There's something odd about holding a conference in Montreal in December. But that's where the Global Warming crowd is gathering. Stand by for a flurry of acronyms:
The conference is an historic event. Not only are the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting for the 11th time, but 2005 also marks the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. At Montreal, the first ever meeting of the Parties to the Protocol (MOP) is running parallel to the Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP). The United Nations Climate Change Conference is set to be the largest intergovernmental climate conference since the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997. Some 10,000 participants are expected.
I suggest that we pronounced UNFCCC as "Unfunk." The purpose of the three simultaneous conventions (you need three so you can pay the way for more delegates to attend) is to review the progress made under the Kyoto treaty, which has recently come into effect. Unfortunately no progress has been made, resulting in an atmosphere of gloom settling in over the Palais des Congrès de Montréal. The National Journal explains the situation bluntly:
Most of the governments taking part had been advocates of the Kyoto approach. Many are now being forced to admit that the policy is failing -- so embarrassingly that nothing similar is likely to take its place. As usual on such occasions, some face-saving scapegoating formula (you can guess which country is going be blamed) may emerge before the meeting wraps up. But the truth is that unless a new scheme is designed, there simply won't be an ongoing, effective, internationally coordinated effort to curb emissions of carbon to replace the failed Kyoto plan.
A friend of mine, Ronald Bailey, is reporting on the convention for Reason Magazine and Tech Central Station. Ron describes the Kyoto Protocol as follows:
The Kyoto Protocol attempts to lower the temperature by setting limits on the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) for 37 signatory countries, known as Annex 1 countries. The goal is to reduce emissions by 5.2 percent below the levels emitted in 1990. Annex 1 countries include most developed countries and many former Soviet states. The main exceptions are Australia and the United States, which have refused to ratify the treaty. Significantly, developing countries like China, India, Brazil and Indonesia do not have to make any reductions in their emissions of greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol.
So what is the problem?
Many Kyoto signatories are emitting much more than they did in 1990. For example, Canada is putting out 24.2 percent more GHG [green house gas emissions]; Japan 12.8 percent; and Spain 41.7 percent. For the most part the countries that are emitting substantially less than they did in 1990 are those that emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union. For example, Russia is emitting 38.5 percent less; Lithuania 66.2 percent less; and the Czech Republic 24.2 percent less. Germany is emitting 18.2 percent less largely because of it closed down so many inefficient East German facilities after unification. The United Kingdom achieved its 13.0 percent reduction by switching from coal to North Sea natural gas to produce electricity. As Richard Kinley, the acting head of the UNFCCC secretariat, warned, "These data confirm that, after some emission decrease in the 1990s, emissions are increasing again in many Annex 1 countries."
In short, nations which tore down large parts of their economies (for the very good reason that communist policies had rendered those parts untenable) were able to meet their targets. Its easy to reduce green house gas emissions if your economies are shrinking. Nations with more rational (= capitalist) economies have experienced growth, and growth has led to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The special case was Britain, which was able to switch from coal to natural gas.
Given that most nations do not have large untapped reserves of natural gas, is there any hope of reducing GHG without crippling the world economy? In the short run, no. As Ronald Bailey shows, at Tech Central Station, even the most outlandish scenarios aim only at the stabilization of green house emissions at much higher levels than at present, and that after 30 years or more. And such scenarios rely on very implausible proposals. For example, are we really going to devote one sixth of the world's cropland to the production of bio-fuels?
If its true that human activities are accelerating global warming, and it almost certainly is, the only realistic response is to prepare to deal with the effects of that warming while encouraging technologies that will eventually bring green house emissions under control. But that means unleashing the free market to develop such technologies, as well as investing in proved but unpopular things like nuclear power. And the environmentalists hate markets and reactors even more than they hate global warming.
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