Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cannot Depend on Technology
Incentives Alone
RFF Scholar's Testimony Urges Broad-based Policy Action on Climate Change
(WASHINGTON, D.C., May 18, 2005) -- Technology approaches alone are unlikely to successfully address the threat posed by climate change, according to Richard Morgenstern, Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future. Morgenstern, in testimony submitted to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, outlined why policymakers must move beyond voluntary initiatives and enact market-based policies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
|
|
|
|
According to Morgenstern's testimony (Technology Incentives Alone Will Not Sufficiently Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions), the consensus is that it would be prohibitively expensive to rely on currently available technologies to reach the substantial emission reductions needed over the long term to attain or even approach the goal of stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. New technologies will be needed to further this effort.
At the same time, basic business sense indicates that voluntary initiatives will not be sufficient to move new technologies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions forward. There is no market value currently associated with emission reductions, and the future value is highly uncertain. As a result, even with government encouragement to develop greenhouse gas-reducing technologies, adoption of the new technologies will be limited unless firms see some kind of value associated with emission reductions.
|
|
Technology Incentives Alone Will Not Sufficiently Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
|
|
|
|
Under-investment in research, development, and demonstration in the private sector remains a problem as long as innovators cannot reap the full benefits to society of their efforts. However, market-based policies would reduce emissions in the near term, as well as alter the incentives that industries face for developing and adopting new technologies for the future.
While Morgenstern acknowledges that even without government incentives, industries may take steps toward reducing emissions on their own, he argues that the need to compete in the marketplace can be an overpowering one. "A company that puts meaningful effort into reducing greenhouse gas emission, rather than reducing costs, may eventually lose out to one that just seeks to reduce costs," he stated.
He notes technology policies are an important first step in reducing emissions, but that some type of emissions policy must also be adopted to effectively address the climate change issue. A combination of technology and emissions policy must be the long-term goal.
Still, he says, government-enacted technology policy is a vital step and necessary component of building a successful emission reduction strategy. Support for it can provide short- and medium-term solutions to current problems, send a signal about the value of reductions to the private sector, and provide an entry point for an effective emissions policy strategy.
****
Richard Morgenstern is available for interviews on this subject. Resources for the Future, an independent and nonpartisan Washington, D.C., think-tank, seeks to improve environmental and natural resource policymaking worldwide through objective social science research of the highest caliber.
