Tag: Climate change
Biden is toast, but don’t burn him
I expect President Biden will soon announce the withdrawal of his candidacy. That’s good. His decline since I saw him up close last winter is obvious. While I would still far prefer him to Trump, he is wise to throw in the towel. He has a fantastic record of restoring the country to sanity and steady economic growth, reknitting its alliances, appointing capable and diverse officials, getting a lot done on climate change, meeting the Russian challenge in Ukraine, shoring up defenses against China, and I could go on. Bowing out now ensures a positive legacy.
Challenges ahead
The rumor mill suggests the convention will be an “open” one with several candidates to replace Biden on top of the ticket. That seems to me a bad idea. It ensures a floor fight that will necessarily be divisive. It could also stimulate street demonstrations, which could get out of hand. I favor handing the baton to Kamala Harris. Biden has repeatedly avowed that she is ready to take over. He should let her do so.
The campaign against Trump will still be an uphill battle, no matter the candidate. The Democrats need not only to unify. They need to present a clear and compelling alternative to Trump’s lying, criminality, and immorality. He is a terrible candidate. That Biden in his weakened condition is still running neck and neck with him in the polls suggests the Democrats can recover from the last few weeks to win.
Biden can help
Biden can be a useful surrogate in the effort. He still has strong Democratic support and could help to get voters to the polls. He is a formidable fundraiser and a savvy political operative. His sterling record contrasts dramatically with the chaos and decline of Trump’s presidency. Biden may be toast, but it would be a mistake for any successor candidate not to use his record and his savvy.
Whoever the Democratic candidate, s/he should rely a good deal on Biden, whether or not he remains in the presidency. The mistake Al Gore made–not to rely on President Clinton’s record–should not be repeated. Biden has been a successful president. Running away from him would be a big mistake.
Trump is worse than too many think
I’m hearing wishful thinking about a second Trump term. To the contrary, it will be far worse than his first. Just listen to what he says. He wants to weaponize the Justice Department, claiming falsely that Biden has done it. He wants to cut taxes for the rich again and raise them on middle class people who (necessarily) spend most of their income. Trump will give Ukraine to Putin and won’t protect Taiwan. And he’ll support extremists in Israel who want to expel Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. If you think the world is problematic now, just wait until a new Trump presidency.
Trump will also use a return to the White House to deliver retribution to those who oppose him. Take it from the Australians:
Part II isn’t out yet.
And remember this: Trump deployed unidentifiable law enforcement personnel on the streets of Washington (and wanted them to fire on demonstrators), he has praised the January 6 rioters, he is a committed racist, and he has appointed Supreme Court Justices who think a woman shouldn’t be allowed to decide on her own health care. That’s in addition to being a rapist, a tax cheat, and a Russian asset. Trump is far worse than too many think.
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What good is a norm if it will be breached?
My cousin by marriage, Bill Caplan, is an engineer and former hi-tech business owner. After selling his business, he dared in retirement to get a master’s degree in architecture. He has devoted himself for years to unraveling the mysteries of energy conservation in buildings and how the world should respond to global warming. He is convinced that our current efforts are inadequate.
Smarter and better
But he is not urging faster and more. He is urging smarter and better.
Watch the video above. Bill argues that just constructing a building that uses less energy is pointless by itself, and even sometimes counterproductive. This is because production and transportation of the building materials emit so much carbon dioxide even before construction starts. That’s my crude account of his argument. Best to listen to him.
I have no doubt that he is correct on the merits. But I doubt that his proposed solution is adequate. He has devoted himself to raising the consciousness of practicing architects. That merits applause. They could correct some of the worst abuses. But you would have to give a lot of American Institute of Architect lectures to reach any significant number of them. We can hope the video embedded here gets lots of viewers.
The solution
A carbon tax can be more widely effective. It could raise the cost of materials whose production and transportation uses carbon and discourage at least some of the practices Bill cites. The European Union is implementing a carbon tax in 2026. Canada and twenty of the EU member states had already levied carbon taxes by 2023. Here are the European numbers:
I don’t know if these taxes are high enough or sufficiently well-designed to avoid unintended consequences. But the US would be well-advised to figure it out and follow suit. Our national habit of bemoaning high energy prices and avoiding gasoline taxes slows the transition to non-carbon fuels. Refusal to tax carbon also incentivizes subsidies to wind, solar, and nuclear. Better to make the polluter pay and allow the market to drive carbon reduction.
