Climate policy after 2012, when the Kyoto treaty expires, needs a radical rethink. More of the same won’t do, argue Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner.
The Kyoto Protocol is a symbolically important expression of governments’ concern about climate change. But as an instrument for achieving emissions reductions, it has failed. It has produced no demonstrable reductions in emissions or even in anticipated emissions growth. And it pays no more than token attention to the needs of societies to adapt to existing climate change. The impending United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Bali in December — to decide international policy after 2012 — needs to radically rethink climate policy.
Read Time to ditch Kyoto in this week’s Nature News (no subscription required).
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Thanks for posting this Paul. And it is making the radio news here in Australia.
I have repeatedly said that AGW is a technological issue requiring technological solutions … and so the commentary in Nature says:
“So investment in energy R&D should be placed on a wartime footing. This is a cause that embraces the political spectrum, including Kyoto supporters. In 1992 former US Vice-President Al Gore called for a ‘strategic environment initiative’ as part of his vision for a ‘global Marshall Plan’. The conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC also supports primary research on sustainable new energy technologies. In 2006, Lord Rees, the president of Britain’s Royal Society suggested that major public investment in R&D should be kick-started by a global investment in energy technologies research on the scale of the Manhattan Project.”
why isn’t everyone rubbishing Al Gore for calling for big investment back in 1992? wouldn’t that have been premature and a massive waste of $? I mean, warming stopped in 98 right? problem solved
I’ve been thinking about this a bit of late.
And I’m sticking with Kyoto, not simply because it is symbolic, but because it represents a meaningful stepping stone on the way to forging international cooperation on the issue. (or it did, but i guess the horse as bolted by now).
I don’t think climate change is so much a moral issue or a technological issue.
Calling it a moral issue isn’t useful because morality is more of an individual thing, and dealing with climate change is a global thing – i find the “think global act local” approach to climate change pretty limited in what it can achieve =alone=.
It isn’t a technological issue, because we have the technology already to mitigate CO2 emissions, but we are not implementing this technology quickly enough.
AGW is a political issue. By far, the most challenging, difficult and painstaking aspect of dealing with AGW is building agreement and consensus about what is happening, what we should do, and who should do it.
This is worth repeating: the primary challenge is one of diplomacy and politics, not technology, and not morality. We know the problem, we know the solutions, now how to we =implement= them?
Everyone bangs on about nuclear power, or clean coal, or being moral and doing your bit or wind power or whatever. But the possibility of a solution ultimately lives or dies on how agreements are struck.
Kyoto was (was!) an important milestone in building global agreement.
In refusing to ratify this Protocol that both AUS and USA had ample opportunity to participate in forming, Aus and USA have gotten in the way of the main challenge for AGW – getting that global agreement. In Australia’s case this is acutely absurd and poor leadership/politics, since we are going to meet out target anyway. Paul Kelly in the Oz today reiterates this point, even if he doesn’t like Kyoto.
Its now 2007, and we are back where we were in 1997 – all countries agree we need to act, but we don’t have a global agreement on how to proceed, developing countries won’t agree to binding targets while countries like AUS and USA won’t, and vice versa.
Australia needs to invest in some mature, forward-thinking diplomacy, and improve its political approach to AGW. We are accountable for the last 10 years of inaction, due to our recalcitrance it helping to build an agreement and then thwarting it. It is completely untrue that we resisted signing up for economic reasons, since we will meet out target anyway. We resisted signing up because of JWH’s ideology, which got in the way of sensible and mature international diplomacy.
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As someone who has worked in govt, i think the quote Jennifer posted is monumentally hopeless. Free-marketeers often seem to have no problem with big government, so long as it only involves govt giving out huge sums of money to them.
I think investing in huge amounts of R&D for technological improvement to try and come up with a new solution on AGW is a complete waste of money. We’ve seen wave after wave of research funding make little difference in Australia, compared to market structures like MRET or the NSW emissions trading scheme which have been better for both industry development and emissions reductions.
It would be far more efficient, and lead to far better outcomes if we just fully accept the challenge and what we need to do, set and mandate targets, and let the market sort it out on its own.
“So investment in energy R&D should be placed on a wartime footing.”
Does that mean nuclear power denialists should be shot?
If it was only about the science Jen then think of all the fun we’d be denied here!
Far too intelligent for this blog Steve – wasted talent.
Good points Steve.
I always had two major problems with Kyoto;
1. It didn’t address the issue of developing nation emissions (it was Euro/Anglo centric ) which no doubt made it all the more appealing to the usual suspects
2. Australia ( or any nation ) shouldn’t sign up to a treaty which is proclaimed as a “first step ” without knowing or even having some idea of what the second is. It’s simply not responsible to do so.
