Football environment

Euro 2008 kicks off this weekend and promises some intriguing group stage encounters (not least Holland v. Italy, Holland v. France, France v. Italy, Spain v. Russia, Czech Republic v. Portugal, and Germany v. Croatia). And the games can only get better in the following knock-out stages. Sometimes it is argued that this competition is stronger than the World Cup, insofar as the weather tends to be kinder both on players and pitches, and there are fewer weaker teams. In the betting, Italy, the current World Cup holders, are rated behind Germany and Spain, but this a competition that has a habit of producing unexpected winners – for example the Czechs (1976), Denmark (1992) and Greece – the current Cup holders – (2004). Part of me is backing Spain, part takes refuge in Eduardo Galeano’s sentiments (post) that it is enough to enjoy the game.

The reason that I’m cheering on the Spanish is, of course, that none of the British representatives have made it to the Euro 2008 finals, in the year in which two English teams contested the UEFA Champions League final and Rangers reached the UEFA Cup Final, and when 13% of the players taking part in Euro 2008 practice their trade in the Premiership. Of the 16 nations competing, only Italy & Russia do not have at least one current Premiership player in their squads. The globalisation of professional football is largely the consequence of the EU’s regulations on the free movement of labour: no amount of posturing by UEFA on the numbers of home players per team is going to be successful. Ironically in the Champions League final both Chelsea and Manchester Utd fulfilled Blatter’s ’six-plus-five’ principle (which would limit a team’s “foreign” players to five).

The number of home-based players in each nation’s squads is shown the graph, and is contrasted with the number of all players in each country’s domestic leagues: 96% of Russia’s squad play in their domestic clubs (and 8% of all the players in the tournament play in Russia), whereas only one Croatian plays in Croatia (and no one else does). Unsurprisingly the big football nations – Germany, Italy, France & Spain – have a high percentage of domestically-based squad members as well as sharing a large proportion of foreign players in their respective leagues [Data source: BBC].

Will this make any difference to their chances of success? The second graph contrasts the current odds (from William Hill: 4-1 Germany; 11-2 Spain; 7-1 Italy, Portugal; 15-2 France; 12-1 Croatia, Holland; 16-1 Czech Republic; 22-1 Greece; 25-1 Switzerland; 28-1 Russia, Sweden; 40-1 Romania, Turkey; 50-1 Poland; 100-1 Austria) with the number of players in the finals who play in each nation’s leagues (thereby assuming that this is an indicator of performance). The relationship looks quite close – without getting drawn into any statistical tests – but the actual results are likely to depend upon the players’ form and the quality of management. Let us remember that during qualifying England made the fundamental error of promoting the #2: see post No Easy Matches.

The Premiership is probably the most international league in the world (in terms not only of players, but also sponsorship, worldwide tv coverage), and yet the overwhelming majority of the England team would most likely be drawn from the top four clubs (less if Arsenal is one of these). The question then – accepting the positive impacts of globalisation on British football – is how sustainable is the modern game given the clubs’ level of indebtedness and cost structures, and arguably the increasing inequalities between clubs, and the lower divisions. The issues is not about players’ nationalities, but rather the linkages between the advantages of globalisation and ensuring that domestic football can generate new talent and decent national teams (i.e the financing of domestic football, benefit-sharing arrangements and the “rules of the game” in the widest sense). Perhaps this is where the Germans, Italians, Spanish & French are doing better?

But there is a lesson here for the World Environment Day too: strengthening local capacities is the key to help countries lever to their advantage the benefits from globalisation. Both the agricultural and forestry sectors in developing countries have been relatively neglected by multilateral and bilateral donors. The success of efforts to create new carbon markets to support avoided deforestation will depend upon the quality of local institutions and knowledge to match initiatives and funding to tackle the drivers of deforestation whilst supporting farming systems. Implementing such environmental service programmes – and wider reforms needed to decarbonise the world’s economy – will be by necessity a step-by-step experimental process based on enduring partnerships, but one that has hardly begun:

