Inside climate politics
The politics of climate change are often depicted as a simple battle, between environmentalists and particular industries, over government policy. That’s not wrong, but it’s only a rough sketch of the matter. Now a paper co-authored by MIT economist Christopher Knittel fills in some important details of the picture, revealing an essential mechanism that underlies the politics of the climate battle. Specifically, as Knittel and his colleagues demonstrate, at least one climate policy enacted by Congress — on transportation fuels — contains a crucial asymmetry: It imposes modest costs on most people, but yields significant benefits for a smaller group. Thus, most people are politically indifferent to the legislation, even though it hurts them marginally, but a few fight hard to maintain it. The same principle may also apply to other types of climate legislation. In 2005, Congress introduced the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which mandates a minimum level of ethanol that...