This ran in today's NY Times:

November 29, 2000

RECKONINGS

Sins of Emission

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Sam drives a huge S.U.V., Pierre drives a tiny Citroën. Both agree
that for the sake of the environment they must reduce their combined
fuel consumption. But who should bear the burden?

You might expect Pierre to demand that Sam do most of the adjusting.
All that Sam has to do is switch to a smaller but still comfortable
car; Pierre's car can't get much smaller. You certainly wouldn't
expect to find Sam trying to wriggle out of the bargain, insisting
that he be allowed to adopt a tree instead.

But that, more or less, is why efforts to curb global warming
collapsed last week. There's plenty of blame to go around, but the
essential problem was that Europeans got fed up with America's
unwillingness to reduce its emission of greenhouse gases, even though
it is the world's prime source of such gases.

Why is the United States such a big emitter? Energy use tends to be
more or less proportional to gross domestic product, and we have the
biggest economy. But that's not the whole story: We release about
twice as much carbon dioxide per capita as other advanced countries,
even though we don't have anywhere near twice their per capita G.D.P.
The main reason for that disparity is that we have much lower taxes
on fuel, especially gasoline. The image of the American filling up
his living room on wheels with dollar-a-gallon gasoline while his
European counterpart carefully spoons precious petrol into his mini
is a caricature, but gets at an essential truth.

This comparison suggests that it should actually be much easier for
the United States to reduce its energy consumption and carbon dioxide
emissions than it is for Europe. High taxes on fuel have already
induced Europeans to do the easy conservation steps; in America,
where gasoline is literally cheaper than (bottled) water, we haven't
even tried.

Now it turns out that there are some complicating factors. Some
estimates suggest that the cost of meeting international targets for
emission reduction would actually be larger for the U.S. than for
Europe, mainly because our economy grows faster, and faster growth
increases the demand for energy. Still, one can easily understand
European fury at America's refusal to make any serious effort to
reduce the amount of carbon it burns.

But don't blame our negotiators, or for that matter the
administration they work for. They had to respect domestic political
realities. And what could the U.S. actually do to reduce its emission
of greenhouse gases?

Any Econ 101 textbook can tell you the answer. If carbon dioxide is
deemed to inflict damage on the environment, then the efficient way
to resolve the problem is to provide market incentives to burn less
carbon. The most straightforward policy would be an across-the-board
carbon tax that . . .

I can't see any point in finishing that sentence. Never mind that
even free-market economists favor "effluent taxes"; never mind that
we're not talking about an overall tax increase, that any new tax on
carbon could and should be offset by tax cuts elsewhere. In America's
current political universe there are too many people who believe that
the only good tax is a dead tax for any such proposal to be accepted.
Such people aren't a majority, but they do control at least one house
of Congress, and it just isn't going to happen.

In other words, the ultimate reason that the climate talks failed,
that global warming will go unchecked, is the power of America's
vitriolic anti- tax right.

Is there any way out of this trap? A decisive political defeat for
the rabid right might open a path; but that didn't happen in this
election.

The only alternative would be a Nixon-goes-to-China scenario. It's
nice to fantasize that if George W. Bush ends up in the White House
he might try to heal the wounds of his dubious triumph by, among
other things, taking on his own party over environmental issues. But
quite aside from his oil-industry connections and his dismal
environmental record in Texas, Mr. Bush has said he is not convinced
that the scientific evidence for global warming warrants policy
action. And somehow I don't expect further evidence to change his
mind.

Maybe future retirees won't have to move to Florida to find warm
weather. It's looking like a long, hot century.
--
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Rex L. Bavousett
Photographer
University of Iowa
Our old name:  University Relations - Publications
Our new name:  University Communications & Outreach - Publications
100 OPL, Iowa City, IA 52242

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