Not a 50% chance. A 50% conditional probability. | Brussels Blog

Not a 50% chance. A 50% conditional probability.

Below is a reply to Lord Deben, the chair of the Committee on Climate Change.

The Committee has focused on “an approximately 50% chance of a global average near surface temperature increase of 2ºC above pre-industrial levels” (see below).

Their reasonong is flawed.

To get their “50% chance”, the Committee had to exclude the effects of feedbacks missing from climate models. See Missing Climate Feedbacks in my previous post.

This means the Committee really considered a “50% conditional probability“. It is conditional because this probability depends on the assumption that the missing feedbacks would have no net effect on global warming. This 50% conditional probability is not the same as a 50% chance.

I think scientific judgements (even at that time) predicted the net effect of the “missing feedbacks” would increase global warming. This means that taking these missing feedbacks into account, the chance of exceeding a 2ºC limit would be greater than 50%.

I don’t remember Lord Turner (then chair of the Committee on Climate Change) making the conditionality clear when he spoke at the meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change on 2nd July 2008.

The reply to Lord Deben

Lord Deben
Chair
The Committee on Climate Change

19th October 2013

Dear Lord Deben,

A “50% chance”?

Thank you for your reply. I am pleased to hear that the CCC is in the process of considering the effect of permafrost melt and other feedbacks on future global warming. May I draw your attention again to the work of Kevin Schafer. There is an accessible report of his concerns in Science Daily, Thawing of Permafrost Expected to Cause Significant Additional Global Warming, Not Yet Accounted for in Climate Predictions.

Nov. 27, 2012 — Permafrost covering almost a quarter of the northern hemisphere contains 1,700 gigatonnes of carbon, twice that currently in the atmosphere, and could significantly amplify global warming should thawing accelerate as expected, according to a new report released November 27 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

and

Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost seeks to highlight the potential hazards of carbon dioxide and methane emissions from warming permafrost, which have not thus far been included in climate-prediction modelling. The science on the potential impacts of warming permafrost has only begun to enter the mainstream in the last few years, and as a truly xanax “emerging issue” could not have been included in climate change modelling to date.

I read the title of this article as meaning the same as “There is a substantial probability that thawing of permafrost will cause significant additional global warming”. Do you read it differently?

The Committee on Climate Change: Letters and response

Lord Deben
The Committee on Climate Change

15th October 2013

Dear Lord Deben,

DECC and the Committee on Climate Change

Thank you for agreeing to read this letter. I hope you remember our conversation after the PRASEG Annual Conference. You may find some passages tangential but I hope you will see why I include them. The first tangent is about the classical theory of the optical properties of matter.

The classical theory of the optical properties of matter

When I was reading Physics at Hull, I attended a series of lectures on the optical properties of matter. This used classical physics i.e. the physics developed before Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and quantum theory.

At the beginning of the series I wondered why we were being asked to learn a theory, which was based on concepts that had been overtaken by relativity and quantum theory. I assumed that the lecturer was lazy and just used some old notes of lectures he attended years before.

To my great surprise the theory, based on outdated concepts, seemed to work – and work reasonably well. Here was a theory about matter that had hard solid little things called atoms, nuclei and electrons whizzing round inside solid matter affecting the light that passed though it. We then knew such things were a nonsense and that the ‘reality’ was much more complicated, but the theory worked. Amazing!

Letter to the director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies

28th September 2013

Dear Dr Johnston,

Thank you for speaking to me on Tuesday. I thought your presentation of the state of the tax system and government expenditure at Economic competence and ‘In the Black Labour’ was very informative and clear.

You may remember I asked the question on the topic of earmarked taxes; in particular whether earmarked tax rebates should be counted as government expenditure or a cut in taxes? You agreed that they were a cut in taxes.

The particular tax rebate I mentioned was the rebate on VAT for every worker employed [1]. This rebate is an earmarked tax rebate. You were doubtful of earmarked taxes for reasons you explained but what objections do you have to earmarked tax rebates?

