James Wolfensohn and UCLA's Rob Jensen agree on at least one thing; cell phones offer substantial benefits. JW was the President of the World Bank and in today's NY Times he suggests that everyone should have a cell phone. My 11 year old son would agree! But, JW's focus is on women in poor nations. He argues that there are at least 300 million of them who would be more productive, safer and more socially connected if they had such a phone.
As you know, Rob Jensen has written the best academic paper on the consequences of cell phone technology. But, my focus (as usual) is the environmental consequences of economic activity.
If 300 million women now have cell phones, how much greenhouse gas emissions will this create?
This article claims that it takes 6.5 kWh to charge a phone a year. Multiply that by 300 million and we must generate 2 billion kWh of power to generate the necessary electricity for the extra phones.
In the United States, the median carbon dioxide emissions factor for our natural gas electric utilities is:
837 pounds per MWH ;
So, please double check my math:
New Tons of CO2 = (2 billion kwh/1000)*837/2000 = 837,000 per year due to the new JW cell phones
At a marginal social cost of $50 per ton, JW is advocating creating a global externality that causes
$42 million dollars of new pollution a year. He may certainly be right that his proposal is a good thing but think of the climate! And folks, wonder why I wrote my climate change adaptation book? If a "World Bank Liberal" unintentionally exacerbates the challenge, what can we expect from everyone else?