Still , I’d be more than happy for us to be part of a truly international effort to reduce CO2 emissions across the board but I think technology development then transfer is the way to go.
Imagine if the politics and irrationality was put aside and we utilised nuclear , clean coal , geothermic , solar etc to replace 50% of CO2 emitting power stations by 2060 globally?
But no doubt we’ll muddle along with name calling and self righteousness and propoganda like AIT instead for some time to come.
Steve’s probably a bit like you then Luke. Forever casting pearls before swine. Never mind, your true genius will be recognised after you’re dead, I’m sure.
Steve managed to slip in an anti-Howard dig without missing stride, as well as blaming Australia for the last ten years of global warming. That’s real talent!
Hi Jim,
Developing countries are part of the kyoto negotiation process, signed up and ratified. Its just that everyone agreed (at least at first) thet they shouldn’t have binding targets, since their per capita emissions and per capita energy use were so low, and development was a more pressing goal for them.
What chance do you think there is to get developing countries involved now, after Australia and USA have resisted binding targets all this time? Little chance I would say.
———-
PaulW, i didn’t “slip in” an anti-JWH dig. I made a pretty clear case that it was poor international diplomacy (of the Aus govt, led by JWH) to not ratify kyoto. I suggested that this was because of JWH’s ideology. The only other explanations are either that he was incompetent, or that he was not really leading and someone else was responsible.
I don’t mean to have a surreptitious dig and JWH. I mean to openly and unequivocally criticise his policy on AGW diplomacy over the last 10 years. And it is his policy – his office has been heavily involved in the AGW debate.
Nor did i blame Australia on last 10 years of global warming. I did say Australia was accountable for last 10 years of inaction, and thought i explained why.
So in contrast to your peanut-gallery esque quip, I didn’t slip anything in.
Paul – I thought my post was clear ; Kyoto didn’t address the issue of developing nation emissions. I do understand they were still signatories.
And as to the prospect of getting eveyone or everyone that matters on board in the future , who knows?
But I’m certain that the old Spike Solution will serve us well – first let’s implement those strategies which have the greatest impact for the least cost.
That means proven or near fully developed technology which is affordable and effective hence my support for nuclear , clean coal and geo thermal in the short term.
We still have a way to go with solar efficiency and energy storage so traditional renewables won’t do much in the short term.
Jim,
Clean coal is neither proven, near fully developed nor affordable at the moment. Surely you know this?
Geothermal is proven and affordable in specific locations overseas (like NZ), but not in Australia at the moment unfortunately, bluster of hot dry rocks proponents aside (they are yet to have a working example).
Nuclear is proven and near fully developed overseas, but is about double the cost of Australian coal power, would take over a decade to implement here, and would generate a NIMBY reaction that would make the reaction to wind farms look like a picnic. Its a 15 years time solution, not a here and now solution.
The most affordable, proven and developed approaches (to reduce emissions from power generation) for Australia =at present= are:
– a switch to gas-fired generation
– wind power
– energy efficiency
– some forms of bio energy and waste to energy
– hydro power
– solar hot water
Then the three mid term options are
– high temperature large scale solar thermal
– nuclear
– clean coal
– more advanced energy efficiency
Long term:
– photovoltaic (though probably only ever small scale on rooftops, never huge power stations)
– nuclear fusion
I’m sorry Steve, Luke says I’m not intelligent enough to understand what you were saying. Let me try again.
If JWH wasn’t (ideologically opposed to saving the planet/up GWB’s butt/incompetent) then China would (sign Kyoto/not have increased CO2 emissions anywhere near what they have/stop building power stations/relinquish their goal of doubling incomes) and AGW would be – what exactly? Nearer to having a global in-principal agreement that something should be done about it? Defeated? Under total UN control?
Kyoto did address developing nations – everyone agreed that they shouldn’t have binding targets. They weren’t somehow forgotten, they were considered and a decision was made on what to do with them.
It was negotiated.
But only Aus and USA failed to actually ratify what had been agreed.
I think it is obvious why developing nations weren’t given binding targets in this first aggrement don’t you?
The situation was described nicely in a West Wing episode: “I think what’s lunacy is a nation of SUVs telling a nation of bicycles that they have to change the way they live before we’ll agree to do something about greenhouse emissions.”
Great stuff Steve!
JIM, Jim, jim: “proven or near fully developed technology which is affordable and effective hence my support for nuclear, clean coal and geo thermal” ???
none above are proven, clean or affordable up front away from their sources the same way solar, wind etc are
Short term we need reduced demand across the board. My PC should save paper and transport and so on.
And only one hundred and eight percent too.
If Howard, & Bush have held this Kyoto rubbish in check for 10 years, then thank g@d for them.
