2008

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

Pledges are nice for organizations like public television and the Muscular Dystrophy Association, but until the promises are actually fulfilled with checks, they are meaningless.

The global warming panic community is beginning to learn this lesson the hard way, as the New York Times reports that Norway's promise to be "carbon neutral" by 2030 is empty:

But as the details of the plan have emerged, environmental groups and politicians — who applaud Norway’s impulse — say the feat relies too heavily on sleight-of-hand accounting and huge donations to environmental projects abroad (rent-seeking, anyone?), rather than meaningful emissions reductions.

 

That criticism has not only set off anguished soul-searching here, but may also come as a cold slap to the many countries, companies, cities and universities that have lined up to replicate Norway’s example of becoming carbon neutral — with an environmental balance sheet showing that they absorb as much carbon dioxide as they emit.

Reminds me of a quote from Tad Aburn, director of the Air and Radiation Management Division in the Maryland Department of the Environment, after his state's climate commission announced they had similar carbon-reduction aspirations (90 percent below 1990 levels by 2050): "“If you asked me right now, how are you going to do it? What exactly are you going to do? The answer is, I don’t know.”

·        The Washington legislature this week sent H. B. 2815, the Climate Action and Green Jobs Act, to Governor Chris Gregoire, whose signature is guaranteed because she requested the law. Like similar legislation passed in California and New Jersey, the Climate Action and Green Jobs Act establishes legally binding emissions targets, but does not specify how those targets are to be reached, and instead gives regulatory agencies the responsibility to formulate a plan.

·        A bill to slash Maryland’s carbon emissions as a way to address global warming was delayed Wednesday by senators who feared the bill could hike energy prices and put factories out of business.

·        In Kansas, a confrontation is likely between the Legislature and Governor Kathleen Sebelius, who is indicating she intends to veto a bill that would allow the expansion of coal power. The Legislature passed the bill after the Sebelieus administration blocked the construction of 2 coal power plants because of their impact on climate change.

The British government’s National Audit Office has looked over the accounting ledgers and discovered that British greenhouse gas emissions are 12% higher than the official figures submitted to the U. N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and to the European Union.  This means that instead of being 16% below 1990 levels, emissions are down less than 5% since 1990.  Emissions in Britain dropped dramatically between 1990 and 1997, the year the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, because of the “dash to gas”.  Coal mines and coal-fired power plants were closed and replaced with much cheaper natural gas from the North Sea fields powering new gas turbine power plants.  But since 1997, emissions have been rising in the United Kingdom.  Now, it looks like they’ve risen much more than the government realized or admitted.

The endless claims by the Blair and now Gordon Brown governments that Britain is leading the world toward global warming salvation now look more than a little suspect.  So too do the endless assertions by environmental pressure groups that the UK proves that you can have vigorous economic growth while still making rapid progress in reducing emissions. 

I have often argued that there are two technical reasons why an international agreement to undertake mandatory emissions reductions will not work.  The first is that the European Union is demonstrating that you can undertake solemn commitments to reduce emissions by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and then do little or nothing to fulfill those commitments.  The second is that it is extremely difficult to determine emissions levels in countries such as China that have poor record keeping and a history of fudging the numbers.  It turns out that I was not suspicious enough.  Even the British government was willing to fudge the numbers in order to be the world’s global warming leader without having to pay the costs.   

Counterbalancing the recent declaration from the Southern Baptist Environment & Climate Initiative, a group of conservative leaders have sent a letter to every U.S. senator, opposing climate-change legislation.  Among those signers are Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

The letter cites studies showing federally mandated CO2 reductions in the Warner-Lieberman bill would increase the price of food (costs borne most heavily by the poor), eliminate millions of jobs, raise household costs for families, raise energy prices (including gasoline and electricity prices), and slow economic growth.

Not exactly prudent care for Creation — at least not the human part of it.