The Absurdity of Economists’ Sacrifice-free Solutions to Climate Change

Abstract

John Broome and Duncan Foley have argued that it is a ‘misperception’ that the ‘control of global warming is costly’ and that we can make ‘sacrifices unnecessary’. There are a number of assumptions that are essential for this idea to work. These assumptions can be challenged. Furthermore, my claim is not merely that the Broome/Foley argument is flawed, and therefore unlikely to be successful. I will argue that it is potentially harmful, leading to harms for the present generation and for future generations.

Acknowledgements

I am particularly grateful to Stefan Kesting who looked at an early draft of this paper to check that I was understanding the economics, and who also suggested some revisions to help me to engage more successfully with economists. I am also grateful to Elizabeth Ellis, and to anonymous referees, for a number of helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper. I am also grateful to those who attended the Climate Ethics and Climate Economics workshop ‘“Efficiency Without Sacrifice”: A Novel Way to Fund Mitigation?’ (University of Nottingham, 13 to 14 April 2016), many of whom–including Fergus Green, Aaron Maltais and John Broome—provided useful feedback. Finally, I am grateful to the AHRC for funding my project ‘Climate Change, Ethics and Responsibility: an interdisciplinary approach’, which allowed me the time to write this paper (and others).

Notes

1. Of the current generation.

2. Thanks to Stefan Kesting for presenting my argument back to me in this form, and encouraging me to present my argument against Foley using this characterisation of the argument.

3. Ethically, the claim that this is the ‘correct price’ is controversial to say the least. This paper, however, will not focus on this aspect of the debate. For a better discussion of the ethics, see (Broome, 2012, pp. 45–47) and (Maltais, 2015).

4. Stern also presents a similarly simple model. However, Stern’s version doesn’t focus on one type of consumption and two types of investment. Rather, Stern simply focuses on two goods, A and B, one of which pollutes, and one doesn’t. This, I think, makes Stern’s model quite different from Foley’s. Stern also seems to show more awareness of the limits of his model, and the (empirical) contingencies that the argument relies on (Stern, Ethics, equity, and the economics of climate change paper 1: Science and philosophy, 2014, p. 426).

5. Kelleher appeals to the non-identity effect. I will not address this here, but the argument Kelleher relies on is challenged in my paper ‘Taking Future Generations Seriously: Rejecting the Non-identity Argument without Solving the Non-identity Problem’ (under review).

6. My evidence for this is that, unlike most academic books, Broome’s book is available not only as a hardback, but also as a cheap paperback, suggesting a relatively large print run, a cheap kindle e-book, and—most notably—an audio download. Also, anecdotally, when I organised an event on climate change, with the Royal Academy of Engineering, one of the engineers suggested Broome as a speaker, as he had read Broome’s book.

7. For example, Fredrik Hedenus, Stefan Wirsenius and Daniel J.A. Johansson claim that ‘reduced ruminant meat and dairy consumption will be indispensable for reaching the 2 °C target with a high probability, unless unprecedented advances in technology take place’. (Hedenus, Stefan, & Johansson, 2014) (Also see (Cox, 2013, p. 193) and (McMichael, Powles, Butler, & Uauy, 2007) and (Scarborough et al., 2014)).

8. This section owes a lot to Stefan Kesting, who urged me to think of the issue in terms of the inefficiency of compensation, and who also recommended the Kahneman et al. paper

9. I thank Elizabeth Ellis for encouraging me not to overcomplicate things, and to focus on this simple example.

10. Also see (Maltais, 2015, pp. 98–102).

11. Thanks to Stefan Kesting for bringing the work of Herman E. Daly – and this analogy in particular – to my attention.

12. Not all sacrifices are economic. A reduction in safety and security would also be sacrifices. See (Shrader-Frechette, 2011) and (MacKay, 2009) for radically different answers to this question.

13. Also see (Maltais, 2015, p. 102).

14. See (Maltais, 2015, p. 101) and (Heinberg, 2011, pp. 72–81).

15. Also see (Lawlor, 2015).

16. For example, see (Urry, 2015).

17. For example, see (von Weizsäcker, Hargroves, Smith, Desha, & Stasinopoulos, 2009), though I do not believe that this book argues that no sacrifice will be required from anyone.