This stupidity is the worst type of bull to have come out of the UN, & boy, thats saying something.
I don’t think the enormous gap in knowledge between what is happening and what people think is happening has ever been so clearly exposed than in this thread.
All we need is Schiller, Louis and Motty to get on to ice the cake.
Steve, rest assured, PW is definitely not intelligent enough to understand what you are saying. Warming stopped in 98, didn’t it PW?
My understanding is that clean coal is 5 to 10 years away – that’s close enough for me.
Geothermal is apparently closer – though I agree that some nations such as NZ are more advanced than ourselves.
Wind isn’t anywhere near there yet – when you consider the necessity for back-up power stations when the wind isn’t blowing.
Gavin – nuclear isn’t a proven and effective source of electricity generation ??
Sure about that?
Solar is more reliable and affordable than nuclear?
How do we store the energy at night?
And geothermal isn’t clean?
Why not?
And according to the majority expert scientific opinion ( you know the authority you blokes are always so quick to site when it suits?) nuclear IS affordable if a price on emissions is introduced for existing generation technology.
Steve, correct me if I am wrong, but your argument is;
-Developing countries were never part of emission reduction anyway (up to now). I wholeheartedly agree with this BTW. So emissions wouldn’t have changed anyway, except for all those countries that didn’t meet their targets. No wait, they were the ones that ratified, weren’t they?
-Australia not ratifying Kyoto means we are at least partly to blame for something (since we meet our targets anyway, I’m not sure what we are to blame for).
-because Australia and the US won’t ratify, why should China agree to emission targets in the future? I guess they just don’t care about saving the planet/they’re incompetent/up GWB’s butt.
PS Sorry for the peanut throwing. I blame Luke, if he hadn’t set such a bad example, I would have done the right thing too!
PPS Yes, it is obvious why developing countries weren’t given targets. It’s because the atmosphere doesn’t react to “developing country emissions” the same way it does to “evil non-ratifying developed country emissions”. Or else no one really believes that CO2 is important, and it’s just a political exercise to bash the US.
PPPS I’m not Paul Biggs, in case you are suffering from “all denialists look the same” syndrome. Just thought I’d mention it.
Hi Anthony, of course warming only stopped in 1998 if you go by the temperature record. The models tell a different story.
This Nature News article is the best I’ve read on this subject.
Unilateral CO2 reductions in CO2 emissions don’t achieve a reduction in global CO2 emissions.
Kyoto has been used as an excuse to raise taxes that simply put money into government coffers, and as a vehicle for the usual suspects to attack capitalism.
Democratic government has to have policies that people will vote for.
The only approach that the world can unite behind – a massive effort and investment in new technology, developing viable rather than intermittent energy sources, and adaptation to inevitable climate change.
Futile gestures such as Queensland’s ‘turn up yor fridge 1C’ are disengenuous and ignore the atmospheric residence time of CO2.
BTW I worked on natural gas conversions at home and in major industry through the 60’s. Why have we waited for China to get right into our manufacturing and engineering before ramping up its exploration and development?
CIG built the first LNG mass storage alongside Bass Strait way back in the 70’s. Thirty years later coal still dominates these discussions and I wonder why anybody expects that to change.
After much experience with instalations for gas and petro chemical processes I reckon I can say geosequestration of CO2 from coal is all but a pipe dream here.
Half the problem today is finding more than a handful of people to build any plant. Practical engineers, boilermakers, riggers, plant technicians, specialists of any kind including experienced concrete users are so scarce you can bet on long project delays.
I hear about light weight materials (pipeline) experts moving through Asia from China and know we have lost the plot completely. Finding tutors for practical schools in defense projects will take a while too.
Jim, price of baseload during ’07 drought was over $75MWh. That makes wind viable.
Solar storage? look up solar thermal. the CRC for coal in sustainable development reckon solar thermal will be cost competitive baseload with coal by 2015. Makes clean coal kind of irrelevant.
Energy efficiency can deliver a huge amount of abatament profitably. No point building nuke plants when your electric heater is pumping heat up the chimney.
Here’s a thought, suppose there was no Kyoto and we waited for a universally accepted global agreement to reduce emissions. When exactly would that happen?
Biggsy, aren’t we heading for solar cooling? nothing to worry about geezer
Some energy – CO2 stats need updating
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/727C6AF30EAA428DCA2572360006A829?opendocument
Solar cooling means we may need even more energy, which makes the need for VIABLE new energy sources even greater!
Anthony – wind farms still require back-up generators for still conditions and at the moment they’d be coal fired.
Isn’t the point to phase these out?
Solar and wind will become viable when we get to even 50% efficiency for solar panels and we can cheaply and cleanly store large amounts of power – solar thermal still needs the sun to shine.
