An indication that society in general (and business in particular) is not serious about addressing climate change is the extent to which we are happy to wave through superficial statements or attempts at action, without serious oversight or follow-up. Instead, the approach seems to be 'let's all pretend we are doing something and not look too hard at the details, in case we remind ourselves that we are really not doing much, at all.' The article in the url below does a good job of highlighting the ongoing disconnect between words and action:
"An evaluation of more than 1,500 climate policies in 41 countries found that only 63 actually worked to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
My reading of the press coverage of this study is that the threshold to count was 'any at all.' In other words, the report is not saying that 63 policies failed to produce a lot of greenhouse gasses, but that they failed to produce any at all – nothing. This is shocking, if you sit down to think about it for more than a second. Helpfully, the article notes what does and does not tend to work. Perhaps not surprisingly, we need to incorporate economics into public policy in order to understand how to incentivize behavior that might make a difference:
"Subsidies and regulations—policy types often favored by governments—rarely worked to reduce emissions, the study found, unless they were combined with price-based strategies aimed at changing consumer and corporate behavior. ... The fraction of policies that worked combined financial incentives, regulations and taxes, according to the study."
'Hope,' it seems, is not a strategy!
"The study found the nations' overall climate emissions will exceed the Paris target by 23 billion metric tons of CO2 by 2030."
Take care
David
David Chandler
© Sage Publications, 2023
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Most Climate Policies Are Ineffective at Cutting Emissions, Study says
By Eric Niller
August 22, 2024
The Wall Street Journal
Late Edition – Final
A3
