Part of Econ 135: The History of Economic Growth course unit 5. After Neoliberalism Comes "Polycrisis": Global warming & its role in feeding the post-2010 world-economy & -polity & -society...
I think you are very kind to the Rich Countries. Yes, they are unwilling to compensate the poor countries for altering their growth paths. But they are also not willing to alter their own growth paths were the adjustment is bumpy. They - we - do not set an inspiring example for poor countries.
The wording of "How _will_ we..." was a bit jarring, although perhaps by design [as Twelve described his strategy in a Doctor Who episode, pretend you have won and explain how you did it]; it's not at all a given from current trends. But it might be an absolutely necessary frame of mind to develop right now.
Doing the backwards-engineering exercise, then:
(1) Escaping the Climate Crisis was costly and required transfers due to built-in mismatches between cost and existing economic capability.
(2) Therefore, the likelihood and effectiveness of a solution was, in hindsight, a function of a larger-than expected global surplus and a renewed willingness for supra-national cooperation and wealth transfers on humanitarian and long-term strategic grounds.
(3) So we were very lucky that our increased investments on human resources [driven in part by population ageing pressures], infrastructure [justified ironically through an international competition framework], and applied science [a side effect of cheap post-bubble computational resources and extremely ambitious unsatisfied expectations], with a particularly large absolute impact in already comparatively productive rich economies, led to such large economic surpluses that it made global adaptation and energy shifts much cheaper in relative terms, while a rapidly increasing quality of life for the bottom 90% [which progressive political forces figured was the only way to buy support from a large majority of the population, and damn the donors; the development of off-platforms political messaging and coordination as the new playbook was key to this] lowered the political friction to do so.
Counterfactuals are always suspect, and no historian claims that the Climate Crisis is what made the Jackpot Prize possible (and most likely it made it harder to achieve) but the consensus is that it did wonders to concentrate a lot of minds.
It could be that Al Gore pushed very hard for a carbon tax or cap-and-trade through legislation.
But that wasn't the only path to control. The Administration could have tried using various aspects of the Clean Air Act. I was in a policy shop at EPA back in the day and I had friends who were in the central policy shop. Gore ran environmental policy for Clinton and word in the central policy shop was that he forbade the use of a regulatory approach. I call that an inconvenient truth.
What I heard back at the time was that the view was that a regulatory approach would be shot down as regulatory overreacha by the Supreme Court, and that the legislative approach was the only durable one. And it seems quite clear that was right, isn't it?
As I said: whether someone tries to tear down Al Gore is a very good litmus test for whether they are unserious...
But it also looks like some legislative approaches may not be as durable as we would wish. And some regulatory approaches...appliance efficiency standards...so far seem pretty durable. CAFE standards have also held up pretty well and, thanks to CA, could even outlast the coming Trump regime, particularly if car makers keep their deal with CA.
However, SCOTUS overturning the Chevron Decison has put a spike into regulations, that is being exploited by polluters right now. The new Administration is set to undo regulation in a number of ways, from appointing agency leaders to undermine regulatory support positiions, and defund the regulating agencies.
Regulations are subject to legal interpretation, and we have seen what happens when legal opinion is changed to support politics. In 1930s Germany, the law was whatever Hitler said it was and the judges complied. As a guardrail, regulations are only as strong as the legal support behind them. Change that support and they are gone.
I think you are very kind to the Rich Countries. Yes, they are unwilling to compensate the poor countries for altering their growth paths. But they are also not willing to alter their own growth paths were the adjustment is bumpy. They - we - do not set an inspiring example for poor countries.
Touché...
The wording of "How _will_ we..." was a bit jarring, although perhaps by design [as Twelve described his strategy in a Doctor Who episode, pretend you have won and explain how you did it]; it's not at all a given from current trends. But it might be an absolutely necessary frame of mind to develop right now.
Doing the backwards-engineering exercise, then:
(1) Escaping the Climate Crisis was costly and required transfers due to built-in mismatches between cost and existing economic capability.
(2) Therefore, the likelihood and effectiveness of a solution was, in hindsight, a function of a larger-than expected global surplus and a renewed willingness for supra-national cooperation and wealth transfers on humanitarian and long-term strategic grounds.
(3) So we were very lucky that our increased investments on human resources [driven in part by population ageing pressures], infrastructure [justified ironically through an international competition framework], and applied science [a side effect of cheap post-bubble computational resources and extremely ambitious unsatisfied expectations], with a particularly large absolute impact in already comparatively productive rich economies, led to such large economic surpluses that it made global adaptation and energy shifts much cheaper in relative terms, while a rapidly increasing quality of life for the bottom 90% [which progressive political forces figured was the only way to buy support from a large majority of the population, and damn the donors; the development of off-platforms political messaging and coordination as the new playbook was key to this] lowered the political friction to do so.
Counterfactuals are always suspect, and no historian claims that the Climate Crisis is what made the Jackpot Prize possible (and most likely it made it harder to achieve) but the consensus is that it did wonders to concentrate a lot of minds.
It could be that Al Gore pushed very hard for a carbon tax or cap-and-trade through legislation.
But that wasn't the only path to control. The Administration could have tried using various aspects of the Clean Air Act. I was in a policy shop at EPA back in the day and I had friends who were in the central policy shop. Gore ran environmental policy for Clinton and word in the central policy shop was that he forbade the use of a regulatory approach. I call that an inconvenient truth.
What I heard back at the time was that the view was that a regulatory approach would be shot down as regulatory overreacha by the Supreme Court, and that the legislative approach was the only durable one. And it seems quite clear that was right, isn't it?
As I said: whether someone tries to tear down Al Gore is a very good litmus test for whether they are unserious...
But it also looks like some legislative approaches may not be as durable as we would wish. And some regulatory approaches...appliance efficiency standards...so far seem pretty durable. CAFE standards have also held up pretty well and, thanks to CA, could even outlast the coming Trump regime, particularly if car makers keep their deal with CA.
However, SCOTUS overturning the Chevron Decison has put a spike into regulations, that is being exploited by polluters right now. The new Administration is set to undo regulation in a number of ways, from appointing agency leaders to undermine regulatory support positiions, and defund the regulating agencies.
Regulations are subject to legal interpretation, and we have seen what happens when legal opinion is changed to support politics. In 1930s Germany, the law was whatever Hitler said it was and the judges complied. As a guardrail, regulations are only as strong as the legal support behind them. Change that support and they are gone.