A member of the UK parliament, MP Peter Lilley, has written a scathing rebuttal study to the 2006 “Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change” which has been used a a basis for UK government to move forward with climate policy. The number of errors and distortions he has uncovered is quite extraordinary and brings the validity of the Stern report into serious question, if not outright falsifying it. – Anthony
From the Global Warming Policy Foundation:
As the cost of government measures to combat climate change hit households and businesses, a new study published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation casts grave doubts on the validity of the “Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change” which the government relies on to justify its policies.
The substantial study, by Peter Lilley MP, is the most thorough analysis of the Stern Review so far undertaken. It takes the IPCC’s view of the science of global warming as given, but points out that Stern’s economic conclusions contradict the views of most of the world’s leading environmental economists and even the economic conclusions of the IPCC
itself. The study also catalogues a series of errors and distortions in the Stern Review “any one of which would have caused it to fail peer review”.
Because Stern’s conclusions endorsed policies adopted by both government and opposition and its highly tendentious assumptions were not explicit, it was initially accepted without public scrutiny.
The new study shows the Stern Review to depend critically on “selective choice of facts, unusual economic assumptions and a propagandist narrative – which would never have passed peer review”.
Describing it as “policy based evidence”, Peter Lilley argues the government can no longer rely on it to justify expenditure of many billions of pounds and calls for a return return instead to “evidence based policies”.
Stern’s central conclusion that “If we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year now and forever” whereas “the costs of action – reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change – can be limited to around 1% of GDP each year” is found to be entirely fallacious.
Lilley’s study demonstrates that the benefits of curbing emissions now and henceforth will not be five times the cost of action, as Stern claims. “It is achieved by verbal virtuosity combined with statistical sophistry. In fact, even on Stern’s figures, the cumulative costs of reducing greenhouse gases will exceed the benefits until beyond 2100”, Lilley points out.
“If we continue to follow Stern’s advice, the principal losers, apart from British taxpayers and businesses, would be developing countries who cannot raise living standards without massively increasing their use of fossil fuels and will therefore be responsible for most of the growth of carbon emissions,” Lilley argues.
Lilley asks: “why should this comparatively poor generation make the sacrifices Stern demands to improve living standards of people in 2200 who, if we take no action to prevent global warming – even on the worst scenario depicted by Stern – will be 7 times better off than us?
Lilley calls on the government to cease basing its climate change policy on the flawed Stern Review and commission a new independent cost benefit study of alternative strategies.
* Full report: What Is Wrong With Stern? (pdf) Lilley-Stern_Rebuttal 2
* Executive Summary (pdf) Lilley-Stern_Executive_Summary
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I hope I am still alive when the Government’s 30 year rule on the release of records (soon to be commuted to 20 years) produces the documents that will hopefully expose this fraud. That means that we could see the evidence as early as 2025 or 2026.
Unless we have a peasants’ revolt before then, in which case we could see Stern, King, Beddington, Blair, Brown, Milliband, Davey, Barker and Cameron along with his father in law Lord Sheffield (and dare I include HRH for good measure) all taken to the Tower.
Note to moderator. In no way am I encouraging any act of civil unrest or even revolution. I am merely postulating a worst case scenario of what might happen to our ruling elite just as Stern has postulated a doomsday scenario in coming to his recommendations.
It sounds like Peter Lilley’s analysis, which shows Stern to be complete nonsense, assumes the IPCC to be correct. Of course, if – shock, horror! – it turns out, as is likely, that the IPCC is completely wrong, then Stern is a double nonsense.
.
I seem to recall that economists were virtually lining up to condemn the Stern report when it came out. But it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Sadly, this nonsense will run and run for years to come. And its costs, both to the UK and the world, is almost incalculable. Months after the vote the UK government priced the Climate Change Bill at around 400 billion pounds. An independent assessment by a financial company priced it at around 1.2 trillion pounds. As Christopher Booker described it, the most expensive bill by far in peace time. And yet virtually nobody voted against this destructive nonsense, for which we’re being forced to pay hundreds of pounds every year.
