I’ve never been to India, but I’ve seen it on the TV, and that is enough to persuade me that it’s a country I wouldn’t wish to visit. The problem is that I have this thing about poisonous snakes and it looks like they are quite common out there. In fact, so common that the authorities famously tried to reduce their number by paying people to catch cobras and hand them in. The numbers collected were deemed a good indicator of the programme’s success. Unfortunately, however, it turned out that this sponsored snake hunt had merely encouraged the establishment of a cottage industry of snake breeders, who were breeding cobras purely for the purpose of handing them over for the reward. When the authorities twigged to this, they stopped the programme, resulting in the release of a lot of now-redundant, commercially-bred snakes, thereby making the problem worse. Or so the story goes.
This anecdote is often cited as a good example of Goodhart’s Law, which is an adage to the effect that “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”. The law’s originator was an economist who, when observing the Thatcher government’s attempts to conduct monetary policy on the basis of targets for ‘broad’ and ‘narrow’ money, proclaimed that “any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.” That’s a bit technical sounding, perhaps, but we all knew what he meant, and it hasn’t been that difficult to find many other examples of the principle in action. For example, there are the SAT targets that encourage teachers to teach to exams rather than furnish pupils with the skills and education required for real-life success; or NHS waiting-list targets that have resulted in various manipulative practices that have nothing to do with improving the quality of care. Time and again people have found ways of gaming a system because a proxy measure has become the focus of attention, often to the detriment of the true purpose. Setting targets doesn’t work when the meeting of those targets is the only thing that gets rewarded.
So now let’s talk about net zero. Goodhart’s Law is a law of unintended consequences in which undue emphasis is placed upon the attainment of a target that serves as a proxy metric. It is a law in which the metric may indicate that a target has been met, but the intended purpose remains unfulfilled. It is also a law in which players may game the system in order to give the impression of progress whilst reaping personal benefit. All of this means that any nation or organisation that promotes the attainment of targets for carbon dioxide emissions reduction is just asking to be a victim of Goodhart’s Law. Sometimes the law acts innocently, but more often than not there is more than a little cynicism involved.
Take, for example, the meeting of domestic emission targets by offshoring production. This is an explicit example of Goodhart’s Law in operation, in which the setting of domestic reduction targets simply encourages the relocation of carbon-intensive production from one country to another, thereby increasing global emission figures due to the impact of transportation and less efficient foreign production methods. The UK has been particularly guilty in this respect.
Then there is greenwashing in general, in which the setting of targets encourages companies to game the sustainability metrics for PR purposes, rather than make real changes. Often this is simply a triumph of creative sales and marketing, and you have to ask why any of this should come as a surprise. However, greenwashing can get decidedly illegal, as was the case with the VW emissions scandal, in which Volkswagen gamed the measure (regulatory testing) to meet the target by installing “defeat devices” on their vehicles.
At the international level, greenwashing can be seen in the annual charade of nations turning up to COPs to re-pledge their solemn commitment to voluntary targets that don’t mean a thing. This is perhaps the ultimate expression of Goodhart’s Law, since the very act of setting a target is treated as the achievement, even when there is no intention of meeting it. It’s a case of ‘we have targets, so we are righteous’. Everyone goes home thinking the COP has been a success because it came to an agreement. Meanwhile, what is the carbon footprint of your average COP?
But perhaps the most fundamental respect in which Goodhart’s Law applies to net zero lies in the notion that meeting CO2 reduction targets is the only way by which a nation’s well-being may be assured. As such, domestic CO2 emission reductions have become a proxy metric upon which to focus everyone’s attention. However, in classic Goodhart fashion, this focus has invited the very real prospect of a nation achieving its chosen target whilst actually destroying any prospect of ensuring the security and economic well-being of either its current or future generations. This is not to mention the untold environmental damage resulting from the efforts required to achieve CO2 emission targets. There may be sound scientific reasons for controlling carbon dioxide emissions in order to control global temperatures, but as a means of controlling the well-being of societies and ecosystems, it is a poisoned chalice. Meanwhile, it can hardly be said that the world lacks players who are gaming the CO2 project for their personal profit – and I include every aspect of the fund-grabbing, subsidised green blob in this regard. The fact is that as soon as CO2 emission levels became the target, they ceased to be a good measure of progress towards the professed goal of national governance.
Of course, the UK government will never admit to this reality. It prefers instead to engage in a desperate campaign of gaslighting by trying to maintain that all other metrics will fall into line once the CO2 emission numbers are brought under control. But this is patently untrue. All metrics for job security, future (domestic) job prospects, reliable energy generation, industrial output, economic growth, ecological impact, and even the mental health of our children, are headed in the wrong direction. These are the metrics that should be honestly analysed, because they are the true indicators of whether the government’s flagship programme is compatible with its responsibilities. Instead, we are rewarding the attainment of a proxy metric rather than the fulfilment of a purpose. A net zero nation is not the same as a healthy nation, and I think it is high time that the government focused upon its wider obligations because, if it doesn’t, net zero is destined to end up being just another load of cobras.
Climate Scepticism 
That’s one for my Keep-It folder! I remember the horrible time at my old institute (research not mental) when we were forced from on high to up the published paper count. This was the productivity metric and had real financial repercussions at both lab and parent organisation levels. Division Head monthly meetings became like what COP meetings must be like. My section portfolio included both research and instrument development sections (CO2 flux inter alia). The latter, being engineers rather than PhDs, were totally resistant.