Juan Bautista Alberdi, an Argentine constitutionalist and liberal, noted in 1837 that “Nations, like men, do not have wings; they make their journeys on foot, step by step.” Latin America, long susceptible to the utopian mirages of revolutionaries and caudillos and still not immune to them, has struggled to absorb this truth. But … durable mass democracies have emerged across the region…[Brazil's] leadership in nonfossil fuels and the unparalleled biodiversity of its Amazon rain forest make it a natural leader in the 21st-century struggle with global warming. (NYT)

UPDATE: 25 June

The first graph shows the four semi-finalists came from the top-5 rated nations (which is better than the match makers managed). I’m sure that Eduardo Galeano enjoyed the romance of the plucky and skillful Turkish performance, as well as Richard William’s sympathetic sport writing – here

we haven’t had rain, we’ve had too much rain

As Benjamin Zephaniah wrote: ‘A few years ago if u said yu were Green / Yu were really seen as Red’ [Me green poem, in City Psalms, Bloodaxe Books, 1992].

Now the British Council has published “Feeling the Pressure. Poetry and science of climate change”, a short anthology of new poems (downloadable, see below), described as a “weather report, a British snapshot of intellectual and emotional reaction to things as they stand at the end of 2007:

It’s noticeable how many of the poets have adopted a rather oblique approach, almost seeming to shy away from direct statements about the predicament we face. Is that a lack of confidence in the facts? A loss of nerve? I don’t think so. It is more a refusal to jump on the bandwagon of self-satisfaction like those corporations preening themselves on account of their ever so slight ‘green’ credentials. There are no token gestures among these poems. The poets are more honest than that; they do not claim to have solutions or even some special understanding. What is striking throughout all the contributions, however, is the way in which the science of climate change has clearly entered the language and permeated the way we think [Paul Munden].

The contributions are really good, with the poems grouped in 5 sections, each introduced by short prose contributions by scientists. My own favourite poem is the editor’s “Mitigation”.

Now hopefully the British Council will assist a similar publication from scientists and poets in the those countries that have already suffered from, or will be most likely to be disproportionately affected by, climate change.

Feeling the Pressure. Poetry and science of climate change. Edited by Paul Munden. British Council, 2008. www.britishcouncil.org/switzerland-climate-change-anthology.htm

Flower power

Girona’s 53rd annual flower festival has been taking place this week, drawing good crowds of locals and visitors to the city. It is — as usual — well organised with lots of interesting exhibits, concerts and other activities interspersed in and around the Barri Vell (the old town centre). It’s a great opportunity to amble around the streets as well as get free access to many public & private buildings, churches, gardens, and museums.

There is an excellent web page for the Temps de Flors -look in particular at the gallery of pictures of earlier festival and festival posters. The town’s many bookshops have copies of the book “Girona Temps de Flors: 50 anys de cartells 1955-2005″, Col.leccío História de Girona 35, Ajuntment de Girona [ISBN 84-8496-004-8]) which is well worth buying as a souvenir.

Last year the festival week took place in unusually hot weather and by the end many displays were unsurprisingly looking rather tired; fortunately this year’s rain on the opening and final weekends has only slightly dampened some activities & displays.

But is there a sense that the format needs revamping? There is nothing really dramatic or memorable this year, nor was there last year. It’s important to keep the festival’s core visitors, but perhaps this is the time to increase its attractiveness and relevance to a wider range of visitors and residents.

Here are three ideas:

First, take part of the festival out of the town centre, specifically by having some exhibits and shows in nearby Salt’s own old town centre. This would be an opportunity to draw upon Salt’s more dynamic and diverse communities’ cultures, (for example, this week there is a festival of African films — AFRICAT — in Salt), and to bring the two town centres and peoples closer together.

Second, install some exhibits on nearby walks or cycle routes, such as the Girona-Olot and Girona-Quart sections of the classic bike route the Ruta de Carrilet Olot-San Feliu de Guìxols on the banks of the River Ter and River Onyar respectively. Other potential sites include the extensive allotments and woods of San Eugenia (Hortes de San Eugenia),  and the ecosystem bike routes at the end of the San Daniel Valley.

