In advance of Obama’s trip to Chinathis week, Nobel Prize winner, Paul Krugman gave a short, sharp economics lesson on climate change and China during our exclusive interview in Silicon Valley, November 12. What does he think the US and Chinese governments should be doing to combat climate change and stimulate the green sector?
Why is he not concerned about China’s lead in clean energy technology?
Krugman explains why negotiating with China over CO2 emissions would be preferable to trying to enforce a carbon tax. Hear all this and more in this Fresh Dialogues interview.
Here are selected quotes:
“Climate change is the mother of all externalities…left without any government intervention, we’re going to basically par-boil the planet.”
“You don’t want to get hung up on the specific sexy technologies (like wind turbines)…look at the history of information technology…nobody gets a monopoly for very long.”
“If we say to the Chinese, we want you to have a carbon tax – how can we really tell it’s enforced? But if we negotiate with the Chinese that they will have total CO2 emissions of so much, we can monitor that pretty well.”
For Part One of the Paul Krugman interview – on Obama’s Job Summit click here
This exclusive interview with Paul Krugman was recorded on November 12, 2009 in SiliconValley. Dr. Krugman was in town to deliver a lecture as part of the Foothill College Celebrity Forum Series. Here are some transcript highights. To listen to the interview click here and or watchvideo.
Alison van Diggelen: Paul thank you very much for joining me on Fresh Dialogues.
Paul Krugman: OK. Good to be doing this.
Alison: Last night, you talked in your lecture of your concern about the unemployment rate. It’s very high and moving higher. In light of Obama’s announcement today about the job summit in DC in December, do you have any advice specific advice for Obama administration, particularly for green jobs?
Paul: Well OK, green jobs I think is going to be a much harder thing to get going. That’s going to take time. That really waits on climate legislation which we won’t get till next year, if we’re lucky.
What he needs to do is get some actual targeted job measures, we need some policies that are aimed at encouraging job creation directly: probably a job tax credit and maybe some subsidies for firms that hang on to jobs. We can learn a little bit from European countries (like)Germany which have been relatively successful in containing the job losses…We just have to get something going…. If I had my druthers, if there were no limits politically, I’d say actually let’s just have a really massive second stimulus plan to get the economy going, but since that’s not going to happen we need some measures that are cheaper, don’t maybe do as much for GDP but create a lot of jobs…
Alison: You said last night he’s been too cautious, Obama has been doing things in half measures. What advice would you give him at this stage?
Paul:This jobs summit can’t be an empty exercise…he can’t come out with a proposal for $10 or $20 Billion of stuff because people will view that as a joke. There has to be a significant job proposal…
Alison: Do you have a minimum he aught to spend?
Paul: There’s no hard and fast number, but if it isn’t several hundred billion dollars…OK, probably it’s not going to be as big as the first stimulus bill and not going to be as big as I think it should be… But I have in mind something like $300 Billion, you could do quite a lot that’s actually targeted on jobs.
Alison: Paul Krugman, thank you very much I really appreciate your taking the time.
Paul: Thank you so much.
Check back soon for more interview segments in which Paul Krugman discusses China, Climate Change and clean technology, the stimulus package, and why he prefers cap and trade over a straight carbon tax. He also explains what gave him that “missionary zeal” to write such fervent columns in the New York Times. To check out more exclusive Fresh Dialogues interviews, click here
I sat down with Pulitzer prize winning Tom Friedmanto discuss his book and the upcoming Climate Summitin Copenhagen. In this part of the interview, we discuss what we can learn from Denmark – dubbed the greenest country in the world; the role of Silicon Valley in energy technology innovation; and where he thinks the next Green Google will grow. Tom says emulation is more effective than compulsion in solving the climate crisis, so I asked him:
Do you think the Copenhagen Summit is a waste of time? (more…)
