Climate change, government coffers and snake oil salesmen

I would have thought that an informed debate should precede any spending of public funds. Apparently not.

The geo-engineering industry has had difficulty competing with other green technologies for private funding and existing sources of public funds, so the Institution is asking the government for special funding:

At present, geo-engineering is barely visible to industry in the UK … the current low level of business interest, and the inherent high financial risks involved with research and development, make it likely that Government funding would be needed in the early stages of concept testing, engineering assessment, pilot studies, “picking winners” and scale up.

This is classic rent-seeking behaviour. Just as polluting industries have sought to resist climate change, engaging lobby groups and scientists to debunk the IPCC's science, the new green industries have their own vested interests and world view: global warming is a real and immediate threat, but with the government funding and support for [insert name of industry] we can avoid catastrophic climate change.

Don't get me wrong. The key to avoiding climate change is technology, and these sorts of ideas must be applauded and encouraged. Government support of R & D will be crucial to our climate change mitigation efforts. But government cannot fund every proposal or idea that is out there, and government cannot know which ideas hold merit and which do not. Picking winners is not the way to go.

Government must resist the special pleading of green and brown lobby groups alike and implement a broad-based framework, with broad incentives, that will allow the best ideas and technologies to come to the fore. All technologies, including geo-engineering, should compete on a level playing field for private and public investment. This is easier said than done.

Whether climate change is real or not is irrelevant. Governments across the world have decided to do something about it and are introducing climate regulations and committing more and more funding to the cause. Industry and lobby groups know this and are rapidly changing their approach to the political process in response.

The climate denialists have lost the battle, and preserving the status quo is no longer an option. The objective now is to get the best deal possible from the new arrangements. This means subsidies, ETS exemptions, special funding, and so on.

As the climate industry grows, be prepared for lobby groups and vested interests on all sides to run riot.