Many thanks to Peter Lilley. But I, who was once a lifetime Conservative voter, will never vote Conservative until they return to sanity. I’m now a UKIP voter. Scrapping the Climate Change Bill would be a good start, but I’m not holding my breath….
Chris
“the cumulative costs of reducing greenhouse gases will exceed the benefits until beyond 2100”
If the benefits excede the costs in the long run, it makes sense. This doesn’t change the conclusions or implications. If GDP growth is smaller without the reduction in GHGs, it will cost more over time. (though it likely makes sense to wait until then before reducing emissions)
The problem is the assumptions that make it so the benefits of GHG reduction excede the cost aren’t plausible.
What the Stern also ignores is that the probability that global warming will prevent a human extinction event is atleast as likely that it would cause one.
The Stern Gang (the warmist culture is international, so Gore would be part of this) are already moving to make the Third World stay poor. All their policies increase the cost of energy. For nations without the ecnomic resources to pay for energy, let alone the infrastructure it needs, what it cost yesterday, the costs of energy tomorrow will be more of a barrier to the self-actualized life.
Industrialization and urbanization control: keep the cost of energy and energy-derived resources (steel, plastics etc.) prohibitively high and nothing moves while that which doesn’t move decays and falls down. No jobs and cities fall apart. Population control: not so easy, as even poor, hungry people have babies.
The Strongs and Suzukis still have to work on that. Perhaps they can take their lessons from China, as they (Strong) apparently have about solar panels.
Jeremy Grantham’s support of the LSE and Stern are naive at best. Having known him personally, I do not ascribe ill will to him, just a total cluelessness when it comes to science. A good portfolio manager, not a scientist of any sort.
No one has mentioned the obvious, both economic reports (Stern’s and Lilley’s) are irrelevant.
We do not posses, at the present, the technology needed to produce low carbon energy.
No ammount of wind mills or solar panels will do the job. The current gov. policy cannot acheive its stated aims. It is physically impossible.
So what is the debate about? Whether to waste the mony on useless windmills or not to waste?
The very fundamental premise of any economic report, namely: if we spend x (on some plan) we acheive y benefits – is false. No matter how much we spend now – emission reduction on a significant scale is technically impossible.
So, what is the debate about?
I sometimes refer to the Stern Review as the 700 pages of mental gymnastics required to come up with remotely plausible scenario where the costs of greenhouse gas emissions exceed the benefits.
jacobress:
You begin your post at September 4, 2012 at 8:17 am saying
With respect you miss the point. Please note the important fact that we are discussing economic policies.
You are right that “We do not possess, at the present, the technology needed to produce low carbon energy.” But that does NOT mean that “both economic reports (Stern’s and Lilley’s) are irrelevant”.
The political purpose of AGW is to justify and/or excuse economic policies.
Governments need to raise taxes but the populace does not like to pay taxes. Therefore, the government wants to find a tax that most people want to pay. And the UK government has one tax that people choose to pay of their own free will: viz. the National Lottery.
Failing finding a tax that people want to pay, government seeks – as next best thing – a tax that people will not object to paying. And how could any decent person object to paying to save the world for our children and grandchildren?
Raising energy costs increases energy prices such as to raise energy prices with a result that tax revenues increase for a variety of reasons (most obviously because there is an increase to revenue from VAT imposed on energy bills). The long-term effect is damage to the economy from reduced economic efficiency, but the tax revenue increase is immediate, and governments don’t think beyond the next election.
If the economic benefit of ‘doing nothing’ is shown to be greater than the economic benefit of ‘doing something’ then the justification for AGW to excuse economic policies is destroyed.
Richard
Stern is a world renowned economist, he claims to predict the future climate and what the economic consequences might be.
However, he seemed unable to predict the debt driven economic depression we are in.
