I’m confused why donors “should not give to Founder’s Pledge or Giving Green’s climate fund until charities that engage in nuclear advocacy are no longer part of their recommended charities lists.” It sounds like you are mainly saying that nuclear is ineffective. You also believe funding nuclear efforts might worsen outcomes by displacing renewables. Are you saying it a significant enough backfire so as to to negate the effectiveness of the rest of the fund? Or is this just a way to say that “it would be more effective to customize your donations to avoid nuclear advocacy.”
If 5% of Giving Green’s climate fund is being mis-allocated, why should one still not donate to their overall portfolio?
Yes, I think customizing donations would be better. Or donating for (targeted) research.
But I will partially defend a somewhat stronger version too. As I covered in Part 8 of the post, I think the climate funds haven’t been particularly effective and, in some cases, harmful. And the reasoning behind the support of nuclear highlights a general lack of expertise and rigor that undermines credibility for other recommendations. I think a lot more research needs to go into selecting interventions before claims like <$10/ton can be made with >50% confidence. Perhaps such confidence levels are impossible; it depends on whether the organizations see their role as coming up with speculative high-impact plays, providing robust evidenced-based impact for donors, or both. But even with a speculative angle, I think the initial cost-effectiveness calculations and justifications to fund nuclear advocacy were particularly poorly done.
IMO the “cash transfers” benchmark for climate change funding is buying banned F-gases recovered from appliances and destroying them at around $20/ton CO2e. (Some F-gases are banned from manufacture, but what exists in appliances can be recaptured and resold, and some of the gas leaks out overtime).
I think the casual climate donor can get similar value to the climate funds at much less risk with the F-gas donation. This will change once the F-gas opportunity gets exhausted, but the amount of EA climate money is far from exhausting it.
I—F-gases are long-lived climate pollutants that are a source of around 2% of global emissions, and projected to grow as a share of global emissions as the energy sector cleans up and countries get wealthier and hotter and subsequently adopt more cooling and refrigeration equipment.
T—There are existing organizations working to capture and destroy F-gases. The manufacture of the worst offending refrigerants is nearly universally banned, so there is little concern for displacement effects.
N—There is no strong incentive to prevent refrigerant leaks or dispose of old refrigerant responsibly besides climate benefits. Some can be recovered and resold and will eventually end up in the atmosphere absent some intervention. (Think of how few CFLs or electronics are disposed of properly despite laws mandating proper disposal).
It’s an offset without the robustness, temporary, displacement, counterfactual or other concerns of the more common and popular forest protection offsets.
Hi, I’m trying to understand your call to action.
I’m confused why donors “should not give to Founder’s Pledge or Giving Green’s climate fund until charities that engage in nuclear advocacy are no longer part of their recommended charities lists.” It sounds like you are mainly saying that nuclear is ineffective. You also believe funding nuclear efforts might worsen outcomes by displacing renewables. Are you saying it a significant enough backfire so as to to negate the effectiveness of the rest of the fund? Or is this just a way to say that “it would be more effective to customize your donations to avoid nuclear advocacy.”
If 5% of Giving Green’s climate fund is being mis-allocated, why should one still not donate to their overall portfolio?
Yes, I think customizing donations would be better. Or donating for (targeted) research.
But I will partially defend a somewhat stronger version too. As I covered in Part 8 of the post, I think the climate funds haven’t been particularly effective and, in some cases, harmful. And the reasoning behind the support of nuclear highlights a general lack of expertise and rigor that undermines credibility for other recommendations. I think a lot more research needs to go into selecting interventions before claims like <$10/ton can be made with >50% confidence. Perhaps such confidence levels are impossible; it depends on whether the organizations see their role as coming up with speculative high-impact plays, providing robust evidenced-based impact for donors, or both. But even with a speculative angle, I think the initial cost-effectiveness calculations and justifications to fund nuclear advocacy were particularly poorly done.
IMO the “cash transfers” benchmark for climate change funding is buying banned F-gases recovered from appliances and destroying them at around $20/ton CO2e. (Some F-gases are banned from manufacture, but what exists in appliances can be recaptured and resold, and some of the gas leaks out overtime).
I think the casual climate donor can get similar value to the climate funds at much less risk with the F-gas donation. This will change once the F-gas opportunity gets exhausted, but the amount of EA climate money is far from exhausting it.
Can you say more about why you think that’s the right benchmark to clear for climate funding, and where I could donate to if I were so persuaded?
Sure. Here’s a short presentation I did on F-gases a while back.
ITN:
I—F-gases are long-lived climate pollutants that are a source of around 2% of global emissions, and projected to grow as a share of global emissions as the energy sector cleans up and countries get wealthier and hotter and subsequently adopt more cooling and refrigeration equipment.
T—There are existing organizations working to capture and destroy F-gases. The manufacture of the worst offending refrigerants is nearly universally banned, so there is little concern for displacement effects.
N—There is no strong incentive to prevent refrigerant leaks or dispose of old refrigerant responsibly besides climate benefits. Some can be recovered and resold and will eventually end up in the atmosphere absent some intervention. (Think of how few CFLs or electronics are disposed of properly despite laws mandating proper disposal).
It’s an offset without the robustness, temporary, displacement, counterfactual or other concerns of the more common and popular forest protection offsets.
If interested in funding to destroy refrigerants, see: https://tradewater.co/