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Opinion & Analysis |
Thursday, February 10, 2009 |
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Hypocrisy emissions on climate go upTONY ALLWRIGHT OPINION: FOR THOSE who believe global warming is caused by man-made emissions – carbon dioxide in particular – the Kyoto Protocol is the Holy Grail: by 2012 industrialised countries that ratify it must cut their emissions by 5.2 per cent from 1990 levels. By official estimates this will cost $100 billion annually and delay a two degree rise in global temperatures from 2094 to . . . 2100. By comparison, the UN estimates just $200 billion would bring clean water and sanitation to everyone on the planet, saving two million lives a year. But let’s shelve petty cavils and scrutinise Kyoto performance. Using publicly available information, I had a look at CO2 trends covering the eight-year period 1997-2005. Some 60 countries have failed to ratify, representing 10 per cent of the world’s population. Thanks to George Bush, the USA is the most infamous non-ratifier – oh wait, he wasn’t the problem. In 1997, the US Senate voted 95-0 against Kyoto, but Bill Clinton signed it anyway knowing it had become unratifiable. Bush’s sin was to publicly state this blindingly obvious truth. The remaining non-ratifiers, other than Turkey and Ukraine, are generally smaller countries. As you’d expect, these naughty anti-Kyoto boys and girls have signally failed to control emissions. From 1997 to 2005 they have pushed CO2 emissions up by almost 5 per cent. People like these (nearly seven hundred million) deserve opprobrium and sanctions to force them to cut their carbon footprints and stop destroying the planet, causing sea levels to rise, glaciers to melt, polar bears to drown, forests to desertify, children to die. Let us look at their wiser colleagues who support Kyoto. Take the EU – nearly half a billion well-meaning folk. All 27 countries have ratified Kyoto. And, as you’d expect, we have cut our emissions by . . . hang on a minute, there must be some mistake. Our emissions have actually climbed by over 6.5 per cent, even more than those wretched non-ratifiers. Ireland’s went up by an astounding 17 per cent. How can that be? The EU figures must be some statistical quirk, not significant in the global scheme of things. After all, there are six times as many other countries, containing 12 times as many people, which have also ratified Kyoto. Between them CO2 emissions will surely have gone at least some way towards reaching the laudable reductions demanded in Kyoto. So have they? Er, no. When you add up all 162 Kyoto ratifiers – 6.1 billion people, 90 per cent of the world’s population – you find their emissions have increased by almost 30 per cent! It gets worse. Vilified, non-ratifying America was one of the few countries that actually reduced its emissions. Not by much, about 1 per cent, but no other major country came close. Of course figures quoted are only overall totals. It is instructive to look at other countries whose CO2 achievements were outstanding; perhaps we can learn from them how easy it is to make progress in this area. Astonishingly, a handful managed to more or less halve their emissions: ratifiers Congo Democratic Republic and Eritrea plus non-ratifiers Afghanistan and Guam. Excluding minuscule Guam, a US military base in the Pacific, the common denominator appears to be war, economic destitution, strife and poverty. And, with Kyoto’s price-tag of $100 billion a year, in exchange for very little benefit a century into the future, something like this could probably be the Kyoto future, if it has one. Meeting its strictures, and those of its successors, would require drastic curtailment of economic activity leading to mass impoverishment. From this, the prospect of new wars does not seem improbable. War, in addition to the starvation of penury, would kill lots of people. Perhaps this would put a smile on the face of British government environmental guru Jonathan Porritt. He advocates demographic suicide by restricting babies to two per couple (replacement rate is 2.1): he is convinced people themselves are intrinsically bad for the planet and therefore should be eliminated. But hey, if it means that climate changeologists like him are happy, who am I to complain? Bring it on, I say. The alternative is to do as the Kyoto ratifiers have been doing all along: ratify and ignore, or at least only do stuff that makes you feel good but does very little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What’s a little hypocrisy in today’s world? © 2009 The Irish Times
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More on this subject in a blog post entitled “Kyoto: Ratify and Ignore - Like Everyone Else” |
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Climate Change and the Poor - 25th February 2009 Madam, – Tony Allwright (Opinion, February 19th) is right in pointing out that Ireland, along with other nations, has so far failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with our commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. However, the suggestion that it is agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol, rather than our failure to implement them, that threaten “mass impoverishment” is misplaced. The threat of climate change, in particular for the poorest countries, is real and urgent, exacerbating existing problems such as access to water and food and vulnerability to disasters. Responding to climate change will be expensive, but failure to respond will be even more so. The Stern report commissioned by the UK government shows that while 2 per cent of global GDP will be needed to cope with climate change now, it will be up to 10 times more expensive to deal with the consequences of inaction. Mr Allwright is also right to suggest that spending $200 billion on clean water and sanitation would be money well spent, but he fails to acknowledge that without urgent action to tackle climate change, these benefits will be completely undermined by the impacts of reduced and more erratic rainfall, melting glaciers and increases in vector-borne disease. Ireland and other rich nations need to start taking real action to reduce emissions rather than looking for excuses to continue with business as usual. – Yours, etc, |
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Gift Idea |
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Good to report that as at
FREED AT LAST, |
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BLOGROLL
Atlantic Blog (defunct) Blog-Irish (defunct)
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What I've recently
But it's not
entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs
to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as See detailed review +++++
BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded it through adventurous acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term technical sustainability. Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in Russia. The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that had become poisonous and incompetent. However the book is gravely compromised by a litany of over 40 technical and stupid errors that display the author's ignorance and carelessness. It would be better to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying. As for BP, only a wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history. Note: I wrote
my own reports on Macondo +++++
A horrific account of:
More details on my blog here. +++++
After recounting a childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen, Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on Germany in 1939. From then until the Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror. After a wretched journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless garrison. Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in 1941, he is, successively,
Chronically ill, distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life. Only in his late 80s is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this unputdownable book. There are very few first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical document. +++++
This is a rattling good tale of the web of corruption within which the American president and his cronies operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP. With 75 page of notes to back up - in best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife. Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett, Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book. ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine it is. +++++
It is really just a collation of amusing little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour and situations. For example:
The book has no real message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and try to look for simple rather than complex solutions. And with a final anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in its tracks. Weird. ++++++
It's chapters are organised around provocative questions such as
It's central thesis is that economic development continues to be impeded in different countries for different historical reasons, even when the original rationale for those impediments no longer obtains. For instance:
The author writes in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to digest. However it would benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide natural break-points for the reader. +++++
The author was a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to harass Japanese lines of command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of India. Irwin is admirably yet brutally frank, in his descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness. He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved authority of the British. The book amounts to a very human and exhilarating tale. Oh, and Irwin describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF Brennan. +++++ Other books here |
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After
48
crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are,
deservedly,
England get the Silver,
No-one can argue with
Over the competition, |
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