Muddled models

By Peter Foster, FP:

 

When the TD Bank’s Don Drummond agreed to spend $110,000 on a study of the impact of climate change policy on Canada, what he had in mind was to elucidate the regional impacts of such policies. This was a worthy objective, although everybody knows that it’s Alberta that stands to get hammered. But Mr. Drummond chose to channel the study, which was carried out by climate policy wonk Mark Jaccard, through the Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute, organizations hardly known for their objectivity on the issue. Why do this? Mr. Drummond told me yesterday that these activist organizations have “technical expertise,” while Mr. Jaccard apparently has “the models.”

TD certainly got media bang for the buck. His report was leaked to The Globe and Mail, and yesterday’s Globe featured a front-page story, two columns and an editorial. However, the thrust of coverage appeared to contradict the smiley-faced conclusions of the report, which was titled “Climate leadership, economic prosperity.” Or, please hobble us so that we can run faster!

Under reasons for draconian action, the report quotes the widely discredited report from British economist and climate extremist Nicholas Stern. Meanwhile, the Jaccard study claims that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the fount of science, but then maintains that the situation is much worse than that presented by the IPCC.

The Stern report’s central flaw is a ridiculously low discount rate. If that sounds technical, what it means is that man-made climate change is claimed to be already costing us 5-20% of global GDP annually. It’s just that we can’t see where.

Lord Stern is increasingly becoming a figure of ridicule.

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