I don’t agree with your analysis in (3) - neglectedness to me is asking not ‘is enough being done’ but ‘is this the thing that can generate the most benefit on the margin’.
For climate change it seems most likely not; hundreds of billions of dollars (and likely millions of work-years) are already spent every year on climate change mitigation (research, advocacy, or energy subsidies). The whole EA movement might move, what, a few hundred million dollars per year? Given the relatively scarce resources we have, both in time and money, it seems like there are places where we could do more good (the whole of the AI safety field has only a couple hundred people IIRC).
Thank you for your comments—I have some responses:
hundreds of billions of dollars (and likely millions of work-years) are already spent every year on climate change mitigation (research, advocacy, or energy subsidies)
A huge amount is already spent on global health and development, and yet the EA community is clearly happy to try and find particularly effective global health and development interventions. There are definitely areas within the hugely broad field of climate change action which are genuinely neglected.
Given the relatively scarce resources we have, both in time and money, it seems like there are places where we could do more good
This seems pessimistic about the possible size of the EA movement. Maybe if EA didn’t downplay climate change so much, it might attract more people to the movement and hence have a greater total amount of resources to distribute.
A huge amount is already spent on global health and development, and yet the EA community is clearly happy to try and find particularly effective global health and development interventions. There are definitely areas within the hugely broad field of climate change action which are genuinely neglected.
This is true. To steelman your point (and do some shameless self-promotion) - at Let’s Fund we think funding advocacy for clean energy R&D funding is one such intervention, so they do exist.
Though I’m not entirely sure the comparison is fair. The kind of global poverty interventions that EAs favour (for better or for worse) tend to be near-term, low-risk, with a quick payoff. Climate change interventions are much less certain, higher-variance, and with a long payoff.
Thanks for the link, that’s very interesting! I’ve seen that you direct donations to the Clean Energy Innovation program of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. How confident are you that the funds are actually fully used for the purpose? I understand that their accounting will show that all of your funds will go there, but how confident are you that they will not reduce their discretionary spending to this progam as a consequence? (I glanced at some of their recent work, and they have some pieces that are fairly confrontational towards China. While this may make sense from a short-term US perspective, it might even be net harmful if one takes a broader view and/or takes into account the possiblity of a military escalation between the US and China.) Did you consider the Clean Air Task Force when looking for giving opportunities?
You raise some excellent points that have a bunch of implications for estimating the value of EA funding policy research.
How confident are you that the funds are actually fully used for the purpose?
I’m very confident that the funds are used for their Clean Energy Innovation program.
We have a mutual agreement of understanding with ITIF that any donations through Let’s Fund will be restricted to the Clean Energy Innovation Program, led by Professor David Hart and Dr Colin Cunliff.
We’re in regular contact with their fundraising person and the David Hart.
how confident are you that they will not reduce their discretionary spending to this program as a consequence?
I think this is plausible but fairly unlikely that the effect is massive—I think think tank programs at think tanks such as ITIF do not tend to top up their programs with discretionary spending much, but there is a bit of “market” where the person who leads the program needs to acquire grant funding. The better the program is at receiving grant funding the more it’ll be scaled up. Otherwise, there’d be no incentive for people running the individual programs to apply for grants.
However, of course additional funds, even if restricted to a program will likely be good for ITIF as a whole, because it benefits from the economies of scale and more basic infrastructure (e.g. support staff, a bigger office, communications staff).
> they have some pieces that are fairly confrontational towards China
Yes, so as argued above, I think donations through Let’s Fund will predominantly benefit their Clean Energy program, but a small effect on the whole ITIFs activities can’t be ruled out.
ITIF works on other issues and I haven’t vetted their value in-depth, but my superficial review of ITIFs overall activities leads me to believe that none of their activities are very controversial. This is in part why we selected ITIF.
ITIF is a think tank based in Washington, DC. The Global Go To Think Tank Index has ranked ITIF 1st in their “Science and Technology think tanks“ category in 2017 and 2018.
They also rank quite well on the general rankings.
It’s a very academic think tank with lots of their staff members holding advanced degrees and having policy experience in technocratic environments. I think they can still be described as quite centrist and nonpartisan, though ITIFs staff seems closer to the US Democrats than other parties. Also, it is fairly libertarian in terms of economic thinking.
On their China stance in particular: I think they mostly argue against some of China’s economic policies in a constructive not confrontational way (see everything about China here: https://itif.org/regions/china ). You could see the sign of the value of that going either way—it might be that more constructive criticism is better than not talking about it and then having populists being the only ones who talk about some of China’s anti-competitive practices.
This is all very uncertain however. People who are very worried about unintentional consequences might not want to donate to ITIF for those reasons.
Did you consider the Clean Air Task Force when looking for giving opportunities?
Yes, I read the FP report on it. I think the Clean Air Task force is an excellent giving opportunity in climate change. The main reason why I think ITIF has higher expected value is that ITIF is more narrowly focused on increasing clean energy R&D spending, which I make the case is the best policy to push currently on the margin. However, it is perhaps more risky than the Clean Air Task Force, which is more diversified.
