Thank you so much for your excellent comments—there seems to be a theme in there that captures something interesting about the way people in EA think.
>>This example doesn’t seem to have anything to do with “the potential for policy change”.
I see what you’re saying: my example is definitely not decisive evidence for a strong causal links between ITIF’s policy research and policy change. But I feel that saying that this example doesn’t have anything to do with the potential for policy change is a bit strong. Under Obama, if you wanted to get right people talking about an issue then publishing a book at MIT press and having it reviewed in the NYT seems like a good start. I have added a statement about that the book was launched at an event at the National Press Club with Financial Times Washington commentator Edward Luce.
But yes this was just one point, for instance, elsewhere in the report we write “The launch event for this report demonstrated that ITIF had good convening power, with high-profile panelists such as a former deputy head of the US Environmental Protection Agency.[44] “
And yes ITIF is a very well regarded think tank based on the top rankings on the global think tank rankings. Think tanks are generally meant to change policy and so a good ranking is likely to indicate this. This is more of a holistic argument (cluster thinking if you will).
Relatedly and re: your comment on the Fermi estimate:
In the report I write (I’ve made some minor changes now to make this more clear).
“What effect will the spending increases have on clean energy costs? Above we cited a meta-analysis of studies surveying experts suggesting that energy costs will decrease by several percentage points, if energy R&D is increased from a low to a medium or high investment scenario. The table below shows how many additional million dollars in clean energy R&D the low, medium and high investment scenarios correspond to. The amount of increase for some of the medium scenarios are roughly the same order of magnitude as benefits under realistic and optimistic assumptions in our cost-effectiveness analysis ($53 million and $750 million; see Table 2) and so this project could plausibly decrease low carbon energy costs significantly.
As mentioned above, because World Energy expenditure is in the trillions, [48],[49] even a small reduction in cost by several percentage point might lead to large savings. This cost-effectiveness analysis is roughly in line with a recent study which found that combining clean energy innovation with emission reduction policies reduces the costs of climate mitigation with a net present value of $3-6 trillion.[50]”
>>Is spending $2 million to generate $50 million in R&D likely to produce more good for human life than buying 400,000 mosquito nets? Maybe yes, maybe not, but I’m not sure how to figure out the range of possible answers.
One could multiply things out further if one feels inclined to, but the model uncertainty increases so much that it doesn’t allow for meaningful comparison with other causes.
This is more of a high risk, high reward donation opportunity than the low risk, low reward global development interventions whose benefits are more readily quantifiable and comparable. I think it’s definitely much better in expectation—I’d rather have a reasonable chance of lowering carbon electricity prices by a few percent than save 40 lives with 400,000 bednets.
I think we need to be careful of precision bias in EA and favouring ever more elaborate, explicit cost-effectiveness modelling of low risk easily quantifiable interventions while neglecting the more high risk “better approximately right than precisely wrong” kind of interventions.
I agree though that it’s hard to say whether this is better than funding say policy reform that would improve trade with emerging economies or biosecurity.
Yes, we should clearly aim to avoid precision bias. I don’t actually make donation decisions using comparisons of this kind—I just wanted to point out what I saw as a lack of clear “final benefit” description along the lines of “assuming a middling outcome, we’d expect to prevent roughly X tons of carbon/Y degrees of warning”.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if some figure like that was embedded in the report and I just couldn’t easily find it.
--
Also, it took me a while to find the section where the report explained potential reasons behind the (apparently) drastic undersupply of R&D funding: Here’s the explanation, which helped me get a better handle on why this cause has such high potential impact numbers behind it.
Have you spoken to Open Phil about this opportunity? Are you aware of any research they’ve done into R&D funding, or R&D policy grants they’ve made? It seems like this would fit under their “transformative basic science” or “global catastrophic risk” portfolios, and they’ve previously made at least one speculative grant with a small chance of sharply reducing emissions.
>>what I saw as a lack of clear “final benefit” description along the lines of “assuming a middling outcome, we’d expect to prevent”.
I think a thorough “final benefit” / “$ per ton of CO2 equivalent”/ “$ per degree of warming averted” calculation is not in principal outside of the realm of empirical investigation, but there are many difficulties here (e.g. the elasticity of clean energy demand, the comparative carbon intensities of other low carbon energy etc.). I might come back to that in case there is very strong demand for these numbers. But I also don’t think we need these calculations for the same reason that many high risks, high return grants lauded in the EA community do not need to include a “$ per life saved” calculation. I do have a bunch of what Bostrom calls crucial considerations in this report and I think EA research should head perhaps more in that direction.
But for what it’s worth we do mention the economic benefits of reducing global low carbon energy costs by several percentage points. They might be very large, because World Energy expenditure is in the trillions, [48],[49] and even a small reduction in cost by several percentage point might lead to large savings. Also there is a recent study which found that combining clean energy innovation with emission reduction policies reduces the costs of climate mitigation with a net present value of $3-6 trillion.[50]
Also, one economic model suggests that “if a carbon tax imposes a dollar of cost on the economy, induced innovation will end up reducing that cost to around 70 cents”.[73] Given that political acceptability is mainly a function of cost, making clean energy cheaper might make carbon taxes more likely. Just based only on this effect, it might make this a really good reason for donating to this, but again it’s hard to quantify the exact benefits.
>>Have you spoken to Open Phil about this opportunity?
I do not know OpenPhil’s official position on this, but there is a cell in “Open Philanthropy Project’s Public Priorities- Global Catastrophic Risks” spreadsheet which mentions that clean tech R&D might be a potential philanthropic opportunity. But the same spreadsheet also mentions says that Anthropogenic climate change (other than geoengineering) is not prioritized. I’ll definitely approach them though.