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Max,
Indeed, the problems caused by setting targets for publication counts and citations is another well-documented example of Goodhart’s Law. See, for example:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2019/11/21/working-to-the-rule-how-bibliometric-targets-distorted-italian-research/
https://blog.researchhub.foundation/overcoming-goodharts-law-in-scientific-research/
https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/article/8/6/giz053/5506490?login=false
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As a footnote to my essay, I should point out that, since Goodhart’s Law states that a good measure ceases to be one once it has become a target, my example of carbon emissions might not qualify. This would be because emission levels have never been a good measure of national well-being. Be that as it may, the UK government believes that they are, and so they should be aware that Goodhart’s Law decrees that they would have ceased being so just as soon as the net zero targets were set.
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Thank you John, neatly done.
Of course, some of our politicians (the ones who were so keen on the Climate and Nature Bill) have worked out that in concentrating on territorial emissions, the UK is fluffing the issue and is exporting its emissions instead. As you note, this probably has the net effect of increasing global emissions.
Credit to them for working for that, but no marks at all for failing to understand that the CaN Bill, if enacted, would have made life massively worse for the long-suffering UK populace. As for Goodhart’s Law, I doubt if they would recognise it even if they read your article.
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Mark,
They can argue until the cows come home about what the outcome of net zero might be regarding national well-being, but what they cannot argue against is the fact that setting targets for emissions immediately renders them an unreliable measure for control purposes, irrespective of what it is one is seeking to control. It’s a basic law off economics and they have no excuse for not knowing basic economics.
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Net Zero targets are pure distilled stupidity. Why? Because itt was always about politics, not science. It all began when global Marxists discovered that they could use the greenhouse effect as an excuse to frame Big Oil as evil and lobby for govt. policies to shut it down, knowing that it will shut down capitalism too. After that all science was thrown out the window in the mad rush to make suckers who will fight to destroy their children’s future thinking they’re saving it.
All along the greenhouse effect is disproved by thermal physics, which didn’t stop them from hijacking and falsifying it too, creating a gigantic train wreck of truth that might take decades to recover from.
Every time they claim that CO2 blocks and traps heat, you should try to educate them on real thermal physics that makes this idea ridiculous.
Here’s a start at self-reeducation, offered free by moi as a public service:
http://www.historyscoper.com/co2doesntblockandtrapheat.html
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… they have no excuse for not knowing basic economics.
Especially as so many of them seem to be PPE graduates!
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John R – “Goodhart’s Law” – how you find this stuff never cesses to amaze me.
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A metric of success that might be appropriate would be a liveable planet. Unfortunately for the alarmist cause, climate change does not have the capacity to create an unliveable planet. Pure global temperature as the scale of success (“global warming”) soon gave way to extreme weather. Unfortunately again for our alarmist friends, most people shrug about extreme weather, even if certain voices are constantly drumming into them the idea that they would not happen in the happy world of unicorns and rainbows of 350 ppm CO2.
The next abstraction is the CO2 concentration, because with that, we can map the chaos ensuing from extreme weather, that “would not have occurred” at a sensible concentration of a trace gas that is also plant food. This is a global measure – in particular contrast to classical pollutants, that affect the country, or at least the region, where they escape into the environment. The latter are the kind for which local control efforts are viable. Local efforts are not viable in regard to CO2 concentrations, or emissions. Banning lead in petrol in your jurisdiction has an effect on local lead concentrations. Reducing CO2 local emissions has no effect on local CO2 concentrations.
What is worse is if local cuts in CO2 emissions are mirrored by rises elsewhere: the same industrial process occurs, but now, in a different jurisdiction. Three-quarters of countries increased their CO2 emissions in 2024, and while the UK claims to be a climate leader, it is at the forefront of a bunch of countries that are in fact saps.
But don’t worry. If CO2 emissions are not the metric, we can always tumble down the hierarchy further from the stated purpose of climate policy to the number of “green jobs” it has created. Then, when we’re really desperate, we can waffle about the “billions invested” in the “transition,” or whatever we’re calling it today.
We could also crow about our clean, cheap and secure electricity grid, in our control and free from the influence of evil dictators.
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The problem we have is that a good heart these days, is hard to find, particularly amongst politicians and civil servants, who are singularly intent on driving us off the Net Zero cliff.
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Dfhunter,
I came across the cobra anecdote quite a while back, so much so that I have forgotten what I was reading at the time. However, I don’t think that was when I was introduced to Goodhart’s Law by name, since the anecdote is normally referred to as the Cobra Effect. Nevertheless, I have been familiar with the principle for many years because of my professional interest in software metrics, developed in my capacity as a software quality manager. Amongst other things, I was responsible for developing my employer’s procedures for writing metric plans based upon the Goal-Question-Metric (GQM) methodology. This is an area where one has to gain an understanding of the pitfalls of collecting the wrong metrics, or improperly analysing them. The classic is how to interpret software test results. Is a low failure rate under testing a measure of the good quality of the software that had been tested, or is it a measure of the inadequacy of test coverage? It’s an example of Goodhart’s Law, because ensuring poor test coverage is a good way of keeping the failure rates down. Solution: don’t just look at failure rates on their own.
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So, when the national grid goes down and large parts of the UK are plunged into darkness in midwinter, will there be a hastily convened Cobra meeting chaired by Herr Starmer, asking hard questions of Mad Red Ed?
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Dfhunter,
I’ve remembered now where I first saw the principle referred to as Goodhart’s Law. It was in the book How to Expect the Unexpected, by Kit Yates. Goodhart’s Law has its own section running from pages 319 to 324. The prime example given is McNamara’s obsession with using body counts to measure progress in winning the Vietnamese War. Because far more Vietnamese were being killed than Americans, he thought the US was winning. Well, we all now how that turned out. The Colombian authority’s war against the FARC is also cited in the book as an example of the law. Again, the proxy metric for success was based upon a body count. In this case, the government troops, finding FARC members too difficult to kill, resorted to killing civilians to help them meet their body count target. Approximately 9000 innocents met their death before the ‘scam’ was detected and the proxy metric was dropped.
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