Australia has ratified Kyoto and is now progressing with its own emissions trading scheme;

Barack Obama gave a speech last week also committing his administration to an ETS. The two large domestic ETSs in the US (one in the west and another in the east) are gathering support from other states.

The EU ETS is up and running and the after a few false starts is having an effect.

The UK has just passed a Climate Change Bill committing itself to 80% reductions by 2050.

While very early days, it is possible that the political ructions in Canada will see it back in the fold.

So I think there is strong movement in west to limit emissions.

The leaders of the G20 and APEC (China in both, India and Brazil in the G20) both made statements recently supporting the UNFCCC process.

And most fundamentally, I think that the fast-growing middle classes in both China and India hold the key. These people, with ever increasing political power, just don’t want to live in dirty countries.

So while there is a long way to go, I am confident that the UNFCCC conference in Pozan this week will make enough progress that in Copenhagen next year, with the US firmly in the lead (Secretary of State Clinton will almost definitely attend, President Obama may also be there in person), there will be an agreement that commits the industrial countries to 25 – 40% cuts in emissions by 2020 and the rest of the world to reductions that are sufficient, when combined with those in the rich countries, to see emission levels stabilizing.

Australia has ratified Kyoto and is now progressing with its own emissions trading scheme;

Barack Obama gave a speech last week also committing his administration to an ETS. The two large domestic ETSs in the US (one in the west and another in the east) are gathering support from other states.

The EU ETS is up and running and the after a few false starts is having an effect.

The UK has just passed a Climate Change Bill committing itself to 80% reductions by 2050.

While very early days, it is possible that the political ructions in Canada will see it back in the fold.

So I think there is strong movement in west to limit emissions.

The leaders of the G20 and APEC (China in both, India and Brazil in the G20) both made statements recently supporting the UNFCCC process.

And most fundamentally, I think that the fast-growing middle classes in both China and India hold the key. These people, with ever increasing political power, just don’t want to live in dirty countries.

So while there is a long way to go, I am confident that the UNFCC conference in Pozan this week will make enough progress that in Copenhagen next year, with the US firmly in the lead (Secretary of State Clinton will almost definitely attend, president Obama may also be there in person), there will be an agreement that commits the industrial countries to 25 – 40% cuts in emissions by 2020 and the rest of the world to reductions that are sufficient, when combined with those in the rich countries, to see emission levels stabilizing.

Some countries will choose not to cripple themselves with penalties for carbon emissions and will just laugh at us for effectively imposing tariffs on our own exports. Certainly the Chinese won’t agree to anything, at least until they run out of coal. They will produce more to compensate for the reduced production in the carbon-limiting countries and emissions may even increase overall if their methods are less efficient.

Even if we go completely Soviet and ban their imports as well as preventing our own people from leaving, they will keep growing and emitting and and we will be riding bicycles and eating tofu while the planet heats up just the same.

The best thing to do is figure out ways to live with higher temperatures. All of the Earth’s fossil fuels are going to be burned and in the atmosphere at some point anyway.

Thanks for the link to the Green’s post. I can’t stand that ‘graph’ they use from NewScientist: it’s a scaremongering graphic, not a graph of anything.

I hadn’t heard of Tainter but I looked up his book and it sounds interesting. Do you know the latest opinion on his theory?

Nigel and George:

I agree with George that you go too far, Nigel. I think an assessment of the costs and benefits depends upon how much you value future generations’ welfare. It may be true that, at the rate people currently discount future welfare, there isn’t any way to profitably reduce emissions. It certainly seems that way, given the current opposition to most carbon reduciton schemes.

Putting a price on carbon, be it via a tax or emissions trading, means that producers and consumer will do what they do best: make millions of small decisions that all tend to equate costs and benefits at the margin.

Experience with economic instruments to solve environmental issues, especially examples like the acid rain programmes in the US, show that people are very inventive when given the right incentives.

While the challenges of climate change are large, the gains from discovering new technologies that decarbonise the economy are equally great. The person who patents the vaccine that stops ruminants from producing methane will be rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

Even if everything the IPCC says is true, nobody has come remotely close to suggesting a way of reducing carbon emissions where the benefits outweigh the costs.

If we want to feed the world and reduce our ecological impact we need to increase the efficiency of the global economy within the constraints that these demands impose.
Unfortunately the left-wing economics that Greens favour will have the opposite effect, making the economy less market oriented and therefore less efficient, while the Right, which should be part of the solution, still denies that there may be a problem.

Rauparaha, have you heard of Joseph Tainter’s theories on societal collapse?

You can also look at places like Cuba for a low-energy economy with a reasonable standard of living. Or just at the poeple in your local society who live comfortable low-impact lifestyles.