Leading article: A worthless gust of hot air
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
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Taking part in a traditional Japanese Tanabata festival in Hokkaido this week, George Bush tied a piece of parchment to a bamboo tree. On the parchment, the President of the United States outlined his dearest wishes for the future of the planet. And there is evidence of yet more wishful thinking in the G8's communiqué on climate change from Hokkaido.
The leaders of the world's eight largest economies committed themselves to "avoiding the most serious consequences of climate change". They also set themselves a goal of halving global emissions by the middle of the century. It is hard to fault the target. But how is it going to be achieved?
There is no detail in the communiqué; no medium-term targets; no commitment to agreeing a legally binding successor to the Kyoto protocol at Copenhagen next year. There is not even agreement on the date from which CO2 cuts will be measured. The European Union is measuring its own targets from 1990 levels, but the Japanese Prime Minister spoke this week about using the considerably higher 2000 level as a benchmark. By far the biggest problem, though, is the lack of detail on the method. These leaders can set all the long-term goals they like, but without realistic means of achieving them, any document they produce will simply be a gust of hot air.
We know the roadblock to a serious deal on tackling climate change well enough. The Bush administration refuses to sign up to any successor to Kyoto without a requirement on China and India to begin cutting their emissions too. China and India, with justification, argue that since most of the greenhouse emissions in the atmosphere were put there by G8 nations, it is up to us to take a lead.
The latter is the only practical and moral way forward. Through a mixture of national taxation and international carbon trading, governments in the developed world must begin to reduce emissions steadily. The carbon-capturing and renewable energy technologies that will be developed as our economies decarbonise can then be transferred to the likes of China and India. The world will then have a possibility of achieving "green growth".
It is true that all nations must be included in a new global emission-cutting agreement. And all must accept their responsibilities. After all, the dire consequences of climate change will be felt universally. But unless those nations that are best placed to begin the difficult work of reducing emissions accept the role of leadership, catastrophic climate change is inevitable. Despite all the spin from Hokkaido, what we have had from the G8 is another staggering abdication of leadership.
President Bush has a real dilemma. The the leaders of the USA are understandably unwilling to present the Indians and Chinese with an economic open goal. The problem they face is that the USA doesn't want to commit to costly CO2 reductions unilaterally only to find out in 2020 that the "consensus" then is that today's fears of the effects of catastrophic climate change were unfounded. As it stands, if the claims of the Climate change alarmists prove to be as exaggerated as most of the British Public in a recent IPSImori poll thought they were; President Bush's long term legacy will be as the man who stood firm when all around lost their heads. If at this late hour he commits the USA to unnecessary economic suicide, he will seal his fate as the worst President of all time.
Posted by Britononthemitten | 12.07.08, 05:19 GMT
The European Union is on record as wanting an agreement to require developed countries to cut their emissions by 25 to 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2020. The United States, Japan and Canada oppose those targets, so they are hardly gong to set mid-term goals as they believe the target can only be met if the major developing countries who are not part of this agreement play ball - they won't - and that the 50% figure concerns global emissions, not necessarily their own. It's like an out clause. Last year George Bush agreed to seriously consider at least 50 percent cuts in emissions by 2050. But the US policy is still a halt to the growth of greenhouse gases by 2020 and a halt to growth is not a cut.
Posted by dave | 09.07.08, 21:52 GMT
OK, let me put it this way.
You're a worker for a business that's in trouble. You're expecting a rise, but the boss tells you that in order to keep the firm going everyone must take a 20% pay cut.
Do you just say "OK, I can see we've all got to pull together"? Or does it occur to you that in the first place, the boss earns so enormously much more than you that he could afford to take a far bigger cut, and in the second place, it was his overspending on his fleet of limos, executive jet and so on, which he doesn't intend to give up, which got the firm into this mess?
Of course, if you raise these points, the boss will tell you you're being obstructive and it will be your fault if the firm goes down.
Posted by Runesmith | 09.07.08, 13:22 GMT
Staggering _and_ hypocritical. I love the idea of a G8 summit with a working dinner of egg and cress sandwiches, to demonstrate the need for restraint. Wait for it....
Meanwhile, the issue of developing world carbon emissions could be sorted by extending current green manufacturing requirements to support excise on imports based on carbon cost.
Posted by richard | 09.07.08, 07:10 GMT
that developing countries get a free ride on technology developed by the old world is ludicrous. industrialisation comes with a carbon tag. if you use the internal combustion engine as part of your economic development you have to accept responsibility for the tons of co2 spent to develop it.
also countries like china india and indonesia have truly huge populations, many times the size of western europe. why is this never mentioned when environmental issues are discussed? i am hardly a george bush fan but he is right about this- there can be no answer to the problem without the developing world joining up.
Posted by john winter | 09.07.08, 00:58 GMT