After the session I suggested to you that we need a very high carbon price to combat climate change. You replied that this would put our industry at a disadvantage. When I suggested imports should be taxed on their embodied carbon, you raised the objection that this would start a trade war.

Appointments to the Committee on Climate Change

I had a conversation with Ed Davey at the PRASEG annual conference in July and also talked to Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Climate Change. I suggested he make an appointment to the Committee as it only had one climate scientist, Sir Brian Hoskins, who I believe to have rather conservative views that underestimate the impact of climate change.

Ed Davey seemed to be unaware he could appoint members of the CCC. I consulted the Climate Change Act 2008 to find out that he could, particularly as the legislation allows for eight committee members plus the chair. I emailed a letter to him explaining this on the 12th July 2013.

Wikipedia: Bring on the amateurs.

As you may see from other postings, I don’t defer to views that are based simply on credentials.

I watch and hear government officials, academics and scientists with a skeptical ear and eye. I think they duck or manipulate important questions because of unsound motives like political expediency and commercial advantage. These are usually people packed with credentials.

Wikipedia came to me as an antidote to this – open to everybody that had something sensible to add – not just the copper bottomed experts with commercial interests or reputations to protect. The knowledgeable interested amateurs, who care and have a thirst for knowledge could participate without reputations or commercial interests to advance.

OK, that was spoiled as Wikipedia became successful and a mention was worth something so various interests piled in with spin. I think this is why Wikipedia began to rely heavily on peer review. Perhaps peer review helped to combat biased entries and bogus claims but the comment by a moderator “I can see only one reason for citing a non-peer reviewed article: ego-spam.” (see below) shows to me this has gone too far.

Wikipedia should read its own criticisms of peer review where it quotes Drummond Rennie of the Journal of the American Medical Association

There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.

Open Letter to James Hansen

Dear Dr Hansen

It is very exciting that you are coming to the London School of Economics to speak at the invitation of Professor Samuel Frankhauser of the Grantham institute for Climate Change. I am writing to you to mention an email exchange we had previously and raise a few other issues.

Briefly I agree with you that a high carbon price is essential. It is probably the most important policy option for combating climate change.

Your carbon fee and green cheque

You have taken the stance that the only politically viable way to distribute the very large revenues from a carbon tax is to send monthly cheques to every citizen. Governments spend none of the tax. This enables you to rename this carbon tax a carbon fee and green cheque.

Your scheme is an earmarked tax which many economists deprecate. I do not. Earmarked taxes are useful policy scenarios.

It would be wonderful if any nation implemented your scheme and I understand why you think your scheme has a better chance of success in the US than one that would involve more government expenditure. This may not be the same in Europe.

Carbon Taxes (Labour Policy Portal)

This was originally posted on the Labour Policy Portal in March 2013. The Labour Policy Portal no longer operates. Thanks to Martin Leah for his help in editing.

A recent poll by YouGov for the Fabian Society found that 73% of respondents believe the way we live now is damaging the planet. Only 14% thought we should leave future generations to fix the problems.

In the Climate Change Act, the UK has “a long-term legally binding framework to tackle the dangers of climate change”. The Act requires that emissions are reduced by at least 80% by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. The Committee on Climate Change say that emissions have fallen by 22% by 2012, which would appear to be on course to keep within the limits set by the Climate Change Act.

However, Sir Robert Watson, Chief Scientific Adviser to Defra, has pointed out that if carbon emissions caused by the manufacture of imported goods and services are counted, then UK emissions have actually risen by 18%. Our consumption from imports is causing carbon emissions, largely in China.

Will Tim Worstall stick to his principles?

Tim Worstall is a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute. I first heard of the Adam Smith Institute a long time ago when I took an interest in Henry George’s land value tax. The Adam Smith Institute were looking after his papers for the Henry George Foundation.