Third, give the festivals a theme – for example emulate the 2050 Garden exhibit at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show which looks at plants and gardens in a changing climate.

Much of Catalunya’s wealth is drawn from tourism and built upon the high public subsidies (much provided by the EU following the restoration of Spanish democracy) for infrastructure and public sector construction. Now it is time for the town council to start to decarbonise the local economy and tourism: free public transport in Girona and Salt, plus town bike schemes are long overdue.

Deliverance

Britons may not want to “foot the bill to save the planet” as reported in The Independent – well who does wants to more taxes – but whilst a third say that they are opposed to more legislation in support of green policies (can they name such legislation?), and a third of those polled also believe that green taxes will have no impact on the environment, the poll results do suggest that two thirds are in favour of such measures…which is the good news.

More great cartoons from GADO here

UPDATE: From The Times Peter Riddell on our and our politicians’ self-reinforcing attitudes — and how these change, perhaps echoing political cycles — today’s delusions & selfishness could mark a low-point.

Attitudes on tax also fluctuate. The British Social Attitudes survey shows that, in the early Thatcher years, 54 per cent favoured keeping taxes and spending on health, education and social benefits at the same level. This fell to about 31 to 34 per cent by the 1997 election. Over the same period, support for increasing taxes and spending more on services rose from 32 to about 60 per cent. By the time of the last election in 2005, however, backing for more spending was down to 46 per cent, and staying the same was 43 per cent. Several recent polls…have highlighted increasing scepticism about whether the expansion in government programmes is being efficiently spent, as well as growing resistance to higher taxes.

UPDATE: What Britons do rather than say that they will do to pollsters in revealed by data from the Office of National Statistics reported in The Guardian. They respond to incentives in the wider sense of the word: they are recycling more, but travelling more by air and by car, reflecting the impact of market forces, peer pressure and regulations.

Friends of the Earth’s head of campaigns, Mike Childs, said ministers had to do much more to help people live “less polluting lives”, including tougher energy efficiency standards for products and cars, greater investment in public transport, and taxes to make it cheaper and easier for people to go green.

First 100 Days

On January 20th 2009 the 44th US Presidency will begin. What could the new President do in the first 100 days?

Here’s a good start: Refocusing on the Environment

1. Kick start federal action on climate change, plus give a kick in the pants of the EPA to get on with regulating carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act.

2. Appoint a climate change tsar (dear old Al G is always the preferred choice…), but more fundamentally set up an inter-agency coordination body on climate change (joining the dots and dashes).

3. Put domestic power utilities under stronger regulatory control (and a longer-term framework for cleaning up their act).

4. Restore and strengthen land management safeguards and increase local governance.

5. Boost funding for research on climate change science.

UPDATE (May 2008): The (self-styled) Presidential Climate Action Project

will continue to study climate-change policies over the next few months and will release the final draft of its plan for the next president in the fall of 2008. The objective is to give the president a thorough, comprehensive, science-based agenda for effective climate action to be implemented in the first 100 days of the new administration. It’s a bold, ambitious strategy, but the United States has to make up for a lot of lost time.

See FACET Commentary #8, May 2008

Tipping points

Facing up to their rhetoric on climate change is becoming more uncomfortable for politicians, not least in the Brown government. Mark Lynas makes the neat point that the Plane Stupid protesters on the roof of the Place of Westminster were arrested for trying to enforce government policy, while Martin Kettle also in The Guardian and Geoffrey Lean in The Independent reflect on the government’s hesitancy in the Budget (billed as the “greenest Budget ever”) to signal any environmental leadership, although – given the much-reduced formal importance of Budget statements – the more revealing litmus test should be the next public expenditure review.

