October 30, 2002 COP-8 Declaration under Fire A draft “Delhi Declaration on Climate Change,” which is to be adopted at the Eighth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-8) currently underway, is being attacked by both the European Union and the G-77 and China. The declaration was rejected by the EU as “disappointing, unacceptable, and biased.” “We find the declaration concentrated on adaptation and not on the mitigation of greenhouse gases,” said Thomas Becker, an EU spokesman. “There is no mention of the Kyoto Protocol in the declaration.” The EU also objects to the attempt to link global warming to sustainable development. “To link these issues completely will not be wise from a negotiation point of view,” said Becker. “We are not at all pleased with trying to start such a trend” (BNA Daily Environment Report, October 29, 2002). The EUs objection to the linkage is probably due to the U.S.s ability to redefine sustainable development in terms of poverty eradication and economic development, which are not compatible with Kyotos objectives. Indeed, the draft recognizes, “that poverty eradication, changing consumption and production patterns, and protecting and managing the natural resource base for economic and social development are overarching objectives of, and essential requirements for, sustainable development.” The draft also talks about technological advancement and transfers, capacity building, economic diversification, and strengthening of institutions, things that the U.S. insisted should be the focus of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg. It also states, “Policies and measures to protect the climate system against human-induced change should be appropriate for the specific conditions of each Party and should be integrated with national development programs, taking into account that economic development is essential for adopting measures to address climate change.” The G-77 and China also expressed disappointment in the document and demanded that it contain a call “to urge ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by all parties that have not done so.” The declaration should also name Africa as the region suffering the most from climate change (Outlook India, October 29, 2002). November 13, 2002 COP-8 Boosts Adaptation and Poverty Eradication The Eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) concluded on Nov. 1 with the European Union in full retreat. The major accomplishment of the conference was the approval of the Delhi Ministerial Declaration on Climate Change and Sustainable Development, which represents a major shift of emphasis from energy suppression to economic development and adaptation. “The emphasis on adapting is a profound turnabout from the course set a decade ago after President George Bush and other world leaders signed the [UNFCCC],” according to the New York Times (November 3, 2002). Prior to Delhi, “the emphasis was always about curbing emissions to prevent dangerous changes in the climate system.” The emphasis on adaptation suited the United States, which sees itself as an economically developing country, and the less developed countries, which hope to rise out of poverty. The declaration states, “that economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of developing country Parties.” The original draft of the declaration contained no mention of the Kyoto Protocol. The EU, as well as Russia and the G-77, demanded that the declaration, “strongly urge Parties that have not already done so to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in a timely manner,” which language ended up in the final draft. Russia and the G-77 also successfully lobbied for the inclusion of a finding that, “Africa is the region suffering the most from the combined impacts of climate change and poverty,” a scientifically baseless statement. For its efforts, the United States was awarded the “Super Fossil Award” by the Climate Action Network. The award, which is usually just the “Fossil of the Day,” was given to the U.S. delegation for having the audacity to claim that economic growth is good for the environment and for refusing the put the economy into the tank.
November 2002
Government Lacks Legal Authority to Award Emissions Credits
On February 14, 2002, President Bush directed the Department of Energy to improve the “accuracy, reliability and verifiability” of a program that allows companies to voluntarily report reductions in greenhouse gas emissions under Section 1605(b) of the Energy Policy Act of 1992. The President also asked for recommendations on how “to ensure that businesses and individuals that register reductions are not penalized under a future climate policy, and to give transferable credits to companies that can show real emission reductions.” On May 6, DOE requested public comments on how to modify the program in accordance with the Presidents directive.
In response, 80 comments from industry, government, and non-profits were received. A major issue that has arisen is whether section 1605(b) provides the legal authority necessary for penalty protection or to award emission credits. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental lobby, and the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management do not think so. The Electric Power Industry Climate Initiative (EPICI) claims that it does.
Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, dismantles EPICIs legal argument in a new report. According to Lewis, EPICIs entire argument is based “on the alleged implications of Senator Joseph Liebermans (D-Conn.) floor statement prior to the Senate vote on the 1992 Energy Policy Act, on a semblance of ambiguity in the text, and on Congresss silence (the absence of express prohibitions against penalty protection and credit for voluntary reductions).”
There is no ambiguity in the text of 1605(b), according to Lewis. EPICI claims that the statement that a reporting entity may use the greenhouse gas registry to “demonstrate achieved reductions of greenhouse gases,” implies protecting baselines or qualifying for credits. Clearly, if that were the intent, then “demonstrating” reductions would be necessary, but that does not imply protection or crediting.
Even if the statute were ambiguous, the last place a court would look to clear up the ambiguity would be floor statements made during congressional debates. Yet that is essentially what EPICI resorts to to make its case. Lewis contends that EPICI has misinterpreted Liebermans statement. Lieberman argued that 1605(b) would have some of the same effects as a penalty protection program, but nowhere does he imply that it is a penalty protection program.
Moreover, asks Lewis, why did Senator Lieberman and the Clinton administration seek legal authority for penalty protection through credit for early action legislation in the 105th and 106th Congresses if it was already available through 1605(b)? Because, says Lewis, neither Lieberman nor Clinton interpreted 1605(b) as providing such authority.
Finally, EPICI makes the outlandish argument that the federal government does have the authority since 1605(b) does not prohibit it from providing penalty protection or awarding credits for early emissions reductions. Lewis notes that their argument boils down to, “DOE may do whatever Congress has not prohibited it from doing,” which turns “the central principle of administrative law on its head.” The full report can be obtained at www.cei.org.
Bush Administration Considers CAFE Increase for SUVs
Officials in the Bush Administration are reviewing a proposal by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to raise Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards on sport utility vehicles and light trucks by a half mile per gallon each year for the model years 2005 to 2007.
Some of the impetus for the proposal may be due to the mistaken notion that the U.S. should become energy independent, given the possibility of war with Iraq and the precarious relations with other oil-exporting countries. Environmental activists, including leftist religious groups, are conducting a major campaign to force automakers to build more fuel-efficient cars. The “What Would Jesus Drive?” campaign is spearheaded by a group of religious leaders that has managed to secure meetings with executives from General Motors and Ford Motor Co.
John Graham, director of the White Houses Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, may play a major role in the final decision. He “sharply criticized the federal fuel-economy program when he was in the private sector, arguing that it encouraged auto makers to produce smaller vehicles that can be more dangerous to occupants in a crash (Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2002).”
Evaporation Declines Despite Model Predictions
Global warming predictions depend on assumptions about certain “feedback effects.” The key feedback effect driving predictions of catastrophic global warming has to do with changes in evaporation and concentrations of atmospheric water vapor. According to the theory, a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would raise global temperatures approximately one degree Celsius over the next century. That small amount of warming, however, would increase evaporation at the surface, raising concentrations of water vapor, a major greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere. It is this positive feedback effect that would cause the lions share of warming, according to the climate models.
A new empirical study in the November 15 issue of Science fails to confirm this feedback hypothesis. The authors, Michael Roderick and Graham Farquhar with the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Accounting at the Australian National University in Canberra, found that evaporation in the Northern Hemisphere has actually decreased over the past 50 years. They refer to this difference between the expected and observed trend in evaporation as the “pan evaporation paradox.”
The authors argue that there really is no paradox, however. They argue that reduced evaporation is due to “a substantial decline in global solar irradiance as a consequence of increased cloud coverage and/or aerosol concentration.” Although the authors do present data to support their view that solar irradiance has decreased, they offer no support that it may be caused by increases in aerosol concentrations. Indeed, there has been a steady decline in aerosol concentrations over the last 50 years. That aside, the fact that evaporation has decreased while temperatures have apparently increased strikes another blow to the confidence that can be placed in climate models predictions.