I still like the idea of taxing the value of land that occurs – not because of the efforts of the owners – but because of the location of surrounding activity. A plot in Park Lane owes its value to it’s location in London next to Mayfair and Hyde Park not to any effort of the land owners. I also like the start of the Adam Smith Institute’s Planning in a free society which considers London as a case study for a “spontaneously planned future”:

Planning policy has proven to be one of the most resilient pillars of the post-war command-and-control state.
… [It has] an unswerving faith in the ability of a bureaucratic planning process to achieve superior outcomes to those achieved in the spontaneous order resulting from voluntary action.

I suppose I like their Planning in a free society for its criticism of some of my bêtes noires of the planning system such as the ridiculous green belt policy, the product of NIMBY self-interest and muddled thinking.

I am uplifted when I read the Adam Smith Institute’s web page Learning About Liberty – the Adam Smith Institute cares about liberty and freedom – just like I think I do. I met some of their people at a conference arranged jointly between the Fabian Society and the Adam Smith Institute (True! But it was a decade or so ago) and came to believe they have a set of principles that they think will make the world a better place.

Fabians should wake up to climate change.

I have just received my copy of the latest Fabian Review titled “Green Space”. It has depressed me very greatly. It is not the omen for the New Year that I had hoped for. All the pieces in it are well written and discuss important issues particularly the attitudes of public on green issues. For example

But new polling conducted by YouGov for the Fabian Society and WWP shows a large majority of the public still support the transition to a low-carbon economy as both an economic opportunity and an environmental necessity.

Keith Allott, Head of climate change WWF-UK

and

This latest polling confirms that the idea of a green economy that can help the planet while also creating jobs and boosting economic growth is no longer a fringe issue to be dismissed as fanciful, or a product of the wishful-thinking left.

Cathy Jamieson, MP for Kilmarnock

Most of the main articles in the review are concerned with this issue and associated ideas – the public are ready to support “green growth” which will create jobs and save the environment. (But do remember Job creation doesn’t need economic growth.)

I think the tone is summed up by the title of an article by the political adviser to Greenpeace: “The foundation of one nation Labour is the place we live, the land upon which we depend, and the climate that surrounds us all, argues Ruth Davis”. Rousing stuff.

Its good that political people are trying to argue for action on climate change to be integrated in mainstream politics but my worry is that it will be too little too late. My problem with the Fabian Green Space is that in the 15000+ words and eight “green” articles there is little awareness of the seriousness of climate change or any recognition that the official line on climate change is disastrously behind real world climate change.

Do you believe the European Commission on Climate Change?

Bluesky has posted a response from Connie Hedegaard about the European Commission and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Neven’s Sea Ice Blog. He got a more explicit response than I did.

CONNIE HEDEGAARD
MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN COMMlSS|ON 29. 11. 2012
Brussels,
Ares (2012) 1245303

Dear ….,

Thank you for your E-mail of 22 October 2012 concerning the melting rate of the Arctic sea ice.

The European Commission bases its climate policies on the best available science and on the scientific consensus of experts in the field of climate change. The scientific consensus view on this subject is re?ected in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fourth Assessment Report from 2007.

The Fourth Assessment Report (AR) already anticipated that the sea ice extent will reduce in the Arctic at a significant pace and that this may have an effect on the occurrence of extreme events. The recent reports and measurements provide the evidence of what was predicted. The question, though, that requires further scientific clarification in the next IPCC AR, currently under preparation and due in 2014, is whether the pace of sea ice decline in the Arctic is accelerating.

In addition, the Commission is committing increasing resources in communicating the latest developments in climate policy (http://ec.europa.eu/clima/news/index_en.htm), engaging the general public with the campaign “A World You Like in a Climate You Like” (http://world-you-like.europa.eu/en/), and reaching out to the public through social media (facebook, twitter, flickr, pinterest).

Yours sincerely

Connie Hedegaard

This is not credible to me. Perhaps Connie hasn’t seen what Kevin Anderson is saying?