But why are politicians and policy-makers apparently frozen into inactivity on climate change, and equally the continuing financial market imbroglio? Is it in part a perception that the green sensibility that has undoubtedly arisen in the past few years is a (middle class) luxury good, which will be dropped during the endgame of the present boom? Is it more simply an inability of today’s politicians and political classes to match a suite of new ideas to the shifts in social and economic change in the UK over past 25 years, which arguably are equal to those in 1945, 1979 or 1997?

The political parties seemingly define their territory according to their concepts of a “new relationship between the state and the citizen.” But is this any more than focus group wish think? Does it not miss the fundamental point that few people want to run their kids’ schools let alone local hospitals – we just want the state to do a decent job of it together with the professionals working in these schools, hospitals and other welfare agencies. Likewise on climate change, are people not unreasonably expecting their elected representatives to present for debate a range of pathways for next 5-10 years setting out government plans on taxation & spending, the role of business, the response of local government and the incentives for households to adapt to the impacts of climate change?

Or perhaps the paralysis is caused by the feeling that the squeeze on living standards which has already begun for middle classes is a foretaste of further falls as the need to mitigate near-future emissions bites into consumption and livelihoods. Economic growth has done little to reduce inequalities or improve social justice in the UK (with honourable exception of child poverty), indeed trade liberalisation may have eroded real wages for many workers. Managing the adjustment to a lower-emission economy will require more than a liberal agenda based upon calls for equality of opportunity, and that is what worries the political elite who recognise the inherent fragility of a state built on class inequalities when the liberal consensus breaks.

UPDATE 29 Mar 2008: Matthew Parris reporting on the annual Orwell Prize for political writing comments:

A once-great political idea [socialism] was disintegrating into a welter of crèche initiatives and well-intentioned wittering about small-picture communitarianism and self-help groups in Glasgow. This is not what Marx, Engels, Lenin or even Attlee were all about. Nor, for that matter, is it what Disraeli, Salisbury, Churchill or even Thatcher were about. And I think I diagnosed the problem: a problem for the Right too, and for British Tories as much as for new Labour. All sides have suffered a slow but disabling collapse of confidence in the ability of central government to do things, to mend things, to start things or to run things properly. Nobody seems to believe in the State any more.

I do. My message to the Left is keep the faith, baby. My message to the Right is beware the siren calls of laissez faire and localism. People need governing. People need governments, strong governments. People need certainty. People need consistency. People need constraining, inspiring, harnessing and directing, and they need it done with the clarity and command that central government alone can offer. In a thousand places, from the strategic heights to the nooks and crannies of everyday life, there arise necessities to which the answer must be that only government can do them.

AND (2 April) Nick Cohen (but is this correct- – politics by the average or marginal approach?):

However, I and my fellow liberals are equally intolerant when it comes to our pet causes. It’s no good telling us to be grateful that London is no longer enveloped by smog, for instance, or that homophobia is not as vicious as it used to be. We want a green environment and minorities to be treated with respect, right now.

This convergence between liberal and conservative thinking is a sign that London, for all its povoerty, is becoming an ever-more middle class city. And like solid bourgeois everywhere, Londoners want good manners, cleanliness and order. In his lumbering way, Johnson half grasps the public mood, which is why he looks like winning.

FINAL UPDATE 3 May 2008: Which he has

The price of carbon and the ethic of Cain

William Morris has been described by E.P. Thompson as one of the greatest of Englishmen, and as a revolutionary without a revolution [Persons & Polemics, E.P.Thompson, Merlin Press, 1994]. At the end of the nineteenth century this perspicacious man, who saw that economic relationships reflect and fashion moral relationships, rallied tirelessly against the ethic of Cain – the acquisitive society and deepening wealth inequality – in contrast to a society based on the ethic of community and a society of equals, and believing that that there could be no compromise between the two ethics set out to work for the revolution.

The appalling waste of life & suffering in the past 100 years would undoubtedly cause Morris pause for thought and probably less zeal for revolution. But his moral critique – following a long tradition of English dissenters – finds an albeit faint echo in Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of “creative destruction” which describes the uneven evolution of capitalism and corporatism, and their relationship to democracy, and which arguably has renewed relevance after twenty years of globalisation.

