Here’s the lead of a Washington Post story by Guy Gugliotta and Eric Pianin on Bush’s “Climate Leaders” program to recruit companies to voluntarily reduce greenhouse emissions -
Two years after President Bush declared he could combat global warming without mandatory controls, the administration has launched a broad array of initiatives and research, yet it has had little success in recruiting companies to voluntarily curb their greenhouse gas emissions, according to official documents, reports and interviews.
They do a nice job getting James Connaughton, the White House environmental policy chief, to mouth the predictable bromides about the superiority of voluntary programs to government regulation and then skewer him. Connaughton claims that the program is working and that companies that opposed the Kyoto treaty “are now coming forward in what we would say is a more economically rational and more sensible policy environment…. They are stepping up to the plate in a way they never have — never did in the 1990s. That’s a huge step,” Connaughton said.
Turns out, “Only a tiny fraction of the thousands of U.S. companies with pollution problems — 50 in all — have joined Climate Leaders, and of the companies that have signed up, only 14 have set goals.”
Furthermore:
Although Climate Leaders represents the cutting edge of Bush’s strategy, it has a budget of $1 million a year and a full-time staff of three, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which runs the program. And although some “Leaders” are big names in manufacturing — among them General Motors Corp., Caterpillar Inc., U.S. Steel Corp. and Raytheon Co. — most are perennial “good citizens” who were participating in “green” programs years before Bush called for volunteers….But the administration has made no headway signing up big utility companies with the worst emissions records. Many of those companies vigorously opposed mandatory controls. Now they are refusing to take part in voluntary measures that set targets, largely for fear that those programs eventually will lead to government regulation.
“Some just see it as a slippery slope,” said a lobbyist for several major utilities.
Let’s go over that last bit again – and note that this is the explanation offered by Gugliotta and Pianin, citing an industry lobbyist. Many of the companies that vigorously opposed mandatory controls are now refusing to take part in voluntary programs, and we’re supposed to believe that this is because they fear that they “eventually will lead to government regulation.” I guess Gugliotta and Pianin used up their quota of incredulity dealing with the Bush administration and didn’t have any left for an industry lobbyist.
Voluntary schemes don’t work because polluters are still able to externalise their costs and dump cleanup, health effects and restoration in the lap of others.
This is a perfect example of the market failing to work properly, but for some reason free marketeers are opposed to regulation to ensure that it does…
For some reason, yes.
Because it cuts into profits, that’s why. A lot of free marketeers (I’m tempted to say ‘most’ but it occurs to me that I don’t actually know that) are vastly better at maximising profit than they are at noticing that the market can’t and won’t solve all problems (or do I mean at re-defining problems so that only the ones the market can solve get classified as problems).
Glad to hear that “solve all problems” is the standard the free-market worldview is being held to. Is this a universal standard?
So he has had as much luck as the French have had in convincing Russia to ratify Kyoto?
Glad to hear that “solve all problems” is the standard the free-market worldview is being held to. Is this a universal standard?
Well, I think if all economic decisions are going to be made based on ideology from one “worldview”, then yes, it should be held to that standard. However, maybe another “worldview” might be consulted for a better approach to this issue.
Well that’s my point. Members of the church of the free market do talk as if the market solves all problems, even when the problems in question are ones the market can’t solve, pretty much by definition, because there is no profit to be made by solving them. Like providing medical care to penniless sick people, for example.
“Here’s the lead of a Washington Post story by Guy Gugliotta…”
I think that should be lede.
Members of the church of the free market do talk as if the market solves all problems, even when the problems in question are ones the market can’t solve, pretty much by definition, because there is no profit to be made by solving them.
Well, no, we “members of the church of the free market”, as you so charitably describe us, typically talk as if the market produces often the best solution and sometimes the least bad solution. And no real-world (as opposed to abstract logical) problem is ever unsolvable “by definition”. Thinking so sure makes it easier to dismiss the views of people who disagree with you out of hand, though, dunnit?
problems… the market can’t solve, pretty much by definition, because there is no profit to be made by solving them
You the consumer can make it profitable, at least in this case, by purchasing your electricity from the cleanest producers.
Of course, you can’t attribute results in this area to one ‘worldview’ or another. I am old enough to remember nationalised power provision in the UK, and the long, unavailing Scandinavian efforts to get us to do something about our polluting power stations. No choosing a cleaner provider then. But the UK, which could claim to be among the more capitalist states in the EU, is one of a minority who will achieve their first Kyoto emissions reduction targets. None of this invalidates the comments made above by others about the weakness of voluntary agreements. Nor does it reduce the importance of individual consumer choices.
You the consumer can make it profitable, at least in this case, by purchasing your electricity from the cleanest producers.
Good one.
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