Monday, October 20, 1997

Global Warming: Go slow on any policy changes

By WILLIAM F. O'KEEFE

For Scripps Howard News Service

The U.S. Department of Energy recently released a report on global climate policy that its officials said "backs up" President Clinton's astonishing claim that "we could reduce (greenhouse) emissions 20 percent tomorrow with technology already available at no cost if we just changed the way we do things."

The report would "change the way we do things" all right, but not in ways that the American people would accept.

In spite of the press release hype, the DOE report admits that a "carbon permit price" of $25 to $50 per ton on fossil fuels would be required to achieve DOE's estimated emissions reductions It also states that more than a little good luck is needed. But wishful thinking may make poor public policy.

Independent analyses indicate that an increase in fossil fuel costs equivalent to an additional 45 to 60 cents per gallon of gasoline would be necessary. On the same day that DOE unveiled its report, WEFA Inc., an independent economics firm, released a new study that starkly refutes the president's "no cost" claim. It shows that meeting the administration's goal would lower the Gross Domestic Product $2,000 per household in 2010 and a total of about $30,000 per household from 2001 to 2020.

According to the WEFA analysis, an average household's cost of living would also rise about $2,500 to $5,000 a year.

The administration may claim that its goals can be met "at no cost," but common sense tells most Americans to be highly skeptical of government promises of something for nothing.

Could we achieve the administration's goal through voluntary actions-by turning down thermostats, wearing sweaters and riding bicycles to work, as President Jimmy Carter advocated in the late 1970s? It didn't accomplish much then and wouldn't do so now.

That's because common sense tells us that there is "no free lunch" to curbing energy use (and little incentive to do so, given the current state of knowledge about human impacts on climate).

The fact is U.S. businesses and American families are not overlooking untapped technologies or other opportunities to reduce their energy use and fuel bills.

Roughly half of all liquid fuel consumption in the United States is used for transportation. How could we cut that sharply, except by the estimated 45-to-60-cent-per-gallon increase in gasoline taxes or its equivalent? Americans won't agree that such increases qualify as "no cost."

This is not to say that action to address increases in greenhouse gases are not warranted. The Global Climate Coalition believes that encouragement of technology advances that would permit more efficient energy use is the most sensible approach to the prospect of climate change. But technological developments must be seen as part of a long-term emissions strategy.

If action is needed - and, despite what administration spokesmen say, climate scientists are far from a consensus that it is - what's required is moderate, realistic action to deal with a very long-term, and still very uncertain problem.

William F. O'Keefe is chairman of the Global Climate Coalition.