Zeno Swijtink
06-05-2008, 06:35 PM
From: Aubrey Meyer <[email protected]>
Subject: Garnaut: - "Humanity will lose to Climate"
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 01:18:54 +0000
Prof Ross Garnaut
The Sixth H.W. Arndt Memorial Lecture
"Measuring the Immeasurable:
The Costs and Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation"
The Australian National University
5th June 2008
The Full Speech Text of this very pessimistic lecture is at: -
https://www.gci.org.uk/Garnault/Measuring_the_Unmeasurable_050608.pdf
Economist Ross Garnaut thinks humanity will probably lose the fight against climate change. The architect of Australia's response to climate change says the issue is "too hard" and there is "just a chance" the world will face up to the problem before it's too late. Professor Garnaut issued the chilling prognosis in a speech in Canberra tonight.
"There is a chance - just a chance - that Australia and the world will manage to develop a position that strikes a good balance between the costs of dangerous climate change and the costs of mitigation," his prepared speech said.
"The consequences of the choice are large enough for it to be worth a large effort to take that chance, in the short period that remains before our options diminish fatefully."
Prof Garnaut was pessimistic about Australia's ability to tackle climate change. "An observation of daily debate and media discussion in Australia could lead one to the view that this issue is too hard for rational policy-making in Australia," he said. "The issues are too complex, the vested interests surrounding it too numerous and intense, the relevant timeframes too long. Climate change policy remains a diabolical problem."
The full, fateful and concluding extract runs as follows: -
“The future poor get no votes anywhere, and least of all in Wall Street, the City of London, and Puxi. My own inclination is towards the use of a low pure rate of time preference, alongside recognition that in dealing with the means of the probability distributions, future incomes should be valued at substantially less per dollar on inter-generational equity grounds. The net result may justify the application of something like a market rate of interest for good sovereign debt to the discounting of outcomes near the middle of the distributions from the mainstream science. This outcome reflects coincidence of conflicting empirical influences, rather than the logic of debt markets. The Final Report will seek to show sensitivity of the policy conclusions to variations in the discount rate.
A different calculus becomes necessary for consideration of the future values of the truly awful possibilities.
THE REVIEWS RECOMMENDATIONS IN A WORLD OF UNCERTAINTY AND IMPORTANT IMMEASUREABLE IMPACTS
The Review successively in the Draft Report, the Supplementary Draft Report and the Final Report will present quantitative measures where it can, and estimate the potentially measureable effects when the data are not available for elaborate modelling of the potentially measureable.
The Draft Report on July 4 and the Final Report will discuss the implications of taking into account the possibility of outcomes being much worse than is suggested by the means of the probability distributions. They will seek to bring to account the value of various non-market services that are valued by Australians and which would be substantially affected by realisation of outcomes predicted by mainstream science.
Doing all of these things in a transparent way will, I hope, reveal to the Governments to which I will be reporting, and to the Australian community, the implications of the climate change policy choices that will be made over the period ahead.
An observation of daily debate and media discussion in Australia could lead one to the view that this issue is too hard for rational policy-making in Australia. The issues are too complex, the vested interests surrounding it too numerous and intense, the relevant time-frames too long.
Following the Lee Lecture last year, Climate Change policy remains a diabolical problem. There is a chance - just a chance - that Australia and the world will manage to develop a position that strikes a good balance between the costs of dangerous climate change and the costs of mitigation. The consequences of the choice are large enough for it to be worth a large effort to take that chance, in the short period that remains before our options diminish fatefully.“
Subject: Garnaut: - "Humanity will lose to Climate"
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2008 01:18:54 +0000
Prof Ross Garnaut
The Sixth H.W. Arndt Memorial Lecture
"Measuring the Immeasurable:
The Costs and Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation"
The Australian National University
5th June 2008
The Full Speech Text of this very pessimistic lecture is at: -
https://www.gci.org.uk/Garnault/Measuring_the_Unmeasurable_050608.pdf
Economist Ross Garnaut thinks humanity will probably lose the fight against climate change. The architect of Australia's response to climate change says the issue is "too hard" and there is "just a chance" the world will face up to the problem before it's too late. Professor Garnaut issued the chilling prognosis in a speech in Canberra tonight.
"There is a chance - just a chance - that Australia and the world will manage to develop a position that strikes a good balance between the costs of dangerous climate change and the costs of mitigation," his prepared speech said.
"The consequences of the choice are large enough for it to be worth a large effort to take that chance, in the short period that remains before our options diminish fatefully."
Prof Garnaut was pessimistic about Australia's ability to tackle climate change. "An observation of daily debate and media discussion in Australia could lead one to the view that this issue is too hard for rational policy-making in Australia," he said. "The issues are too complex, the vested interests surrounding it too numerous and intense, the relevant timeframes too long. Climate change policy remains a diabolical problem."
The full, fateful and concluding extract runs as follows: -
“The future poor get no votes anywhere, and least of all in Wall Street, the City of London, and Puxi. My own inclination is towards the use of a low pure rate of time preference, alongside recognition that in dealing with the means of the probability distributions, future incomes should be valued at substantially less per dollar on inter-generational equity grounds. The net result may justify the application of something like a market rate of interest for good sovereign debt to the discounting of outcomes near the middle of the distributions from the mainstream science. This outcome reflects coincidence of conflicting empirical influences, rather than the logic of debt markets. The Final Report will seek to show sensitivity of the policy conclusions to variations in the discount rate.
A different calculus becomes necessary for consideration of the future values of the truly awful possibilities.
THE REVIEWS RECOMMENDATIONS IN A WORLD OF UNCERTAINTY AND IMPORTANT IMMEASUREABLE IMPACTS
The Review successively in the Draft Report, the Supplementary Draft Report and the Final Report will present quantitative measures where it can, and estimate the potentially measureable effects when the data are not available for elaborate modelling of the potentially measureable.
The Draft Report on July 4 and the Final Report will discuss the implications of taking into account the possibility of outcomes being much worse than is suggested by the means of the probability distributions. They will seek to bring to account the value of various non-market services that are valued by Australians and which would be substantially affected by realisation of outcomes predicted by mainstream science.
Doing all of these things in a transparent way will, I hope, reveal to the Governments to which I will be reporting, and to the Australian community, the implications of the climate change policy choices that will be made over the period ahead.
An observation of daily debate and media discussion in Australia could lead one to the view that this issue is too hard for rational policy-making in Australia. The issues are too complex, the vested interests surrounding it too numerous and intense, the relevant time-frames too long.
Following the Lee Lecture last year, Climate Change policy remains a diabolical problem. There is a chance - just a chance - that Australia and the world will manage to develop a position that strikes a good balance between the costs of dangerous climate change and the costs of mitigation. The consequences of the choice are large enough for it to be worth a large effort to take that chance, in the short period that remains before our options diminish fatefully.“