Yes – all in favour of energy efficiency but it’s still rats and mice ; the big reductions which are in reach will come from cleaner electricity generation.
And a “universally accepted global agreement ” – a laudable goal – will only happen when we can convince people/governments that reductions that really matter can be achieved without a huge economic cost.
“1. It didn’t address the issue of developing nation emissions (it was Euro/Anglo centric ) which no doubt made it all the more appealing to the usual suspects”
It did, it intended that the more wealthy, technologically advanced nations would develop the means for cutting CO2 emissions, which the poorer nations would then be able to implement cheaply when the next round of negotiations began. Given that many of the poorer nations don’t emit anything like the per capita CO2, that also means they are not especially relevant. India and China would be able to pick up the ball and run with it by then.
Steve blames Howard’s ‘ideology’ for the government’s refusal to sign Kyoto, but doesn’t identify what that ‘ideology’ may be.
I suggest Howard’s ‘ideology’ is utilitarianism. He is not interested in meaningless symbols and unenforceable treaties – and the Kyoto treaty is/was unenforceable.
When dealing with Kyoto, Howard had one interest in mind, only one responsibility and that was the welfare of the Australian population.
PaulW, I can see that you think it is somehow innappropriate that developing countries don’t have targets.
In hindsight, they should have been given targets, to highlight that nobody should avoid taking responsibility and kill off the excuse offered by Aus and USA that developing countries should be involved.
But their targets would have been lenient, like Australia’s. It was agreed that AUS could go to 108% of 1990 levels. Maybe China’s target should have been 140%, and India’s 140% – effectively no target, but a target anyway to keep everyone happy.
Steve – Kyoto is dead. Join the wake and then move on to a practical policy that has a chance of success.
The ideology that Howard clings to is that you dont run with the mob. Whilst Kyoto was aspirational, unachievable (unless you are broke) the key element is that at some point your surrender your sovereignty to a ‘group.’ That might be OK for the UN and the EU but other countries value their independence.
Jim – “Anthony – wind farms still require back-up generators for still conditions and at the moment they’d be coal fired.”
Haven’t we disposed of this chestnut enough times already. The LAST thing that you would want working with wind is baseload coal.
“Solar and wind will become viable when we get to even 50% efficiency for solar panels and we can cheaply and cleanly store large amounts of power – solar thermal still needs the sun to shine.”
Why????? Solar thermal has the best prospects for storage as we can very efficiently store the heat for used when the sun does not shine. Also when the sun is not shining demand is typically 40% of peak demand so we do not need all to have storage.
Sodium sulphur batteries are already being used to smooth the grid.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/environment/2007-07-04-sodium-battery_N.htm
Vanadium flow batteries will no be far behind.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1913571
Steve, given that I stated “Developing countries were never part of emission reduction anyway (up to now). I wholeheartedly agree with this BTW.”, I’m a little nonplussed that you have written “PaulW, I can see that you think it is somehow innappropriate that developing countries don’t have targets.”
As you are so much more intelligent than me, perhaps you could enlighten me, as I’m not sure what I think now.
Or you could carry on with the usual alarmist tradition of ignoring what anyone actually says, and keep on knocking over those straw men.
If you choose to actually respond to what I said, perhaps you could expand on the Chinese position. As you said before, they probably won’t reduce their emissions because Aus and the US didn’t ratify Kyoto. Does that mean they don’t care about their children’s future, or do you think they cannot make up their own minds, and will only respond to what we do?
de Gaulle also had that ideology (dont run with the mob), successful in his time
As a principle I would never run with the mob, I believe that individuals are more important than mobs. By definition mob rule must exclude the rights of the individual.
Most people would agree, its just that when it comes to putting your hand in your pocket they would prefer it to be free.
When it comes to rights its me first, when it comes to paying the bill its somebody else’s turn to pick up the tab.
The whole Kyoto thing is a mirage, how it got to be so important is a function of modern politics.
Of course the chinese are pro Kyoto, they are exempt!
“Anthony – wind farms still require back-up generators for still conditions and at the moment they’d be coal fired.”
wrong
“Solar and wind will become viable when we get to even 50% efficiency for solar panels and we can cheaply and cleanly store large amounts of power – solar thermal still needs the sun to shine.”
wrong
“Yes – all in favour of energy efficiency but it’s still rats and mice ; the big reductions which are in reach will come from cleaner electricity generation”
wrong
“And a “universally accepted global agreement ” – a laudable goal – will only happen when we can convince people/governments that reductions that really matter can be achieved without a huge economic cost.”
ummm, if you didn’t bang on about nukes and clean coal it wouldn’t be so expensive! The clever countries are making viable industries out of this and Australia is dragging the chain. Reflects our Kyoto position really.