Pacific Oscillation Drives Climate Change
A new study in the Geophysical Research Letters (October 8, 2002) suggests that long-term changes in Pacific Ocean temperatures may be the key to understanding global climate change. “Abrupt changes in water temperatures occurring over intervals of up to 25 years suggest that global warming may result as much from natural cyclical variations as from human activity,” said Benjamin Giese, of the College of Geosciences at Texas A&M and a co-author of the study.
“Climate models constructed here at Texas A&M University were used to analyze ocean surface temperature records in the tropical Pacific since 1950,” said Giese. “The results suggest that as much as one-half of all global surface warming since the 1970s may be part of natural variation as distinct from the result of greenhouse gases.”
Giese noted that over the last 50 years it appears that global surface temperatures have increased about a half degree Celsius, but that the general trend is highly variable. “How much of this variability is attributable to natural variations and how much is due to anthropogenic contributions to atmospheric greenhouse gases has not yet been resolved,” he said. “Recent studies indicate that it is difficult to separate intrinsic variance from anthropogenic forcing in the climate system.”
The data on tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures show that long-term increases in ocean temperatures precede changes in global surface air temperatures by about four years. These changes in ocean temperatures are in turn preceded by seven years by deeper subsurface water temperature changes. “Thus, the results suggest that much of the decade to decade variations in global air temperature may be attributed to tropical Pacific decadal variability,” said Giese. “The results also suggest that subsurface temperature anomalies in the southern tropical Pacific can be used as a predictor of decadal variations of global surface temperature.”
An abrupt temperature change in the Pacific Ocean in 1976 preceded a two-tenths of a degree increase in global air temperatures. Moreover, it now appears that the tropical Pacific Ocean temperature is now shifting back to pre-1976 conditions. “The subsurface tropical Pacific has shown a distinct cooling trend over the last eight years, so the possibility exists that a warming trend in global surface air temperature observed since the late 1970s may soon weaken,” according to Giese.
Announcements
Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming has just been published in Canada by Key Porter Books. The authors are Ross McKitrick, an economist with the University of Guelph in Ontario and a Cooler Heads Coalition lecturer in 2001, and Christopher Essex, a mathematician at the University of Western Ontario who specializes in the underlying mathematics, physics and computation of complex dynamical processes such as climate. The authors “explain the science of climate change and show that the widespread belief in global warming is really a house of cards.” Further information is available at www.takenbystorm.info.
Offshore Wind Farm Poses Significant Economic and Environmental Costs
Energy analyst Glenn Schleede has once again exposed the problems with wind power in comments he has submitted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is conducting an economic and environmental analysis of a proposed offshore wind farm.
The wind farm proposed by Winergy LLC would be located five miles off the coast of the eastern shore of Virginia. In a preliminary analysis, the Corps determined that the project would not require an Environmental Impact Statement. Schleede disagrees, saying that the Corps has “underestimated the potential environmental impactincluding onshore impact” of the project.
The wind farm would produce approximately 2.5 billion kWh of electricity per year, assuming a generous 30 percent capacity factor. The wind turbines themselves would cover 57 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean, yet would produce slightly less electricity than a “new baseload 350 MW gas-fired combined cycle generating unit,” which would “occupy only a few acres.” Moreover, the amount of electricity produced would only equal approximately 3.3 percent of the total electricity produced in Virginia.
Schleede points out several potential adverse effects that should be mitigated as a condition to awarding any permits, including impacts that would not be limited to the 57 square miles of ocean. “Feeding such a potentially large (975 MW, at times), highly variable (from 0 to 975 MW), and often unpredictable amount of electricity into an onshore transmission line and electric grid would be a significant burden on existing onshore transmission capacity and the stability of a regional electric system that must be kept in balance (e.g., voltage, frequency).”
The addition of wind capacity would likely “impair rather than enhance electric system reliability,” says Schleede. The Corps should also take into account the need for backup generation and transmission capacity as part of the full costs of the wind farm.
