Category: Politics

All posts on what Bismarck called “the art of the possible”

US and Canadian electoral predictions

As of today, fivethirtyeight.com is projecting a 93.8% chance that Obama will win the American election, with a projected 351 electoral college votes compared to McCain’s 187. They are giving Obama an 84% chance of winning Florida, which would basically decide the election by itself, giving Obama a lead McCain couldn’t counter with other swing states. They are also projecting 56 Democratic senators.

The UBC election stock market is putting the odds of a Conservative majority in Canada at around 10%. The Tories are projected to gain seven seats (ending up with 131 total), while the Liberals are projected to lose eighteen seats (ending up with 85). The big winner is expected to be the NDP: gaining fourteen seats (for a total of 43) while the Bloc loses four and ends up with a total of 47. Two seats are projected to go to Greens or independents.

Appetite for climate policy in Europe

In many ways, the European Union leads the world on climate change policy. In most states, there is broad political support for carbon regulation. They have also undertaken the largest experiment in carbon pricing. While the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) certainly has a large number of problems, it will hopefully develop towards greater effectiveness and prove a model for others. The EU also has some ambitious targets and, in many cases, reasonable mechanisms for working towards them.

Of course, it becomes more difficult to sell strong climate policies to voters when the economy heads south. Poland is suddenly extremely anxious about the carbon intensity of its coal-fired power plants, while other states are worried about the global competitiveness of their industries.

This is part of the reason for which it is so critical to get a strong new global agreement by the time of the Copenhagen meeting of the UNFCCC. Once emissions-intensive sectors are regulated in most of the states where they are important, states will be less anxious about losing competitiveness.

The death of libertarianism

There is a lot about the political philosophy of libertarianism that is appealing. The idea that one should be free to behave as one wishes – as long as it doesn’t harm others – seems to provide a decent balance between allowing people to pursue their own purposes and stopping that pursuit from harming the general interest. That being said, the degree to which libertarianism can be liberating is diminishing with time. This is basically because of both the growing fact of interconnectedness and because of our growing awareness of it.

One example is economic globalization. At one point in time, it would have been considered reasonable to argue that economic activity on one side of the world has no morally relevant effect on the other. Now that markets are more linked, products and capital flow, and awareness of linkages exist, that becomes very difficult to argue. Before, it is as though the chooser was alone in a room with a light switch. It is of no particular moral consequence whether they choose to have it on or not. Now, it is more as though that light switch also reduces the function of the equipment in a hospital across town when it is pulled. Whereas libertarianism previously permitted free choice, the inter-linked example includes a moral obligation to act in a certain way.

Climate change may be the ultimate force diminishing how liberating libertarianism can be. Not only do nearly all of our life and economic choices impact innocent third parties around the world, they also contribute to a problem that will have a huge long-term impact on future generations and the natural world. Arguably, this makes the doctrine of “do what you like but do no harm” impossible to follow in practice.

It is not clear if or how the appealing aspects of libertarianism can be maintained in a world full of important material interconnections. The most plausible answer seems to be a combination of working hard to create situations where multiple moral choices actually do exist (light switches that don’t shut down breathing machines) and accepting those situations where the tradeoffs are real and making a determined effort to choose the least harmful option.

Encouraging the president-elect to go to Poznan

Grist and 350.org have launched a campaign aimed at convincing the next president-elect of the United States to attend the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties in Poznan, Poland this December. The meeting will help lay the groundwork for the negotiations in Copenhagen next year, where a successor to the Kyoto Protocol will hopefully be agreed.

It certainly seems as though the attendance of the next president would signal a big shift in the American approach. An agreement that can bring together the US, China, Japan, and Europe will have an excellent chance of being adopted by all crucial states. Such an agreement would help to drive the vital transition towards a low-carbon global economy.

Building a low-carbon political consensus

In order to begin a sustained transition to a low-carbon global economy, the following things need to occur:

  • Political parties and the public at large must accept that stabilizing climate means eventually eliminating net emissions.
  • They must understand what the on-the-ground ramifications of this are.
  • A price for carbon must be established, with mechanisms for international trading.
  • Climate policies must become more rigorous over time, regardless of who is in power.
  • Climatic stability must become an axiom of all political ideologies accepted by parties likely to gain power in major emitting states.
  • Emissions reductions must take place both during times of strong economic growth and during times of economic difficulty.

Getting to that point, and doing so fast enough to prevent more than 2°C of mean temperature change, will be very challenging indeed – even if the actual sensitivity of the climate to greenhouse gasses is at the low end of the probable range.

It will probably require the rout of the small but highly effective climate change denial industry. In addition, it will require a jump in public imagination to being able to imagine an attractive low-carbon future. Either alternative or in addition, it will also required increased awareness of just how bad climate change could be. The Meteorological Office of the United Kingdom predicts that a business-as-usual course of emissions until 2050 would lead to 5.5°C to 7.1°C of temperature increase by 2100. For context, the IPCC projects that a temperature rise of 3.5°C to 7.1°C would place 48% to 100% of all species at risk of extinction. My guess is that the upper bound doesn’t include microorganisms, but it would still be pretty frightening if it only included multi-cellular beings. For the same temperature range, the predicted likelihood of “initiating irreversible melt of the Greenland ice sheet” is 85% to 100% and the “percentage of mortality in tolerant coral species” is 90% to 100%.