Anthony,
Two un-substantiated wrongs – the point is that if you think we are wrong, then describe a better solution, preferably in your own words, backed by relevant opinions in the scientific literature.
“Banging on” about anything doesn’t add a cent to the cost of coming up with a viable solution to low emission technology Anthony, though ruling out potential alternatives on the basis of ideology ( as opposed to science ) may well prove to be very costly.
If I’m wrong about the reductions in CO2 possible from energy efficieny as opposed to clean energy technology Anthony then put up the figures.
Jim – “Anthony – wind farms still require back-up generators for still conditions and at the moment they’d be coal fired.”
Haven’t we disposed of this chestnut enough times already. The LAST thing that you would want working with wind is baseload coal.
Agreed Ender – so how do we meet current baseload requirements?
“Solar and wind will become viable when we get to even 50% efficiency for solar panels and we can cheaply and cleanly store large amounts of power – solar thermal still needs the sun to shine.”
Why????? Solar thermal has the best prospects for storage as we can very efficiently store the heat for used when the sun does not shine. Also when the sun is not shining demand is typically 40% of peak demand so we do not need all to have storage.
So solar thermal works when the sun doesn’t shine for a couple of days???
Nothing I can find suggests a solution has been found.
Jim: Wind is a widely distributed source. Wind and hydro can be coupled. Gas is a better last resort than a coal fired thermal backup. Batteries have been big biz for ages in small appliances. Heat like power can be stored short term but none of these things count as demand grows.
I grew up watching folks light kero lamps and candles. Reading in bed after dark was dodgy enough to learn how to appreciate a single globe.
PaulW, ah, my mistake. sorry for misrepresenting you.
China’s emissions are about 4-5 tonnes per capita. Australia’s is about 25-30 tonnes per capita. I’m sure the Chinese are just as concerned about global warming as everyone else, but and dont think them holding back until the developed nations have made more of an effort implies that they are incompetent etc.
My argument for Australia to have ratified is, in summary:
1. International diplomacy is the most challenging and crucial part of effective action on AGW, not morality, nor technology.
2. Kyoto represented the world’s best effort to date at forging an international agreement.
3. Aus negotiated a sweet deal under kyoto.
4. Despite being part of the negotiations, Aus and USA didn’t ratify. This was a massive spanner in the works.
5. Non-ratification may have been excusable had there been a viable alternative. There was not, and still is not. AP6 is a laughing stock, which is why you hear little about it these days.
6. So we are back where we were in the mid 1990s. Still trying to build momentum for international agreement on how we go about things, not seriously up to the actual emission reductions part yet.
7. Had Aus/USA not thwarted kyoto, the world could have spent the last 10 years deciding the best ways to actually reduce emissions, and to involve developing nations. Instead, the world has been distracted for 10 years arguing over US and Australian involvement.
8. This is especially nutty for Australia, who will meet its target anyway. Ratification would have been rational and trivial* for Australia. The explanation I came up for our choice was that the decision not to ratify was ideological.
9. Massive funding for R&D is a less efficient way to get reductions than to build requirements for reductions into the market. But big resource companies are happy with R&D funding because it involves them getting paid, instead of their green competitors getting subsidised, or themselves getting fined.
* $34 billion in tax cuts could have bought 340million tonnes of greenhouse reductions, at the high price of $100/tonne. Australia’s total emissions are about 550 million tonnes.
All these issues are about centralising power, proxy wars..
” EU leaders have reached agreement on a new treaty that many Europeans hope will transform the 27 nation bloc into a superpower capable of counter balancing the United States in global affairs.
” The 250 plus page Reform Treaty, which EU leaders will formally sign in Lisbon on December 13, calls for a permanent EU president, a European foreign minister and a European Union diplomatic service. The agreement also calls for EU nations to surrender sovereignty in many areas to centralized decision-making; and it reduces national veto rights to allow more decisions to be made by majority voting instead of by unanimous consent.
The Reform Treaty, in its essence, is all about the centralization of political power by an unelected ruling clique in Brussels that wants to pursue its superpower ambitions free from the constraints of democracy. The new treaty is nearly identical to the proposed European Constitution that voters rejected in 2005.
But this time around, ordinary Europeans will not be invited to vote on the document.”
So you think Kyoto is essentially just a big scam latched onto by the EU to increase their power and run a proxy war with the US?
Nice conspiracy theory.
ITs good for people to be concerned and vigilant about what governments around the world are doing, and I can understand that the quotes you posted sound concerning.
But that doesn’t mean hamstringing effective action by governments on all challenging issues, or describing every issue as part of a narrative about power.
Please tell me that there is a better reason for scuttling international agreements to reduce emissions than an anti-EU and anti-UN ideology, driven by conspiracy mongers and paranoid pro-Americans* living in constant fear of competition from other nations.
