Reason Foundation

Recent Research and Commentary

Why Poor Countries Won't Curb Emissions

Massive greenhouse gas reductions would require developing countries to abandon plans to ever conquer poverty

July 15, 2009

Shikha Dalmia

There is a perfectly good reason developing countries are unwilling to act on climate change: What they are being asked to do is more awful than climate change's implications--even if one accepts all the alarmist predictions.

Consider what would be necessary to slash global greenhouse-gas emissions just 50% below 2000 levels by 2050—a far less aggressive goal than what the enviros say is necessary to avert climate catastrophe. According to U.S. Chamber of Commerce calculations, even if the West reduced its emissions by 80% below 2000 levels, developing countries would still have to return their emissions to 2000 levels to meet the 50% target. However, Indians currently consume roughly 15 times less energy per capita than Americans—and Chinese consume seven times less. Asking them, along with the rest of the developing world, to go back to 2000 emission levels with a 2050 population would mean putting them on a very drastic energy diet.

The human toll of this is unfathomable: It would require these countries to abandon plans to ever conquer poverty, of course. But beyond that it would require a major scaling back of living standards under which their middle classes—for whom three square meals, cars and air-conditioning are only now beginning to come within reach—would have to go back to subsistence living, and the hundreds of millions who are at subsistence would have to accept starvation.

Will the Climate Change Bill Cost Just a Postage Stamp?

June 29, 2009, 10:12am

Shikha Dalmia

U.C. Berkeley: Trains are Not So Environmentally Friendly

June 29, 2009, 4:52am

Adrian Moore

The Real Climate Change Deniers

June 25, 2009, 11:39pm

Shikha Dalmia

New Mitsubishi Plug-In Hybrid Beats New York Transit on Green House Gas Emissions

June 22, 2009, 9:02pm

Samuel Staley

The new MIEV plug-in electrict car by Mitsubishi Motors will produce about half the green house gas emissions currently generated by New York mass transit.

Congress Is Hiding Cap-and-Trade Energy Price Increases

Central fact of the cap-and-trade proposal is that it will increase the price of energy

June 10, 2009

Ronald Bailey

The central fact of the cap-and-trade proposal is that it will increase the price of energy. If energy prices don't go up, the goal of getting energy producers, manufacturers, and consumers to shift away from carbon generating fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) toward low-carbon sources of energy (nuclear, solar, wind, conservation) will not be achieved.

Whatever else they are, the folks in Congress are not stupid when comes to protecting their electoral viability. They are painfully aware of the fact that, while Americans express support for regulations to reduce greenhouse gases, 77 percent in a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll declared themselves either "very concerned" or "concerned" that "federal regulation of greenhouse gases could substantially raise the price of things you have to pay for."

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