Thank you so much for your excellent comments—there seems to be a theme in there that captures something interesting about the way people in EA think.
>>This example doesn’t seem to have anything to do with “the potential for policy change”.
I see what you’re saying: my example is definitely not decisive evidence for a strong causal links between ITIF’s policy research and policy change. But I feel that saying that this example doesn’t have anything to do with the potential for policy change is a bit strong. Under Obama, if you wanted to get right people talking about an issue then publishing a book at MIT press and having it reviewed in the NYT seems like a good start. I have added a statement about that the book was launched at an event at the National Press Club with Financial Times Washington commentator Edward Luce.
But yes this was just one point, for instance, elsewhere in the report we write “The launch event for this report demonstrated that ITIF had good convening power, with high-profile panelists such as a former deputy head of the US Environmental Protection Agency.[44] “
And yes ITIF is a very well regarded think tank based on the top rankings on the global think tank rankings. Think tanks are generally meant to change policy and so a good ranking is likely to indicate this. This is more of a holistic argument (cluster thinking if you will).
Relatedly and re: your comment on the Fermi estimate:
In the report I write (I’ve made some minor changes now to make this more clear).
“What effect will the spending increases have on clean energy costs? Above we cited a meta-analysis of studies surveying experts suggesting that energy costs will decrease by several percentage points, if energy R&D is increased from a low to a medium or high investment scenario. The table below shows how many additional million dollars in clean energy R&D the low, medium and high investment scenarios correspond to. The amount of increase for some of the medium scenarios are roughly the same order of magnitude as benefits under realistic and optimistic assumptions in our cost-effectiveness analysis ($53 million and $750 million; see Table 2) and so this project could plausibly decrease low carbon energy costs significantly.
As mentioned above, because World Energy expenditure is in the trillions, [48],[49] even a small reduction in cost by several percentage point might lead to large savings. This cost-effectiveness analysis is roughly in line with a recent study which found that combining clean energy innovation with emission reduction policies reduces the costs of climate mitigation with a net present value of $3-6 trillion.[50]”
>>Is spending $2 million to generate $50 million in R&D likely to produce more good for human life than buying 400,000 mosquito nets? Maybe yes, maybe not, but I’m not sure how to figure out the range of possible answers.
One could multiply things out further if one feels inclined to, but the model uncertainty increases so much that it doesn’t allow for meaningful comparison with other causes.
This is more of a high risk, high reward donation opportunity than the low risk, low reward global development interventions whose benefits are more readily quantifiable and comparable. I think it’s definitely much better in expectation—I’d rather have a reasonable chance of lowering carbon electricity prices by a few percent than save 40 lives with 400,000 bednets.
I think we need to be careful of precision bias in EA and favouring ever more elaborate, explicit cost-effectiveness modelling of low risk easily quantifiable interventions while neglecting the more high risk “better approximately right than precisely wrong” kind of interventions.
I agree though that it’s hard to say whether this is better than funding say policy reform that would improve trade with emerging economies or biosecurity.
Yes, we should clearly aim to avoid precision bias. I don’t actually make donation decisions using comparisons of this kind—I just wanted to point out what I saw as a lack of clear “final benefit” description along the lines of “assuming a middling outcome, we’d expect to prevent roughly X tons of carbon/Y degrees of warning”.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if some figure like that was embedded in the report and I just couldn’t easily find it.
--
Also, it took me a while to find the section where the report explained potential reasons behind the (apparently) drastic undersupply of R&D funding: Here’s the explanation, which helped me get a better handle on why this cause has such high potential impact numbers behind it.
Have you spoken to Open Phil about this opportunity? Are you aware of any research they’ve done into R&D funding, or R&D policy grants they’ve made? It seems like this would fit under their “transformative basic science” or “global catastrophic risk” portfolios, and they’ve previously made at least one speculative grant with a small chance of sharply reducing emissions.
>>what I saw as a lack of clear “final benefit” description along the lines of “assuming a middling outcome, we’d expect to prevent”.
I think a thorough “final benefit” / “$ per ton of CO2 equivalent”/ “$ per degree of warming averted” calculation is not in principal outside of the realm of empirical investigation, but there are many difficulties here (e.g. the elasticity of clean energy demand, the comparative carbon intensities of other low carbon energy etc.). I might come back to that in case there is very strong demand for these numbers. But I also don’t think we need these calculations for the same reason that many high risks, high return grants lauded in the EA community do not need to include a “$ per life saved” calculation. I do have a bunch of what Bostrom calls crucial considerations in this report and I think EA research should head perhaps more in that direction.
But for what it’s worth we do mention the economic benefits of reducing global low carbon energy costs by several percentage points. They might be very large, because World Energy expenditure is in the trillions, [48],[49] and even a small reduction in cost by several percentage point might lead to large savings. Also there is a recent study which found that combining clean energy innovation with emission reduction policies reduces the costs of climate mitigation with a net present value of $3-6 trillion.[50]
Also, one economic model suggests that “if a carbon tax imposes a dollar of cost on the economy, induced innovation will end up reducing that cost to around 70 cents”.[73] Given that political acceptability is mainly a function of cost, making clean energy cheaper might make carbon taxes more likely. Just based only on this effect, it might make this a really good reason for donating to this, but again it’s hard to quantify the exact benefits.
>>Have you spoken to Open Phil about this opportunity?
I do not know OpenPhil’s official position on this, but there is a cell in “Open Philanthropy Project’s Public Priorities- Global Catastrophic Risks” spreadsheet which mentions that clean tech R&D might be a potential philanthropic opportunity. But the same spreadsheet also mentions says that Anthropogenic climate change (other than geoengineering) is not prioritized. I’ll definitely approach them though.