The Corps should also have a firm grasp of wind energy economics and especially the role of federal subsidies, says Schleede. “In some cases, the value of the subsidies may exceed the revenue wind farm owners receive from the electricity that they sell. Schleede estimates that Winergys proposed wind farm would receive an annual tax credit of more than $46 million. The project would also qualify for accelerated depreciation and would be able to write off the entire $900 million in estimated capital costs in 6 years. Yet the annual revenue from selling electricity would be only a little over $52 million. Schleede also notes that tax sheltering through accelerated depreciation often leads to early sale or abandonment of wind farms.
Finally, Schleede argues that rather than being environmentally benign, wind farms entail significant environmental costs. He notes the opposition to wind farms is growing around the world, “often due to the adverse impact of wind farms on environmental, ecological, scenic, and property values.”
Stanford Launches Energy Project
On Nov. 20, Stanford University announced the creation of the Global Climate and Energy Project (G-CEP). The purpose of the project is to “engage in research to develop technologies that foster the development of a global energy system where greenhouse emissions are much lower than today.” It may also be seen as addressing the challenge posed by the article in the November 1 issue of Science, which we reported in the last issue.
Funding commitments from three major corporations totaling $225 million over the next 10 years were also announced, with several other corporations expected to make additional commitments in the near future. ExxonMobil, the worlds largest publicly-traded petroleum company, plans to contribute up to $100 million; General Electric, the world leader in power generation technology and services, $50 million; and Schlumberger, a global technology services company, $25 million. Stanford engineers and scientists will do much of the research, but will be joined by other major institutions in North America, Europe and Asia.
The project was immediately criticized as inadequate, and ExxonMobils role was attacked. “Im somewhat skeptical, given the history of some of the companies involved in this, that it represents a dramatic change in their resistance to aggressive federal and state policy action on the issue,” said Alden M. Meyer, director of government relations for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“This could be seen as another effort [by ExxonMobil] to say, Were doing something, but this is a complex problem thats going to take decades to solve and, in the meantime, lets not do anything aggressive with fuel economy standards or anything else that actually reduces oil use today,” he said (Los Angeles Times, November 21, 2002).
Lee Raymond, chairman of ExxonMobil, responded that, “Our investment in G-CEP is a demonstration of our long-held belief that successful development and global deployment of innovative, commercially viable technology is the only path that can address long-term climate-change risks while preserving and promoting prosperity of the world’s economies.”
San Francisco Leaps Into Solar Power
Following a major referendum last year in which San Francisco residents approved a $100 million bond measure to install as many solar panels in the city as the rest of the nation does all year, Mayor Willie Brown announced a $7.4 million project to install solar panels on the roof to the Moscone Convention Center. “The Moscone Center project itself couldnt be better. It is a gem which should make city leaders across the country salivate,” said Brown. “It would be fiscally irresponsible not to do a project like this” (Associated Press, November 22, 2002).
The economics of the project dont look good, however. The project, which will also include retrofitting for energy efficient fixtures, will save the city a mere $210,000 per year, meaning it will take more than 35 years for the project to “pay for itself (San Francisco Chronicle, November 22, 2002).” Several other cities are considering following San Franciscos example. Brown says that he has heard from 15 other cities that are considering similar programs, including San Diego, Denver and New York (Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2002).
COP-8 Boosts Adaptation and Poverty Eradication
The Eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) concluded on Nov. 1 with the European Union in full retreat.
The major accomplishment of the conference was the approval of the Delhi Ministerial Declaration on Climate Change and Sustainable Development, which represents a major shift of emphasis from energy suppression to economic development and adaptation. “The emphasis on adapting is a profound turnabout from the course set a decade ago after President George Bush and other world leaders signed the [UNFCCC],” according to the New York Times (November 3, 2002). Prior to Delhi, “the emphasis was always about curbing emissions to prevent dangerous changes in the climate system.”
The emphasis on adaptation suited the United States, which sees itself as an economically developing country, and the less developed countries, which hope to rise out of poverty. The declaration states, “that economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of developing country Parties.”
