climate economics
stoat | June 1, 2006So says the Independent (though not quite in those words). The Indie is probably the most climate-sensitive newspaper in the UK. And $400M is pretty big. But rather than bash LR, or Exxon (disclaimer: I have in the past benefited from the sale of Exxon shares, and may in the future), I'll inquire *why* LR has ended up with so much dosh, and what this means.
And of course the obvious reason is that as far as the shareholders are concerned, his tenure at the head of Exxon has been a massive success, financially. The greenies can whinge all they like but as long as this continues, Exxon is…
stoat | May 17, 2006Stoat, the blog that has abandoned science in favour of economics, about which I know little. But wait for the musing post on model skill scores...
Anyway, the last post got lots of interesting comments - thank you - dear reader, go take a look if you don't normally read post comments. I shall pick up on a few of them...
The main issue is how much interaction should there be between economics and climate folk in constructing CO2 scenarios.
Currently, the IPCC (and many modelling groups) use the SRES scenarios. Or rather, in practice, only a few of the many scenarios. I (and possibly they, if…
stoat | May 15, 2006Interesting little snippet on the news this morning: the EU carbon trading scheme is in some trouble, with prices heading down, because countries have issued excessive permits. Oops: someone has been careless (or naughty: I wonder which?). But thats for another day: today is:
Reducing CO2 emissions from the UK power sector: A report for WWF-UK by ILEX Energy Consulting, May 2006.
Whether its at all reliable I can't really guess. Its got lots of acronyms and tables and figures to baffle the unwary, though. Its only about CO2 from power. Its own take is:
The analysis shows that relatively minor…
stoat | April 13, 2006The EU has an emissions trading regime (must find out about this sometime), and apparently prices are up... EU CO2 Emission Prices Hit New Record High says Planetark. Higher gas/oil prices makes burning coal more economical, which is more CO2 intensive, so quota prices rise. And its been dry so hydropower is down. Time for the Severn barrage!
Still, I wonder what fraction of the price 30E/tonne is.
stoat | March 28, 2006Said the headline in this mornings Grauniad. And by the evening it had become Labour fails on climate change on the Grauniad blog; though the spin was Beckett unveils new measures to cut CO2 or Climate change programme unveiled. And similar from the BBC.
How to read this? Labour clung stubbornly to its 20% target through 3 general elections; only now its become quite implausible have they retreated, a bit, to a 15-18% cut (note that this would still satisfy our Kyoto obligations). I'd be somewhat surprised if they make that, unless fuel prices keep going up. Speaking of which, one of those…
stoat | March 15, 2006Whenever people ask me about the possibility of us running out of fossil fuels, I usually reply that I'm no expert on oil reservoirs but that there are markets out there that are, and if we were going to run out the price should have been rising rapidly. That probably still true, despite oil prices staying high - according to the FT they have managed to fall to $63.55 a barrel (Brent crude).
More interesting for the UK is the story of our gas prices. Just recently there was a four-fold spike in gas prices (although the spike itself is not much bigger than the brief spike in mid-november); due…