Brazilian legal philosopher, postdoc in intergenerational justice, financial supervisor, GWWC Pledger Bachelor of Laws, Master and Doctor of Philosophy from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), having published articles and translations in the areas of Political Philosophy, Applied Ethics and Philosophy of Economics – with a recent focus on climate risks, Environmental and Social Responsibility, and intergenerational justice. Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, integrating the Ethics and Political Philosophy Laboratory (EPLAB) and the project Present Democracy for Future Generations. Also a member of the Graduate Committee and Special Studies Analyst in the area of supervision of non-banking institutions at the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB). Member of the Inclusive and Sustainable Solutions association (SIS) and of the Effective Altruism community in Brazil (AE Brasil). https://philpeople.org/profiles/ramiro-avila-peres
Ramiro
And public choice theory, too—the kind of “neoliberal cynic legalistic” branch of mechanism design. No point in having a great voting system if your authorities can benefit themselves scot-free.
It’s funny how EAs have been arguing about “improving institutional decision-making” for almost a decade (and even before that in LW) w/o reading the basic literature… personal story: I remeber I was fascinated with EY’s Inadequate Equilibria (a wonderful book I recommend even more than HPMOR) and found it super original… but actually it wasn’t nothing new once I discovered the literature in mechanism desing and, more recently, cyberneticists like S. Beer and H. Simon
I’d like to see an updated version of this—and, if possible, one that didn’t end up being categorized as “personal blog post”
Let me share SBTi’s requests for feeddback:
Financial Institutions Net-Zero (FINZ) Standard
Experts from the finance sector, academia, and civil society worldwide are invited to review and provide feedback on the Draft Financial Institutions Net-Zero (FINZ) Standard. The public consultation survey will be open until September 30.
The primary aims of this consultation survey are to gather input from external stakeholders on the FINZ Standard—Consultation Draft v0.1, with particular focus on:
The clarity
Specific approaches to:
Evidencing entity-level commitments and leadership
Determining and identifying exposure and portfolio emissions
Portfolio climate alignment target
Emissions-intensive sector targets
Reporting
The SBTi’s direction of travel regarding financial institutions
Areas of support and improvement
Complete the survey now and contribute to the development of this essential standard.
The SBTi will also host three in-person workshops at Climate Week NYC and in London to gather expert insight on two important topics: neutralization and net-zero finance.
The workshops will be held on the following dates:
The role of carbon dioxide-removal in corporate net-zero transitions: New York City, September 23 | 3:00-6:30pm ET
Financial Institutions Net-Zero Standard Consultation: New York City, September 25 | 3:30-5:30pm ET
The role of carbon dioxide-removal in corporate net-zero transitions: London, October 8 | 2:30-6:00pm BST
Experts in each field are invited to participate by registering their interest. The precise locations will be shared with selected attendees. Register your interest here.
Scope 3 Discussion Paper feedback form
The SBTi is in the process of revising its Corporate Net-Zero Standard and one of the channels through which stakeholders are encouraged to engage is via the Scope 3 Discussion Paper feedback form. The Scope 3 Discussion Paper outlines the SBTi’s initial thinking on potential changes being considered for scope 3 target setting, including key principles and concepts.
Thanks for the post. I suppose you’d agree that there’s a good chance that, once Uncle Sam gets unstable, many other countries will follow suit.
I’m not sure the problem is “EA neglects this” instead of something more like “SBF funded political campaigns and considered bribing Trump to avoid his re-election and this resulted in terrible optics...” Maybe EAs and politics don’t mix well?
Thanks a lot for this answer
From the report:
The experts we spoke to favored unilateral advocacy (targeting individual countries) over advocacy in multilateral organizations such as the UN. This was on the basis that domestic policy and priorities usually take precedence over international agreements, especially in a catastrophe.
I tend to agree, because there are many low-hanging fruits in in-country advocacy. However, I wonder if some food security policies could face obstacles from WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture, so that amending it could be highly effective.
I call dibs on writing an April Fool’s post to propose calling this pledge “effective tithe”
Before you comment in response to this post, I would urge you to assume that lawyers for the FTX Group will see your comments.
In that case, I suggest they consider taking a look at the Earning to Give part of 80000 hours website
I have a slightly less rosy picture of this report. Let me illustrate it with some excerpts:
1. The second SIR [Serious Incident Report]
Following the opening of the inquiry, the trustees filed a second SIR on 12 February 2023 as they became aware of a historic safeguarding incident involving one of the former trustees prior to that individual’s appointment as a trustee of the charity.
From the Findings:
The trustees then reviewed and updated their safeguarding policies and procedures and whilst these revised policies and procedures were generally in accordance with the Commission’s guidance, there was scope for further revision to provide more robust safeguarding. The Commission provided the trustees with regulatory guidance and advice in accordance with s.15(2) of the Act about this. The individual named in the SIR resigned from their position at the charity.