How is emissions trading about centralising power? How would emissions trading with appropriately agreed targets help the EU over and above the US?
* I consider myself pro-American, just not paranoid, nor anti everyone else.
Louis, Jim, wind is not backed up by coal.
Solar or wind with storage is viable today, it just has a long payback. If the market allocated the cost of suply and distribution infrastructure appropriately, emissions etc. it would be even better.
Solar thermal can be backed up by a whole range of clean quick response generation types – biomass, biogas, gas, etc. No sun for two day? no worries.
Energy efficiency can typically reduce energy consumption upto and beyond 50%. Thats not small bickies.
hmmm ex-Business Council boss says we should have signed Kyoto – why is interesting
HELLO ! – was that the Business Council ?????
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22651439-662,00.html
Chaney reckons either side – Labor or Libs will do a good job on climate though – how’s that? In other words we’re not in bad shape politically whatever happens.
Anyway we could have signed up for THE 108% THAT WE NEGOTIATED (along with the special tricky land clearing “Australia clause”) and we could have made it without much sweat and been seen to be better global citizens and have more clout at the next meeting.
However British experts say we were right not to sign. But what would Pommies know eh?
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/25/2069716.htm?section=justin
And we’re about to try to negotiate a new deal anyway?
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/25/asia/AS-GEN-Indonesia-Climate-Change.php
Steve, thanks for your reply. You stated your thinking clearly (not that I agree with most of it, of course).
Let’s accept for the sake of argument that;
1)CO2 emissions will cause catastrophic warming.
2)The best way of dealing with the problem is to reduce CO2 emissions.
3)Government action is the best way to reduce emissions.
(I’m sure you know that I don’t think the above are correct either).
Looking at your per capita emission figures, if we assign the 320 million Aus and US population 20 tons per head and China, 1300 million at 5 tons per head, then each emit about the same amount. What the actual figures are I don’t know, but I believe tha US and China are roughly on a par with total emissions.
Let’s say that by 2020 Aus and US achieve a 20% reduction in emissions. Kevin07’s 20/20 target. Aus and US save 640 Mega tons. By 2020 China may well have doubled its emissions to 10 tons per capita. Not really unreasonable, we both agree. That’s an extra 6500 Mt. That not only wipes the floor with the Aus/US savings, it flushes them down the toilet.
And we know that most of the countries that ratified Kyoto are NOT meeting their targets, and those that do have special circumstances in play. So it is not that unreasonable to assume that for any country to meet its targets would require massive regulation that could not, in fact, be imposed on even the passive European and Australian electorates, let alone the gun totin’ US voters.
We haven’t even mentioned India, South America or Africa yet. Where do you suppose all those emitting industries that suddenly became subject to regulation, and taxation would go? The same place that all the manufacturing industries that became subject to regulation and taxation went, China, India, South America. Where would all the taxpayers and investors able to relocate to another country go, if the tax burden and price of energy went through the roof? They’d find somewhere pleasant, that’s for sure.
Net result, emissions still rise pretty much as they have been.
And all of this still begs the question, if AGW is such an obvious danger to mankind, the Chinese et al shouldn’t require anyone else to lead them to take action. To continue to increase their emissions means they are putting their economy before the environment, exactly the charge levelled at GWB and JWH.
THanks PAul,
There is a list of year 2000 country per capita emissions on wikipedia here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita
First I’ll start off with your last point.
Yes, I think China are putting their economy before the environment, same as Aus and USA. But I think they are more justified in doing so, as their level of development/standards of living are so far below ours.
I can see what you mean in the rest of your argument, and I think we are getting down now to the difference between analysing kyoto in isolation, and analysing kyoto as a piece of the total action on AGW over time.
Taking Kyoto in isolation, I agree with what you say totally, and kyoto is ineffective, and China’s increase in emissions will cancel out USA/AUS’s decrease.
But the argument i was originally putting forth was that the trickiest part of this whole business is the diplomacy and global negotiations. IF you consider that kyoto is but an element of the total action over decades to address AGW, then, while it wouldn’t have done much on actual emissons reductions, it would have
* Built consensus for an internationally agreed approach
* Had developed nations demonstrating (appropriately!) leadership, while also building pressure for subsequent action from developing countries
* Laid the groundwork for the real action into the future, by generating some momentum. With a challenge as big as this, we can’t wait until the perfect solution presents itself. We have to get started, and learn by trying some stuff out, and tweaking as we go.
I think it is a valid point that big emitting industries might simply migrate to countries with lower (or no) targets.
However, is this an insurmountable problem?
AT kyoto levels, I doubt very much the targets would be high enough to make much difference. Australia is meeting its targets, and yet we still have all our aluminium smelters.
