The economics of global climate leadership
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HE International Energy Agency has released its latest World Energy Outlook. The most sobering piece of information in it is a recurring highlight: the estimated time at which the world is “locked in” to a rise in global temperatures of at least 2 degrees Celsius. By 2017, existing energy infrastructure will be sufficient to generate such a scenario; for the world to halt warming at that 2-degree level, it would need to ensure that all additional energy infrastructure was zero carbon or begin retiring existing infrastructure before the end of its useful economic life. Both strategies are difficult to contemplate, and 2017 is not very far away at all. …
As the economics of American energy markets change, it seems possible that the country’s attitudes about climate matters may change as well, not in a good way, and it isn’t as if America’s commitment to addressing global warming is particularly strong as things stand. Rising American energy supply may come as a relief to many. But the elimination of “dependence on foreign oil” as an economic and security bogeyman may lead the world’s largest economy to abdicate responsibility for global leadership on climate change even more than it already has.
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