The original draft of the declaration contained no mention of the Kyoto Protocol. The EU, as well as Russia and the G-77, demanded that the declaration, “strongly urge Parties that have not
already done so to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in a timely manner,” which language ended up in the final draft. Russia and the G-77 also successfully lobbied for the inclusion of a finding that, “Africa is the region suffering the most from the combined impacts of climate change and poverty,” a scientifically baseless statement.
For its efforts, the United States was awarded the “Super Fossil Award” by the Climate Action Network. The award, which is usually just the “Fossil of the Day,” was given to the U.S. delegation for having the audacity to claim that economic growth is good for the environment and for refusing the put the economy into the tank.
Bush Administration Outlines Strategic Plan on Climate Research
The Bush administration has released a draft strategic plan on climate research that will attempt to reduce the large uncertainties that still plague the issue. In February 2002, President Bush announced the formation of the Climate Change Science Program, which would coordinate and direct U.S. climate research efforts. The draft plan begins the process of clarifying the unsettled issues in climate science.
Some of the uncertainties that will be addressed have to do with things as fundamental to our understanding as natural variability. “The challenge,” according to the draft plan, “is that discerning whether human activities are causing observed climatic changes and impacts requires detecting a small, decade-by-decade trend against the backdrop of wide temperature changes that occur on shorter timescales (season to years).” Attribution and detection, then, will be a major focus. Relevant to this approach is the need to beef up the observational foundation of climate research. Too much emphasis has been laid on climate modeling and not enough on observation of the climate. The plan also discusses the potential impacts of a changing climate, whether caused by man or something else.
The guiding principles of the plan are encouraging. First, “The scientific analyses conducted by the CCSP are policy relevant but not policy driven.” This seems to be a departure from the Clinton administrations tactic of doing research in support of its alarmist agenda. Second, “CCSP analyses should specifically evaluate and report uncertainty.” Finally, “CCSP analyses, measurements, projection and interpretations should meet two goals: scientific credibility and lucid public communication.”
The draft plan will be debated at a major workshop open to the public on December 3-5 in Washington, D.C. A copy of the draft plan and information about the workshop are available at www.climatescience.gov.
Canadian Support for Kyoto Wanes
According to a new public opinion poll funded by the Alberta government, Canadians are just about evenly split on whether the country should ratify the Kyoto Protocol or reject it in favor of a “made-in-Canada” plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The poll by Ipsos-Reid found that 45 percent of Canadians want the government to withdraw from Kyoto and go it alone, while 44 percent want the government to ratify Kyoto. This poll contrasts sharply from the results of a poll conducted for the Liberal Party by Ekos. That poll found overwhelming support for Kyoto ratification, with 79 percent showing support, with only Albertans opposed to the treaty. The methodology of that poll, however, has not been released.
The Ipsos-Reid poll asked respondents if they prefer to “withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol and develop a made-in-Canada plan for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, ratify the Kyoto Protocol or do nothing.” The poll found a drop in support for Kyoto throughout most of Canada, although Ontario and Quebec still favor the treaty. Still, only a plurality (46 percent) of those polled in Ontario support Kyoto. Quebec is the only province showing majority support (55 percent). Opposition to Kyoto is strongest in the Western provinces.
These results represent a major turnaround from an earlier Ipsos-Reid poll which found 74 percent support for Kyoto, but that poll did not include the made-in-Canada option. Also revealing is that opposition to Kyoto was strongest among those who showed the greatest awareness of the accord.
A more recent poll conducted by The Sun (November 7, 2002), a pro-Kyoto publication, has found even less support for Kyoto. The poll stated, “Some people think Canada needs to ratify the Kyoto Accord as proposed by the federal Liberal government because it will have a positive impact on our environment. Other people think that Canada should not ratify the accord until there is a better understanding of its impact on the economy. Which of these two opinions best reflects your view?”
Fifty five percent of Canadians responded that Chretien should not ratify the protocol, 32 percent support ratification, with the remainder undecided.
Energy Bill Officially Dead
On Nov. 13, the Senate energy conferees voted against a counter offer to a proposal offered by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.), killing any chances of an energy bill being passed by the 107th Congress. The decision to not pass a bill in this Congress was strongly supported by the White House, which did not want a bill that didnt have an electricity title.