At bigger targets and stronger action, governments can adopt ancillary policies to mitigate against the loss of big emitting industries. Indeed this is what is happening. The proposed Australian emissions trading scheme includes concessions for some big emitters, as does the European scheme. The total reduction target still gets met, but the end result is less efficient but more socially and structurally acceptable emission reductions.
Another wilder approach would be to change the entire way we account for emissions. Currently, we account for emissions at the source. Instead, we could work out some way to account for them at the end use. This would mean high producer countries wouldn’t necessarily have high end-use emissions, but high consumer countries would. So Australia’s emissions wouldn’t look so bad, since a lot of our emissions come from producing greenhouse intensive materials and products for export to other countries. I think this approach makes a lot of sense, but, as you could imagine, incredibly difficult to actually measure and do accounting for, which is probably why we don’t have a scheme like that.
Steve, was Kyoto proposed as a symbolic stepping stone to more widespread and larger emission reductions? I don’t really remember it being talked about in such terms until it became obvious that most ratifying countries would not reach their targets anyway.
If the intention was to reach an agreed course of action for all countries, (and surely that is the only way of reducing global emissions), then simply monitoring emissions while the talking continued would achieve the same result.
Whatever the intentions of the framers of Kyoto, the results seem farcical. Apparently New Zealand owes Russia $4billion under Kyoto, effectively transferring money from New Zealand taxpayers to the Russian government. Not what I call value for money.
Voters in the Kyoto countries won’t stand still forever while their energy becomes more expensive and their taxes are sent to other countries. Neither will they stand for having more and more of their democracy stripped from them, as appears to be happening in Europe. It’s a recipe for political upheaval for the politicians to start cutting the voters out of the process.
I don’t think kyoto is symbolism, that’s what I’m trying to say.
I think it is THE problem: trying to get buy in from all countries. signing kyoto is work towards THE problem, not mere symbolism.
I don’t think monitoring and talking would acheive the same result as kyoto – kyoto still gets emissions reductions, even if they are not enough to solve the problem. It still establishes processes, that can be tried out and critiqued, e.g. the EU emissions trading scheme, the joint-implementation mechanism, and the clean development mechanism.
Talking isn’t enough – we need to learn by doing with such complex problems. And as we learn and do, profitable opportunities to reduce emissions arise. There are companies that make money from helping other companies reduce their emissions. Sounds less negative for the economy that is often made out doesn’t it? But you wouldn’t get those sorts of benefits if you sat around talking about it trying to decide the perfect approach before acting.
Not sure about NZ owing Russia money. But if they did: this would be emissions trading working as it is intended. If Russia can deliver cheap reductions, and NZ can’t, then perhaps NZ should pay Russia to reduce their emissions rather than reducing their own. That’s what emissions trading is all about.
ITs also possible that the NZ govt was incompetent in negotiating its targets, or understanding its own emissions. I don’t know.
It would be good to find some good info on this. FRom people I’ve been speaking to, its not true that most countries aren’t meeting their targets.
The EU has a target under kyoto, individual EU countries don’t. And the EU will meet its overall target in 2008-2012, through a combination of reductions in its member States and through Joint-implementation projects and the Clean Development Mechanism.
The only two countries I have heard won’t meet their targets by a lot are Canada and NZ, but I haven’t seen a reference for that, that’s just word of mouth from people I know in emissions trading.
Its easy to trash things like Kyoto, the CDM and the EU ETS, but to do so ignores how much has been learnt from trying to implement these schemes. Indeed, the proposed Australian ETS will hopefully be designed to avoid the mistakes made with the EU ETS. Learning by doing, not by talking, that’s how to deal with this problem.
Steve, I’m afraid that Russia has not delivered cheap reductions, they are being rewarded for being so inefficient in 1990, and for having a stagnant economy for most of the time since.
Great for the EU countries if they can grow their economies and reduce their emissions. Remember it’s easier for former Eastern Bloc countries to do that.
I am concerned about the implications that a supranational, unelected body has on the sovereignty of the member countries.
Learning from mistakes is the way to go, I agree. That’s why I’m against us ratifying Kyoto. We can learn from the mistakes of others.
Paul – it’s our own guys doing the negotiations with other nations. If it’s not acceptable well don’t sign. It’s about agreeing – not having things imposed by “world goverment”. The world govt is standard contrarian ruse country.
And what has Kyoto taught us – self interest, politics, complexity, loop-holes. So we need to learn from that.
For greenhouse mitigation to work you have to keep the populace with you – people won’t hack austerity – but to change anything the market needs some clear rules and signals too. The Business Council link above says we could have signed and the sky would not have fallen in.
108% after all – come on !