Should we believe him?
cui bono says: on September 3, 2012 at 3:58 pm ” Oh joy! We have at least one sane MP. Thanks Mr. Lilley ”
——————————
As 3 MPs voted against the lunacy of the co2 reduction act via so-called renewable energy, then we have 3 MPS with sufficient intelligence and integrity to think for themselves. 4 if Mr Lilley wasn’t one of them.
The rest of them no doubt voted on the basis of what they read on the front page of whichever newspaper they happened see that day.
Intellect and integrity are evidently in rather short supply within the House of Commons.
Speaking of economics.
It is said that the big brothers plan to build windmills to reduce co2 will cost each family in the UK some £5000. Yet we know that windmills will increase co2 not reduce it.
Even if we used the governments predicted co2 reductions, I wouldn’t be surprised if a larger reduction in co2 could be obtained by spending that £5000 per family, on replacing outdated inefficient gas central heating boilers with newer ones, and for those using electricity to heat their homes install heat pumps instead.
A typical gas boiler twenty years old had an efficiency of 70% when new, nowadays a new gas boiler is up to 96.1% efficient. And heat pumps typically have a COP (coefficient of performance) of about 4. Those measures alone would probably produce a far greater saving in electricity, gas and co2 than any amount of windmills.
Throw in more efficient cars, fridge freezers and TVs and improved house insulation and windmills are unlikely to even come close.
“””””…..AllanM says:
September 4, 2012 at 2:25 am
………………
I’m sure I remember my math(s) teacher at school saying that we are not allowed to multiply or divide by infinity. So how can a Harvard economist not understand this?…..”””””
Well you can divide by infinity, without restriction; well except for infinity over infinity; but then that’s multiplying by infinity, isn’t it, and that is NOT aloud.
So like I said; divide without restriction.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/04/beyond_stern_climate_morality/
Eco-nomics: Was Stern ‘wrong for the right reasons’ … or just wrong?
By Andrew Orlowski
“Perhaps greens just aren’t the good guys”
Eco-nomics: Was Stern 'wrong for the right reasons' ... or just wrong?Perhaps greens just aren't the good guys
By Andrew Orlowski • Get more from this author
Posted in Energy, 4th September 2012 12:38 GMT
Analysis "Why should we sacrifice 10 per cent of our income today to make Bill Gates better off?" asked an MP. "As the world's [second] richest man, he doesn't need our sacrifice."
The second richest man in the world, Bill Gates, is a proxy in this rhetorical question. The MP, a former Cabinet minister, is raising a fascinating and rarely asked moral question. Should we make ourselves poorer to save the rich of the future some insignificant amount of money: an amount so small, it will be a rounding error? The argument he builds is that government spending on climate policies is in fact a form of regressive wealth distribution. And the question the minister poses is far from rhetorical; it's at the heart of the climate policy debate.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/04/beyond_stern_climate_morality/
Policy Guy says
“Everyone should review these posts and referred posts. How sad. Maybe we would all be best advised to ready our families for the next twenty years.”
This makes me think about the “Flex Your Power” advertisements here in CA we see all the time.
Actually, if you follow the advice to curb your energy use every time they call for a flex alert you are contributing to the GREEN/AGW agenda. We all need to increase our power usage at this time to force their policies into failure… make them build more real power plants. We should not settle for and encourage the forced lower standard of living for everyone. Why should my/our air conditioning be set to 80 degrees on the hottest days when I need it most? Why shouldn’t I be allowed to use appliances when it is most convenient for me? To make these sacrifices so that we can survive a meager existence on expensive windmills and green energy is inane. So…. next time they call for a Flex Alert… do just the opposite. We will suffer a few blackouts but then we will bring an end to this stupidity of living on windmills much quicker as the populace starts demanding new energy plants.
Pascal’s wager, recycled. How about inventing something new, ech?
In the UK it is now official government policy (handed down by the unelected kommissars in the EU) that energy, water and fuel is to be made increasingly scarce and expensive – in the bogus name of ‘global warming prevention’.
