"Against the background of the tempestuous year just reviewed, the European Union's climate policy steamed serenely on, like the Titanic towards the iceberg."
Gwin Pryns, author of "The Wrong Trousers: Radically Rethinking Climate Policy (pdf)," recently published "Time to Ditch Kyoto: the Sequel." The short pamphlet was handed out at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland.
Towards the end (pdf), Prins summarizes his point about a new direction for an international agreement on climate change:
"Poznan has an opportunity to... put in place the foundations and essential architecture for a radically re-engineered climate policy for adoption at the Copenhagen meeting next...That architecture will not depend upon carbon trading in the present form; it will not lead with emissions targets tied to specific dates (although benchmarks are part of the sectoral strategy for reducing energy intensity); it will not focus upon international legal agreements that are dubiously enforceable, if at all."
As he says in the sequel, the paper's predecessor, "Time to Ditch Kyoto", which was handed out at last year's Climate Change Conference in Bali, argued that
"the Kyoto Protocol had failed to produce even the extremely modest, watered down reductions in emissions that were agreed at the time of Russia's accession to the Protocol (2% on 1990 levels by 2012). Instead, we observed that the actual emissions of the European Union, the leading proponent of this instrument, had risen conservatively 10%. The figures could only be massaged into compliance with the so-called 'Kyoto target' by sharp accounting of British and German reductions for entirely unrelated reasons and by including off-sets purchased under the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM): off-sets that were not real and, in many cases, fraudulent."
Prins points out three events this past year that have contributed to the urgent need to change directions on climate action.
The first is political. In October, Canada's Liberal Party suffered a stunning collapse on the back of their "Green Shift" policy to tax carbon. The lack of public support for the opposition party's cap and dividend program catalyzed their net loss of twenty-six seats in Canadian Parliament. Earlier in June, in the midst of a close election and rising gas prices, Senate Democrats were not able to move the Climate Security Act out of debate and evidence says the bill would barely have garnered 35 votes. Senators were unwilling to legislate policy that would have raised voters' energy prices. This lack of public support has made politicians very wary of advancing climate change legislation that could be seen as raising gas prices during tough economic conditions.
The second is geopolitical. As Prins points out, Poland itself stands as a major barrier to cutting carbon emissions, as the country runs on 90 percent coal and counts massive coal deposits as both and energy and national security boon. It is incredibly unlikely that Poland will ever give up burning coal if its only other viable option is to purchase (natural?) gas from Russia. This situation has been further exacerbated by Vladimir Putin and Russia's invasion of Georgia this summer. Faced with signals of an increasingly nationalistic and expansionary Russia, it is highly unlikely that Poland or the rest of Eastern Europe will agree to be dependent on Russia for its energy supply.
The third is economic. Gas prices the world over rose and spiked in 2008, further increasing the use of coal as a primary fuel in major economies. Coal is still a cheap energy resource, and both the developed and developing world have prioritized cheap over clean energy. China, in particular, has been identified for its incredibly fast paced construction of one to two coal plants a week. However, all this coal burning is contributing to China's singular and rapid drive to develop, and the country has shown little inclination to curb emissions if it means sacrificing pace of growth. By the same token, the United States has made it clear that it will not price carbon emissions if higher energy prices lead not only to political suicide but also an exodus of the remaining manufacturing sector to countries with no price on carbon.
And where has Europe's ETS been amidst all this chaos? As Prins puts it:
"Against the background of the tempestuous year just reviewed, the European Union's climate policy steamed serenely on, like the Titanic towards the iceberg."
Prins continues:
"Integral to the...improvement in existing energy technologies is the need for an investment programme...focused on developing the primary energy sources for the 21st century in the way that each previous era of industrial history has been marked by a switch in the prime energy source: from wood to coal, from coal to oil, from oil now to whatever will be the suite of power sources (and, on the demand side, linked power uses) of the future...This revolution has the contingent benefit of containing within it important opportunities both for new investment and for new jobs at a time of worldwide economic recession and possibly slump; and since it could have the effect of making clean energy cheaper than dirtier energy - the target which is suggested by the Breakthrough Institute of California - then there is a chance of winning public support in the democracies: because people will see action on climate policy not as just another clutch of stealth taxes but as something that is positively in their financial, as well as in their other interests."
"Time to Ditch Kyoto: the Sequel," raises many important questions and thoughts about determining the next steps in forming an international agreement regarding climate change action. Despite the lack of Wallace and Gromit references, Prins hits home and identifies the political and economic barriers, both nationally and internationally, to success with a Kyoto-style agreement. And, as he concludes, a new treaty "has to start from a frank recognition of the failure to date in order to build the principles of a success in the future." Now, it is time to move forward.
