Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) is available here.
Richard Tol’s critique published in the Financial Times is available here.

Carbon tax breaks for low-particulate fuel

We have learned a few lessons over the years. Monetary policy and market regulation are better done at arm’s length of the government. The generalists in the Dail set the broad goals, but leave the details to quasi-independent technocrats. Macro-prudence is now being added to those broad goals.

Micro is another matter. Policy-makers instinctively reach for the second-best. Sometimes that is the best feasible regulation. Sometimes that creates rents for their clients. And sometimes it is just the force of habit.

The Examiner reports that Minister Hogan suggested that smokeless fuels be given a break on the carbon tax. Really? The carbon tax regulates carbon dioxide emissions. Smokeless fuels and smoky fuels differ in their particulate emissions. A carbon tax break may reduce particulate emissions but would increase carbon dioxide emissions.

A carbon tax break would make climate policy more expensive. Emission reduction is cheapest when there is a uniform price. At the moment, there are three carbon prices: EU ETS, carbon tax, and zero. Hogan proposes there’d be four: EU ETS, carbon tax, reduced carbon tax, and zero. The reduced carbon tax would hold for coal and peat, the fuels that emit most carbon dioxide per unit of energy.

A carbon tax break would also make particulate policy more expensive. At the moment, there is a range of regulations including technical standards (e.g., in transport) and local bans (e.g., on selling smoky fuels in cities). A tax break would add yet another layer of regulation. The impact on costs is predictable: They will rise as any move away from first-best regulation does (Tinbergen 1952).

The impact on emissions is unknown. There are two substitution effects: (1) smoky -> smokeless coal and peat; and (2) oil and gas -> coal and peat. The carbon tax break would apply to all smokeless fuel, not just to smokeless fuel sold in places where smoky fuels are banned. Smokeless fuel use may increase more that smoky fuel use falls.

Recall that smokeless fuels are not particulate-less. There are no visible emissions. Invisible particulates, the ones that do real damage, are emitted nonetheless.

If Minister Hogan wants to reduce particulate emissions, he should impose a particulate tax (and abolish the ineffective sales ban) or extend the sales ban to the entire country.

Where in Donegal?

This document reached me by way of the European Commission. It shows that some people are working hard to convince the Commission that Bogtec is a transnational infrastructure project of European importance (and thus qualifies for subsidies). It also shows that the Spirit of Ireland refuses to die.

There is mention of a glacial valley near Kilcar, Co Donegal. A dam, 1300 meters wide and 120 meters high (in the middle), would create an upper reservoir with a surface of 4 squared kilometers; assuming that the valley is triangular, the reservoir would be 6150 meters long. The sea would be the lower reservoir. Surplus wind power would pump the water from the sea into the reservoir. Releasing the water back into the sea, power would be generated when there’s demand.

I’ve been hiking in Donegal only a few times. Is there a glacial valley near the sea, of the above dimensions, uninhabited, and not full of archaeological treasure?

UPDATE: I’ve had one vote for Glenaddragh River Valley, which is a good way from the sea.

UPDATE2: Another correspondent forwarded this map, discussed by Donegal County Council. The hydro plan was apparently rejected as it failed to meet the requirements of the SEA Directive on procedural grounds.

Swords v DCENR

The case of Pat Swords versus the Department of Energy etc continues. See here and here for its history. The media is strangely quiet. At stake is an injunction to halt the National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP), but this case has ramifications for all relations between the rulers and the ruled, and for Ireland’ sovereignty.

There have been two sessions of the High Court, one on April 12 and one of April 16.

State argued that the case should be thrown out because the Aarhus Convention does not apply as it had not been ratified at the time the NREAP was accepted by the European Commission in 2010. This argument was rejected. Even though Ireland did not ratify the Aarhus Convention until 2012, the European Union had ratified it in 2005. Therefore, Ireland must comply with Aarhus.

Read that again: Ireland is subject to an international treaty it did not ratify.

The session is adjourned till June. State now has to engage substantively with the ruling of the Aarhus Compliance Committee, which has that Ireland failed to properly inform its citizens about NREAP and its impact and did not allow them sufficient time to engage with policy making.

Ireland v Pat Swords

It has been several years since I first came across Pat Swords. Pat demanded access to wind energy modeling work that he thought the ESRI had done but not published. There were many layers to our reply. The ESRI is not covered by Freedom of Information legislation. At the time, Ireland had not yet ratified the Aarhus Convention on Access to Environmental Information, so that did not apply either (but see below). Although it would have been appropriate for the ESRI to do a detailed study of the pros and cons of subsidizing wind energy, we had not. And no, we were not aware of someone else having done such a study either. There is no ex ante evaluation of wind energy subsidies in Ireland, and no ex post evaluation either. (And lest people protest, I am aware of a number of partial studies, and a number of not-independent ones.)

Pat lost interest in the ESRI, but not in wind policy. He asked every institution in Ireland he could think of “why do we subsidize wind?” Some replied in the vein of “because we do, now go away”. Others did not respond. So Pat asked the European Commission, with the same result. Although we do generously subsidize wind power, no official was able to satisfactorily answer why.

So Pat went to the United Nations. It first ruled that, because the European Union has ratified the Aarhus Convention and because wind policy is dictated by Brussels, Ireland’s wind policy is bound by the Aarhus Convention – a treaty Ireland had not ratified at the time.

The Aarhus Convention is not at all about wind. It is about public policy. The Aarhus Compliance Committee ruled that Ireland had failed to give its residents a proper say in the National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP). Two failures were identified. First, there was insufficient information to inform a reasoned decision. Second, there was insufficient time given to deliberate and, if need be, protest.

The Committee did not say whether wind power is good or bad. It did say that decisions on wind power are dodgy.

This is a remarkable result in and of itself. The Irish government cannot justify policy decisions with a few half-baked arguments and ram it through the Dail. It often does, but there is now a precedent to call an end to such practice.

The story does not end here. Pat took the UN ruling to the High Court and asked for a judicial review of the NREAP. The judge agreed that there is prima facie evidence that things are not kosher and called a hearing, which is due to reconvene on March 13.

The government’s defense is that Pat’s protest comes far too late, ignoring that all his earlier protests were put aside and ignoring the UN ruling that insufficient time was granted in the first place. The government also argues that the EU has accepted the NREAP, ignoring that the UN ruled that the European Commission was just as much in the wrong as the Irish government.

Inexcusably, the government asked the court to be granted legal costs if they win. If he loses, Pat may have to pay the government’s lawyers.

Such bullying tactics may soon come to an end through another lawsuit, but they have not yet. It is immoral, though, that the mighty government seeks to throttle a judicial review by threatening to bankrupt a citizen who exercises his democratic right.

The government’s behaviour suggests that it knows it cannot defend its case for subsidies for wind power. Carbon dioxide emissions from power generation are indeed already adequately regulated by the EU Emissions Trading System. There is no reason to put subsidies on top. Many Irish households and companies would probably welcome cheaper electricity.

Pat comments on this case here.