The question of how liberal democracies, entrepreneurs and dominant classes will respond to climate warming is now focused on the opening debate over carbon taxes, and is taking place against a background of stumbling growth and the unbridled greed of the financial markets added and abetted – in the UK – by the present and preceding New Labour administrations.

But the same Labour governments have also set two precedents: commissioning the Stern Report, and introducing the climate change bill. The first established that adopting measures to reduction carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions would cost less than failing to prevent climate change, and that such measures are affordable; the second includes a politically far-reaching timetable for mandatory cuts in targeted greenhouse gas emissions, based upon binding domestic carbon reduction targets, effectively establishing a pathway to make the UK a low-carbon based economy.

The Stern Report has been controversial, initially for the choice of discount rate, and more recently because of the assumptions and numbers used to estimate the consumption reduction equivalence (including putting a monetary value on human life), which have been used to estimate the social cost of carbon in the cost-benefit analysis for the proposed third runway at Heathrow. George Monbiot has taken umbrage that the “shadow price of carbon”, which is currently valued, human lives and all, at £25 a tonne. Human life is not a commodity, but it does have an economic value in many markets. The Economist response errs in overstating the capacity of future growth and material progress to reduce poverty in a world known to be bound by climate change constraints and the immediate necessity to reduce consumption.

Heathrow is now a lightening rod for climate change campaigners and regardless of government estimates that a new runway has a net economic benefit, it is unlikely to be built: innovative protesters plus MPs in London and Home County constituencies will ensure that profits take second place to environmental and political costs. Large infrastructure and technology projects have track record of cost underestimation and cost overruns. Hypothetical gains from growth in air traffic are not shared equally and nor are the costs: the extent to which scenarios have been developed that take into account the effect of a fuel levy on airlines, carbon taxes on airline tickets, and the cost of disturbance to Londoners remains unclear. The debate is really about re-appraising the UK’s aviation forecasts and policy in light of the need to cut emissions by 30% by 2020.

In the UK emissions are about 10 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per capita. With a population of about 60 million the current annual level of domestic emissions is 600 million tonnes. An initial low carbon tax of, say, £10 per tonne (US$15 per tonne) would generate £6,000m per year in tax revenues. Total UK tax revenues were £520,000m (about £8,500 per head) in 2006-07, of which income tax and national insurance payments represented 45%. The carbon tax can be introduced as a revenue-neutral measure, for example matched by reductions in incomes taxes – although strong arguments can be made for some carbon tax receipts to be ring-fenced to finance public support for carbon technologies, grants and subsidies to encourage the switch to lower carbon technologies for power, heat and transport, as well as part of UK contributions to international safety nets and adaptation funds for those poorer countries most likely to be directly affected first by climate change – for example to counter declining crop yields in Africa.

Faced with the social costs of their spending, consumers can be expected to reduce their demand for carbon emission goods and services, and companies will invest in more efficient technologies (Shell have called for a carbon price close to $100 – about £50 – per tonne of CO2 to justify investment in carbon-capture-and-storage schemes). Carbon pricing and supporting regulations need to be introduced quickly: the Stern report emphasised that price of delay will be higher mitigation costs.

Short of rationing only carbon pricing will induce the shifts needed for the UK to meet its commitment to reduce emissions by 60% before 2050 to about 4 tonnes per capita. Carbon pricing policies will raise many distributional issues, and open the debate on the nature of our society. William Morris would be working now to prepare the ground for a more cooperative social contract, and raging against the moral immiseration of the ruling classes, who “rather than lose anything which really is its essence, it will pull the roof of the world down upon its head.”