Here’s hoping that political consensus comes together soon… The frequent refrain of ‘balancing’ economic growth with environmental protection becomes insane when these kinds of ecological consequences are possible.

‘The ends justify the means’

When people criticize the idea that ‘the ends justify the means’, it seems to me that the real objection usually has to do with the distribution of outcomes between different agents, rather than the standard of assessing the morality of something according to the consequences it produces. Moral codes based on the outcomes of decisions are called ‘teleological’ whereas those based on rules about behaviour are called ‘deontological.’ Some have argued that a view based on consequences is likely to produce injustices, so it is more appropriate to base morality on set rules, such as the defence of individual rights. I don’t think it is necessary to make that jump. Indeed, I think the transition from an outcomes based view to a rights based view is likely to lead to less effective moral deliberation.

Consider some examples of ‘the ends justifying the means:’

  • A person infected with a contagious, lethal illness is killed to stop them from accidentally infecting others.
  • Reduced unemployment benefits drive 20% of those previously receiving benefits to get jobs, while making 5% poorer than before.

The relevant moral factors all seem to be based around consequences. How urgent was it to kill the infected person? How soon would they have died of the disease? What kind of jobs did the 20% get? Did they end up better off, all told? How much worse off did the 5% end up? In general, it seems that our objections to the ends justifying the means boil down to two kinds of objections: that the decision made undermined an important procedure or institution, or that those who were made to sacrifice welfare either gave up an excessive amount or were already badly off.

The procedural exception is certainly very important. Say a police officer is also a member of a drug gang and witnesses a fellow gang member killing someone. He is unwilling to testify to his involvement, so he plants false evidence leading to the man’s conviction. Here, we would legitimately object to the corruption of the police force and the impartial treatment of evidence. Even if doing so produced the ‘right’ outcome in this case – the conviction of a guilty person – the degree to which the means undermined the system made it unacceptable. Note that this is still an argument about consequences. If the police force operated in this way, we would expect future societal welfare to be lower than if the police behaved with integrity.

The exception based on the division of costs is similarly convincing, and similarly teleological in nature. Just think about the kind of justifications that could be employed in the case of the diseased person. Say they were about to board an airplane for a long flight, and the only way to prevent them from doing so would be lethal. Any argument would be about whether a more ‘cautious’ approach detrimental to the individual produces a better overall outcome than an approach that more aggressively asserts the larger interests of the group. The argument against excessive burdens on one individual or entity is similar. We recognize that forcing someone to sacrifice one of their last units of wealth is a greater imposition than making them give up one of their first units, since people pushed below a bare minimum level of subsistence suffer more than those pushed from greater to lesser affluence. We also recognize that the minimum moral action is of a higher magnitude when someone is in a truly desperate situation: we may not be morally obliged to provide aid to someone with the sniffles, but we may well be for someone who has just had a stroke or heart attack. Ultimately, those moral imperatives derive from the set of all outcomes associated with each choice.

In short, moving to a system based on rights forces us to adjudicate between them, and doing that necessarily brings us back into the realm of consequences. Say that I have the right to free speech and you have the right to privacy. How do we adjudicate between them? Using rules based on the consequences arising from different arrangements. It may be important to protect my right to criticize you if you are a public figure, for instance. It may also be especially important to protect the privacy of children and minors. Ultimately, rights just enumerate the moral issues that need to be considered. Consequentialist or teleological analyses give us our best insight into what is, or is not, moral.

NDP opportunism and Conservative concealment

Perhaps the biggest disappointment in this federal election campaign is the opportunistic and irresponsible opposition of the NDP to carbon pricing. It is now extremely clear that global emissions need to fall – both in times of economic strength and weakness. Those in economies with excessive per-capita emissions need to fall soonest and fastest, and Canada has an appalling record in that regard. Cutting emissions in an economically efficient way means establishing a national price for carbon: either through a cap-and-trade scheme or a carbon tax. As such, parties that support a Canadian climate policy that is effective and internationally responsible would do well to either make such a proposal or support one already advanced by another federal party. Jack Layton may be more concerned with social welfare than with the environment, but he really needs to realize that failing to deal with climate change will produce enormous amounts of suffering and that those who will be hardest hit will be the poorest and most vulnerable in Canada, and around the world.

The other big disappointment is the failure of the Conservative Party to publish a platform. It is truly bizarre for a sitting government that is seeking an eventual majority to not publish the details of what they plan to do with the country. It leaves the opposition without the opportunity to comment, and Canadians in general without the opportunity to make an informed choice.

[Update: 9 October 2008]: The platform is out (PDF).

