Bishop Hill The Entrepreneur
Feb 20, 2012 Climate: other Ethics Greens Sometimes little things lead you to the most interesting discoveries. A week or so ago I got a new Twitter follower in the shape of Amelia Sharman, a student at the London School of Economics. LSE is of course the stamping ground of BH favourite, Bob Ward, and I was therefore interested enough to go and take a look, and not entirely surprised to find out that Sharman works at the Grantham Institute and has an interest in sceptics.
But it wasn't this that caught my eye.
Biofuels have been attracting a minor surge of media interest recently, after Friends of the Earth published a report claiming that they probably produce more greenhouse gases than they save. Maybe it was this that caused my attention to alight on one of Sharman's papers - the one entitled "Evidence based policy or policy-based evidence gathering? Biofuels, the EU and the 10% target".
Sharman and Holmes 2010 (as the paper is more snappily known) is not publicly available (paywalled here) to the best of my knowledge, but Amelia Sharman was good enough to send me a copy, and I have to say it's pretty amazing stuff.
The paper examines the EU's mandatory 10% target for biofuel use and in particular the way in which scientific advice impinged upon the decision to introduce it. It's a murky tale, which Sharman has uncovered by means of interviewing key players in the policy machinery.
In 2009, when the target was introduced, it was far from clear that biofuels were a feasible approach to greenhouse gas reduction. But the 10% target was introduced nevertheless. As one of the interviewees explained:
The idea is that normally you should not propose legislation until you’ve got the evidence to justify it. But there, you had the prime ministers and heads of state signing up to a target that no-one had done any impact assessment at all . . . they got them to sign up to these targets, 20% renewables and 10% biofuels, and then only later in the year did they do the impact assessment. And basically they said they didn’t need to [properly] impact-assess the 10% because it had already been approved by the heads of state! . . .”
As Sharman and Holmes pithily comment:
The fact that the EC was endorsing a target without having seen a full impact assessment provides the first indication that motivations other than scientific evidence related to environmental sustainability and GHG emissions reductions played a part in the policy
decision to establish the 10% target.
There were several forces acting upon the main players in the policy process. It was mooted at one point that energy security should be a factor in the decision, but in fact since the EU was going to have to import crops to meet the 10% target, it was clear that this was a spurious consideration. Grubbier and less worthy goals - payoffs to various vested interests - appear to have been much more important. Specifically, those involved in the policy process were keen to push investment into biofuels businesses, and to provide a substantial sop to EU sugar beet producers who were unhappy about having to compete in world markets on price. As another interviewee explained:
There was a huge fight with the European farm lobby. The commission...was desperate to find some candies they could give to the farm lobby. Particularly they were desperate to find a way out, to all the sugar beet producers that was clear there was no future for them once they have to compete on selling sugar. And then the brilliant idea was, oh we can use this sugar for ethanol and in general we can create this subsidised market for farmers and it can allow us basically to hide within the energy policy some of these subsidies that are becoming so unpopular in the agriculture policy. That’s been the initial main driver . . .”
Against this apparently slightly frenzied background, policymakers were confronted with conflicting scientific evidence on the viability of biofuels. Key in this debate was a paper by Searchinger et al (2008), which suggested that biofuels actually created more greenhouse gases than they saved, once indirect land-use changes were taken into account.
(As an aside you may have noticed at the start of this article I referred to a more recent Friends of the Earth article, which came to the same conclusion. The supporting result aside, it's interesting to speculate whether the Searchinger paper was published before or after Friends of the Earth stopped campaigning to have a biofuels obligation introduced in the UK.)
But to return to the main thread of this story, the Searchinger paper appears to have been a major bone of contention and the representatives of the biofuels industry seemed to have engaged in some pretty personal attacks on the paper's author in order to help get their policy put in place. However, as well as the Searchinger paper there was also a growing body of scientific evidence that was very critical of biofuels. In addition, although Sharman and Holmes do not mention it, one can hardly forget the words of the UN's special rapporteur on food, who in 2007 described biofuels as "a crime against humanity". The decision to go ahead and introduce the 10% target against this background therefore seems inexplicable.
The policy entrepreneur
So the vested interests were pushing one way and the scientific evidence the other. How was it that the biofuels target ended up finding its way into law? For this we have to thank a mysterious character, who Sharman calls "the policy entrepreneur" (I gather that Sharman and Holmes know who this is, but research ethics quite properly prevent his/her identity being made public).
Almost all interview participants pointed to an individual actor within the EC who had a strong influence on this policy decision but who stirred up a considerable degree of controversy with
other actors in the policy network in the process. This leads to two questions: how could an individual within the EC have such a high degree of influence over the policy process, and why did the increasing amount of scientific data questioning the ability of biofuels production to reduce GHG emissions not have more traction in the policy decision?
How indeed? Why indeed?
Sharman explains that the policy entrepreneur was widely seen by the other participants in the policymaking process as being a champion of the transport and biofuels industries and was said to be "dogmatic" in support of the target. The motivation of this single individual, in combination with the political pressure to provide support to the various vested interests involved in the biofuels industry, was a powerful force in bringing the biofuels target onto the statute books.
