Articles by Joseph Romm

Climate change mitigation costs less than doing nothing about the problem

I have argued previously that the landmark Stern Report got the big picture right -- strong action now to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is economically justified, since the cost of action (i.e., mitigation), perhaps 1 percent of GDP, is far less than the cost of inaction (i.e., climate change impacts), which Stern estimates as at least 5 percent of GDP and possibly as high as 20 percent.

In particular, I (and others) argued that Stern's much-criticized choice of a low discount rate, 1.4 percent, was in fact justified -- see here and here for a good discussion.

Now perhaps the most mainstream economic policy think tank in the country -- Resources for the Future (RFF) -- has written a major report, "An Even Sterner Review" (PDF), with two key conclusions.

First, "we find no strong objections to the discounting assumptions adopted in the Stern Review."

Second:

[T]he conclusions reached in the review can be justified on other grounds than by using a low discount rate. We argue that nonmarket damages from climate change are probably underestimated and that future scarcities that will be induced by the changing composition of the economy and climate change should lead to rising relative prices for certain goods and services, raising the estimated damage of climate change and counteracting the effect of discounting.

What does RFF mean by "rising relative prices"?

And at what temperature Greenland’s ice sheet will melt

Climate tipping points have been the subject of much debate and confusion. Now Professor Tim Lenton of the University of East Anglia has published a very good piece, "Tipping points in the Earth System," giving some intellectual substance to the notion.

Not surprisingly, the tipping point Prof. Lenton worries about most is the disintegration of Greenland's ice sheet. He told The Guardian:

We know that ice sheets in the last ice age collapsed faster than any current models can capture, so our models are known to be too sluggish.

A new technology to reduce GHG emissions from coal plants

The carbon capture and storage (CCS) discussion has focused on pre-combustion capture of CO2, since it has long been assumed that it is easier and cheaper than trying to capture the CO2 post-combustion from the flue gas (exhaust stream). The problem is: (1) that approach limits CCS to new coal plants, and (2) that requires utilities to build integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plants, which are more expensive to build and more expensive to maintain.

Post-combustion capture would allow CCS to be retrofitted on existing coal plants. If it proves practical and affordable, that would be a major breakthrough in efforts to control greenhouse-gas emissions. Last week brought us this announcement:

BP Alternative Energy and Powerspan Corp. today announced their collaborative agreement to develop and commercialize a post-combustion CO2 capture process for conventional power plants.

More details on this potentially important technology below:

In nontechnical terms

For those wondering why the planet hasn't yet exceeded the 1998 El Niño-fueled temperature record, a new Science magazine article ($ub. req'd) explains why. Basically, in addition to the steady increase in anthropogenic warming from greenhouse gases, you have to add a smaller variation from climate oscillations linked to the oceans. Those oscillations have been tamping down temperatures a tad, and will keep doing so for the next couple of years, but the decade of the 2010s is going to bring a return to record-smashing temperatures:

Our system predicts that internal variability will partially offset the anthropogenic global warming signal for the next few years. However, climate will continue to warm, with at least half of the years after 2009 predicted to exceed the warmest year currently on record.