Revision: Climate Change Policies

A brief revision PowerPoint used in a lesson on climate change policies .... I kept the analysis diagrams outside of the presentation

PowerPoint
Climate_Change_Policies.ppt

Unsustainable world

BBC’s Newsnight has been running an excellent series of programmes - Unsustainable World” - here is the link to the relevant web site

Tim Harford takes a dig at green taxes

VAT on gas and electricity too low? Excise duty on petrol and diesel too high? Yes says Tim Harford in his Undercover Economist slot this week. “Green taxes have been fussy and poorly-targeted, by turns too stringent and too lax ... This government – like most governments – likes to use the tax system as a way of expressing its moral views: hooray for pensioners, down with Jeremy Clarkson. Cheap politics for them, less so for the taxpayer.”

The rest of the article is here

Interrelated markets and climate change

An article in The Times recently explored the economic implications of reducing demand for oil and energy in the West.

Fashionable changes in preferences

A few weeks ago I blogged about information failure and the demand for plastic bags. This BBC news video clip considers just how powerful fashion statements can be in altering our preferences - there are signs that high street retailers are moving decisively away from the default option of offering a plastic bag to all customers. 

Fragile Earth Gallery

A picture tells a thousand words. The Guardian’s new Fragile Earth picture gallery provides some wonderful and often disturbing images of our fragile natural resource base and the impact of man on the environment. This could be a good resource to turn to when teaching environmental economics? The paperback version of Fragile Earth: What’s Happening to Our Planet? is now available from Amazon and other main street booksellers.

Canines or SUVs? Carbon foot (paw) prints

Which do you think takes a bigger toll on the environment, owning a dog, or owning an SUV?

So asks Arnold Kling on his excellent blog and there has been a merry and fasincating discussion on the site ever since. I have never even considered buying a new SUV (my ever-reliable Citroen has done only 20,000 miles in seven years) but I do have an eye on getting a puppy sometime soon and I hadn’t even considered whether I should consider the environmental impact! 

As I hurtle through middle age, I am far more likely to spend an hour or two jogging and playing with my dog than I would watching tv; the marginal benefits of canine ownership and companionship are substantial to dog lovers, witness how many of them are prepared to pay huge vets bills to prolong their pets lives.

Kling makes the rather provocative statement ‘I personally have nothing against dogs. But it does seem to me that environmentalism inevitably points toward a policy of extermination of pet dogs. Unless environmentalism is simply hatred of industry.’ - presumably to send dog owning bloggers into a state of apoplexy!

What do you guys think?

The London Pollution Charge

The London Congestion Charge is to tax more highly polluting vehicles more in a bid to reduce pollution. From October 2008, drivers of many sports cars, MPVs and 4x4s will pay £25 per day rather than the current level of £8. In addition, the charge will be abolished for the lowest polluting vehicles.

The Congestion Charge is generally regarded as a success, and environmental groups are applauding the new structured charge as an effective way of shifting drivers of ‘gas guzzlers’ into cleaner cars or onto public transport. The CC is a hypothecated tax in that the revenue it raises is, in theory, used to fund improvements to public transport.

What, exactly, does the CC aim to achieve? It is called a congestion charge, but the new structured tax appears to be more focused on reducing CO2 emissions. So should it really be called the Pollution Charge?