 

 

 

Forest Monitor

Dr. Alan Grainger, from the University of Leeds, has questioned whether the popular assertions about deforestation are valid. He acknowledges that deforestation is occurring, but examining FAO time-series data he has found a number of errors and inconsistencies, but no long-term net decline in tropical forest area. His findings are mirrored by recent satellite data. He calls for an international effort to monitor tropical forest trends through the establishment of an independent body. Strengthening national forest agencies is essential, but the difficulties are less about the statistics than interpreting the data and trends. Querying deforestation is not new: James Fairhead and Melissa Leach have been the forefront of those comparing international perspectives, orthodoxies, forestry & conservation programmes with local narratives. In “Reframing Deforestation: Global analysis and local realities: studies in West Africa” (Routledge, 1998), they write:

the extent of forest loss during the twentieth century has been vastly exaggerated. Much so-called deforestation either took place much earlier, or has not taken place at all since the areas in question have not carried in historical times…much of the forest that has been lost during the twentieth century, and indeed much of that remains, covered land which had been populated and farmed…on the northern margins, it has on the contrary sometimes been people, their settlement and land use which has been responsible for the development of forest vegetation where it was previously lacking.

Similarly, there has been increasing understanding of the importance of forest regrowth in Central and Latin America since the mid-1990s, and that in many regions secondary forests are an integral part of land use systems.

These are important insights that will determine the success of efforts to reduce deforestation. First, whose voice counts in deciding areas to be supported and the form that support will take, and second how these processes will be monitored and supervised?

Some of the practical difficulties can be seen in Liberia. The first map shows the extent of present forest cover. The new forest law gives an unprecedented institutional role to communities and civil society in the management of the country’s forests. Communities must be consulted about all forest land use decisions. 30% of forest lands are to be set aside in protected areas with financing from a share (10%) of stumpage and forest product fees. Communities also share revenues from commercial forestry, with 30% of land rental fees distributed to directly affected communities and another 30% shared between all 15 counties. Forest management contracts are subject to an annual financial audit and rolling 5-yearly performance checks. But rebuilding both the state forestry department and ensuring that civil society groups are equipped to support communities is a long-term process, not least in a country emerging from civil conflict.

The second map – - based on satellite imagery — shows an interpretation of land use change with the darker areas indicating forest loss. But land use change needs to be verified at the local level to indicate for example whether the change is occurring as a part of bush fallow cultivation, or land clearance. The flux in land tenure adds to these difficulties. See the Liberia Forest Initiative for reports. As reported by Rights & Resources many initial carbon trading schemes have shown little community ownership and benefit.There is no template to fit the differing forest characteristics and political institutions of tropical countries, but common standards (most probably drawn from forest certification and EITI experience) are needed, in order the monitoring and evaluation required for financial intermediaries.

Since much of the financing for carbon trading will come from private investors, the experience of the recent financial market instability may prove salutary if the corrections and new regulatory institutions are put in place. The extent of the debacle is widely recognised.

Globalization, thy name is Wall Street bailout…less than two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the West’s gleeful jig dancing on the grave of communism, state capitalism is suddenly threatening the autonomy of the global “free” market. Wall Street’s elite banks, long time freedom fighters for deregulation and scorners of all government intervention in the marketplace, are now begging, cup in hand, for aid from a gallery of regimes that includes some of the most authoritarian and undemocratic governments on the planet…Perhaps it would be more accurate to say freer markets lost the day. The root of Wall Street’s woes leads back directly to their own strategic missteps, greed, speculation-run-amok, and lack of appropriate supervision.The brightest minds in finance had exactly what they wanted, a play ground where the monitors were looking the other way, and they blew it.

Similar points are made in The Independent. The FT reminds us that the US banking system has enjoyed four bailouts in the past three decades, namely the crises over developing country debt, saving and loans, commercial property in early 90s, and today’s sub-prime and securitised credit mess. This amounts to “a history of privatising gains and socialising losses.” (See for example: the US$66 billion staff pay costs of the big US investment banks).

There are inherent difficulties in the regulation and supervision of an industry which is driven by spectacular profits. But a more robust system will need to be in place if there is to be confidence in carbon trading as a financial transaction as well as a means to prevent forest loss. How far should regulation go: “The question the authorities need to ask themselves is simple: if a specific [financial] institution fell into substantial difficulty would they have to intervene?” only answers the first part of the question. How to monitor forest governance is the second part. If tropical forests have global public good properties then putting in place institutions – at local, national & international levels – for monitoring and verifying forest condition and international public and private financial transfers, including supporting civil society, in poor countries is a prerequisite.

