Harry Clarke

I prepared these notes for a conference at Peking University, Beijing that I will be attending this coming Saturday. It is late in the day but comments are very welcome.
1. Introduction.   Carbon taxes and, more generally, taxes on greenhouse gas emissions, are a widely advocated means of reducing such emissions to address anthropogenic climate change – see, [...]

One of the interesting and influential figures I met recently in Paris was Professor Donald Shoup  from the University of California, Los Angeles - I have a great shot of him iding a (rented) Velib bike near a well-known Parisian tourist attraction.  Shoup is one of the world’s experts on the economics of parking.  This sounds like a [...]

The Pew Climate Centre have shown that over the last year or so a decreased proportion of US citizens believe climate change is a serious public policy issue and a reduced number believe there is solid evidence that anthropogenic warming is occurring.   Climate change delusionists might be credited with inducing these changed opinions but the [...]

While many have devoted time and effort trying to predict what will come out of the Copenhagen meetings I have largely elected to wait-and-see.  Even that is difficult – this article from Bridges I found useful. It is the first in a series and I will update.

The hacked emails from the University of East Anglia on climate change – a good survey of the material is here – have been enthusiastically – though unconvincingly – used to support climate change skepticism.  In my view the hack is a non-event. The NYT has a sensible summary of the implications of this material:
“The [...]

Australia’s agricultural sector provides around 16% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.  The Rudd Government originally planned to exempt this sector from its CPRS until 2015 but to revisit the decision in 2013.  In a major cave-in Jelly-Back Rudd has brought this decision forward and permanently exempted this sector from the CPRS.  To realize greenhouse gas emission targets [...]

This is the basis of remarks I made to Red Symons today on 774 Melbourne ABC.

My guess that the Government would buckle under local interest group pressure to reject the parallel import of books has proven correct. Mark at LP is pleased to learn that the moves to allow free trade in books suggested by the Productivity Commission have been stopped by the Rudd Government. In fact he asks why have a Productivity [...]

Rudd lets the Coalition have it and he is correct. An excellent speech – to the point and accurate – with sound economics – I have a strong intuition about who wrote it.  
It is 20 days until the Senate vote on the CPRS and 31 days to the meetings in Copenhagen.  The deceptions coming from the Liberal and [...]

Nic* Stern  sets out what is needed in Copenhagen and why the prospects for a cooperative agreement that works are not insurmountable.

John Quiggin recently (i) attacked consumption-based bases for levying carbon charges and (ii) defended cap-and-trade schemes against ‘equivalent’ carbon tax schemes.  On (ii) I don’t substantively disagree but on (i) I do. I responded on his blog. Here is an improved statement of my position.

An excellent summing up – written and via podcast – is provided by Professor Ross Garnaut at the East Asia Forum. The full speech podcast is here. Well worth a read and a listen.
 

I have not regarded the issue of choosing between a ‘cap-and-trade’ scheme and a ‘carbon tax’ for managing carbon emissions as one of first-order importance.   Under certain conditions setting carbon quotas and auctioning them off at some equilibrium price has exactly the same effect as setting a tax on carbon equal to the equilibrium price. [...]

China must eventually curb its carbon emissions in absolute terms if aggregate GGEs are to be controlled. 

Quadrant has outdone itself this time with a forum of views encouraging the Senate over the next week to reject the proposed ETS. It is in the main – not entirely – the same old denialist nonsense – the science is wrong, all due to the sun, the earth is cooling, the earth hasn’t heated [...]

I found this particularly useful.  My only question relates to the recorded reduction of growth in energy related GGEs from 2007 to 2008 from 2.8% to 1.8%. This seems too abrupt even given the recession ! Coal now dominates oil and China, whose use of coal is growing at 7.1% annually is dominating recent aggregate global GGE [...]

An important effect of the recent Rudd backtrack on climate change  policy is that it has reduced the credibility of government climate change policy. As Laura Tinkle remarks today ’One thing that is certain is that the changes this week have not helped rebuild any solid and noisy base of support for the government’s emissions trading scheme’ [...]