Who you going to believe, establishment experts or your lying eyes?

Very timely.

Nordhaus Nobel lecture:
Rio, Kyoto, Copenhagen and Paris:
Policies have been really ineffective in dealing with climate change
Pretty constant growth in emissions since 1970
27:15https://t.co/0M0LG4acZw pic.twitter.com/OvUMZiaut9

— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) December 13, 2018

The other day I was listening to NPR while driving. Only caught part of the news report. Apparently there is some global climate change conference going on in Poland where all the world experts on AGW were bemoaning the ineffectiveness of past global treaties from Rio to Kyoto to Copenhagen to Paris. They were especially berating the US for withdrawing from the Paris Accord. A handful of American city mayors were on junkets to the conference, committing that American cities would do their part even if the orange buffoon would not. Well, they didn't exactly use those words but that was the implication.

I couldn't help but wonder at the lack of self-awareness. These are the experts. And I stipulate that the US, with 20-25% of the global economy, also has an outsized contribution to the absolute level of CO2.

But . . .

These treaties are all about reducing from where you started. Given that, what are the results for all the countries which are so committed to the idea that negotiated treaties will result in adherence and reduction in absolute emissions. That's what you see above in Lomborg's tweet. While the biggest proportion of these increases are due to China and India, virtually all the OECD countries have increased their emissions as well.

Which large OECD country has actually reduced its absolute CO2 emissions almost continuously over the past twenty or more years?

Carbon dioxide emissions from energy consumption in the U.S. from 1975 and 2017 (in million metric tons of carbon dioxide)*

Click to enlarge.

In absolute emissions, we are below where we were twenty-two years ago in 1995. And in per capita terms, we are down even more dramatically (our population is up ~65 million since 1995 and yet our absolute emissions are down. It is, in many respects, a great success story. These results are being driven primarily by the retirement of coal generation and its replacement by natural gas generation - a transition due in turn to the activities of entrepreneurial frackers.

Which is the irony. American Presidents have generally been leery of centrally planned global treaties and Congress even more so. The nation which did not ratify Kyoto and has exited the Paris Accord, trusting more to free markets, is also the one which has accomplished the most in reducing CO2 emissions.

Listening to the interviewees on the NPR show, it was clear that their ire was directed at the US for not being a good faith participant in all these global treaties. And yet, despite all those treaties requiring planned and regulated responses, the US and its free markets have accomplished what the conference leaders ostensibly desire, a per capita and an absolute reduction in CO2 emissions.

I couldn't help but ask myself, what do they care more about? Reduction in emissions or binding regulatory treaties that don't work?

The AGW conferees are left in the position of complaining about the US for achieving the goals they want but through strategies of which they disapprove (free markets).

There are nuances at the margin to all of the above argument but it is correct in broad terms.

It is not dissimilar to the New Normal advocates. Whatever economic policies were adopted from 2008 to 2016, nothing seemed to ignite the economy. We got used to an anemic 1.5% growth, stifling the dreams and aspirations of most Americans. Experts made the claim that in a new, internet dis-intermediated economy, 1.5% was the new normal. Tax cuts and reductions in regulations would have no effect.

Then we do tax cuts and reduce regulations and the economy is back to 2%, 2.5%, 3%, touching even on 3.5% growth.

I am hugely adverse to the deficit spending that has gone with these policies but it is clear that this deficit spending is far more generative than TARP and other deficit spending from 2008-2016 when we doubled the national debt.

So what do the experts and establishment know about AGW, decarbonization and growing economies? If you take them at their own self-assessment, everything. If you look at the numbers and believe your lying eyes, then nothing.