatures will increase dramatically, leading to the spread of tropical diseases, severe drought, the rapid melting of the world's glaciers and ice caps, and rising sea levels." The Times notes, however that "several assessments of the IPCC's work have shown the techniques and methods used to derive its climate predictions are fundamentally flawed."

    In a 2001 report, the IPCC published an image commonly referred to as the "hockey stick," the Times explained, adding that it showed relatively stable temperatures from A.D. 1000 to 1900, with temperatures rising steeply from 1900 to 2000. "The IPCC and public figures, such as former Vice President Al Gore, have used the hockey stick to support the conclusion that human energy use over the last 100 years has caused an unprecedented rise in global warming," according to the Times.

    Since those claims have been discounted by several studies which the newspaper notes cast doubt on the accuracy of the hockey stick, Congress in 2006 requested an independent analysis by Wegman and his panel.

    The Times reports that the researchers who created the hockey stick used the wrong time scale to establish the mean temperature to compare with recorded temperatures of the last century. Because the mean temperature was low, the recent temperature rise seemed unusual and dramatic. This error, the Times explained, was not discovered in part because statisticians were never consulted.

    Moreover, the community of specialists in ancient climates from which the peer reviewers were drawn was small and many of them had ties to the original authors — no less than 43 paleoclimatologists had previously co-authored papers with the lead researcher who constructed the hockey stick.

    Even using accurate temperature data, sound forecasting methods are required to predict climate change. Over time, forecasting researchers have compiled 140 principles that can be applied to a broad range of disciplines, including science, sociology, economics, and politics.

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    cont'd

    The Times recalled that in a recent National Center for Policy Analysis study, Kesten Green and J. Scott Armstrong used these principles to audit the climate forecasts in the Fourth Assessment Report. Green and Armstrong found that the IPCC clearly violated 60 of the 127 principles relevant in assessing the IPCC predictions

    Indeed, it could only be clearly established that the IPCC followed 17 of the more than 127 forecasting principles critical to making sound predictions.

    Writes H. Sterling Burnett the author of the Times story, "A good example of a principle clearly violated is 'Make sure forecasts are independent of politics.' Politics shapes the IPCC from beginning to end. Legislators, policy-makers and/or diplomatic appointees select (or approve) the scientists — at least the lead scientists — who make up the IPCC. In addition, the summary and the final draft of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report was written in collaboration with political appointees and subject to their approval."

    Burnett writes, "Sadly, Mr. Green and Mr. Armstrong found no evidence that the IPCC was even aware of the vast literature on scientific forecasting methods, much less applied the principles."

    As a result of such problems Mr. Wegman's team concluded that the idea that the planet is experiencing unprecedented global warming "cannot be supported."

    According to the author of the Times story, H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research institute in Dallas, says [b]the IPCC's policy recommendations are based on flawed statistical analyses and procedures that violate general forecasting principles.[b]

    He warned that policy-makers should take this into account before enacting laws to counter global warming — which economists point out would have severe economic consequences.

    http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/global_warming/2008/03/14/80438.html

  • mr. globe

    4 years ago

    carbon

    This is an outstanding article by one of the most outstanding journalists in the history of British Columbia!

  • G West

    4 years ago

    That would be the same

    That would be the same WASHINGTON TIMES that's owned by noted cult leader Rev Sun myung Moon would it mopled?

    http://realsunmyungmoon.blogspot.com/2007/10/click-here-to-go-to-main-page-of-this.html

    I'm really impressed with how easily you did the segue from Washington Times to TIMES...nice stuff!

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    As usual, an irrelevancy not rebuttal

    Really West, you grasp at such silly straws.

    The paper reported on findings that most "climate science" is done without a basic grasp of statistics.

    No less an expert than Edward Wegman found:

    ".. that much of the climate science that has been done should be taken with a grain of salt -- although the studies may have been peer reviewed, the reviewers were often unqualified in statistics. Past studies, he believes, should be reassessed by competent statisticians and in future, the climate science world should do better at incorporating statistical know-how.

    One place to start is with the American Meteorological Society, which has a committee on probability and statistics. "I believe it is amazing for a committee whose focus is on statistics and probability that of the nine members only two are also members of the American Statistical Association, the premier statistical association in the United States, and one of those is a recent PhD with an assistant-professor appointment in a medical school." As an example of the statistical barrenness of the climate-change world, Wegman cited the American Meteorological Association's 2006 Conference on Probability and Statistics in the Atmospheric Sciences, where only eight presenters out of 62 were members of the American Statistical Association.

    While Wegman's advice -- to use trained statisticians in studies reliant on statistics -- may seem too obvious to need stating, the "science is settled" camp resists it. Mann's hockey-stick graph may be wrong, many experts now acknowledge, but they assert that he nevertheless came to the right conclusion.

    To which Wegman, and doubtless others who want more rigourous science, shake their heads in disbelief. As Wegman summed it up to the energy and commerce committee in later testimony: "I am baffled by the claim that the incorrect method doesn't matter because the answer is correct anyway. Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science." With bad science, only true believers can assert that they nevertheless obtained the right answer.
    http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=22003a0d-37cc-4399-8bcc-39cd20bed2f6&k=0

  • G West

    4 years ago

    You can tell a man who boozes

    By the company that he chooses.

    Or, if you prefer,
    'birds of a feather flock together...'

    I always love to hear what statisticians have to say about the environment.

  • werdnagreb

    4 years ago

    Auctioned credits or grandfathered?

    The main problem with the EU carbon market (from what I understand) is that carbon credits were grandfathered to big polluters (ie- they were simply given away based on previous polluting levels). This means that heavy polluters were rewarded for being this way.

