The Political Economy of a
Green Revolution
Pol376: International Political Economy
April 2, 2012
Michael Lee
Summary
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Global Warming
Possible solutions
Friedman and a “Green New Deal”
Obstacles to a Green Revolution
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Ideational
Implementation
Political
International
 A green opportunity?
Negative externalities of
dirty energy consumption
What are the negative externalities of
filling up a tank of gas?
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Global warming
Other pollutants
Foreign policy
Petro-dictatorship
Complexity
Hot, Flat and Crowded
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Rise of China
Green new deal
Competitive advantage
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2007/04/10/maga
zine/1194817107532/the-power-of-green.html
 Energy internet
 Carbon tax/price floors
 Regulation/incentives
Other approaches to climate change
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Doing nothing
Cap and trade
Government intervention
Geo-engineering
Battle of ideas
 Climate science
 Skeptics
 Deniers
 Cornucopians
 Lomborg
 “Climategate”
 Hockey stick
 Environmental tradeoffs
Temperature since 1000 CE,
multiple sources
Implementation problems
 Variable generation, constant demand
 Government picking winners
 Green bubbles
 Spain
 Czech Republic
Ontario wind energy as % of capacity:
variable energy generation, regular
demand
Does a green public lead to green
policies? (WVS)
Early 90s
Late 90s
Late 00s
France
54.4%
37.6%
(no data)
China
82.4%
74.3%
73.7%
USA
63.9%
60.9%
49.8%
Canada
63.7%
58.1%
65.7%
Pricing carbon: a tough sell
 USA
 Cap and trade
 http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/111/hou
se/1/477
 Sectoral/regional costs
 Canada
 Green tax shift (carbon tax)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os5vXksQwts&
feature=relmfu
If you were building a political
coalition of green interests, what
would it look like?
Past international efforts
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Global collective action problems
Montreal protocol (Ozone), 1987
Acid rain treaty (S02, NOx), 1991
http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/progress/arp03.
html
 Kyoto protocol (C02), 1997
 Copenhagen (C02), 2009
Human C02 emissions since 1850
Why was Kyoto unsuccessful, while
previous agreements succeeded?
Country
C02/person
Status
US
18.9
Canada
16.9
Japan
9.8
Germany
9.6
Signed, did not
ratify
Ratified, dropped
out
Failed to meet
target
Met target
UK
8.9
Exceeded target
France
6
Exceeded target
Are there competitive advantages to
going green?
Who has a comparative advantage in
solar power?
Annual Average windspeed
Summary
 Academic consensus may not translate into
public acceptance
 Hard to implement
 Tricky international and domestic
distributional politics