Is a Climate Treaty Possible?

The Bali conference disappointed many people who hoped that delegates would agree to concrete steps for addressing climate change.  Instead, delegates agreed to “consider” this and “address” that and to “consider addressing” this and that.  It is certainly possible that eventually nations will enter a climate treaty.  But in light of Bali, it is worth addressing a taboo subject—that an effective climate treaty is simply not possible.

There are several reasons for doubting that states will be able to agree to a climate treaty that mandates significant limitations on greenhouse gas emissions.

First, there is the simple but unavoidable problem of collective action.  For climate change to be adequately addressed, it is not necessary for all states (and there are nearly 200) to agree to limit their emissions, but it is necessary for all major industrial and industrializing powers to do so.  There are dozens of such states, and it is always difficult for a large group to cooperate.

Second, the various states that must cut their emissions have highly diverse interests.  Some states (such as Russia) might not be harmed, might even be benefited, by global warming.  Other states, such as India, will be greatly harmed.  Some states (such as Sweden) have a long tradition of state control, which limits the political costs of regulating industry; other states (such as the United States) are more decentralized.  Some states are rich, others are poor.  Some states have effective governments, others do not.  Some states rely on local energy supplies (such as natural gas) that do not contribute much to global warming (the UK), others (like China) have a large supply of dirty coal.  Some states need rapid economic growth in order to maintain political stability; others do not.  Some states have vibrant environmental movements and voters who have green sentiments; others do not.  Some states have governments that accept and understand science; others do not.  All of this suggests that a uniform set of commitments cannot be mandated; at a minimum, politically sensitive side payments will be necessary.  Will it be politically possible to give massive subsidies to China, an authoritarian state with a bad human rights record and increasingly perceived as a global rival?  What about Russia?

Third, limits on greenhouse gas emissions hit powerful interest groups—the energy business, the car industry, unions.  Economically rational industry and union leaders will discount the future costs—no one will buy cars if all roads are covered by ocean—and look at the present.  What are the interest groups on the other side? Environmental groups, and some technology companies that would benefit from government R&D subsidies and from regulations that raise cost for energy-dependent rivals.

Fourth, the benefits of a treaty will be felt in the distant future—50 or perhaps 100 years out.  The costs are felt today.  How likely are ordinary people living today willing to incur significant costs for the sake of people living in the distant future?  Given that people in wealthy nations seem to care very little about the well-being of poor people living in poor nations (or even in their own nations) today, one might doubt that they would be very concerned about the well-being of people living in the future.

Fifth, the benefits are not salient, not politically visible, not of the type that normally motivates voters; whereas the costs are.  The costs will immediately sting millions of people who must pay more money to power their cars and heat their homes.  The benefits are floods, disease outbreaks, and military conflicts—that do not occur.  All this means that there will always be a large and suspicious group of voters who cannot understand the science and do not see the benefits that higher gas prices are paying for.

Sixth, an effective climate treaty would be extremely complex and highly intrusive.  A global cap-and-trade system would have to be set up, monitored, and enforced.  States would have to be prohibited from evading the treaty by allowing people to hide their emissions from public view.  In corrupt states, where basic property rights are often not respected, this seems likely to be difficult, unless other nations establish a strong presence, which seems impossible.  But even in the case of rich states, we know that governments have come up with ingenious and complex schemes for creating hidden trade barriers in violation of the WTO rules; surely, they will do the same for a climate treaty.  Some international body will be needed to prevent states from providing hidden subsidies to politically powerful industries that emit greenhouse gases in excess of quotas or permit regimes.  All international bodies, by their very nature, are hard to monitor and controversial, as people fear losing control over their lives to remote international institutions over which their government can have only limited influence (think of anti-WTO protesters; why didn’t they show up in Bali, anyway?).

All of these considerations might seem theoretical, but the evidence tends in the same direction.  It is impossible to think of an effective treaty regime that has surmounted all of the problems described above—or even more than one or two.  The most effective environmental treaty (the Montreal Protocol) involved only a few major states, and for some of the states the benefits were felt almost immediately and were less than their expected costs (even on an individual basis).  The Kyoto Protocol placed minimal burdens on the states that eventually ratified it (Russia was paid to ratify it; China was given no obligation; and Europe was given minimal obligations and may end up violating them anyway).  Treaties that govern warfare and military tactics produce immediate gains as well as costs as soon as a war begins.  The same is true for the international trade regime: trading states obtain immediate benefits (nondiscrimination against exporters) as well as costs (loss of the ability to protect import-competing industries).  Human rights treaties, in principle, generate immediate benefits.  So do all the treaties governing international transportation and communication; although highly complex, they are also self-enforcing and clearly beneficial.  Most effective treaty regimes are relatively simple, avoid establishing international bodies with real powers, and involve a limited number of states with a long record of trust and cooperation.  The single most effective and impressive treaty regime, the WTO system, was built up, incrementally, over a sixty year period, with many fits and starts and backward steps—and even today it is relatively weak, as the remedy for a WTO violation is simply an authorization to engage in self-help.

