1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
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Even as Congress considers the Waxman-Markey greenhouse gas control bill, the conflicts that have blocked all previous efforts to curb emissions are again surfacing in the ongoing United Nations climate talks. Many experts have concluded that the world needs
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a backup strategy--geoengineering--should attempts to limit emissions continue to make little or no progress.
Geoengineering, or "climate engineering," involves blocking a small fraction of the sunlight that would otherwise warm the Earth's surface. While the concept is still in its infancy, many scientists believe that it deserves serious research. Yet it also raises other, entirely new, questions. Climate engineering could be so inexpensive that a single nation, acting alone, could cool the entire planet. In doing so, it would change other nations' climates, perhaps in unpredictable ways. Who, then, should set the rules? What should those rules permit or forbid? How should they be enforced?
At this event, Scott Barrett of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies will present a working paper entitled "Geoengineering's Role in Climate Change Policy." Responding will be Bryan D. Caplan of George Mason University and Nobel laureate Thomas C. Schelling of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. AEI's Lee Lane will moderate. This event is part of AEI's Geoengineering Project.
| 9:45 a.m. |
Registration | |
| 10:00 |
Presenter: | Scott Barrett, Johns Hopkins University |
| Discussants: | Bryan D. Caplan, George Mason University | |
| Thomas C. Schelling, University of Maryland | ||
| Moderator: | Lee Lane, AEI | |
| 12:30 p.m. | Adjournment |
WASHINGTON, JUNE 25, 2009--As Congress moves forward with plans to cap greenhouse gas emissions, many experts are pressing for consideration of other policy options. Geoengineering strategies represent one such policy option. Also known as "climate engineering," geoengineering strategies aim to alter temperature without changing the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by slightly reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth. Such approaches may be quite inexpensive relative to other options, and could prove to be an important part of a climate change response, especially if attempts to limit emissions lag or fail. On June 25, the AEI Geoengineering Project sponsored an event to explore the complex governance issues surrounding geoengineering.
Lee Lane, a resident fellow at AEI, moderated the discussion. He observed that, although the concept of geoengineering has existed for quite some time, until recently, it has been only a marginal factor in the climate policy debate. He also noted, however, that the idea is quickly gaining traction. Lane cited a number of influential organizations and individuals that have advocated further research on the subject. Because of the low costs associated with geoengineering, one nation, or a small group of nations, could change the global climate. This prospect has sparked both hopes and fears.
Scott Barrett of Johns Hopkins University, and author of the working paper, "Geoengineering's Role in Climate Change Policy," described climate engineering as one option in a diverse portfolio of potential responses to climate change. Globally, over the next several decades, gradual climate change will produce both winners and losers, and nations' responses to these changes will vary according to their interests. The potential conflicts of interest are likely to narrow over time, but nations may wish to consider an agreement to govern the development and use of geoengineering. He also drew attention to the lack of rules currently in place to govern these actions.
Barrett discussed some options for developing international rules. He noted that the world politics of climate engineering differ greatly from those of greenhouse gas control. The former escapes the free-rider problems that have dogged the latter, but nations continue to have differing preferences over how to deal with the climate. Barrett proposed the Framework Convention on Climate Change as a forum for bargaining on these differences. Crucial components of an agreement might include rules governing deployment, as well as provisions making research and development transparent and providing notification of field experiments to other countries.
Nobel laureate Thomas C. Schelling, professor emeritus of the University of Maryland, responded by observing that we know very little about organizing the myriad actors and resources needed to cope with the problem of climate change. Adaptation will be an important part of a climate change portfolio, but Schelling cautioned that we do not yet know how to effectively transfer the necessary resources from richer nations to poorer ones. Until we develop a better framework for doing so, actions meant to shield less developed tropical countries from the climate change that has already been set in motion by past emissions will largely be fruitless. Attempts to enforce emissions commitments across borders are unlikely to work, he observed, and "therefore commitments should be to what nations will do, not what their effect on emissions will be." One important advantage of geoengineering is that it does not involve drastically changing the way billions of people live and care for themselves on a daily basis. "The experimentation process," he continued, "will provide insight into how geoengineering might actually be carried out," and therefore should be a serious factor in discussions of geoengineering governance.
Bryan D. Caplan of George Mason University argued that nations may act on climate in ways that diverge from their own economic best interests. Caplan cited protectionist trade policies as one of many instances in which national behavior often contradicts national interest. He also addressed the concerns that certain powerful countries will be net losers should geoengineering be undertaken: if states are net losers under a relatively cheap geoengineering scheme, he countered, they will likely be even greater losers under far more costly climate change measures. More focus, he said, "should be placed on how much we could save with geoengineering." If we can determine that geoengineering options would be both effective and less costly than other alternatives, it might be prudent to devote a greater portion of our resources to these strategies.
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Scott Barrett is a professor of environmental economics and international political economy, director of the international policy program, and director of the Global Health and Foreign Policy Initiative at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He has advised a number of international organizations, including the United Nations, the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the European Commission, the Independent World Commission on the Oceans, the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Commission on Environmental Law, and the International Task Force on Global Public Goods. He was a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change second assessment report and previously served on the academic panel for the U.K.’s Department of Environment. Mr. Barrett received the Erik Kempe Prize for his work on international environmental agreements. His books include Environment and Statecraft: The Strategy of Environmental Treaty-Making (Oxford University Press, 2003) and Why Cooperate? The Incentive to Supply Global Public Goods (Oxford University Press, 2007). Professor Barrett will soon be moving to Columbia University, where he will be the Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics.
Bryan D. Caplan is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University. His major fields of interest are public choice, public finance, and monetary economics. Mr. Caplan has published in the Economic Journal, the Journal of Law and Economics, Social Science Quarterly, the Journal of Public Economics, the Southern Economic Journal, Public Choice, and numerous other outlets; he has also contributed articles and op-eds to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (Princeton University Press, 2007) and Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids (Basic Books, forthcoming).
Lee Lane, codirector of the AEI Geoengineering Project, is a resident fellow at AEI and a consultant to CRA International. Previously, he served as executive director of the Climate Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based policy research organization that analyzes climate policy and promotes economically efficient policy responses to the challenge of climate change. Mr. Lane is the author of Strategic Options for Bush Administration Climate Policy (AEI Press, 2006) and has contributed chapters to several books on climate change and energy policy. He was also the lead author of the 2006 NASA Ames workshop report on geoengineering. Mr. Lane has consulted with both the American and Japanese governments on technology and energy policy and with private sector clients both here and in Australia.
Thomas C. Schelling most recently held the title of distinguished university professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. Prior to coming to the University of Maryland, Mr. Schelling was the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. In 2005, he received, jointly with Robert Aumann, the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1991, Mr. Schelling was the president of the American Economic Association, of which he is a distinguished fellow. In addition to the Nobel, he has received the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy and the National Academy of Sciences Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War. Mr. Schelling served in the Economic Cooperation Administration in Europe and has held positions at the White House, Yale University, the RAND Corporation, and the Department of Economics and the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. He is the author of several books, including The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1960), Strategy and Arms Control with Morton H. Halperin (Twentieth Century Fund, 1961), Arms and Influence (Yale University Press, 1966), Micromotives and Macrobehavior (W.W. Norton & Company, 1978), and, most recently, Strategies of Commitment and Other Essays (Harvard University Press, 2006).
