The Hole in Tapper’s Ozone Tale The Montreal Protocol is not a model for climate-change policy.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hole-in-tappers-ozone-tale-1443828001
The recent Republican presidential debate is largely forgotten, but before the next one we thought at least one question is worth correcting: Moderator Jake Tapper’s effort to conscript Ronald Reagan into the ranks of climate-change activists.
Reagan “faced a similar situation to the one that we’re facing now,” the CNN anchor said to Senator Marco Rubio, referring to concerns in the 1980s about a hole that formed each year in the atmosphere’s ozone layer. Mr. Tapper invoked former Secretary of State George Shultz, who “says Ronald Reagan urged skeptics in industry to come up with a plan. He said, do it as an insurance policy in case the scientists are right. The scientists were right.” The point of Mr. Tapper’s tale: Why not “approach climate change the Reagan way?”
Messrs. Tapper and Shultz are reminiscing about the Montreal Protocol, a 1987 international treaty that phased out chlorofluorocarbons, then common refrigerants in freezers, air conditioners and other appliances. The worry was that the stuff eroded the ozone layer. Montreal is celebrated as the paragon of cooperative climate action, largely because the dire predictions—skin-cancer epidemics, for instance—didn’t materialize. Scientists say the ozone hole has stopped growing, though it still isn’t clear that the treaty is the reason.
In any case, Montreal is no blueprint for climate change, for several reasons. One is scale: Changing the refrigerant in home appliances is hardly the same as phasing out fossil fuels, a foundation for global economic growth, especially in developing countries. Even the Montreal Protocol allowed developing countries more time to weed out chemicals; imagine how long India would need to dump coal.
Then there are the alternatives. In the 1980s the DuPont company rolled out chemicals that could replace chlorofluorocarbons at a decent price. There isn’t a similar elixir for fossil fuels. Renewable energy sources—wind, solar, biomass—generate 13% of U.S. electricity, says the Energy Information Administration, and half of that comes from hydropower. Solar energy cranks out less than 1%, even with enormous government subsidies. It isn’t always sunny and breezy, one reason no one suggests renewables could replace fossil fuels any time soon.
The climate brigade retorts that the U.S. could make carbon more expensive by taxing it or make renewable energy cheaper with even more subsidies. Neither option would have passed muster with the Gipper. Our friend Secretary Shultz has argued for a carbon tax in these pages, and we might agree if it replaced another major tax. But the likelihood is we’d end up with one more tax to feed government spending and hurt economic growth.
Federal and state governments already prop up renewables with billions in tax credits, guaranteed loans and mandates. The Government Accountability Office reported in 2012 that there are hundreds of federal initiatives across some 20 agencies for solar alone, and don’t forget solar net-metering for local consumers.
Mr. Tapper is not the first to spin what happened in Montreal, and no question we’ll hear the narrative again. But Republicans should be prepared to explain how this misapplies history.
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