Sunday, June 27, 2010

Wiedemann im ZDF: Trittbrettfahrer, Klimakosten

Schon am 30. Mai 2010 hatte Michael Wiedemann beim ZDF (Umwelt) wieder mit einer Sendung zum Klimathema zugeschlagen. Ausgangspunkt ist ein Gutachten beim Bundesfinanzministerium. Ich finde, die Sendung lohnt sich anzugucken.

16 comments:

@ReinerGrundmann said...

The Prof is right about CO2 but forgets that the other half of climate drivers (soot, tropospheric ozone, HFCs, land use change, etc (see the Hartwell Paper). Narrowing policy options down to adaptation is the symmetric mistake to the long fixation with CO2 abatement.

eduardo said...

Der richtiger Link zum Gutachten ist dieser

P Gosselin said...

An excellent report from the normally very green (superficially at least) ZDF. Finally it's beginning to dawn on Germany's elite journalists the havoc this slipshod energy policy is wreaking on Europe's economy.
Adaptation? What a splendid idea! Our early ancestors thought of that - millions of years ago.
Nice to see that political thinking is on the verge of reaching Neanderthal stages.

P Gosselin said...

Here's my post
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/max-planck-institute-financial-researcher-calls-europes-climate-policy-a-failure/

For those with the stomach for it.

Georg Hoffmann said...

At the end it's allways CO2. It is most probably clever to win a decade or two for new technologies by focusing right now on Methan and other easier targets. At the end of the day if you dont solve the CO2 problem you didnt solve the climate problem.

To the video:

1) Nobody knows what prices and emissions would be without the mentioned 65 Mrd invested in alternative energies. They suggest that the balance is zero. How does he know that? Obviously all the measures to reduce CO2 emission didnt met their target. Unfortunately this doesnt proof that they didnt work.

2) Adaptation without mitigation will not work (as the contrary will not work). There are 1000-1500 ppm potentially bound in oil, gas and coal waiting to be released. If the result of such a study is: we adapt and at least until 2050 everything's fine the professor didnt understand the scale of the problem.

Hans Erren said...

Georg,
No in the end it's always feedbacks.
If you don't solve the feedback problem you didn't solve the climate problem.
Currently climate prediction is akin to applying astronomy with an uncertainty of 100% in the lightspeed velocity.

@ReinerGrundmann said...

There is another interesting report from the Monopoly Commission of the German Parliament which can be accessed here

Their main arguments are
1 that emissions trading will only shift carbon emissions from one emitter to another;
2 that exisitng laws on renewable energy support only known technologies and applications but systematically neglect new applications;
3 In the short run the effects are only to increase the price of electricity.

Ingolf said...

In the short run the effects are only to increase the price of electricity.

and in the long run?

fmassen said...

I think this report is something like an air cleaning lightning strike in climate-hysteria friendly Germany. The text is very different from the politically correct header at the BMF webpage. The conclusion clearly points to the best strategy: prepare for rapid deployable adaptation, do not rush into costly mitigation until certainty is considerably higher.

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Focus Magazine has a short interview with Bjorn Lomborg. Here is a short excerpt:
[Question: is only adaptation left as a policy option?]

"Müssen wir uns vielleicht eingestehen, dass wir den Klimawechsel ohnehin nicht mehr aufhalten können, sondern dass es darum geht, die Folgen zu bewältigen?

Ich glaube das nicht. Wir haben zum Beispiel gute Chancen, die Auto-Emissionen auf lange Sicht deutlich zu reduzieren. Dennoch sollten wir uns nicht der Forschung verschließen, wie die Menschheit den Klimawandel zur Not durch das sogenannte Geo-Engineering abmildern kann. So könnte man im Südpazifik Meerwasser in die Atmosphäre sprühen und dadurch die Wolkenbildung fördern. Auch durch das Ausbringen von Schwefelpartikeln in die Strato-sphäre wären deutliche Effekte zu erzielen. Beides würde den Temperaturanstieg stoppen - zu einem Bruchteil der Kosten, die die Bekämpfung des Klimawandels heute verursacht."

[Answer: no, we can reduce emissions, for example with cars. But in the long run, we need also geo-engineering projects, like injecting sea water into the atmosphere or sulphur particles into the stratosphere]

He misses two things: there are short lived substances that are easier to tackle than CO2. And the quick identification of two geo-engineering methods is premature. Long term, we need zero carbon energy provision cheaper than coal.

Brian H said...

Since CO2 is a resource, not a pollutant, the entire schema is deluded.

In any case, from an economic viewpoint, the Professor is entirely correct, that money, oil, and CO2 are all "fungible". A fluctuation in supply or usage in one location is readily picked up and reversed at others.

Werner Krauss said...

I like it! Is it form Jon stewart's Daily Show?
Wonderful inspiration for a new poem (in international German)

Schlechte KlimaLaune Deutsch

Der Professor!
Die Bibliothek!
ZDF!
Kosten-Nutzen!
Das ist der Wissenschaft längst bekannt!
150 Milliarden Dollar!
Der Steuerzahler!
Deutschland!
Welt!
Trittbrettfahrer!
Erneuerbareenergiengesetz!
62 Milliarden Dollar!
Steuerzahler!
Klima!
Max Planck!
Gesetz!
Wissenschaft!
Die Kleinen!
Die Großen!
Politik!
Die Anderen!!
ZDF!
Musik!

eduardo said...

Wenn es nichts kosten würde, würden alle eine Verminderung des CO2 Austosses bevorzügen. Es kostet aber etwas. Man weisst nicht genau wieviel, welcher der beste Weg dorthin wäre, und wer es bezahlen soll .

Externe Treiber in der Wirtschafts können auch überraschende Ergebnisse verursachen. Eine Carbon-Steuer könnte sogar die Emissionen erhöhen

Werner Krauss said...

@eduardo 13
'wenn es nichts kosten würde' - das ist ein oft wiederholtes Argument. Aber sind 'die Leute' wirklich das Problem? Das Problem ist doch, was Du im nächsten Satz sagst: WAS soll denn nichts kosten? Natürlich will niemand für etwas bezahlen, wofür gar kein einsichtiger Plan besteht. Wir wissen ja gar nicht, was 'die Menschen' sagen würden, wenn Ihnen jemand einen schlüssigen Plan vorlegen würde. Solange das nicht der Fall ist, sollte man 'den Leuten' erstmal gar nix unterstellen.

@ReinerGrundmann said...

Werner

one does not have to be a prophet to know that people will not buy into policies that result in higher engery prices but no big carbon reductions.

Werner Krauss said...

Reiner,
exactly. It's a bad habit to blame 'the people', 'the public' etc. And it is intellectual laziness.