The Commons Blog: The New Climate Initiative Goes Beyond Kyoto

The New Climate Initiative Goes Beyond Kyoto

Posted by Carlo Stagnaro · 29 July 2005 · Climate

The new climate initiative that the US and five Asian countries, including the major emerging economies (namely India and China), have unveiled is putting the Kyoto Protocol and its supporters under pressure. Both for its language and scope, the "Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate" follows closely the recent action plan released at the G8 in Gleneagles, Scotland. The agreement is focused on (a) long term actions aimed at (b) developing cleaner, more efficient technologies without (c) harming economic growth; especially as far as developing countries are concerned, the parties agree that (d) the creation of wealth is by far the most effective, if not the only, way to address environmental problems. President Bush and his colleagues from Australia, Japan, India, and China have set forth a new framework that is much more flexible and long-sighted than the Kyoto Protocol. In fact the Republican Administration has been able to coagulate the consensus from a number of countries that account for roughly half of global GHGs emissions today, a figure that is likely to grow with time.

I was quite disappointed, then, when I first saw a comment from Friends of Earth's Tony Juniper: "this is another attempt to undermine Kyoto and a message to the developing world to buy US technology and not to worry about targets and timetables." In fact there is no need to undermine Kyoto, as the Protocol is - in a way - self-undermining. Its most vocal supporter, the European Union, will fail in meeting the targets as the European Environmental Agency openly tells.

Apparently some climate fundamentalists, as well as some political actors (it seems that neither London nor Brussels took very well the Partnership), value their opposition to the White House more than a move that might well help to reduce future emissions.

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This is a promising new direction.

I don't think Ludditism (i.e., the strangling of economic forces by imposing caps on emissions) every created a paradigm shift. On the contrary, every shift has been funded by investors who recognized a new dynamic and opportunity, and willingly took the risk.

The paradigm of fossil fuels is far from over, but the time for the new paradigm of renewable fuels is arriving. James Woolsey has it right - we have to recognize the need to feed existing infrastructure with renewable fuel. Once critical technology that is currently under development is perfected and demonstrated we should see a floodgate of investment in waste-to-energy conversion.

It only took 15 years to move from analog to digital in the print industry. The personal computer and internet shifts took far less time. The logistics for producing alternative fuels is more challenging but represents a spectacular potential for environmental clean-up and regional self-sufficiency in the production of energy.

Posted by: C. Scott Miller at July 29, 2005 01:23 PM

This is the first common sense proposal every to come out of a meeting about climate.

I credit Bush for this breakthrough.

Posted by: Jake at July 29, 2005 06:07 PM

This agreement is about energy security for the major economic powers of the 21st century. The "clean" and "climate" aspects are just buzz words to divert the eye and warm the heart. This is an obvious sign that the US sees the future to the west with the far east. Europe and its floundering attempt at a "union" continues to become more and more irrelevant.

C. Scott: the idea of renewables is junk science. To make a real dent in world energy supply "renewables" (biomass, solar, wind, and zero-point Tesla coils) require: more energy input to create than they deliver; development of huge tracts of land; a significant percentage of our fresh water and; the realization of an Art Bell wet dream.

Posted by: Horst Graben at July 31, 2005 03:18 AM

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