A norm is better than none
Bill is discouraged, as he sees the breach of the 1.5 degrees centigrade norm looming soon. That is bad. But I still think we are far better off than in the past. We knew the mechanisms and prospects of global warming when I worked on the first UN Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. Nothing was done to prevent the consequences for decades thereafter.
Now at least we have an agreed global norm that virtually every country on earth accepts, with the notable exception of Donald Trump’s America. Knowing that we are going to breach a norm is better than not having a norm at all. Avoiding 1.5 degrees of warming has mobilized a great deal more effort to slow global warming than previously. It might even eventually motivate a carbon tax in the US.
For more from Bill, see his Environmental Law Institute book Thwart Global Warming Now: Reducing Embodied Carbon Brick by Brick. For more on international norms, see my own Strengthening International Regimes: the Case of Radiation Protection, which discusses the 1.5 degree norm.
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Stevenson’s army, September 14
– Romney biographer tells how unhappy he was with the Senate
– SASC Chairman Reed reveals consequences of Tuberville hold and the time it would take to handle individual nominations.
– WSJ reveals how Exxon played down climate change
-WSJ also reveals US is shifting aid from Egypt to Taiwan
– GOP Congressman reveals willingness to soften AUMF against drug cartels
– NYT says local officials are profiting from illegal transit through Darien gap
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, July 26
This is the 70th anniversary of the armistice which suspended combat in the Korean war. I guess that’s a pretty good example of a frozen conflict.
– Biden wants Chollet for OSD Policy
-FP’s China Watcher analyzes the ouster of the Chinese FM
– Megatrends: NYT shows world demographic changes; WaPo notes study warning of Gulf Stream tipping point.
– WSJ analyzes effects of Ukraine stalled offensive.
– UVa law prof urges Hughes-Ryan approach for national security AI.
– UNC prof says Trump wasn’t a fascist, but could be.
– History lesson: when Congress “expunged” a censure of a president.
– Jonathan Chait debunks conservative claim of long march to liberal domination.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, April 14
– Fred Kaplan agrees with my assessment of the alleged Discord leaker.
– WaPo talks to the group members.
– NYT has more background.
– Prof. Rid comments.
– Meanwhile, AFRICOM head steps in it.
– WSJ tells how domestic politics keeps the A-10 flying
– Politico says World Bank is divided over climate change.
– I like what USAFA is doing in civic education.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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A necessary and unavoidable but constructive failure
The UN’s Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP 26) ended yesterday with a lengthy, consensus declaration. The Glasgow Climate Pact includes something for just about everyone and not enough for anyone. That’s what you expect from a consensus document purporting to represent the views of 197 countries that are collectively fouling the global commons. Nor is it surprising that the current commitments of the parties, despite significant strengthening before and during the conference, will not achieve the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade.
The implications are dire. At higher temperatures than that goal, global warming will raise sea levels enough to drown some island countries and deprive many others of their current coastlines, generate even more dramatic storms and forest fires than we are already seeing, shift agricultural patterns in ways that hinder growing enough to meet global demand, and make parts of the planet even more uninhabitable than they already are. The costs will be astronomical. The human implications tragic. There is nothing to celebrate about COP 26 if you are looking only at the physical implications of what was decided in Glasgow, even if you welcome the substantial agreements reached on methane and deforestation.
The conference was however a success in another sense: without it, things would have been worse. Glasgow upped the ante on climate change. No government on earth can now ignore it entirely. Even laggards like China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and India have been announcing new goals and counter measures. President Biden has put climate change high on his agenda, reversing President Trump’s foolish and counterproductive effort to ignore it. Island nations whose physical existence is threatened had their voices magnified. Less developed countries had their needs acknowledged, if not yet fully funded. None of this is enough, but much of it would not have happened without Glasgow.
This is typical of large international conferences. The UN is doing what it can and should. Such conferences serve to mobilize public opinion and shift attitudes, even if they fail to solve the problems they aim to solve. The key now is to maintain the momentum and raise the political pressure. The parties have agreed to meet again next year in Egypt, where no doubt the appeals for action and money will be heightened. Expanding economies in what we can hope will be the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic will likely make the prospects for meeting the goal of 1.5 degrees centigrade even dimmer than they are today. Don’t expect good news, but next year’s conference will again be a necessary, unavoidable but constructive failure.
That’s how the international system works. Get used to it. This is going to go on for decades.
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