"This competition challenges participants to develop software applications related to climate change. The applications should serve to raise awareness, measure progress, or to help in some other way to address the development challenges of climate change. Submissions may be any kind of software application, be it for the web, a personal computer, a mobile handheld device, console, SMS, or any software platform broadly available to the public. The only other requirement is that the proposed application use one or more datasets from the World Bank Data Catalog available at data.worldbank.org or the Climate Change Knowledge Portal at climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org."
"We are not going to save the planet by shutting down our steel mills, aluminium smelters and paper manufacturers," Osborne said, announcing the expected rebate. "All we will be doing is exporting valuable jobs out of Britain."
From an economic perspective, I dislike it - it smacks of protectionism and subsidising some sectors when British society and developing societies would all be better off if British steel mills, aluminium smelters and paper manufacturers did indeed shut down and we imported these goods from other places.
But I do agree that from a climate change point of view, he is probably right. Brits will not stop consuming these goods - they will just be imported. The pollution will just be shifted elsewhere. Here is some excellent analysis from The Oil Drum blog which shows that carbon emissions can decline in, say, the UK, but it gets shifted to, say, China (HT: MM). The planet as a whole does not benefit. Indeed, due to transport and the fact that China is less energy-efficient there may be a short term negative impact (but perhaps longer term positive one thanks to learning to be more energy efficient).
I took some personal flights over the last (Thanksgiving) weekend and I just got around to doing my carbon offsetting through MyClimate.
I don't think I should have had to choose to do this or make additional effort to do so. Fuel taxes should be higher to ensure that the full cost to humanity is integrated into the price of the ticket. At the moment, when I fly, I pay for the ticket which includes the cost of the fuel. But the pollution has a cost for more people which I am not paying for. The pollution I am causing is resulting in floods, droughts, crop failure, lost work days, increased sickness and many other bad things for other people. They are paying for a part of my flight and most of them live far more difficult lives than I do. (So, thank you for subsidising my flight - I appreciate it.)
Just as for driving, fuel prices should reflect the full cost to humanity. It is true that the price would be higher if I had to pay the full cost and I would not fly so often. But that is part of the point - pollution would go down as I choose to take only more essential flights that I think are really worth it. I would still have the option to fly but I would have to value it highly enough to justify some negative impacts on other people. In addition, the increased taxes should go towards footing the bill for climate change in the poorest countries which are most effected and towards schemes to reduce climate change - call it 'offsetting' if you will.
Here is a nice video of the full effects of fuel for cars:
I don't think doing this offsetting should be my choice - I think it should be integrated into the ticket prices for everyone. As this article says "the big problem with voluntary donations is that they do not encourage airlines to demand cleaner planes or fly cleaner routes" (article in French-HT: KG). But till then it would be nice if airline companies made it easy to do this. Unfortunately, BA did not seem to make it obviously easy for me whilst purchasing tickets or on board but at least they did not pretend to, unlike some awful competitors. I think that is a pity.
“The cost of adapting a integrated farming system in a village in Nepal could be US$20,000 per year, that of a rain-fed maize system in a district of Malawi’s US$55 million, and protecting the entire livestock sector of Tanzania could cost up to US$280 million — with all costs likely to treble by 2030."
Developing countries have to pay the price for western pollution but convincing people in the west that we have to pay for this is difficult. The Daily Mail for example, seems to feel that it is both a waste of taxpayer money and a way to manipulate African governments. I think that it is a good use of taxpayer money to pay developing country governments to be greener. The economic costs of climate change are high and it makes sense for wealthier countries to foot the bill. You can make your own personal contribution so that the Ecuadorian government does not rip up the rain forest to pump oil HERE. As for manipulating African governments. Well, maybe. In the same way as I am manipulating potential smokers by taxing cigarettes. Or manipulating manufacturers by choosing what I buy. I think I can live with that.
"Amid the wreckage of the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, an agreement that rich countries would, by 2020, furnish developing ones with $100 billion a year to help them mitigate and adapt to global warming looked like a rare achievement. This commitment will also be a big talking point at the next annual UN summit, due to start in Durban on November 28th. With almost no hope of a big new pact, many expect progress on the formation of a global Green Climate Fund to be one of its few successes. Yet there is huge uncertainty about how developed countries will deliver on their promise, including what role the fund will play."
Even more importantly, it is good economics to do so. The country would benefit greatly from exploiting the oil - significantly more than the USD 3.6bn they are asking for, in fact. Whereas it would lose little from destroying the rainforest. After all, there is plenty more of it in the world - they would still have plenty of oxygen from rainforest in other countries. Not only this, but with a purchasing power GDP of around USD 7,000 per capita, that money can go a long way. The opportunity cost of not exploiting the oil is high.
The rest of the combined world though has something to lose and some countries can afford to pay for it. There is again a problem of collective action - individually, each country gains only a little from the Ecuadorian rainforest. Setting up of a fund to pay for green development can help to mitigate this.
You can also make your own individual contribution. How much is the oxygen that you breath from the Ecuadorian rainforest worth to you?
Urbanisation is good for the environment. If you like nature, keep away from it. In Africa it would allow for larger, more efficient farming to replace smallholders. People are increasingly choosing even difficult city life over rural life because it provides far greater opportunity. Some development workers find this difficult to accept, believing, I think, incorrectly, in some idealistic rural life. The fact is that we don't see the difficult part of rural life but we see very easily urban squalor. More efforts have to be made to make cities better places though. One's surroundings impact heavily on mental health, learning, behaviour, and more. Creating nice spaces in cities is important for mental health and therefore productivity. People need green spaces. Developing countries could probably not justify the resources used for The High Line but more effort to create green, clean spaces in urban Africa and elsewhere could prove beneficial for development and health. An article today reports that poor sanitation has negative effects on economic growth.
The BBC has a short article on use of greenhouses in agriculture to help counteract the heavy drought in Kenya. Below is a short video, also in Kenya, on the impact of drought and climate change.
I find the below interview somewhat leading but it is still interesting.
