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| Kyoto floundering in the wake of G8 summit |
| 2005-07-15 |
| 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 |
| #12 "I don't think there is much doubt, frankly, about the science of global warming Lying grant whores, eco-terrorists, and lilliputians trying to saddle the US economy do not a consensus make. The science is NOT proven. The theory and solutions proposed would restrict the US while allowing China free rein to pollute at will. Antiamericanism, moral screeching and pop-science. In 25 or so years (when the natural climate cycle reverses) all will be discredited - I'll put money on it that the science horde will develop collective amnesia (remember th ecoming ice age?) - maybe they could study that? Only if grants are available, I bet |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-07-15 22:06 |
| #11 The irony here is France gets 90% of its electricity from non-CO2 emitting sources, mostly nuclear. Hence its ability to substitute is limited. Britain has been substituting gas for coal. Most of the EU 'savings result from shutting down smokestack industries particularly in the ex-communist countries. That process appears to be running out of stuff to shutdown and the UK has run out of coal to substitute. Hence EU emissions will rise from here on. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-07-15 20:01 |
| #10 "BUT the EU shouls meet its overall target." And I will be driving an electric car that goes 1,000 miles before needing to recharge by next Christmas. There are only a couple of EU countries that have come close to reducing their emissions and Britain is one. France was falling behind most everyone else in the EU. |
| Posted by: Stephen 2005-07-15 19:49 |
| #9 Thank you, rjschwarz. So true, too. ;-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-07-15 17:52 |
| #8 Clearcut the old growth forests because new trees suck up more CO2. Clearcut for the planet! |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2005-07-15 15:42 |
| #7 Aside to AzCar, last PM page 4 comment was not aimed at you or that thread..... Reads extremely strange now. :) |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-07-15 13:55 |
| #6 China is accepting the reality that developing nations must be part of the solution Much as I appreciate an article that pronounces Kyoto dead, this screed is so idiotic on so many levels. 1. China cares about China and only China. 2. The climate has always been changing and always will be changing. 3. Where is the praise for the good ol' US of A, which had the vision to see that Kyoto was a non-starter from the get-go? Bueller? Bueller? 4. Since when is the US located in the Asia/Pacific region? 5. Still the slavish insistence that greenhouse emissions cause supposed global warming. Ugh. |
| Posted by: Dreadnought 2005-07-15 10:15 |
| #5 Even if there is a warming trend, man made or natural, none of these scientists or environmental dudes have ever explained why they believe it to be a catastrophy. The rise in temperature could just as well increase rainfall and lengthen the growing season. CO2 is plant food. The resulting increase in food production could help millions. |
| Posted by: BrerRabbit 2005-07-15 06:11 |
| #4 This is a good site for global warming info, in particular this article albeit a bit dated is an exceptional introduction. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2005-07-15 05:47 |
| #3 I do think human CO2 emissions are (tending to) warming the climate, although I am deeply sceptical that this effect is detectable above the 'noise' in the system (i.e. no one knows if measured climate changes result from CO2 emissions or other causes). The issues with Kyoto are; the 'results' of global warming are mostly alarmist claptrap, the mechanism proposed - reducing CO2 emissions - was clearly unworkable (without massive numbers of nuclear power stations) to anyone with an ounce of brainpower, and were climate warming ever to become a real problem, its clear we can cool the climate on far shorter timescales than CO2 warms it. We don't know the future climate changes, Kyoto has no chance of making any difference (and is enormously expensive) and there are much better solutions should we ever have a real problem. Another UN save the world scheme bites the dust. Shame it took us so long to get there. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-07-15 05:05 |
| #2 Well I know one the "models" that these global warming frauds must not know, the models are bogus. Computers can do (1)calculations like solve for X and (2)store and retrive data, that is all they can do. They can pilot a aircraft accurately using 1 and 2, they can even run my engine in my car. All that is based on factual and completely understood mathmatical processes, "Modeling climate" asks the computer to make asumptions. Computers can't make asumptions very well. I would not trust them with my life if they were doing so. I certainly will not trust them to tell me about the climate in the future or even past, using totally incomplete data sets and flawed, incomplete mathmatical processes. Every "scientist" that peddles "global warming" is on the make for grant money and jobs, period, full stop. It's crap science by crappy scientists. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet 0’ Doom 2005-07-15 04:20 |
| #1 "a recognition that climate change is real and serious" -Story Author "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." ... [More wishy-washy handwringing blah, blah, blah.] -Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell Frankly, there is doubt, you twit. Once the Kool Aid is swallowed and once your job is dependent upon maintaining the fiction, nothing will disuade these bumpkins from muttering the mantras. I'm seriously disappointed with the majority of scientists who do NOT buy into this hyperventilating hogwash for not continuing to denounce it. They did a few times early on, but have sat on their collective hands for the last couple of years - prolly trying to get in on the grant money. Gutless turds. That it's dying is good. That it's happening solely because of the suicidal economics [and US resistance] is unsatisfactory. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-07-15 04:09 |