1. The Political Economy of a
Green Revolution
Pol376: International Political Economy
April 2, 2012
Michael Lee

2. Summary
 Global Warming
 Possible solutions
 Friedman and a “Green New Deal”
 Obstacles to a Green Revolution
 Ideational
 Implementation
 Political
 International
 A green opportunity?

3. Negative externalities of
dirty energy consumption

4. What are the negative externalities of
filling up a tank of gas?
 Global warming
 Other pollutants
 Foreign policy
 Petro-dictatorship
 Complexity

5. Hot, Flat and Crowded
 Rise of China
 Green new deal
 Competitive advantage
 http://video.nytimes.com/video/2007/04/10/maga
zine/1194817107532/the-power-of-green.html
 Energy internet
 Carbon tax/price floors
 Regulation/incentives

6. Other approaches to climate change
 Doing nothing
 Cap and trade
 Government intervention
 Geo-engineering

7. Battle of ideas
 Climate science
 Skeptics
 Deniers
 Cornucopians
 Lomborg
 “Climategate”
 Hockey stick
 Environmental tradeoffs

8. Temperature since 1000 CE,
multiple sources

9. Implementation problems
 Variable generation, constant demand
 Government picking winners
 Green bubbles
 Spain
 Czech Republic

10. Ontario wind energy as % of capacity:
variable energy generation, regular
demand

11. Does a green public lead to green
policies? (WVS)
Early 90s Late 90s Late 00s
France 54.4% 37.6% (no data)
China 82.4% 74.3% 73.7%
USA 63.9% 60.9% 49.8%
Canada 63.7% 58.1% 65.7%

12. Pricing carbon: a tough sell
 USA
 Cap and trade
 http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/111/hou
se/1/477
 Sectoral/regional costs
 Canada
 Green tax shift (carbon tax)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os5vXksQwts&
feature=relmfu

13. If you were building a political
coalition of green interests, what
would it look like?

14. Past international efforts
 Global collective action problems
 Montreal protocol (Ozone), 1987
 Acid rain treaty (S02, NOx), 1991
 http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/progress/arp03.
html
 Kyoto protocol (C02), 1997
 Copenhagen (C02), 2009

15. Human C02 emissions since 1850

16. Why was Kyoto unsuccessful, while
previous agreements succeeded?

17. Country C02/person Status
US 18.9 Signed, did not
ratify
Canada 16.9 Ratified, dropped
out
Japan 9.8 Failed to meet
target
Germany 9.6 Met target
UK 8.9 Exceeded target
France 6 Exceeded target

18. Are there competitive advantages to
going green?

19. Who has a comparative advantage in
solar power?

20. Annual Average windspeed

21. Summary
 Academic consensus may not translate into
public acceptance
 Hard to implement
 Tricky international and domestic
distributional politics