However, there was still the tricky problem of the weight of scientific evidence against the proposed policy, but this appears to have been no problem to the Entrepreneur. According to the insiders interviewed by Sharman and Holmes:
...internal EC documentation...which supported the decision to proceed with a 10% target was accorded a high degree of influence in the final policy outcome. However, evidence of a more critical bent...did not have the same sway.
Other interviewees were more specific about what had been done:
Some interviewees also indicated that the policy entrepreneur acted as an information gatekeeper, reducing the level of scientific controversy apparent to policy-makers by ensuring that only data which supported the desired end-point was able to influence the final decision-making process. The ability of the policy entrepreneur to command the scientific literature and argue for the benefits of the 10% target both within and outside the EC was identified as a critical factor. This indicates that it was not so much an absence of evidence but an adherence to evidence that was able to tell the desired story. However, none of this critique is intended to suggest that the policy entrepreneur acted in a deliberately malicious or underhand manner. An interviewee suggested that the entrepreneur “. . . probably still had the best intentions (even though he was completely wrong) . . .” (NGO) and the policy entrepreneur themself appeared to see the policy as an arbitrary victim of a values controversy–biofuels
being targeted as the environmental ‘baddie of the day’.
When you think of the description of biofuels as a "crime against humanity", I wonder if a bit more cynicism about the "good intentions" of the Entrepreneur would be in order.
As I suggested above, his identity is not public. But I'm sure there is no harm in us speculating.
Bishop Hill
Ian Wishart picks up on the story here.
Reader Comments (124)
I see the principle problem is caused by a single advisor to the government. The government does NOT see all of the known facts.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons the government is so confused over so many issues. The people say one thing and their advisors say another.
This particular fiasco has truly made me wild. The cost to so many individuals fixing their cars to run on Unleaded and 10% Ethanol would come to a staggering cost to the community. All become someone thought he had a good idea, but didn't bother to find out if it was?
3x2: thanks for that reference to today's Guardian. The article, about a report commissioned by UNEP for Rio +20, finishes:
Good to see that all that emphasis since Climategate on being honest about uncertainty has been taken on board by Sir Bob, isn't it?
It's genuinely encouraging that the IPCC's high-sensitivity climate projections still occupy centre stage of the global UNEP scare-fest. And since Nic Lewis took us on a little tour of that area in the AR4 report I don't think the high-sensitivity story's looking so credible to a lot of people. As interesting as a dancing bear - fine the first time you see it in the frilly costume but just a tad ridiculous the fourth and fifth times.
Ian Wishart
The Bishop has many newsworthy threads besides this!
the links in here document the biofuels saga:
Wikipdia: Directive on the Promotion of the use of biofuels and other renewable fuels for transport
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_the_Promotion_of_the_use_of_biofuels_and_other_renewable_fuels_for_transport#cite_note-3
And on a technical note;-
Biodiesel may contain small quantities of water as, unlike normal diesel, it is hygroscopic. Water in suspension in the fuel reduces the heat of combustion of the fuel: more smoke, harder starting, less power. Causes corrosion of vital fuel system components: fuel pumps, injector pumps, fuel lines, etc. Microbes colonise the fuel: filters, clog and rot, which in turn results in premature failure of the fuel pump and injectors. Water freezes to form ice crystals which provide sites for nucleation and accelerate winter gelling of the fuel. Then in the combustion chamber where pitting in the pistons....
I hate to go O/T except for something big, but the Fritz Vahrenholt interview currently headlining on GWPF is BIG.
We studied this at Agri college in the 90's and came to the cost conclusion that bio fuel used more fuel to harvest than it produced so it was not economical. I guess state/country grants have turned all that around.
By the way if you can wait then forests are the way to go.
My bet would be on 'entrepreneur' Peter Mandelson.
I think you will find that the entrepreneur is Richard Branson. Virgin Atlantic carried out the airline industry’s first biofuel flight nearly four years ago and is investing in the field of sustainable development in travel transportation.
Also check out Virgin Group and the New Zealand based company LanzaTech
Feb 21, 2012 at 12:21 AM | Anoneumouse
That's the one I was thinking of.
Perhaps the most remarkable piece of policy entrepreunership is the foisting of the 2 degrees Centigrade target first adopted by the EU and later by the UNFCCC on the basis of zero analysis.
There still isn't any analysis that justifies that.
Hey guys, aren't we looking for an EU insider here, as folks that should know like Richard Tol and Gawain Towler clearly believe? A 'policy entrepreneur' is quite different from the real thing like Branson out in a (albeit imperfect) free market. We don't want the Bishop's brilliant detective work made to look stupid by comments beneath, do we now?
CORRECTION to earlier comment. It should read:
My apologies.
Indur Goklany, are you saying that all the 'impact studies' came later, after the target of 2degC had already been decided? Nothing would surprise me in this caper but that central bit of the mythology I've never looked into. When and where did the EU manufacture this? Do you know the name(s) of the entrepreneur(s) we have to thank?