Dr.Strangelove has entered the building

Back in 1974, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution concluded: “There should be no commitment to a large programme of nuclear power until it has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that a method exists to ensure the safe containment of long-lived, highly radioactive waste for the indefinite future.” It was the turning point for nuclear power in Britain. Vast expansion plans were abandoned, and only one reactor has been approved and built since.The Independent

The dreams about energy independence lead to expensive policies with no real energy security benefits. The nightmares about “energy wars” reinforce prejudices in China and India about the need for aggressive foreign energy policies – a process that looks like a vicious circle. Energy security risks have probably gone up but have not changed in nature. More money is needed to buy collective insurance. But energy independence is nonsense… The FT

The climate change debate in the UK took another turn last week with the government’s statement that the option of building new nuclear power stations would be taken up. Given a ’self-evident energy gap’ the decision was made on energy security and environmental grounds. As the quotes above show both parts of this new policy are founded on contentious arguments. Moreover, given the construction lags, nuclear electricity generation will not contribute to reducing emissions or to energy supply in next decade (and thereafter only have a marginal impact on emission reductions).

The twists in the tale are that first the programme is to generate non-subsidised nuclear power — something that has never been achieved before anywhere — and second the government is (apparently) hedging its bets allowing the market to decide wider energy policy outcomes. If the latter is really the case then there are low-carbon alternatives to the nuclear option which may prove to be more cost-effective.

The nuclear industry in the UK has a poor track record: cost overruns, late delivery, and a small contribution to electricity generation at a high cost, without taking into account the large uncertainties and costs in waste management and decommissioning — the Sellafield clean up cost alone is expected be at least £30-40bn; the prospective investors will be encouraged by the government’s commitment to subsidise waste storage costs, and are no doubt expecting additional bailouts later on. The risks of nuclear power may be better understood, but like Concorde only one catastrophic accident turns the safety record upside down: would there be any discussion of reviving the industry had Chernobyl been in the Rhone or Suffolk? Also the industry has had a corrosive effect on civil liberties, an area in which the UK has yet to find a balance between the defence of public interest and acts in the public interest.

The immediate needs are to start making cuts in emissions and to ensure liberalisation not autarky in energy markets.

See change

Following up from yesterday’s “Jefferson climate change strategy” post it is interesting to see Slate magazine’s useful summary of the results of the electronic markets for voting intentions. Both political predictors the Iowa Electronic Markets & Intrade.com data are based on actual bets.

For example here are recent values for the runners in the democratic race, with the graph below showing the suddenness in Mr.Obama’s upturn in fortune:

Obama supports a cap-and-trade approach based on the auction of permits (essentially a carbon tax, without calling it such). The increasingly likely prospect of a new president favouring concerted action on climate change is a challenge to voters and punters (betting folk and columnists) alike. The Economist’s Free Exchange makes the point that voters in areas with higher per capita emission rates might be expected to vote differently to those in lower per capita emission constituencies. Perhaps someone could adjust the data in the prediction markets? Free Exchange consistently comes off the fence on this issue:

… the best choice would appear to be the pursuit of a market-oriented carbon pricing scheme, with financial assistance to the biggest losers made contingent upon actual, realised losses.

UPDATE (Tuesday 8 Jan) from the FT: is this really what the election is about or is it rather more concerned with domestic issues and voter’s financial concerns?

I realise that I am in danger of falling into the classic European trap of treating an American presidential election as an entertaining freak show, starring Bible-bashers and philanderers, in which the outside world barely exists … it looks more likely that the November election will be a contest between Mr Obama for the Democrats and John McCain, the likely Republican winner in New Hampshire…A McCain-Obama election would confound sniffy, foreign stereotypes of the US electoral process. It would be a contest between two manifestly able men, fought very largely about foreign policy and offering voters a clear and well-argued choice.