Is this about OCB?
2. On conflicts of interest
[…] The inquiry noted that whilst the charity had provisions within its governing document which explained how to manage conflicts of interest there was no formal training or guidance provided to trustees or employees as to what would constitute a conflict of interest, how to raise it or how it should be managed and resolved.
The inquiry found that the trustees were not required to disclose potential conflicts of interest when joining the trustee board, and such a requirement was only introduced in October 2022.
[…]
The inquiry found that the charity had financial policies and procedures but that these were not adhered to or reviewed regularly as the charity’s income grew. It was only in 2022 did the charity have a dedicated finance team to monitor and control the charity’s finances. This lack of control highlights a weak point which the inquiry notes has now been remedied by the charity.
I am glad that the Inquiry found no evidence of malfeasance. But I also think that, for a movement partly based on a critique of the lack of effectiveness of the philanthropy sector, finding out that one of its core organizations lacked some basic controls is a bit frustrating.
you’re already a record-breaker in my heart
Time to cancel my Asterisk subscription?
So Asterisk dedicates a whole self-aggrandizing issue to California, leaves EV for Obelus (what is Obelus?), starts charging readers, and, worst of all, celebrates low prices for eggs and milk?
Anyone else consders the case of Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland (application no. 53600⁄20) of the European Court of Human Rights a possibly useful for GCR litigation?
I never said Stoics reflected on GCR
Elon Musk? So last year… 2024 is time for Trump scandals.
Let’s buy some Truth shares and produce new scandals!
you can totally have scandals involving dead or imaginary people. So, definitely no.
I’m not sure where is the best place to share this, but I just received a message from GD that made think of Wenar’s piece: John Cena warns us against giving cash with conditions | GiveDirectly (by Tyler Hall)
Ricky Stanicky is a comedy about three buddies who cover for their immature behavior by inventing a fictitious friend ‘Ricky’ as an alibi. [...]When their families get suspicious, they hire a no-name actor (played by John Cena) to bring ‘Ricky’ to life, but an incredulous in-law grills Ricky about a specific Kenyan cash transfer charity he’d supposedly worked for. Luckily, actor Ricky did his homework on the evidence.
So I just replied GD asking:
Did John Cena authorize you to say things like “Be like John Cena and give directly”? Or this is legally irrelevant?D’you notice that you’re using a fraudster as an example?
Even if one accepts that what Cena’s character (Stanicky-Rod) is true, he’s misleading other people; so the second thing that should come to mind when one reads your message is “so what makes me confident that GD is not lying to me, too?”At least add some lines to assure your donors (maybe you see them more as customers?) are not being similarly fooled.
I’m possibly biased, but I do see that as an instance of an EA-adjacent collaborator failing to put himself in the donors shoes. But I guess it might be an effective ad, so it’s all for the best?
As a civil servant from a developing country, I can say that those estimates mean almost nothing. I don’t think they are well invested, and they are tiny in comparison to adaptation gaps
I think there’s a huge problem of prioritization when it comes to adaptation investment—because developing countries seldom link infrastructure resilience to adaptation policies
Sorry if I am being unfair, but itseems to me a bit naïve to base all of your Structural Democratic Reforms project solely on election theory, and ignore other institutions that are extremely impactful, but more neglected by and less accountable to the wide public, such as Supreme Courts, Central Banks and regulatory authorities (and even Audit Institutions).
Before the Hamas’s attack, Israel was in political turmoil because a sort of constitutional crisis between its Supreme Court and the government regarding the 2023 Israeli judicial reform. Current US Supreme Court not only struck Roe v. Wade this year, but it also decided that, while the Head of the Executive is immune against prosecution for any official act (Trump v. U.S.), regulatory authorities (that ultimately respond to the President) have no power to issue binding interpretations of statutory law (Loper Bright Enterprises et al.), thus ending four decades of the Chevron deference doctrine. Now consider that Supreme Courts allegedly have a longevity problem—they used to serve for an average 17 years, and are now predicted to serve for 35 years. Other jurisdictions face similar issues (e.g.: Brazilian judiciary has had a tremendous political impact in the last 10 years, and now legislators want to restrict Supreme Court judges powers).
An obvious fix would be adopting term limits, but, though I am a passionate defender of judicial review, I think that centralizing so much power on such a small body is a mechanism design nightmare.
And Central Banks face political scrutiny everywhere; yet, while Open Philanthropy did fund research on macroeconomics and there’s a consensus that monetary authorities must be insulated from the Executive, I am unaware of anyone in EA-space currently doing research on Central Bank politics (though, here, I would say it’s probably not a neglected topic—it’s just that the public tends to ignore it, and maybe crypto-friendly EAs just despise central bankers).