Both sides of the question about responses to global warming have reason to cheer an agreement reached Dec. 10 in Montreal to hold new discussions on the issue next year. The side seeking urgent precaution can cheer a softening in heretofore stiff resistance by the US. And the side doubtful about humanity’s ability to manage the climate can cheer a rare chance to have its position heard.
Of course willingness to discuss the issue remains a far cry from the economic self-immolation much of the rest of the world wants from the US. And talking, as demonstrated repeatedly in the politics of global warming, seldom involves listening.
Bitter irony
Agreement to further discuss the issue came during the latest of many “conferences of the parties” to United Nations agreements on climate change. It was the first such conference since the Kyoto Treaty won ratification in enough countries to come into force. Under other circumstances, that would have been cause for more celebration than actually took place in Montreal.
But a bitter irony soured the mood. Just as Kyoto’s greenhouse gas emission targets were clamping down on signatories, it was becoming clear that very few countries could meet them. The prognosis applies as darkly to the European countries eager to lead the global war against melting glaciers as it does to anyone else.
Kyoto’s supporters would like to blame the US for their treaty’s troubles. If only the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases would agree to cut its emissions to 1990 levels by 2012, Kyoto would succeed. So, at least, goes that side of the political rhetoric.
The truth is that, with or without the US, the eager European signatories and most of the others won’t meet their Kyoto targets. The cuts required of most countries necessitate more energy dislocation and economic sacrifice than any country will abide. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has reached this conclusion and earned scorn in Europe for saying so. In the moralistic politics of climate change, clear-headed dissent stands little chance.
Kyoto’s futility goes beyond unachievable emission targets. While a cut-by-command system can restrain emissions of greenhouse gases in selected countries, it can’t reverse the build-up of those gases in the atmosphere unless it applies to all countries. Developing countries will account for most future growth in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and Kyoto exempts them.
Even if Kyoto did wring emission cuts out of all countries, the effect on global average temperature would probably be inconsequential. Contrary to impressions created by Kyoto propaganda, science does not support the governing myth that global average temperature increases as a direct function of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. The gas build-up might amplify warming to some extent. But it cannot be the sole cause of observed warming, and its contribution, in relation to natural variability and other likely causes, is probably small. An aggressively ignored corollary to this is that the probability is low that humans can meaningfully alter temperature by changing their behavior.
Kyoto thus demands much of people and, in terms of temperature measurements, promises little and maybe nothing in return. Who, unless there was something else to be gained, would support such a thing? Another Kyoto problem, then: a losing political proposition.
Worst of all is Kyoto’s dictatorial approach. Specific cuts by specific dates appeal only to disciples of the most extreme theories about climate change and to opportunists hoping to profit, monetarily or politically, from resulting political prescriptions. To all others, they’re needlessly heavy-handed.
Chilling economies
Yet Kyoto’s unachievable, futile, and imperious targets have become ends unto themselves. So the European Union soon might make the auto and oil industries responsible for meeting emissions targets, the latter by increasing sales of vehicle fuels from biological sources. Moves like that might not measurably cool the planet, but they’ll surely chill economies.
An atmospheric build-up of greenhouse gases must have consequences, some possibly good, some probably bad, some unrelated to warming. Moderating emissions is prudent until science determines with reasonable certainty that stronger precautions are in order or that none can be useful. So far, Kyoto’s supporters haven’t wanted to discuss approaches not motivated by alarmism and implemented by international mandate. It should surprise no one that their program is failing.✦