Tauzins significantly-stripped-down proposal would have only contained reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act and pipeline safety legislation. The Republican take over of the Senate is likely to change the dynamics of the debate. The new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources will be Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and the chairmanship of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will be handed over to James Inhofe (R-Okla.), both of whom will likely favor legislation to increase energy supplies.
Prospects of Stabilizing Emissions Appear Bleak
In a major challenge to the conventional wisdom, a team of scientists has delivered a devastating blow to the Kyoto Protocol in a review of energy technologies published in the November 1 issue of Science.
The lead author is Martin Hoffert, a physicist at New York University. Also notable among the authors are the popular science fiction writer Gregory Benford, a physicist at the University of California, Irvine, Michael Schlesinger, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois, and Tom Wigley, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and long time promoter of climate alarmism.
The review, which takes catastrophic global warming claims at face value, argues that our fossil fuel-dominated energy system “cannot be regulated away.” Indeed, the only real solution is “the development within the coming decades of primary energy sources that do not emit carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.”
This challenge is presented in stark terms. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change calls for a stabilization of greenhouse gases at levels that avoid “dangerous anthropogenic (man-made) interference with the climate system.” The authors argue that stabilization at levels as low as 450 parts per million (ppm) may be necessary to do this. “Targets of cutting to 450 ppm…could require Herculean effort,” says the report. “Even holding at 550 ppm is a major challenge.”
Currently, the worlds power consumption is about 12 trillion watts, 85 percent of which is supplied by fossil fuels. By 2050, energy consumption will be as much as three times the amount currently produced by fossil fuels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claimed in its latest report that, “Known technological options could achieve a broad range of atmospheric CO2 stabilization levels, such as 550 ppm, 450 ppm or below over the next 100 years or more.” The authors disagree. “This statement does not recognize the CO2 emission-free power requirements implied by the IPCCs own reports…. Energy sources that can produce 100 to 300 percent of present world power consumption without greenhouse emissions do not exist operationally or as pilot plants.”
The authors assess various possible methods to achieve the requisite greenhouse gas reductions, such as efficiency improvements, decarbonization and sequestration, renewables, nuclear power, and geoengineering. Nuclear fusion appears to be the best option, according to the review. “Despite enormous hurdles,” it says, “the most promising long-term nuclear power source is still fusion.” The other potential solutions considered by the authors are far from promising.
Decarbonization is moving from high carbon fuels such as coal to low carbon fuels such as natural gas, and eventually to carbon neutral fuels such as hydrogen. But hydrogen does not exist in geological reservoirs and must be extracted from fossil fuel feedstocks or water. “Per unit of heat generated, more CO2 is produced by making H2 [hydrogen] from fossil fuel than by burning the fossil fuel directly,” says the review. Getting the hydrogen from water is even less viable.
Renewable energy, such as solar or wind power, is not a viable solution either. “All renewables suffer from low areal power densities,” write the authors. Thus they require enormous amounts of land. Moreover, “Renewables are intermittent dispersed sources unsuited to baseload without transmission, storage, and power conditioning.”
The article concludes that the ability to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions without seriously damaging the economy is not possible at this time. “CO2 is a combustion product vital to how civilization is powered.” All of the approaches discussed in the paper to replace fossil fuels “have serious deficiencies that limit their ability to stabilize global climate.”
Global Warming and Heat-Related Mortality
One of the speculative impacts of global warming is the increase of heat-related mortality due to rising summertime temperatures. A study in Climate Research (September 6, 2002) finds that there is no evidence to support that claim.
The team of researchers, led by Robert Davis of the University of Virginia, looked at the impact of high temperatures on daily mortality rates over four decades in six major metropolitan areas along the U.S. east coast from north to south. What they found was that in the three southernmost cities, there were few significant mortality effects related to temperature extremes. But in the three northernmost cities, there was a significant decline in population-adjusted mortality rates.