    A 100% auction system would avoid this problem. Because everyone would have to first purchase offsets at the going rate (from the government) and big polluters would just have to purchase more.

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    Oh, West, such a card you are!

    My whole point is that "climatologists" whatever they are, use statistics without knowing how it is supposed to be done. It's kind of like amateur brain surgery.

    I just love how werdnagreb would like to make the scam more fair. It is kind of like advocating having the choice between cherry or grape Kool-Aid.

    "The Big Polluters" just pass their costs on to end users, werdnagreb. I think you missed the point that CO2 is not real pollution. It is only designated so by governments so they can run this lucrative scam.

    We are all end users, so we all pay and the big guys get to trade a new ommodity...your breath.

  • G West

    4 years ago

    But your 'point' such as it is

    Is being made by a man writing in the same journal that, well, here - read for yourself (and this doens't even scratch the surface)

    http://www.dailyhowler.com/h111201_1.shtml

    http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=5895

    http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20020905.html

  • werdnagreb

    4 years ago

    Passing the buck to end-users

    mopled,

    I am not addressing the veracity of the idea of global warming because that is not what this article is about. (Shame on you, G West, for getting bogged down by a troll.)

    However, you do bring up a reasonable quibble about costs of a carbon market being passed on to consumers.

    In a way, you are correct. The dirtiest organizations will have to spend more money to purchase credits and these will be passed on to consumers. The cleaner ones will not have to. If the total amount of credits available decreases on a steady and well-known basis, then this will give dirty organizations time to clean up their act. If they don't, then they will go out of business because they won't be able to compete.

    Of course, this presupposes that the amount of credits auctioned off initially is reasonable...not too much and not too little.

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    So what?

    West, you really take guilt by association
    to undreamed of lengths. The topic is Cap and Trade, not the Washington Times.

    Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on proposed C02 cap-and-trade legislation titled "Trade-Offs in Allocating Allowances for CO2 Emissions," was released on April 25, 2007.

    "Far from being good for the economy, as advocates say, C02 allocation schemes will disproportionately burden the poor, raise taxes, increase government spending, raise gas prices, raise home energy costs and decrease wages. It is hard to imagine the CBO issuing a more devastating indictment of proposed C02 cap-and-trade schemes. The CBO report should be viewed as a stern warning to our elected leaders to avoid symbolic solutions to an alleged climate ‘crisis’ that places the financial burden on America’s poor and working class.
    "Today’s report confirms what Europe, Canada and many other nations have come to realize about C02 cap-and-trade schemes: The entire carbon debate has been skewed toward the least effective and most economically damaging of the various approaches.

    Excerpts from the CBO report (emphasis added):

    "Regardless of how the allowances were distributed, most of the cost of meeting a cap on CO2 emissions would be borne by consumers, who would face persistently higher prices for products such as electricity and gasoline. Those price increases would be regressive in that poorer households would bear a larger burden relative to their income than wealthier households would."

    "The CBO noted that the proposed cap-and-trade allocation method "would increase producers’ profits without lessening consumers’ costs. In essence, such a strategy would transfer income from energy consumers—among whom lower income households would bear disproportionately large burdens—to shareholders of energy companies, who are disproportionately higher-income households."

    "Researchers conclude that much or all of the allowance cost would be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. Those price increases would disproportionately affect people at the bottom of the income scale. For example, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the price rises resulting from a 15 percent cut in CO2 emissions would cost the average household in the lowest one-fifth (quintile) of the income distribution about 3.3 percent of its average income. By comparison, a household in the top quintile would pay about 1.7 percent of its average income."

    "A cap-and-trade program for CO2 emissions would tend to increase government spending and decrease revenues."

    "The higher prices caused by the cap would lower real (inflation-adjusted) wages and real returns on capital, indirectly raising marginal tax rates on those sources of income."

    To read the full CBO report, go to: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/80xx/doc8027/04-25-Cap_Trade.pdf

  • G West

    4 years ago

    You brought up the Washington Post

    You quoted from it - I'd go after anyone who alleged it was accurate, truthful, or authoritative.

    It's the house organ of a cultist.

    Look back along this thread.

    I haven't said a word about cap and trade - and don't intend to.

    And you know what I think of Campbell and Taylor’s little shell game.

    I haven't formed an opinion on the whole business of carbon trading and carbon taxes.

    If you'd actually taken a moment to do something besides level broadsides at imaginary ogres you might realize that.

  • G West

    4 years ago

    errata

    That headline above should be "Washington TIMES" .... mea culpa

  • freebear

    4 years ago

    My thoughts exactly!

    I'll ride my bike every where and gas pigs can pay me so they can still commute! I just may be a climate change entrepreneur!

    Cap and Trade market-just like the financial banks and sub prime mortgages-seems open to schemes a la Howe Sound switching to coal! ANd then the government bails them out to save the economy! Free market or free bail out?

  • mopled

    4 years ago

    EPA :$2.9 Trillion for 25 ppm

    "EPA’s analysis of the Lieberman-Warner (LW) global warming bill is out — and it ain’t pretty.

    EPA estimates that LW may reduce GDP by $2.9 trillion in 2050 while reducing atmospheric CO2 by around 25 ppm by 2095.

    What a bargain — reduce GDP by an estimated 6.9 percent for no meaningful change in atmospheric CO2!

    Money for nothing…"

    http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/economics/economicanalyses.html

  • doggone

    4 years ago

    One of the dumbest proposals I've seen

    Why not just issue 007 "Liscence to kill" the environment and get paid well for it?
    The poor thing (environment) is and has suffered enough.
    Go plant a tree
    Too late, too slow
    Just don't imagine you are "saving the environment"

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