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Kyoto floundering in the wake of G8 summit
After 5 years online railing against the Kyoto idiocy, it looks like I'm going to have to find a new issue. It will be interesting to see which of the signers repudiates it first. My money is on New Zealand or Canada.AS the G8 Gleneagles summit proved, there is no consensus on how to combat global warming today or tomorrow but the bell now tolls on a decade of illusion. The Kyoto protocol, with its system of caps, targets and timetables, is being buried with a discretion that conceals one of the great public policy failures in recent decades. Hoax is probably a better word. Kyoto is collapsing before reality. The politics of global warming is being transformed by two simultaneous events: a recognition that climate change is real and serious and a recognition that the Kyoto methodology has failed as a solution. This is the significance of the G8 statement on climate change. It is ironic that one of Kyoto's champions, Tony Blair, has broken the news but Blair is a realist and the Gleneagles declaration is the dawn of a new realism. At his press conference Blair said he wanted leaders to agree that climate change was a problem, that human activity led to greenhouse gas emissions and that emissions had to be stabilised and then reduced. All leaders, including George W. Bush, agreed. But Blair then declared that regardless of how many targets the EU reached, that "if we don't have America, China, India taking the action necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then we won't solve climate change". Referring to the "fundamental disagreement" over Kyoto, Blair said he hoped the G8 meeting had "put in place a pathway to a new dialogue when Kyoto expires in 2012". The story is the new dialogue. Neither Blair nor the Gleneagles statement affirmed an extension of Kyoto's targets as the post-2012 solution and the anger from sections of the green lobby is palpable. Everyone knows why Kyoto is fading -- the US, India and, to a lesser extent, China, the three economies that will dominate the coming century, won't wear the legally binding Kyoto system. The demise of Kyoto is a symbol of the transfer of global power from Europe to the Asia-Pacific region where China and the US are located. The idea that the Kyoto system, sanctified by Europe's leaders, sustained by the public's idealism and driven by the greens, would work on a global basis was always flawed. The European world view is in decline and Kyoto is a monument to Europe's magnificent cleverness, its use of soft power and its blind faith in regulation and controls. Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell, in a matter-of-fact tone, told me: "I think there is a pretty clear international recognition now that any chance of going ahead with the Kyoto system of caps, targets and timetables is destined to failure. "I don't think there is much doubt, frankly, about the science of global warming. The great challenge is to reduce emissions by probably about 50 per cent sometime this century. The only system that will have international support to achieve this after 2012 will be one that does not include country-specific targets and timetables. "The Kyoto targets and timetables are not effective. In Australia we allowed the debate to polarise around Kyoto. But the real debate now is about post-Kyoto and how to get a comprehensive and practical system that limits greenhouse gas emissions. What's actually happening is that Tony Blair and other nations have moved closer to the US position that the answer must be found in technology and this is reflected in the G8 climate statement." Campbell says the global challenge is how to have both "economic expansion and lower greenhouse emissions". During the past nine months there have been two meetings that signalled the new direction. The first was the UN annual climate change meeting in Argentina in December 2004 and the second was the ministerial meeting convened by Blair earlier this year as a prelude to the G8. The EU's relentless push for tougher emission targets after the 2008-12 Kyoto period has run into insuperable opposition from the US and the developing world. It is agreed that the post-2012 system must be global and not just confined to the rich nations. That gives the big energy users such as the US, China and India great leverage over the methodology. Developing nations pledged to high levels of economic growth to destroy poverty and improve incomes reject the campaign by rich EU nations to impose legally binding emission caps that involve a surrender of sovereignty at considerable economic cost. The media orthodoxy that the US and Australia are isolated in refusing to embrace Kyoto is now obsolete. Whether it was ever accurate is debatable. There was only one reason for Australia to sign and that was to boost its clout for the post-2012 negotiations and this argument may no longer apply. The rearguard action to salvage Kyoto will be waged by some European nations, the green lobby and sections of the scientific community but their cause seems forlorn. It is known that the 2008-12 Kyoto system won't deliver. Global emissions are likely to rise about 30 per cent in this period. Even if all the Kyoto nations meet their targets the increase would still be 28-29 per cent. In fact, not all nations will meet these targets. Canada, having made foolish pledges, is in trouble. But the EU should meet its overall target. Blair's G8 meeting has begun to identity the new common ground. The US is accepting the reality of global warming and China is accepting the reality that developing nations must be part of the solution. The future solution will be different from Kyoto. It will be universal. It will involve less "top-down" prescription and more "bottom-up" practical applications. There will be a greater emphasis on innovation, cleaner technologies and lower emitting energy sources. There may well be timetables but they are going to be voluntary, not binding and yes, the new global consensus is a long way off. Posted by: phil_b 2005-07-15 |
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