Hartwell

I feel it's about time I commented on the Hartwell Paper [pdf], a white paper written by 14 climate-energy experts who propose a new direction for climate policy.

The basic premise of the paper is that climate policy has been not only ineffective over the past 15 years, but a complete failure--the Kyoto Protocol achieved exactly none of its stated goals, perhaps because emissions reduction targets that are neither enforced nor really attempted are a poor method to fix the greenhouse gas problem. The proposed solution to this failure has become price on carbon, whether by cap-and-trade or carbon tax, that internalizes the cost of global warming pollution. Such market-based mechanisms for GHG reduction received support from influential economists like William Nordhaus and Nicholas Stern, as well as popular policy journalists like Thomas Friedman.

The Hartwell Paper, in short, argues that a price on carbon is insufficient to achieve the desirable climate goals that are implicitly and explicitly stated by climate activists the world over: energy security, an end to energy poverty, clean energy, etc. A modest carbon price that does not entirely internalize the cost of pollution would go mostly unnoticed by society, whereas a more comprehensive price in the $300/ton range that Stern recommended would too drastically disturb market conditions in every economic sector. The movement from dirty to clean energy must grow from a more holistic, positive and funcitonal base. From the Executive Summary:

The Paper therefore proposes that the organising principle of our efforts should be the raising up of human dignity via three overarching objectives: ensuring energy access for all; ensuring that we develop in a manner that undermine the essential functioning of the Earth system; ensuring that our societies are adequately equipped to withstand the risks and dangers that come from all the vagaries of climate, whatever their cause may be.

The functionality of the respective approaches to climate policy differs, according to the authors, in the framing of each argument:

To reframe the climate issue around matters of human dignity is not just noble or necessary. It is also likely to be more effective than the approach of framing around human sinfulness -- which has failed and will continue to fail.

As Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus wrote in their essay "The Death of Environmentalism,"

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech is famous because it put forward an inspiring, positive vision that carried a critique of the current moment within it. Imagine how history would have turned out had King given an "I have a nightmare" speech instead.

The strategy of scolding all human behavior has proved ineffective and not a tad condescending. We should aim for policy and behavior that appeals to our better angels, not actions and rhetoric that reprimand our perceived demons.