WriterDom
Good to the last drop
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2000
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Let's clear the air over Kyoto - it's simply daft economics and dubious science
PHILIP STOTT
When Europe was told in March that President Bush had “no interest” in implementing the Kyoto protocol, it went hysterical. It was worse than his predecessor not having had sex with “that woman”. “The Toxic Texan” had blasphemed against good liberal taste and was instantly transmogrified into what one German newspaper has called the “Climate Killer”.
This week European ecochondria returned to Bonn, where 180 countries are meeting, yet again, for 11 days to try to find a diplomatic solution to the impasse. Europe remains theologically committed to the protocol, an extension of the Rio convention, which gave all developed countries legally-binding targets for cuts in their emissions of so-called greenhouse gases from 1990 levels — the EU 8 per cent and the US 7 per cent — to be achieved by 2008-12.
Unfortunately, the economists who made these calculations failed to take into account economic growth, especially in the IT sector, which now means that, for the United States to meet the target, it would need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40 per cent, a political and economic impossibility. We would do well to recall that even under the seemingly environmentally friendly Clinton-Gore Administration the Senate rejected Kyoto by 95 to 0.
Europe, however, continues to argue that Kyoto is the only way forward. But is it? Standing back from the hype, it becomes obvious that its command-and-control approach to climate change will not work, politically, economically, or scientifically.
Economic models suggest that if Kyoto goes ahead, somewhere between $20 and $170 billion will flow into the great black hole that is Russia and the Ukraine. Both countries have struggling economies currently producing barely half of their 1990 emission levels. So they were all too ready to agree to freeze their emissions to 1990 levels, well knowing that this would give them massive carbon credits to trade and sell. And Russia is now back in Bonn, seeking even more credits.
Just think what could be done with such funds. David G. Victor, of the Council for Foreign Relations, an American think-tank, has argued that $20 billion dollars would be sufficient to wipe out the public debt of 22 countries. And Jeffrey Sachs, of Harvard University, has shown that a mere $5 billion of external aid could begin to manage the Aids epidemic which is sweeping Africa. Genuine “green” alternatives are endless.
Yet Kyoto will cost billions of dollars to implement — according to one estimate $350 billion — money which could be spent on clean water for the world or clearing the public debt of all 41 of the world’s poorest countries.
We have, therefore, to be very sure that Kyoto will work scientifically. And here is the rub. It won’t. Even if all 180 countries were to sign up and meet their targets — a most unlikely scenario — the inherent complexity of climate means that there is no more than a possibility that temperature would be reduced by between 0.07 and 0.2 Celsius by 2100.
Moreover, climate remains way beyond the grasp of our computer models, so that the millions of factors controlling climate change will probably confound us all by doing something totally unpredictable. And we will have squandered the money we need to continue to grow, to adapt and to develop.
Sadly, for Europe, Kyoto has become gesture politics; for many greens it is simply another chance to shame the evil American Empire. In reality, Kyoto is a self-indulgent, dangerously expensive exercise that will do nothing to help the poor or to control climate, a force over which we have no more control than did King Canute over the waves and the tides.
And how moral is this strident European position? It is worth noting that the countries of the EU produce nearly double the carbon dioxide emissions of the United States per unit area, a fact rarely mentioned. Secondly, few countries in Europe are anywhere near meeting their own Kyoto targets. Thirdly, at the November 2000 negotiations in The Hague it was the fundamentalist “green” countries of Europe, such as France and Sweden, which undermined John Prescott’s attempts to make a pragmatic deal with the American negotiators. No wonder Mr Prescott became punchdrunk and lost his temper with the French environment Minister, Dominique Voynet.
Kyoto will not work, and the sooner Europe recognises this the better. The way forward must be through incentives for energy diversification, the normal economic process of decarbonisation and adaptation to climate change, whatever its direction. We in Europe should stop throwing petulant stones in the greenhouse.
