Imagine how climate policy might look if instead of CO2 emissions as the metric to be directly managed we instead focused on more concrete, manageable metrics, like power plants (start with coal)
Achieving net-zero coal power would be much easier to manage/track & harder to game
The focus on management of CO2 emissions (an outcome of many complex processes) as the centerpiece of climate policy can be traced to viewing climate change through models (going back to the Bretherton diagram) and thinking through policy via IAMs & confusing models for reality
Imagine instead a power plant treaty
Part A: Net-Zero coal
Part B: Net-Zero gas
Coal & gas are of course not all emissions, about 2/3 of total from energy
But there is no requirement that all emissions must be regulated under a single policy, that complexity is a choice
A power plant treaty for achieving net-zero coal & gas would be so much easier to propose and track progress on
It would also lay bare serious commitments & unserious commitments much easier than today's focus on emissions
CO2 is ridiculously easy to manage in an IAM - not enough policy? No worries, here is a knob for BECCS!
In the real world the vast majority of emissions are the result of specific technologies
Managing technologies via policy is much more straightforward than managing outputs
Germany has demonstrated that a coal phase-out is possible (as a politically accepted plan)
Every country could use whatever policies they think make the most sense to achieve the result
Could be an instrument under FCCC/Paris
Like Paris, a power plant treaty would collect commitments, track progress, facilitate tech transfer & any burden-sharing
Any country unwilling to commit to a timeline for a coal phase-out would obviously not presently be serious about net-zero
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While key details are TBA, once again all of the heavy lifting is done by (newly-created) extreme scenarios & damages post-2100
Includes ~12C temp increase in 2300 🤨
The new RFF-SC scenarios (apparently not publicly available) have a median emissions trajectory similar to 3.4/4.5 SSPs, but include a ridiculously wide uncertainty range (from net-zero CO2 ~2050 to ~3x CO2 ~2100)
Even so, SSP5-8.5 is wildly implausible
Though RFF-SC details are not yet available, we can clearly see that the PDF for future emissions is heavily skewed
Of note the emissions distribution is centered on the median result & initial SCC results on the average result, thus increasing the influence of extreme scenarios
Not well-thought through @TheEconomist on insurance & disasters
Consider:
➡️"Losses from disasters cost the insurance industry $144bn in 2017"
➡️"Last year the premiums paid for property and casualty insurance worldwide reached $2.4trn"
Does P/C insurance look like an industry in trouble?
"Extreme events becoming the norm could force insurers to fork out ever greater payouts to policyholders, and lower the value of the assets they hold" 🤷♂️
Swiss Re founded 1863
Munich Re founded 1880
These companies exist because extreme events are the norm
Storm surge is a function of a storm and the current sea level
Long-term sea level rise of course raises the level of the sea but has absolutely no effect on storm surge from a particular storm
🤷♂️
I increasingly see the claim that SLR makes storm surge worse
This is incorrect
It’s like saying a 6 ft man is 5,286 ft tall in Denver
SLR & storm surge are both important scientific concepts, purposely confusing them is a bad idea
Even as SLR has increased over the past century+ societal vulnerability to storm surges has decreased, there is no reason to expect that with dedicated effort this trend will not continue
In the @WSJ@BjornLomborg uses our analyses of hurricane landfalls to argue that "the frequency of hurricanes making landfall in the continental U.S. has declined slightly since 1900"
I doubt I'm actually in @TheFIREorg database
My experiences highlighted below
We can add to those
➡️Targeted by the White House
➡️Investigated by Congress
➡️Investigated on campus
➡️Seen all four successful initiatives I created/led on campus shut down
➡️and more 🤓
I ❤️ tenure
I applaud @TheFIREorg for calling attention to these issues for scholars, which come from the right & from the left
They are incredibly difficult to experience & talk about
I'm stubborn/dumb/tenured & have made it thru the worst of it