Greenhouse Hypocrisy

Robert J. Samuelson editorializes in WaPo Almost a decade ago I suggested that global warming would become a "gushing" source of political hypocrisy. So it has. Politicians and scientists constantly warn of the grim outlook, and the subject is on the agenda of the upcoming Group of Eight summit of world economic leaders. But all this sound and fury is mainly exhibitionism -- politicians pretending they're saving the planet. The truth is that, barring major technological advances, they can't (and won't) do much about global warming. It would be nice if they admitted that, though this seems unlikely.

The reason they won't is because it would hurt their economies. They reason they settled on the targets was they wanted to hurt the US economy the most, and they figured that they could take a small hit on their economy if the US took a larger hit. But then the US pulled out.

Europe is the citadel of hypocrisy. Considering Europeans' contempt for the United States and George Bush for not embracing the Kyoto Protocol, you'd expect that they would have made major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions -- the purpose of Kyoto. Well, not exactly. From 1990 (Kyoto's base year for measuring changes) to 2002, global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, increased 16.4 percent, reports the International Energy Agency. The U.S. increase was 16.7 percent, and most of Europe hasn't done much better.

Samuelson may have thought it, but I did not.

Here are some IEA estimates of the increases: France, 6.9 percent; Italy, 8.3 percent; Greece, 28.2 percent; Ireland, 40.3 percent; the Netherlands, 13.2 percent; Portugal, 59 percent; Spain, 46.9 percent. It's true that Germany (down 13.3 percent) and Britain (a 5.5 percent decline) have made big reductions. But their cuts had nothing to do with Kyoto. After reunification in 1990, Germany closed many inefficient coal-fired plants in eastern Germany; that was a huge one-time saving. In Britain, the government had earlier decided to shift electric utilities from coal (high CO2 emissions) to plentiful natural gas (lower CO2 emissions).

On their present courses, many European countries will miss their Kyoto targets for 2008-2012. To reduce emissions significantly, Europeans would have to suppress driving and electricity use; that would depress economic growth and fan popular discontent. It won't happen.

Precisely. No country is willing to hurt their own economy when they know it won't do any good, because Kyoto excludes China and India, and even if everyone met their targets, the increased industrialization in China and India would generate more extra emissions than the others cut, hence Global Warming would continue.

Political leaders everywhere deplore global warming -- and then do little. Except for Eastern European nations, where dirty factories have been shuttered, few countries have cut emissions. Since 1990 Canada's emissions are up 23.6 percent; Japan's, 18.9 percent.

We are seeing similar exhibitionism in the United States. The U.S. Conference of Mayors recently endorsed Kyoto. California and New Mexico have adopted "targets" for emission cuts, reports the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. All this busywork won't much affect global warming, but who cares? The real purpose is for politicians to brandish their environmental credentials. Even if rich countries actually curbed their emissions, it wouldn't matter much. Poor countries would offset the reductions.

"We expect CO2 emissions growth in China between now and 2030 will equal the growth of the United States, Canada, all of Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Korea combined," says Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist. In India, he says, about 500 million people lack electricity; worldwide, the figure is 1.6 billion.

Exactly as I indicated

Naturally, poor countries haven't signed Kyoto; they won't sacrifice economic gains -- poverty reduction, bigger middle classes -- to combat global warming.

And those that did sign it are not going to do what it would take to meet its targets.

By 2030, the IEA predicts, world energy demand and greenhouse gases will increase by roughly 60 percent; poor countries will account for about two-thirds of the growth. China's coal use is projected almost to double; its vehicle fleet could go from 24 million to 130 million.

Todd Zywicki: blogged Kyoto is nominally an environmental treaty--although the effect on global warming is thought to be very small, perhaps on the order of a reduction in temperature of 0.15 degrees C in 2100, or putting off the same warming trend by 6 years. But once you look into the details of the treaty, at this point it seems clear that its primary purpose as drafted (and why Europe is so keen on ratification by the U.S.) is economic, and, in particular, for Europe to gain economic advantages versus the United States.... Moreover, this assumes that both the U.S. and Europe are equally committed to complying with the treaty. In fact, one reason the United States has probably been reluctant to enter into Kyoto is because it would probably actually abide by its terms, unlike the Europeans. As Samuelson suggests, the "sophisticated" Europeans by contrast, probably do not intended to comply with Kyoto, and it is questionable whether they ever intended to meet their targets from the very beginning.

Ronald Bailey blogged The indispensable columnist Robert J. Samuelson succinctly exposes the political hypocrisy over global warming policy. BTW, I made many of the same points with my coverage of the United Nations' Climate Change negotiations here, here and here.