William Yeatman

The preponderance of future growth in global greenhouse gas emissions will take place in developing countries such as China and India, which is why stopping global warming must be a truly global effort.

But a global response to global warming is impossible, as I’ve been arguing for a long time, because there is no precedent for interstate burden-sharing of this magnitude, short of war. The International Energy Agency estimates that it will cost $45 trillion to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius, and history indicates that the countries of the world are incapable of agreeing who should pay what portion of this gargantuan tab.

The impossibility of a meaningful climate change treaty is a sure thing, despite what you may hear from silly idealists who claim that China will hamstring its economy to fight global warming as soon as the United States does so. Yet this realistic portrayal of climate diplomacy is rarely admitted.

So it was with shock that I saw this quote, from Xie Zhenhua, China’s the top economic planner, to the 10th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature.

“The conflict between developed countries centers on economy, technology and global dominance whereas developing nations fight against restrictions on their developments.

The conflicts are driven by commercial and political interests.”

Through this prism (one of national interest), compromise is impossible.

Yesterday the Australian Senate defeated cap-and-trade energy rationing legislation, by a 42-30 vote. Let’s hope the U.S. Senate acts similarly this Fall, and votes down the global warming energy tax that passed through the House of Representatives in late June, before anyone had the time to read it.

Under Australia’s parliamentary system of government, the Senate is largely a rubber stamp body, but it does have the power to bloc legislation.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd can choose to re-submit the failed cap-and-tax legislation in three months. If, however, the Senate blocks it again, the Australian constitution calls for the dissolution of the government and immediate elections (a 10-12 week process), after which the entire Parliament must meet to consider the legislation.

Today the Associated Press reports that United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki Moon told a gathering of UN bureaucrats in Korea that climate change “is, simply, the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family.”

Really?

After all, there are wars raging is Asia. Disease kills thousands of human beings every day in Africa. A third of the world’s population is mired in crushing poverty. These are big challenges that are harming the human family now.

Climate change, however, seems to be on hold. Despite steadily increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, global temperatures haven’t increased statistically since 1995.

So…the head of the United Nations thinks that non-existent warming is a more pressing threat to mankind than war, disease and poverty. Talk about misplaced priorities!

I saw Val Kilmer’s new feature the other day. It’s called “The Chaos Experiment,” and it’s about a deranged scientists (Kilmer) who traps “six sexy strangers” (according to the plot synopsis on the back of the DVD) in a room and slowly turns up the heat to demonstrate the deleterious effects of global warming on the human condition. In a nutshell, the “six sexy strangers” get naked before they go crazy and start killing one another.

My girlfriend thought it was awful- she was put off by the nudity. That was the only part I enjoyed, in what was otherwise a real snoozer.

According to the invaluable Eco-razzi, “The Chaos Experiment” was released in only 2 theatres before going straight to video. Poor Val Kilmer. It’s been all downhill since “Tombstone.”

Then again, you reap what you sow. Movies with a message about global warming are either boring (c.f. “An Inconvenient Truth”) or stupid (c.f. “The Day After Tomorrow”). So Val, who produced this film, had his work cut out for himself. Lord knows he tried to spice things up, by centering the film on “six sexy strangers” who get naked, but even that couldn’t overcome the lameness of global warming alarmism as a plotline.

We’re getting closer to an Armageddon climate policy scenario. Last week ten Democratic Senators told the President that they will not support any global warming legislation that does not protect domestic industry with carbon tariffs. This is a big step toward an economically ruinous trade war.

At issue is the $45 trillion climate question: Who’s gonna pay to green the global economy? The combustion of hydrocarbon fuels-which accounts for 85% of the world’s primary energy-is the “cause” of the global warming “problem,” so the “solution” is to make hydrocarbon energy more expensive, to the tune of $45 trillion dollars, which is what the International Energy Agency estimates it would cost to fight rising temperatures.

China and India refuse to pay. They have bigger fish to fry, like the almost 2 billion people that don’t yet have access to electricity.

As such, if the U.S. and Europe act unilaterally, they would subject their energy intensive industries to a competitive disadvantage to countries that don’t act. Jobs and emissions would be outsourced to Asia.

It’s the Gordian Knot of climate policy: China and India refuse to act, but without their participation, it’s all pain and no gain for countries that do act.

In late June, the U.S. House of Representatives passed major climate legislation (the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a.k.a., the largest tax increase in world history) that includes “border adjustment” measures (i.e., tariffs) on carbon intensive goods from countries that do not have emissions controls in place.

Last week, ten Democratic Senators (Evan Bayh of Indiana; Sherrod Brown of Ohio; Robert C. Byrd and John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia; Bob Casey and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania; Russ Feingold of Wisconsin; Al Franken of Minnesota; and Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan)-whose swing votes are crucial for the passage of any climate legislation through the upper chamber-sent a letter to President Barack Obama stating that, “it is important that such a bill include provisions to maintain a level playing field for American manufacturing.”

To that end, the Senators all endorsed the tariff proposed by the House bill.

That’s a big mistake. China has already intimated that a carbon tariff would be met in kind. A trade war would certainly ensue. China’s communist government depends on export driven growth, so perhaps it would decide to play the hardest of hardball and dump its vast reserves of U.S. debt. The results would be cataclysmic for global prosperity.

There’s a better way: No one should do anything.

Last week the Science & Public Policy Institute published “Climate Money,” a new study by Joanne Nova that documents how the U.S. federal government has spent $32 billion on alarmist global warming science since 1990.

This week, the TaxPayers’ Alliance released a new report, “Burning Our Money,” on the scale that British taxpayers’ money is being used to fund lobbying and political campaigning. It found that £38 million – $60 million – was being spent on taxpayer funded lobbying and political campaigning in just a year, most of which aims to secure greater government intervention to try to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It is about climate alarmism and related policy activism, not sober science and free-market reliance.

Below is video of CEI’s Myron Ebell speaking about the American Clean Energy and Security Act (a.k.a., the largest tax increase in the history of mankind) to a coal rally last Saturday in Eastern Kentucky. There are 18,000 miners in Kentucky, and the coal industry supports thousands of more jobs indirectly. All of these jobs are threatened by the cap-and-trade energy rationing scheme that the House of Representatives passed in late June.

In light of the massive turnout–12,000, according to the event organizers, I’d say feelings are running pretty high in coal country.

A link to Myron Ebell’s speech can be found here.