1. There were no cost-benefit analyses justifying the 2 degrees C target. As far as I know, that's still the case.
2. I am not aware of any analysis that estimates the cost of meeting the 2 degrees C target.
3. In fact, there were a number of analyses that indicated a net positive global benefit for avg global temp increases in the range of 1.0 to 2.5 degrees C. See IPCC, 3rd Assessment Report, p. 943, Fig.19-4 at http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/pdf/wg2TARchap19.pdf. See, also, Nordhaus's paper at http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/P/cd/d18a/d1839.pdf (p. 90). These results are obtained despite the fact that virtually all impacts assessments overestimate negative impacts (because, among other things, they fail to account fully, if at all, for technological change and increase in adaptability because of economic development postulated in the emissions scenarios). Based on these results, it makes little sense to have 2 degrees C as a global target.
Gleick did it, well, the bit with the genuine documents. Not the faking. Of course not
Here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/21/peter-gleick-admits-leaked-heartland-institute-documents
No cost-benefit analysis for the 2degC - yep, that sounds like policy entrepreneurship at its zenith. It will be fascinating one day to know the role played by Maurice Strong or whether others entrepreneur'd this kind of detail. Hasten the day.
In my experience of working for a multinational company, cost-benefit analysis/ROI considerations was often dragged out like an anti aircraft gun to shoot down particular ideas. However, ideas that had political support at a senior level couldn't be assessed by such crude means and to suggest such a thing was plainly not constructive.
@Richard Drake Feb 21, 2012 at 1:01 AM
Richard, I don't know the name of the "entrepreneur" ... but wrt the 2degC ... In the series that Der Spiegel ran not long after CG1, Schellnhuber (sp?) acknowledged that this was, in effect, pulled out of thin air because (according to him) the politicians were pushing for a concrete number (or something along those lines).
Hilary Ostrov,
The Spiegel article is here: A Superstorm for Global Warming Research
Based on scientific opinion that was later overturned, the 2 degree target was retained because it was convenient.
How about Yvo de Boer?
He went from the Dutch Government to the UNFCCC.
Thanks, Gareth ... And I'm so relieved to see that I actually spelled his name correctly (wouldn't want to insult such a high-powered chap!)
But now that you mention his name, Yvo de Boer might well be a good candidate. Then again, this mysterious policy entrepreneur may be somewhat more challenging to pin down than ... oh, I dunno ...Gleick as the author of his own misfortunes?!
Having caused so much suffering and waste thanks to his or her policy 'success' is a bit of a discouragement for anyone to come forward and do a mea culpa for this egregious example of callous disregard for other people, for science, for economics, and indeed for democracy. I daresay if he is detecting any heat at all from these exposures, then Machiavellian schemes will be occupying his mind rather than contrition since he seems to be someone with an extraordinary lack of responsiveness to the views or indeed the wellbeing of others.
It would be a good thing if we could find out who this 'policy entrepreneur' is in order to improve our defences against further interventions of this nature. In general, we need more insight into this kind of person in and around the Great CO2 Scare bandwagon for that same sort of reason, and into the kind of people or situations who allow them to be so 'successful'.
Here's the organization chart for DG TREN following the restructuring that accompanied Ruete's appointment as DG in 2006:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060111073753/http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/home/organigram/doc/organi_en.pdf
A contemporary report of the directorate's rejig ...
http://www.euronuclear.org/e-news/e-news-11/dg-tren%2Brtd.htm
... said that Ruete was known as 'a man of compromise', so as well as being too senior he might not be dogmatic enough to be the mystery 'policy entrepreneur'.
Luc Werring might be a candidate. He was head of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency at DG TREN from 2000 to 2005, then was put in charge of regulatory policy for the same sort of thing and, according to a current CV, 'became Principal Advisor to the Commission on energy issues'.
Trouble is, he doesn't seem to have been a biofuels fanatic - or indeed any sort of fanatic. He now works for lobbyists who represent airlines and car manufacturers.
So perhaps it was Karl Kellner, who was keen on Woody Biomass. Or maybe it was Woody Biomass himself (not shown).
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Totally irrelevant (and illogical, and possibly misremembered) anecdotage: I associate biofuels with long queues at petrol stations in nominally socialist countries in the very early '80s. Newly independent Zimbabwe used a lot of ethanol in its fuel because of sanctions when it was Rhodesia. I don't know why Yugoslavia used it (or even if it did: the Web suggests that my memory is faulty) but the queues were particularly long there - a mile or three - and, embarrassingly, foreigners were ordered to jump them. If you declined to jump the queue, the locals would get very angry and wave their arms about. Perhaps there were laws against conspiring to deny foreigners speedy access to scarce resources.
Vinny
It's unlikely Woody Biomass was the culprit as he and fossil fuel proponent Chuck Morcolon get on like a house on fire.
If you were in Southern Africa in the early 80s you'll likely remember the outstanding Springbok side of that era. Names like Huistronk de Biers, Joost van Salesmann, Phil de Friezer, M T de Friezer, Wers de Carkies and Boyce du Smell. Glory days...