Crisis narratives as hindrance to growth and freedom

* BusinessWorld February 27, 2023. 
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Feb. 24 last week marked the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Ukraine crisis has morphed from a border war between the two countries to a potential nuclear conflict in Europe. Here are five major crisis narratives which have had a big impact on economic growth and individual freedom....

3. The climate/environment crisis. This is based on the persistent narrative that there is no natural or nature-made climate change, only man-made climate change; that there is no natural warming-cooling cycle, only “unprecedented, unequivocal” warming; that “extreme weather” is getting more frequent, more deadly, and that there is no natural cycle of strong and weak cycle energy. Thus, heavy intervention by governments and multilaterals to fight less rain and more rain, less snow and more snow, less cold and more cold, less cats and more cats.

No, the number of strong storms and hurricanes is not increasing. No, the accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) is not getting stronger (see Chart). In fact, the years 2021 and 2022 saw weak ACE, a less windy planet, which is why wind power plants were not producing enough electricity and led to wind power-heavy countries firing up their coal and gas plants to avoid blackouts.

The Philippines and other countries should cut their huge spending on climate bureaucracies, climate meetings and travel, cut taxes on fossil fuels, or impose uniform taxes like VAT for both fossil fuel and renewable plants, and uniform excise tax for both gasoline-powered cars and e-cars.

Now there is another lobby by some groups that the irrational zero excise tax for e-cars should be extended to e-motorcycles. This is equally irrational, for three reasons. One, there is little difference between gasoline vehicles that use 100% fossil fuel and e-vehicles that use 80% fossil fuel because about 80% of the Philippines’ electricity generation comes from coal, natural gas, and oil plants. Two, both gasoline and electric vehicles occupy road space and contribute to the depreciation of public infrastructure. And, three, government is in search of more revenues and lobby groups and sellers do not want to contribute to tax mobilization. The Finance department should stonewall such a lobby.

Related narratives are: the garbage/plastic crisis, carbon crisis, energy crisis....