Mike Bloomberg was a great mayor of NYC and would be a great President of our nation. Here is his recent NY Times piece celebrating state and local progress on reducing carbon emissions. As a proud Californian, I fully support the "low carbon" push but "Iron Mike" over-states his case.
Back in 2011, the U.S was responsible for 16% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. As income increases in the rest of the world, I predict that even if our emissions do not decline that we will be responsible for 10% of the world's emissions within 20 years.
While we don't want to admit it, we are "just another big nation". This is no longer the Post-WW2 world where we had a monopoly on nuclear weapons, democracy and capital (i.e the Marshall Plan). We now live in a more symmetric world in which there are many more relevant decision makers.
For example, at the COP 21 meetings in Paris in December 2015 --- Pakistan promised no CO2 emissions at all. Note that at those meetings, many nations promised to reduce their emissions relative to a BAU (business as usual scenario). Let me teach you an ugly fact.
Suppose I weigh 200 pounds and I promise to lose 20% of my weight in 3 years relative to my BAU scenario. Doesn't this sound good?
I haven't promised you that I will weigh 160 pounds in 3 years. That would be a straight 20% weight loss. Suppose my BAU is that I gain 20% per year.
So, one year from now I will weigh 240 pounds and then the next year I will weigh 240*1.2 and then in year 3 , I will weigh 240*1.2*1.2 and then from that base of 345 pounds I lose 20%, then I now weigh 345*.8 = 276. Do you see what I just showed up? Diplomats can make impressive sounding statements when they know they can manipulate the baseline "BAU scenario".
Now, Mike Bloomberg would say that the U.S will have moral authority if we act as a "first mover" and take tangible steps in reducing our carbon footprint. He might also say that there are sharp learning by doing effects for green tech such that these technologies will become cheaper and cheaper as the U.S acts as the green guinea pig. I hope he is right. Does "moral authority" matter in international affairs? Can China be shamed? In poor nations that need more energy consumption, can their leaders "be shamed"?
The green tech learning by doing hypothesis is the more interesting claim and this merits much more research. So, think of Elon Musk. Are his "green investments" a function of U.S energy policy? If he knew that the U.S will never have a carbon tax, would this change his investments in solar, batteries and the Tesla?