Remember – don’t like it – don’t sign up. Don’t sign up – don’t complain about being left out of the loop too.
Luke, I’m not quite sure what you’re on about. You think we should sign?
What is the aim of emission reductions? The EU says the aim is to limit global warming to less than 2C. So far so good! But do the measures taken really contribute to that goal? Has anyone told China? They are apparently waiting for us to reduce our emissions before they start to reduce theirs. Fair enough, but what guarantee does Kyoto or any other treaty give that they will comply if we do reduce our emissions? None, it’s like unilateral disarmanent, it leaves us worse off with no reciprocal obligation.
Anyone who thinks they are going to voluntarily reduce their standard of living from the already low level it is, has got roos loose in their top paddock. Plus, if AGW is such a threat, they should be acting unilaterally themselves, as a large emitter with a largely centrally planned economy and no voter backlash or freedom of the press to hold them back.
Standard alarmist spin, I know, but I wasn’t talking about “world gov’t”. The EU already has enormous influence over the internal affairs of the member states, and the electorate is being marginalised in those states. Not a great state of affairs.
We could have signed and the sky wouldn’t have fallen in. 108% isn’t that hard. Could have milked land clearing for more than 25Mts. Might have got us off the mark and down the track a quite a bit.
However the longer you wait the harder it will get.
China won’t move if we don’t. We have start asking for greenhouse friendly products – are we not the customers. All sorts of slight pressures can apply.
Having carbon neutralising technology could be a threat to your way of life or perhaps an export industry in the making.
If the EU has too much influence maybe it’s members should leave !!
If you are not willing to make a start you’re essentially saying “look I’m not convinced there’s an issue. Fair nuff.”.
So vote NO !
So if it’s not an issue and nobody is concerned how come we’re arguing about it so much.
“So you think Kyoto is essentially just a big scam latched onto by the EU to increase their power and run a proxy war with the US?”
Politics is not about science – look at the badger cull in the UK.
The EU would love to be like the US, but they cant agree on who is to be the sovereign.
For years the US has maintained bases in the EU – to protect them from the USSR. Now that the USSR has dissolved they can take care of themselves – and they are worried. They have only just woken up to Iran, but their military lacks the fighting spirit.
Too many long lunches and slow food.
Luke refers to the EU as a demonstration of democracy – but voters dont get a vote in the EU.
So you’re saying China doesn’t care about the future of the planet? That is the inevitable conclusion from asserting China won’t reduce emissions unless we do, if you truly believe AGW is a major problem.
I think a lot of the EU voters would like to leave, that is why they aren’t being asked. Could get nasty.
“China won’t move if we don’t.”
Crap, China has already signalled they are pro Kyoto.
And why not? it wont cost them a cent.
“We have start asking for greenhouse friendly products”
Oh, like turning the frig down 1 deg and pumping up your tyres (thanks Wayne Swan) and those curly flouros that cost heaps and dont tolerate heat (but its OK to drive down to the shop on your pumped up tyres and buy more of these overpriced illuminators because they are “greenhouse friendly”)
Haha rog. Don’t tolerate heat!? What, do you put them under a blow torch or something? Mate, they sit on the ceiling, and can tolerate all indoor air temperatures, what on earth are you talking about?
And while they are more expensive to buy (if you haven’t been given them for free in Sydney), they are cheaper to run and last longer ,and pay for themselves in:
75 Watts – 15 Watts = 60 Watts difference between incandescent and CFL.
3 hours of lighting a day means 60Watts x 3 = 0.18 kWh savings a day, or 65 kWh savings a year.
At 13c a kWh, thats $8.54 savings a year, more if you pay more than 13c/kWh, as most people not living in Sydney do.
They only cost a few dollars more, so therefore they must pay for themselves in about 6 months and save you money after that, and they have a longer life than standard incandescents.
Rather than being “greenhouse friendly” and “cost effective, they are in fact greenhouse friendly and cost-effective, but you need to have a grasp of primary school maths to be able to work that out.
Yeh well, they are burnt out after 6 months.
Figure that one out.
I am telling you, they dont like heat.
In an enclosed lamp they heat up.
So you have to pull all the covers off and have these ugly curly things hang down.
Rog & Pat = “the Grinch” = always negative = the tree fell on me – oooo – oooo – ooooo
Concrete is best ….. ROTFL
Rog, your one globe might have burnt out, but that’s hardly a good sample is it? Also, I dispute that an enclosed lamp would cause them to heat up sufficiently to cause a problem – CFLs don’t emit as much heat as incandescents – that is why they are more efficient.
But if you want to rely on your own anecdote (how many bulbs did you try, 1, 2? how many brands?), there isn’t much I can do to change your mind is there.
PS. even if they did only last 6 months, they still pay for themselves, see my calculation above.