Global preferences regarding US presidential candidates

Given the degree to which the American president influences events all around the world, there is a certain degree of sense in polling the rest of the world to see which of the two current presidential candidates they prefer. This page on The Economist‘s website is doing just that. It is set up to mimic the American electoral college system, with each country getting three votes by default plus additional ones by population. In total, there are 9,875 votes.

At the time of writing, Canada’s 49 electoral college votes are going to Obama, who is preferred to McCain by 87% to 13%. The 432 American votes are also going to Obama, reflecting a 79% to 21% preference. The only countries that are toss ups or leaning towards McCain seem to be Macedonia (5 votes) and Andorra (3 votes). As such, Obama is leading by 8,360 to 8.

Of course, there are huge methodological problems with this type of survey. It is amalgamating the preferences of those who have volunteered to take it, and who therefore presumably have some knowledge of The Economist. It is neither a random nor a representative sample. Even so, the results are pretty striking.

The Met Office on the urgency of emission reductions

The Met Office is the official national weather service of the United Kingdom, subsidiary to the Ministry of Defence. Their website provides a wealth of information about climate change. For instance, they have projections based on in-house models, a PDF containing “the known facts about climate change.” One page on the site lists the six key facts about the issue of global warming:

  1. Climate change is happening and humans are contributing to it
  2. Temperatures are continuing to rise
  3. The current climate change is not just part of a natural cycle
  4. Recent warming cannot be explained by the Sun or natural factors alone
  5. If we continue emitting greenhouse gases this warming will continue and delaying action will make the problem more difficult to fix
  6. Climate models predict the main features of future climate

It is very refreshing to see this kind of thing from an authoritative source: providing comprehensible information on the strength of the scientific consensus. The head of the Met Office recently published an article in The Guardian stressing the urgent need to cut greenhouse gas emissions:

Even with large and early cuts in emissions, these projections indicate that temperatures are likely to rise to around 2C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. If action is delayed or is slow, then there is a significant risk of much larger increases in temperature. The uncertainties in the science mean that even if the most likely temperature rise is kept within reasonable limits, we cannot rule out the possibility of much larger increases. Adaptation strategies are therefore needed to deal with these less likely, but still real, possibilities…

Even if emissions start to decrease in the next two years and reach a rapid and sustained rate of decline of 3% per year, temperatures are likely to rise to 1.7C above pre-industrial levels by 2050 and to around 2C by 2100. This is because carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere will be around for many years to come and the climate takes some time to respond to these changes. Only an early and rapid decline in emissions gets anywhere close to the target of 50% reduction in emissions by 2050 put forward by the G8.

Contrast that with a world where no action is taken to curb global warming. Then, temperatures could rise as high as 7C above pre-industrial values by the end of the century. This would lead to significant risks of severe and irreversible impacts.

Clear, scientifically-informed, and forcefully expressed – we would be lucky to see climate change discussed in such a manner in some of the developed and developing nations less progressive on the issue than the United Kingdom has generally shown itself to be.

North/South historical versus future emissions

It is common to hear officials from developed states say things akin to this: “Yes, we are the ones who have historically done the most to create climate change – but we will be eclipsed by developing nations in the future.” While probably valid to some extent, there are many possible responses to this. There are arguments about who got rich how, as well as whose current per-capita emissions are high or low. What I am objecting to here is the curious methodology sometimes used to describe the developed/developing past/future dynamic.

Sometimes, states say both (a) developed states will continue to increase their emissions, in line with how they have been rising recently and (b) we will cut our emissions, according to our existing plan. If you step beyond that to compare your target future numbers with your business-as-usual projections for developing states, you make them look like a huge problem by comparison. One problem with this is that it is akin to saying the following: “I know I have been a problem gambler, but I have a plan to cut it down. I am going to halve my annual gambling losses in three years, and eliminate 80% of them in five. My buddy here, however, is a really compulsive gambler. He keeps losing more and more at an increasing rate. As such, his projected future losses are huge. Indeed, the amount I have lost so far is tiny compared to the amount he is going to lose in the future.” It is paradoxical because you are using the assertion that you will do better in the future to avoid present demands that you do more to reduce future emissions.

You are basically assuming that you can and will change, while others will not. No rich country government that has adopted targets for cutting emissions claims that cutting emissions requires cutting GDP. Nobody in power is touting a “stop climate change through recession” approach. As such, they must believe it possible to maintain economic growth while cutting emissions. While that may or may not be a valid assumption over various spans of time, it is an assumption that must be applied to developing states as well as developed ones.

In short, both developed and developing states need to cut emissions. The large probable future emissions from states like India and China are relevant to climate planning, partly insofar as concern about them could prompt useful transfers of wealth and low-carbon technology towards those states. At the same time, the wealth of the developed world – and the historical emissions that helped generate it – are also highly relevant. So too are the much larger non-climatic challenges being faced in the developing world. The developed world needs to start taking the kinds of steps necessary for actually hitting their 2020 and 2050 targets, in the process demonstrating to developing states how the transition can be accomplished in a politically acceptable way.