Comments

[bcowan]

Now that he has moved away a bit from "ought" and closer to "is" I think Posner and I may have something we can agree on: it is exceedingly unlikely that under present social, political and economic conditions there can be any grounds for optimism that global climate change will be mitigated or reversed. The tools available are weak and the conditions that would have to be altered are powerfully constraining against even the conceptualization, let alone the establishment, of alternative ways that nations might cooperate to restrain their self-interests for the sake of being together productively in the world. As Arran Gare, an Australian philosopher with process sensiblities, has pointed out, unless a new model of nationalism comes about, nothing about the great environmental challenges of our times can or will be done.

And as Posner's examples clearly illustrate, present-day resources for dealing with existing challenges are demonstrably inadequate to the unprecedented new challenge of global greenhouse gas emissions control.

But why should the holding of a discussion aimed at finding new relational resources, as at Bali, be sneered at, however merely aspirational, or futile, its results? Or is it the gullible (whoever they may be) who hoped for something more who are ridiculous?

I suppose reasonable people can differ about whether the Bali exercise was undertaken in good faith, but that does not seem (overtly at least) to be the basis of Posner's critique. Also, he appears not to be contesting in any direct way the seriousness of the global warming threat (maybe he is letting Roach et al. speak for him).

In sum, I am having some trouble seeing why he is in attack-by-irony mode (viz., claiming that impossibility of agreement on this subject is somehow "taboo" - Who actually thinks that?)

Well, it hardly matters whether he can think of reasons against international conferences on global warming. If something is not eventually done to expand and deepen the current resources for international cooperativeness on a wide variety of issues which globalization has made quite suddenly relevant, if not acute, then human social pathologies will have overcome human inventiveness at last.

Something like it is certain to happen anyway. Our species hasn't been around very long, as things go. There was nothing necessary that brought us about in the first place and nothing guarantees our survival. But people ought not to be ridiculed but rather be encouraged to entertain hopes, I would think.

[Roach]

I hope the Earth gets warmer.

[Barry]

"But why should the holding of a discussion aimed at finding new relational resources, as at Bali, be sneered at, however merely aspirational, or futile, its results? Or is it the gullible (whoever they may be) who hoped for something more who are ridiculous? "

Because Posner is on the side of those responsible for the situation described in the preceding paragraph:

"And as Posner's examples clearly illustrate, present-day resources for dealing with existing challenges are demonstrably inadequate to the unprecedented new challenge of global greenhouse gas emissions control."

Remember - step #1 in the denialist program was to deny that the climate is changing; step #2 was to claim that the changes were normal; step #3 was to deny that human actions were causal. We're now on step #4 - deny that there are any feasible actions that could help.

[melissa]

(1) All of the blog entries on climate treaties are fascinating, but strangely, don't seem to account for a country's built-in incentive to limit emissions. In other words, aren't we forgetting that people want to live in clean, healthy environments? Individuals may not care that much about long-term effects on global warming, but they do care about more near-term problems, such as keeping rivers and streams clean for drinking water and fish or other wildlife.

A look at our own history of environmental efforts shows that most of the successes have been on the local level, and only in response to a specific problem. During this country's industrialization, we didn't seem to care very much about the effect those coal factories or steam engines had on the environment. But slowly, certain communities seemed to be bearing the load. In California, for example, where there is both a high population and a dearth of public transportation, it became evident that something needed to be done about air pollution--pollution which was attributed to all the cars on the road. As a result, that state has been the leader in capping auto emissions. Other states with large cities such as Illinois have followed suit. But rural states, such as Kansas, have not enacted similar laws (or have laxer requirements) because they don't feel the effects as palpably.

Likewise, in Chicago, none of the residents seemed to mind the waste that was being dumped into Lake Michigan or the Chicago River so many decades ago. Though neighboring states such as Missouri and Indiana would complain, it wasn't until it became so bad for Chicago itself, that change occurred.

Thus, it is important not to discount the fact that countries that are in the process of rapid development (such as China, India, and Brazil) may not have many environmental controls at present, but that does not mean that as their own problems worsen, that they will not develop the same incentives to change.

(2) Similarly, because the environmental problems are so varied from place to place, and opinions even more varied, it seems nearly impossible for countries to reach a consensus. In the United States, there is wide debate about how much cost-efficiency should be sacrificed to environmentalism. If we cannot even agree on a single policy in this country, how can we expect to lay out a coherent position in an international forum? And, if other countries are similarly divided on how the problem should be handled, how can many countries come to an agreement?

If anything, it seems like we should be focusing on domestic efforts, or at most, regional treaties, rather than trying in vain to work out a global solution that will work for every country, permanently.