COP26

 

The biggest news from the conference is that Biden allegedly farted. Next biggest is that he fell asleep...

Comrade Xerxes complains that the recent COP26 climate conference got too little accomplished.

I agree that COP26 was just a circus and accomplishes nothing.

The problem is the tragedy of the commons. Because the atmosphere is a shared resource, there is incentive for each country to grab what they can before the other guy does. It takes great altruism—or naivite--to cripple one’s economy for the sake of the group, knowing as soon as you do the next country will just grab whatever is left on the table. 

No such summit is ever likely to accomplish anything, and it is no surprise that none has. Surely the leaders know it. Surely Greta Thunberg knows it. They’re all conning us.

Xerxes goes too far in lamenting that “no nation” has reduced emissions. The US, the UK, and the EU all have. The problem is, this is because manufacturing has been relocating to China and other developing countries. Great stat to cite to get re-elected, but the real net effect is a rise in global emissions, because the finished goods must now be transported long distances. And energy production is less efficient in these countries. The move is also suicidal should war ever come with China.

Any further restrictions on carbon emissions in developed countries will have the same effect: more industry moves to countries with cheaper energy, and emissions rise.

The only real way to fight greenhouse gases is with improved technology. If world leaders were serious about the problem, they would fund promising scientific research: nuclear fusion, producing fuel with algae, more efficient solar cells, and so forth. Not including subsidizing solar and wind installations or electric vehicles, so long as these are not economically viable on their own merits—because this raises energy prices, and again drives industry to more polluting regions. 

And, realistically, the problem probably can be solved this way: by developing a better energy source. We probably already have the technology to move to safe nuclear power. There is no value but graft in wasting money elsewhere.

The conference’s agreement to end deforestation is another bit of empty virtue-signalling. Deforestation is going to end regardless of government action. It ended decades ago in the developed world, as marginal farmland, no longer needed, went out of production. The movement of communication online has reduced the demand for pulp and paper, and this decline will probably continue.

Xerxes has a different solution to all: depopulation. I am surprised anyone any longer believes in it. 

To begin with, depopulation by government action is unethical. I think we established with the defeat of Nazism that governments cannot legitimately tinker in the reproductive rights of citizens. Forced abortion or sterilization is not okay.

Ethical government means seeking the greatest good for the greatest number. Denying life itself to future generations is denying them the most self-evident good, and their most fundamental right. To deny life to some so that others can have more material comforts is patently unjust. It is a violation of Kant’s categorical imperative, that people must always be an end, not a means.

Even if that equation made ethical sense, it is fairly clear from the evidence that people’s happiness does not improve with more material goods. So it’s all downside.

It is not even clear that a larger population means less for everyone. Every new person is both a producer and a consumer. He or she will, on average, add more to the common wealth than they take out. Some of the richest countries are also the most densely populated: the Netherlands, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Switzerland. As the population of the world has been growing rapidly, the rate of poverty and of hunger has been declining rapidly. 

But, you may argue, we could run out of resources.

We could; but this is pretty theoretical. The price of commodities in general has also been declining. Over history, the individual human footprint keeps shrinking. The point of technology is that it allows us to do more with less.

So long as the politicians don’t mess us up.