Thanks a lot, this is super helpful! I particularly appreciated that you took the time to explain the internal workings of a typical think tank, this was not at all clear to me.
Thoughtful post!
I don’t agree with your analysis in (3) - neglectedness to me is asking not ‘is enough being done’ but ‘is this the thing that can generate the most benefit on the margin’.
For climate change it seems most likely not; hundreds of billions of dollars (and likely millions of work-years) are already spent every year on climate change mitigation (research, advocacy, or energy subsidies). The whole EA movement might move, what, a few hundred million dollars per year? Given the relatively scarce resources we have, both in time and money, it seems like there are places where we could do more good (the whole of the AI safety field has only a couple hundred people IIRC).
Thank you for your comments—I have some responses:
A huge amount is already spent on global health and development, and yet the EA community is clearly happy to try and find particularly effective global health and development interventions. There are definitely areas within the hugely broad field of climate change action which are genuinely neglected.
This seems pessimistic about the possible size of the EA movement. Maybe if EA didn’t downplay climate change so much, it might attract more people to the movement and hence have a greater total amount of resources to distribute.
This is true. To steelman your point (and do some shameless self-promotion) - at Let’s Fund we think funding advocacy for clean energy R&D funding is one such intervention, so they do exist.
Though I’m not entirely sure the comparison is fair. The kind of global poverty interventions that EAs favour (for better or for worse) tend to be near-term, low-risk, with a quick payoff. Climate change interventions are much less certain, higher-variance, and with a long payoff.
Thanks for the link, that’s very interesting! I’ve seen that you direct donations to the Clean Energy Innovation program of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. How confident are you that the funds are actually fully used for the purpose? I understand that their accounting will show that all of your funds will go there, but how confident are you that they will not reduce their discretionary spending to this progam as a consequence? (I glanced at some of their recent work, and they have some pieces that are fairly confrontational towards China. While this may make sense from a short-term US perspective, it might even be net harmful if one takes a broader view and/or takes into account the possiblity of a military escalation between the US and China.) Did you consider the Clean Air Task Force when looking for giving opportunities?
You raise some excellent points that have a bunch of implications for estimating the value of EA funding policy research.
I’m very confident that the funds are used for their Clean Energy Innovation program.
We have a mutual agreement of understanding with ITIF that any donations through Let’s Fund will be restricted to the Clean Energy Innovation Program, led by Professor David Hart and Dr Colin Cunliff.
We’re in regular contact with their fundraising person and the David Hart.
They have recently hired an additional person and are now also hiring for another policy analyst in Brussels. We think this is very likely in part due to the Let’s Fund grant.
I think this is plausible but fairly unlikely that the effect is massive—I think think tank programs at think tanks such as ITIF do not tend to top up their programs with discretionary spending much, but there is a bit of “market” where the person who leads the program needs to acquire grant funding. The better the program is at receiving grant funding the more it’ll be scaled up. Otherwise, there’d be no incentive for people running the individual programs to apply for grants.
However, of course additional funds, even if restricted to a program will likely be good for ITIF as a whole, because it benefits from the economies of scale and more basic infrastructure (e.g. support staff, a bigger office, communications staff).
> they have some pieces that are fairly confrontational towards China
Yes, so as argued above, I think donations through Let’s Fund will predominantly benefit their Clean Energy program, but a small effect on the whole ITIFs activities can’t be ruled out.
ITIF works on other issues and I haven’t vetted their value in-depth, but my superficial review of ITIFs overall activities leads me to believe that none of their activities are very controversial. This is in part why we selected ITIF.
ITIF is a think tank based in Washington, DC. The Global Go To Think Tank Index has ranked ITIF 1st in their “Science and Technology think tanks“ category in 2017 and 2018.
They also rank quite well on the general rankings.
It’s a very academic think tank with lots of their staff members holding advanced degrees and having policy experience in technocratic environments. I think they can still be described as quite centrist and nonpartisan, though ITIFs staff seems closer to the US Democrats than other parties. Also, it is fairly libertarian in terms of economic thinking.
More about ITIF here: https://itif.org/about
On their China stance in particular: I think they mostly argue against some of China’s economic policies in a constructive not confrontational way (see everything about China here: https://itif.org/regions/china ). You could see the sign of the value of that going either way—it might be that more constructive criticism is better than not talking about it and then having populists being the only ones who talk about some of China’s anti-competitive practices.
This is all very uncertain however. People who are very worried about unintentional consequences might not want to donate to ITIF for those reasons.
Yes, I read the FP report on it. I think the Clean Air Task force is an excellent giving opportunity in climate change. The main reason why I think ITIF has higher expected value is that ITIF is more narrowly focused on increasing clean energy R&D spending, which I make the case is the best policy to push currently on the margin. However, it is perhaps more risky than the Clean Air Task Force, which is more diversified.
Thanks a lot, this is super helpful! I particularly appreciated that you took the time to explain the internal workings of a typical think tank, this was not at all clear to me.