Global warming: the risk of being a sceptic

It appears after all that global warming is man-made. However, its main cause is not the accumulation of carbon oxide but the heat generated by the intense controversies over the scientific reality of global warming and the viability of statistical and mathematical models developed to explain its causes and forecast its future evolution. This statement may be excessive but so is the tenor of the debate. The topic has always been highly contentious and was object of spirited debate among various academics and researchers. However, in the last few months, the intensity rose noticeably as the result of increased the political and media visibility of the issue. Catastrophic events such as Asian tsunami or Catherina hurricane were perceived as tangible signs of global warming. For their part, governments sympathetic to the hypothesis of man-made global warming sponsored exhaustive, data-laden studies, which sought make the case airtight and overwhelm the opposition. Thus, there was the Stern study, published last August and proclaimed by Tony Blair, whose government commissioned the study, to be the most important piece of policy work, ever carried out by the UK government. Most recently and more spectacularly, a French government, under a direct patronage of Jacques Chirac, organised in early February in Paris, a “Citizens of the Earth” conference for Global Ecological Governance, bringing together several hundred scientists and senior officials from national government and international organisations. During that meeting, the Fourth report of the French Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC, or GIEC in French) was published, which sought to demonstrate through exhaustive empirical studies and sophisticated forecasting models that man-made global warming is incontrovertible.

The result of all this is the emergence of conventional wisdom (“pensée unique” in French) about the global warming that makes a reasoned discussion and contradictory debate quite difficult, even among supposedly open-minded intellectuals. I realised the strength of the conventional wisdom last Tuesday in Paris during a meeting of group of economists, brought together by the CEO of leading retail services company, Laser. For the most part, members of group, which meets once a month, are eminent academics, sceptical about the merits of neo-classical theory but respectful of the tradition of Political Economy, which includes Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. Our topic of discussion this time was the climate change, in particular Stern report. Many participants thought this report marked a radical break with past practices and a recognition by an eminent member of the global elite that business as usual not is no longer working for global warming. As I have written few months a blog on the report, I circulated it to the members and made two points (a) Stern recommendations do not represent a radical break with the past, his main point being that a speedy action could be relatively painless in terms of economic growth and therefore acceptable to policy makers (b) as much as I respect the work of Stern In the ensuing discussion, I sensed a sense of unease about what was perceived as a minimisation of global warming both a threat to the survival of humanity and as a policy lever, which would create an economic upheaval on a scale of industrial or information revolution. One participant called my position provocative; another praised the quality of GIEC work, and still another wondered whether I appreciated the magnitude of political groundswell (as evidenced by popular success of refuse recycling). No voices were raised and the discussion remained very polite, if animated but I felt among my colleagues a degree of surprise that a well-informed person would not share the conventional wisdom. And the conclusion of the meeting was that we should propose “something,” preferably international and incentive- rather tax-based, to tackle global warming, particularly in the emerging superpowers, India and China. I am very curious about such proposals and looking forward to our next meeting when they will be presented.

For all my frustration about being misunderstood by my colleagues, I should consider myself lucky. According to the UK media, it would appear that in the UK those who dare to express doubts are threatened with bodily harm, even death.

Yet, risk of ostracism notwithstanding, I do remain sceptical particularly about the weather forecasting models. I spent considerable amount of time looking at financial forecasting models, whether for the macroeconomic or financial parameters (GDP growth and inflation, interest and exchange rates and market trends). Those models attracted the best brains of thousands of researchers and powerful computers, using highly sophisticated methods. And yet, their track record is far from stellar or consistent and their forecasting time horizon is usually confined to few months.

Yet, climate is an infinitely more complex phenomenon (or a set of phenomena) than financial markets. The idea that a model based on current scientific methods and data can reliably forecast weather evolution fifty years with any degree of chronological and geographical is far-fetched, to say the least. If GIEC scientists really believe in their models, I suggest that they spend some time with financial “quants” in investment banks. This will make them either more modest and realistic, or, conversely, very rich, thus generating sizeable resources to combat global warning.