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Comment: 12 January
2010
Copenhagen: the fall of Green Statism
Now we have the Copenhagen deniers. These are people who won't
accept that the UN’s climate change process has been derailed. The
highest emitting nations refuse to be bound by an enforceable
treaty. Instead of bedding down a replacement for the near-defunct
Kyoto Protocol, they asked for a rain check.
If the grandly named Copenhagen Accord is “a first step”, as
President Obama put it, what were Rio (1992), Geneva (1996), Kyoto
(1997), Buenos Aires (1998), Lyon (2000), The Hague (2000),
Marrakech (2001), New Delhi (2002), Milan (2003), Buenos Aires
(2004), Montreal (2005), Nairobi (2006), Vienna (2007), Bali (2007),
Bangkok (2008), Ghana (2008), Poznan (2008), Bangkok (2009) and
Barcelona (2009)?
Apparently these earlier meetings of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change were just for cocktails. And the list doesn’t include
the eleven or so gatherings since 1998 of the Convention’s
“subsidiary bodies”, all held in Bonn.
Copenhagen wasn’t meant to be just another UNFCCC meeting. It was
the Conference of Participants (the Convention’s supreme body) where
member nations were to sign off on a successor to Kyoto, which only
covers the period to 2012. Their failure to do so means the process
is in disarray. Consisting of twelve short clauses, the Accord is
little more than a face-saving device full of vague and
unenforceable aspirations. The final clause calls “for an assessment
of the implementation of this Accord to be completed by 2015”, so
the world won’t have a binding operational treaty for some time, if
ever.
Copenhagen wasn’t a first step; it was the last step. It marked the
end point in a long cycle of top-down, bureaucratic, multilateralism
launched at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. This all came unstuck in the
very different world of 2009.
The geo-political rifts on display at Copenhagen can’t be papered
over with the diplomatic equivalent of a Hallmark greeting card.
Essentially, the UN process is hostage to a standoff between the two
largest emitters and their respective camps. On the one hand there’s
China (for which read the Communist Party, whose grip on power
depends on high rates of carbon-spewing growth) and so-called
rapidly industrialising countries like India, Brazil, South Africa
and Indonesia. On the other there’s the United States (for which
read representatives of energy-producing regions in Congress, which
must ratify any treaty negotiated by the President) and most of the
developed world.
Negotiations are rarely successful when both parties can only lose.
Climate talks are about the apportionment of pain and blame, with
benefits flowing to a third category of poorer countries, so the
prospect of a workable compromise between the major camps is remote.
Expect emissions to go on rising.
Australia counts for little in all of this and was rebuffed at
Copenhagen. Our 1.4 per cent contribution to global emissions has
zero impact on the climate.
Despite all the guff about Copenhagen being “a first step” or “a
good beginning”, the collapse of the UNFCCC process changes
everything. Absent a binding multilateral instrument, or the
realistic prospect of such an instrument, the rationale for
government-level, legislative and tax-funded initiatives disappears.
The contention that we must enact a framework complementing the
Kyoto Protocol and succeeding protocols, and demonstrate a credible
intention to achieve prescribed emission targets, has been swept
away.
Bizarrely, our government persists with the argument that early
action is essential to avoid the higher costs of delay. This claim
rests on the assumption that acting now will prevent adverse climate
effects. But that assumption was demolished at Copenhagen. Assuming the IPCC is right, only action by the major emitters, not Australia, can
avoid such effects and they aren’t playing ball.
If this is really about climate change, the government should call a
moratorium on climate-related legislation and spending until the
international position is clearer.
Of course, individuals, firms and organizations in the private
sector are always entitled to act on their own initiative, should
they feel strongly about the issue. There just isn’t a rationale, or
moral justification, for coercive state action.
As John Humphreys of the Centre for Independent Studies
points out, “it is an
indication of the sorry state of community groups that when faced
with a problem, they spend millions of dollars whingeing and asking
other people to do something“. He proposes that “instead of whinging
and waiting for politicians to become benevolent, people who are
worried about anthropogenic global warming can take immediate
action”. Climate activists and concerned citizens should put their
money where their mouths are.
On a practical level, Humphreys estimates that if activists were to
organise a system of voluntary “workplace giving”, whereby people
could opt to allow 0.5 per cent (or more) of their income to go
directly into a “climate fighting fund“, more that $1 billion would
be raised if only one third of Australians participated. These funds
could be used to buy low-emission energy from alternative energy
producers for sale to into the power grid at the going market price.
For one thing, this would spur investment in alternative energy
technologies without inefficient meddling from government.
This is one of many courses open to those who profess to be alarmed
about the coming cataclysm. We’re often told they’re in the
majority. Since the future of the planet is at stake, why should
higher contributions matter?
If green activists and entrepreneurs can generate demand for
expensive but clean energy sources, the government should facilitate
this market by removing barriers to entry, not by mandating or
subsidising particular energy options. If property developers can
generate demand for high-density “green” housing, planning officials
shouldn’t regulate against this, just as they shouldn’t regulate
against low-density housing. The same applies to transport and cars.
Let consumers choose. This is the real “market solution” to climate
change (assuming a solution is needed), not the fake market
represented by a cap-and-trade ETS.
Surveys and electoral returns show that the affluent tend to be more
concerned about green issues, so this approach has an added
advantage. It relieves wealthy greens of the moral hypocrisy
inherent in demanding state interventions which produce glittering
opportunities for them, while shifting the pain disproportionately
to the most vulnerable in the community.
