After agreement was reached in December 1997 on the Kyoto Protocol, its supporters pronounced that major carbon reductions were feasible and probable. Just do it, as the Nike commercial said. Build it and they will come, as the Field of Dreams movie said. And during the eight years of George W. Bush, Kyoto supporters complained mightily that we were leaving dollars on the ground, so to speak, while running out of climate and time.
Now under Obama
the environmental Left realizes that a federal program to reduce CO2 emissions may not occur this year because of the economy. Here, for example is an exchange between Houston Chronicle science reporter Eric Berger and Rice University’s Neal Lane, a global warming alarmist from the Clinton Administration days:
Q. [Berger] Do you see the Obama administration being able to get a meaningful carbon dioxide emissions reduction bill through Congress?
A. [Lane] I think so. What’s in the way of that, of course, is the economic crisis. Understandably, that has to be dealt with first. So I would expect it will be hard for the administration to move forward as rapidly on climate change as they had intended to do (emphasis added).
So what happened to the idea that a carbon diet would give the economy a nutritious free lunch? We have heard for so long that economists got it all wrong with their high cost estimates of meeting Kyoto.
In his book Cool Companies (1999, pp. 2, 218), for example, Joe Romm stated that self-interested energy savings by “any significant fraction of U.S. companies” would allow America to “meet the Kyoto targets while lowering the nation’s annual energy bill by tens of billions of dollars and accelerating economic growth through productivity gains (emphasis added).”
And here we are a decade later with U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions 15 percent above 1990 levels versus our Kyoto assignment of 7 percent below 1990 emissions. And remember, Kyoto barely begins to reverse out the human influence on climate from the alarmists’ own math.
It is an open secret that a climate bill in 2009 is improbable. States Romm over at Climate Progress:
I can’t find a single reporter, staffer, or wonk who thinks we’re going to have a climate bill this year. As the NYT reported earlier this month, “advisers and allies have signaled that they may put off … restricting carbon emissions.”
Can there be any doubt that the future federal regulatory program–now looking like the year 2010 or later–will be watered down with any big emission reductions scheduled in the out years when the targets can be easily reversed (the economy comes first, remember)? Are Left environmentalists going to be forgiving then too?
Can even climate alarmists have second thoughts about the extent of “market failure” in light of “government failure” and ramp-down their futile crusade? Will some or more rebel against corporate welfare and the T. Boone Pickens’ of the world? Will they think more about the welfare of energy consumers, particularly lower income ones? The climate civil war is one that nobody needs.
The one positive thing about the economic crisis is that the silly environmental extremists are going to have to bite their socialistic tongues for at least a year. And that will give the public much-needed time to fully understand the biggest scam they have ever been exposed to. There is no longer any credible scientific basis for the AGW-extremist position, and it’s just a matter of time before the majority understands that. The cool weather and the ever more hysterical utterances by the likes of Hansen and Gore are accelerating the discovery of the truth. I predict we will see a lot of backpedaling red-faced politicians in a year’s time.
We need to do everything in our power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.We have so much available to use such as wind and solar as well as technologies to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. There could be no better investment in than to invest in energy independence. Create clean cheap energy,create millions of BADLY needed new green jobs, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.The high cost of fuel this past year did serious damage to our society and economy. Record numbers of jobs and homes have been lost due to the direct impact on our economy.Oil is finite.We are using it globally at the rate of 2 X faster than new oil is being discovered. Added to the strain on our supplies foreign countries are bursting in populations and becoming modern.China and India alone are expected to add another 3 million vehicles to their highways in the next 2 decades. I just read a fantastic book called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now by Jeff Wilson.Great Book!
Rob, what you seem to be missing is that there will be plenty of green, “carbon-friendly” pork in Obama’s “stimulus” package, so it’s not like the enviros aren’t getting some of what they think they want.
Why you ignore this nonsense while cheering on the delay in a carbon pricing program is beyond me. Other libertarians prefer a rebated carbon tax precisely so this type of pork can be avoided and markets left to function in a more hands-off manner.
“So what happened to the idea that a carbon diet would give the economy a nutritious free lunch?” I don’t think that this has really gone away – it’s embodied in part in the stimulus program and as for carbon pricing it seems that “the environmental Left realizes that a federal program to reduce CO2 emissions may not occur this year because of the economy” – because even the left understands that introducing carbon pricing requires more political will – and support from industry – than Obama can seem to garner right now.
Why are we behind on Kyoto? Well, we didn’t sign on, did we? Plus, there are a fair number of institutional reasons that we are lagging behind on relatively easy gains, such as utility regulations, and lack of drive/motivation within firms to capture benefits.
“Can even climate alarmists have second thoughts about the extent of “market failure” in light of “government failure” and ramp-down their futile crusade? Will some or more rebel against corporate welfare and the T. Boone Pickens’ of the world? Will they think more about the welfare of energy consumers, particularly lower income ones?”
Excellent questions. I have another one – will you and your colleagues be offering positive suggestions that more effectively advance the goals of “alarmists”, or do you prefer the stasis that comes from parties fighting over the wheel of government?
PS, don’t look now, but probably McKinsey (and RFF) deserves more attention than Joe Romm on climate change policies: http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/ccsi/pathways_low_carbon_economy.asp
It’s painful to consider all that is argued and opined when the answer to all prayers is unspoken: nuclear energy. Energy when you need it, where you need, without environmental cost, in inexhaustible supply; the proponents of “renewable” energy don’t even allow nuclear on their list, yet call laughable energy sources such as biofuels and geothermal “renewable.” And non-polluting. The analysis of need is quite simple, even if – totally appropriately- CO2 emissions are ignored. Oil, gas, and even coal are finite. Solar and wind are unreliable, expensive, and there are not enough suitable places on Earth to site the installations needed to replace a significant portion of energy now generated from fossil fuels. Sun and wind may be renewable resources, but the sites necessary to exploit them aren’t. Lives also are not renewal to the persons living them, and it is arrogant in the extreme for us to even consider that the poor in the developing countries should sacrifice the chance of have comfortable, secure, and enjoyable lives on a cross of CO2 reduction to quiet alarmist fears. Fears that ignore that climate change is a constant and that during the Holocene we have already experienced periods of warming greater than what we think the future holds.
Global warming alarmists have created a vision of the future that ignores the realities of the past, and for that they want us all to still our minds and abandon the less fortunate. And for what?
For a futile attempt to stop the natural forces of climate change that have swung warm and cold over eighty times in this Quaternary period, this 2.6 million year ice age we live in.
We’re arrogant, ignorant players on a stage called irrelevance.
MM, I`m with you on nuclear energy, anyway.
But “abandon the less fortunate” – wher does this come from? “Differentiated responsibilities” under the UNFCCC (framework climate treaty) means that most developing countries get a free ride (and relatively lower fossil fuel prices) while others pay more and invest in carbon-lite technologies.