From the Financial Times
Russia’s ratification of the Kyoto protocol – which could come as early as this Friday – is the breakthrough that makes the commitments of the signatory countries to the climate change agreement legally binding. It is great news. But is it enough?
The best the Kyoto protocol can now achieve, with the US still outside it, is a 2 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2010, compared with the 1990 baseline. Yet the scientists say we need a reduction of 60 per cent to arrest global warming. In fact, because developing countries, notably China and India, which are industrialising fast, are still declining to ratify the protocol, the greenhouse gas emissions of the planet as a whole are likely to increase by around 75 per cent by 2020.
That is disastrous enough. But two other factors increase the threat further. One is that the rate of global warming is steadily accelerating – it has doubled over the last few decades. The other is the real possibility that the die-back of forests, the collapse of the continental ice-sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, or the release of billions of tons of methane hydrates trapped in the oceans could suddenly increase the momentum of warming until it is out of control.
Is this all inevitable? Not necessarily. But to deliver the three-prong programme necessary to avoid it will require far greater political grit than the world has shown so far.
First, the level of global carbon emissions that can be “safely” absorbed into the atmosphere needs to be determined. The world’s scientists have generally reckoned this level is about 550 parts per million. At present it is about 379 ppm, and increasing by 3 ppm per year. The only rational way then to keep below the 550 ppm ceiling is by setting an emissions quota for every country. Initially this quota would be set at each country’s current emissions level. The quotas of the developed nations would then be gradually reduced, and those of the developing countries increased to allow them to industrialise, until all countries converged at a uniform per capita figure. Each national quota would then be reduced so that global emissions contracted and the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases remained below the agreed “safe” level. This programme has been called “contraction and convergence”.
If this is the only equitable and long-term feasible solution, what are the chances of its gaining universal political consent? At the moment, very slim. The US, with 4 per cent of the world’s population but responsible for 25 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions, has reneged on the Kyoto protocol and has just shown itself willing to fight a war in Iraq to gain control of one of the largest remaining repositories of oil in the world. If the lead western country is still bent on a fossil-fuel economy, even at the price of war, why should developing countries sign up to the protocol?
The second fundamental requirement is a major and rapid switch to renewable sources of energy. This is currently happening only at a snail’s pace. Solar energy and wind power have huge potential. But so far they provide less than half of 1 per cent of the world’s energy and face enormous hurdles. For instance, the cost of manufacturing the silicon-based photovoltaic cells used in solar panels remains incredibly high and the power generated is intermittent depending on climatic conditions. Factoring the direct and indirect environmental costs of traditional power sources and petrol-driven vehicles into their price could accelerate the switch. But, again, governments may not be prepared to grasp this nettle.
The third policy prong is the least understood. The amount of energy we waste is colossal. More energy is discharged as waste heat by US power plants than is required by Japan to run its whole economy. It is estimated that raising the fuel economy of American vehicles by only 2 3/4 miles per gallon would be sufficient for the US to dispense completely with oil imports from the Gulf.
A massive worldwide push for energy conservation could therefore have an enormous impact. But this is feasible only if there is a fundamental shift away from the capitalist ethic of artificially stoking up demand to absorb higher incomes. The much-improved fuel economy of cars over the last decade has been far offset by consumers’ habit of buying more and bigger vehicles.
No one policy is sufficient to confront climate change. It requires the combination of contraction and convergence to force down, equitably but effectively, the use of fossil fuels; a global switch, led by fiscal incentives, into renewable sources of energy; and a huge campaign to maximise conservation and relentlessly squeeze the prodigious waste of energy. These are the solutions. The big question is whether we are prepared to pursue them.

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