What this means is that, “These statistically significant reductions in hot-weather mortality rates suggest that the populace in cities that were weather-sensitive in the 1960s and 1970s have become less impacted by extreme conditions over time because of improved medical care, increased access to air conditioning, and biophysical and infrastructure adaptations.” They note that, “This analysis counters the paradigm of increased heat-related mortality rates in the eastern U.S. predicted to result from future climate warming.”
Etc.
Last Sunday, Al Gore guest-starred as the voice of his own disembodied head in the animated Fox series Futurama. The episode was written by Gores daughter Kristin, and according to the Washington Post (November 2, 2002), “Gores preserved cranium hosts an emergency summit to determine how to combat global warming caused by robot emissions.” Oddly enough, this wouldnt be the most outlandish thing the Gore has said about global warming.
Emissions Credits Need Government Mandate
Critics of emissions trading have long warned that such programs are thinly disguised wealth redistribution schemes with very few, if any, environmental benefits. They also warn that offering tradable credits to companies that “voluntarily” reduce emissions of greenhouse gases would create a business lobby demanding a mandatory cap. Without the cap, such credits would be virtually worthless.
These warnings have been borne out by a recent “demonstration trade” of greenhouse gases between the chemical company Dupont Co. and the electric utility Entergy Corp. The 125,000 metric ton “supply” of greenhouse gas credits was “created” by Dupont, which voluntarily reduced emissions in 2001 at an acid plant located in Orange, Texas.
The transaction prompted bellyaching from Entergy spokesman Larry Daspit, who complained that, “Under present U.S. environmental regulations theres no market for this kind of trade. There are clearing houses for these transactions, but there is no U.S. government mandate. When you do your financials, you cant have a line item for this right now because there is no U.S. mechanism.”
Natsource, an international emissions brokerage firm, estimated that the trade would have been worth $315,000 under a cap. An emissions broker for Natsource stated that “Companies are managing the liability of expected government requirements by trading now. They have a fiduciary responsibility to do so” (Reuters, November 1, 2002).
Kyoto Will Be Costly For Canadians
The Canadian Taxpayers Union has released a study estimating that Kyoto-related costs would reduce Canadas annual household income by about $2,700 by 2010. The study notes that the government estimates that Canadas CO2 emissions will reach 809 megatons by 2010 and that Canadas Kyoto target is 571 MT, so it must reduce emissions by 240 MT or about 30 percent.
The studys author, Ross McKitrick, an associate professor of economics at the University of Guelph in Ontario, says that the government hasnt been honest about what it will take to meet the Kyoto targets. “The federal government is currently focusing its advertising campaign on proposals such as turning down the thermostat and doing laundry in cold water.”
Such efforts would be wholly inadequate, however. Even if “all Canadians implemented a suite of such household-level energy efficiency measures, it would only reduce emissions by 0.4 MT,” says McKitrick. The Kyoto target is 600 times larger, so such discussions are clearly irrelevant. “Kyoto ultimately means a fundamental restructuring of the economy.”
Moreover, says McKitrick, federal discussion papers on strategies for meeting Kyoto lack sufficient detail to be useful. An April 2000 discussion paper offered four options that were eventually dropped as being infeasible or inadequate. A new draft plan was released in October, but, says McKitrick, “This one contains even less detail. It is a blend of elements from previous plans, leaves 25 percent of the required emission reductions unaccounted for, and includes no economic cost estimates. On this basis they are now seeking approval from Parliament for rapid ratification.”
Due to the lack of specifics, McKitrick adapted previous economic studies that closely resemble the current plan to come up with cost estimates. Meeting the Kyoto target would mean a permanent loss of income to the average household of $2,700 or 5.5 percent. Job losses would be on the order of about 1.5 percent and real wages would fall by 5.8 percent. McKitrick conclude, “In light of the fact that Kyoto yields no economic or environmental benefits, this is obviously a bad deal for Canadian households and should be rejected.”
The study is available at www.taxpayer.com.
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