Philip Stott is Professor of Biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in the University of London.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,248-2001243833,00.html
PHILIP STOTT
When Europe was told in March that President Bush had “no interest” in implementing the Kyoto protocol, it went hysterical. It was worse than his predecessor not having had sex with “that woman”. “The Toxic Texan” had blasphemed against good liberal taste and was instantly transmogrified into what one German newspaper has called the “Climate Killer”.
This week European ecochondria returned to Bonn, where 180 countries are meeting, yet again, for 11 days to try to find a diplomatic solution to the impasse. Europe remains theologically committed to the protocol, an extension of the Rio convention, which gave all developed countries legally-binding targets for cuts in their emissions of so-called greenhouse gases from 1990 levels — the EU 8 per cent and the US 7 per cent — to be achieved by 2008-12.
Unfortunately, the economists who made these calculations failed to take into account economic growth, especially in the IT sector, which now means that, for the United States to meet the target, it would need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40 per cent, a political and economic impossibility. We would do well to recall that even under the seemingly environmentally friendly Clinton-Gore Administration the Senate rejected Kyoto by 95 to 0.
Europe, however, continues to argue that Kyoto is the only way forward. But is it? Standing back from the hype, it becomes obvious that its command-and-control approach to climate change will not work, politically, economically, or scientifically.
Economic models suggest that if Kyoto goes ahead, somewhere between $20 and $170 billion will flow into the great black hole that is Russia and the Ukraine. Both countries have struggling economies currently producing barely half of their 1990 emission levels. So they were all too ready to agree to freeze their emissions to 1990 levels, well knowing that this would give them massive carbon credits to trade and sell. And Russia is now back in Bonn, seeking even more credits.
Just think what could be done with such funds. David G. Victor, of the Council for Foreign Relations, an American think-tank, has argued that $20 billion dollars would be sufficient to wipe out the public debt of 22 countries. And Jeffrey Sachs, of Harvard University, has shown that a mere $5 billion of external aid could begin to manage the Aids epidemic which is sweeping Africa. Genuine “green” alternatives are endless.
Yet Kyoto will cost billions of dollars to implement — according to one estimate $350 billion — money which could be spent on clean water for the world or clearing the public debt of all 41 of the world’s poorest countries.
We have, therefore, to be very sure that Kyoto will work scientifically. And here is the rub. It won’t. Even if all 180 countries were to sign up and meet their targets — a most unlikely scenario — the inherent complexity of climate means that there is no more than a possibility that temperature would be reduced by between 0.07 and 0.2 Celsius by 2100.
Moreover, climate remains way beyond the grasp of our computer models, so that the millions of factors controlling climate change will probably confound us all by doing something totally unpredictable. And we will have squandered the money we need to continue to grow, to adapt and to develop.
Sadly, for Europe, Kyoto has become gesture politics; for many greens it is simply another chance to shame the evil American Empire. In reality, Kyoto is a self-indulgent, dangerously expensive exercise that will do nothing to help the poor or to control climate, a force over which we have no more control than did King Canute over the waves and the tides.
And how moral is this strident European position? It is worth noting that the countries of the EU produce nearly double the carbon dioxide emissions of the United States per unit area, a fact rarely mentioned. Secondly, few countries in Europe are anywhere near meeting their own Kyoto targets. Thirdly, at the November 2000 negotiations in The Hague it was the fundamentalist “green” countries of Europe, such as France and Sweden, which undermined John Prescott’s attempts to make a pragmatic deal with the American negotiators. No wonder Mr Prescott became punchdrunk and lost his temper with the French environment Minister, Dominique Voynet.
Kyoto will not work, and the sooner Europe recognises this the better. The way forward must be through incentives for energy diversification, the normal economic process of decarbonisation and adaptation to climate change, whatever its direction. We in Europe should stop throwing petulant stones in the greenhouse.
Philip Stott is Professor of Biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in the University of London.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,248-2001243833,00.html