The Mann-made global warming hoax is just a ‘Trojan horse’ being used to foist ever increasing taxes and controls upon us, and the Stern Report was just window-dressing for the scandalous policies of the UK.
The curtain has been pulled back and these shysters have been shown to have feet of clay, and yet they trudge ever onwards with no shame. CamerClegg, Yeo, Lord Deben et al – all teat-sucking trough-snouters, out to feather their own nests.
And all those nattering slack-jawed bandersnatches and yellow-bellied chickenhawks slithering about at the UN are at it as well, with their sinister Agenda 21 machinations.
The problem is, when they get found out it’s just fingers-in-the-ears time. Fortunately, the clamour of outrage and dissent will grow sufficiently loud that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes will eventually come unstuck…
}:o(
Ego-nomics?
george e. smith says:
September 4, 2012 at 3:55 pm
“””””…..AllanM says:
September 4, 2012 at 2:25 am
………………
I’m sure I remember my math(s) teacher at school saying that we are not allowed to multiply or divide by infinity. So how can a Harvard economist not understand this?…..”””””
Well you can divide by infinity, without restriction;
But if you divide several different numbers by infinity, then the result each time is zero. This would lead to post-normal math(s), where 2+2= anything one wishes it to be.
Henry Clark, and just the facts, very good conversation, (Ignoring any comment on J.T.F. being a undercover warmist,, which was the only marr to a superb discussion.) Mr. Clark, I appreciate your efforts here and would like to encourage you to continue. I support your assertion that some of the data bases may be corrupted. Complaints about many are well known, but greater history of said evidence is warranted.
Yes and within hours of Mr. Peter Lilley publishing that report, there has been some blood letting in the climate and business departments of the British Government. So check out just one story on the Bishop Hill Blog, where dastardly deeds are revealed in the public comments !
In a surprise move, Energy Minister Charles Hendry has been axed in the government’s reshuffle to be replaced by Tory MP John Hayes.
Writing on Twitter, Labour Peer Lady Bryony Worthington revealed earlier this afternoon that she had “just bumped in to Charles Hendry who is back to being a back bencher”, adding that the demotion was “a real shame.”
Number 10 later confirmed Hendry had been replaced by MP for South Holland and the Deepings, John Hayes, who has moved from his role as Minister for Skills at the Department for Business.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/9/4/more-bad-news-for-greens.html
Within hours of that appointment were heard that ……
Villagers in South Holland, spoke of their relief at the end of the meeting when the district council refused consent for the towering turbines, that had threatened their community. A report to the planning committee said it would take at least ten years before a 100 metre long, hawthorn screening hedge grew to a height sufficient to mitigate the effects on the nearest home, The Birches.
http://www.spaldingtoday.co.uk/news/latest-news/protesters-cheer-for-wind-farm-refusal-1-4219936
I don’t give much hope for the developers in
any appeal to the new Minister of Energy, do you ?
The time discount should be at least as high as population growth.
Bob in Castlemaine says:
September 3, 2012 at 4:21 pm
O.T. JoNova site is currently returning a 403 forbidden error?
Jo Nova’s site opened fine just now.
http://joannenova.com.au/
BTW Peter Lilley is one of the true scholars in the house of parliament, I’ve always respected him.
The province of North Holland has decided to stop building new wind
turbines. There will be a total ban on new wind turbines by the end of
the year, according to deputy Mr Bond. He says that large wind turbines
do not fit into the province’s landscape. The decision is a setback for
about twenty planned wind projects in North Holland which will not be
approved. — NOS News, 5 September 2012
Link: http://www.thegwpf.org/north-holland-bans-wind-turbines
Of course this is North Holland in Holland, and not South Holland in
Lincolnshire, England. South Holland is thus further north than is
North Holland. Holland is a common place name, and not just in the
original Holland, but they all have a very similar landscape though.
Mostly flat and low lying, perhaps with canals in the drainage basin.
There is another South Holland in the suburbs of Chicago, in the
southern lakes area of the city, and many other examples.