Copenhagen's Chinese Christmas Present

After the American Century Posting 204


As more insider accounts of the Copenhagen Summit come in, the Chinese emerge as the chief villains, a strong word, but not strong enough in this case. A piece in The Guardian reveals how the Chinese sabotaged attempts at a final consensus.

In the future, clearly, one cannot hold talks and hope that all the great powers agree. Giving every important power a veto right or the chance to undermine an agreement is just silly. Instead, the world will have to find another way to work toward relieving global warming. The summit model is not working, and perhaps can never work.

Here are some interlinked suggestions:

1. Create a system that ranks countries into four groups, depending on to what degree they are working toward global warming.

2. Tell consumers worldwide where each nation ranks, so that they can choose intelligently and buy products based on how much a nation is in compliance with UN goals. Under such a system, China would get a D rating, of course, and the US would perhaps as well. I would hope that consumers would be more willing to buy from nations that are trying to solve the problem of global warming rather from those that are making matters worse.

3. Allow companies to be rated as well, so that an environmentally responsible company can get a higher ranking than the nation where they are located.

4. Cities of more than 300,000 people would also be able to apply for and achieve ratings, so that if Seattle or Munich or Oslo or Rio wanted to they could achieve a rating higher than that within their home nation.

5. Give aid for conversion to clean energy technologies only to those Third World Nations where the military budget is less than 2% of GNP. It is absurd to pour money into a nation that is investing in arms and airplanes rather than solar panels, wind mills, and the like. Many poor nations are not focusing their own resources on the problem, and if this is the case, why should anyone else?

6. Give annual awards to successful projects (actually completed, not just proposals) that both improve the quality of life and reduce global warming. Make the awards as glamorous as the Nobel Prizes or the Academy Awards. Governments whose nations are in the A category would also be put in the limelight at these events and part of the ceremony would be to welcome any new members of the "A" club and to congratulate those who had moved up a category. Nations in the D category would not be allowed to have an official speaker or presenter at the awards, but they would be welcome to attend.

7. Instead of the trading system that most nations now have or want, where all free trade is considered to be a good thing, no matter what is traded, nations would be encouraged to revise their import taxes or other tax codes to favor products whose production and use had the least environmental impact. This sort of taxation would recognize that it costs more to manufacture in an environmentally responsible way. I do not suggest that the taxes be punitive, but rather that they be a restructuring of current VAT, and that they be applied to c. 100 goods that are particularly important in this area, notably automobiles, air conditioners, stoves, televisions, and so forth.

As these proposals suggest, we can no longer wait around for the nations of this earth to become unanimous. China blocked the deal this time, but it could be someone else the next time. Instead, turn loose the power of consumers and introduce something that the Chinese can understand: SHAME. They may think they have emerged as a great power, but the Chinese have lost face. Their government has not behaved in an honorable way.

Copenhagen Climate Crunch and Danish Democratic Style

After the American Century posting #202

It appears that the Danish attempt to formulate a text for the Climate Conference has been rejected. What is going on?

If you have been trying to follow the Copenhagen Climate talks, the proceedings may seem puzzling. Literally for days the delegates waited for a text to discuss. It was being prepared by the Danish hosts, they were told. Yet, in fact, the delegates had themselves prepared documents for discussion, which the Danish leaders wanted to ignore. Stalemate. Inaction. Secret discussions behind closed doors. Frustration among the delegates, who felt that the Danish leadership was ignoring them, with feelings running especially high among the African and Third World nations.

Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the Danes do not understoand or practice democracy in the same way as most other countries. In the Anglo-Saxon world and its former colonies, for example, the person who chairs a meeting should attempt to remain neutral, give all parties an equal chance to speak, and attempt to steer the meeting toward a vote, where there will be winners and losers, but where there will also be a majority decision.

In contrast, Danish leaders who chair a meeting attempt to impose their will on the group, even if it appears to be an open discussion. They want to steer the meeting not merely toward a vote but to a consensus where the outcome of the vote is obvious to all before it is taken. For those steeped in the English or American parliamentary traditions, or something like them, the Danish way of chairing a meeting seems undemocratic, secretive, irritating, high-handed, and counter-productive. To put this another way, most meetings in the Anglo-Saxon world abide by Roberts Rules of Order. Danish meetings, in my 25 years of experience, absolutely do not abide by any such rules.

In the Danish Parliament (Folketing) the coalition in power seeks to impose its decisions on the nation, often with surprisingly little public discussion. The real discussion goes on in private, in party caucuses and in coalition partner meetings. All members of a party are expected to vote the same way. When they emerge from behind their closed doors, they have all their votes lined up and they proceed to ram through the desired law with what I call "symbolic discussion." The result is already known beforehand.

I am not a delegate at the world climate talks, but from the outside it certainly looks as though the Danish leadership, steeped in its own ways of doing business, is trying to make the rest of the world play by Danish rules. And the rest of the world is not buying it. China in particular made it clear they were not going to dance to a Danish imposed tune.

To put this another way, the Danish leadership arrogated to itself too many roles. It wanted to be the host, the chair of the meeting, and also the chief negotiator. They wanted to wear too many hats, and acted according to a democratic model that others are not accustomed to. One could see this last night. The Danish Prime Minister had invited hundreds of wold leaders to a gala evening, to see the Royal Ballet and take some expensive refreshments. But the Prime Minister could not play his role there as host, because he was at the conference all evening, in his roles as chair and negotiator.

The talks are now in their final two days. One hopes that the very real Danish talent for finding compromises (albeit usually behind closed doors) saves the summit meeting from failure. If China and the United States are willing to act together (a very big If), then a historic compromise may emerge. But one thing seems certain. The Danes cannot expect to impose their text on the rest of the world.

Will we get a binding agreement? Will its standards be at least as high as those agreed upon in Kyoto? In other words, will it really make a difference in slowing down global warming? At this moment, it is hard to tell.

One thing we do know for certain: these world leaders came separately in their private jets.

Military Spending and Global Warming

After the American Century Posting # 200

The climate conference has now reached the crucial stage, where money must be pledged by the rich nations to help the poorer nations develop without excessive CO2 emissions. The EU has put $10.6 billion on the table, offering it over a three year period. They have made the most generous pledge so far, which amounts to $3.53 billion per year. The amount needed is far greater and a subject of discussion.

To put these figures into perspective, consider what the world is spending on armaments: $1.4 trillion every year. Without even doing the math in detail, you can see that the nations of this world are spending more than 100 times as much on weapons as they are willing to spend on global warming. Time to get the priorities right.

The two biggest CO2 polluters, the United States and China, also have the world's two largest military budgets. The US is by far the largest, at $602 billion, while China "only" spends $84.9 billion.

Some of the "poor" nations who want to be paid for curbing their CO2 growth are also spending large sums on arms. The United States spends about 4% of its gross national product on its Defense Department, far too much in my view, but a smaller percentage than some others. Angola uses 5.7%, Armenia 6.5%, Macedonia 6%. Saudi Arabia uses 10% of its budget for the military, which is about $38 billion.

In the next week, when the discussion of global warming focuses largely on money, keep these figures in mind. I suggest that no "poor" nation that spends more than 2% of its GNP on the military should be given any funds to help with global warming. And I suggest that no nation spending more than 3% of its GNP on the military should be taken seriously when it says it cannot afford to pay more to solve this problem.

This posting is #200 on After the American Century

Global Warming NOT the Only Problem with Fossil Fuels

After the American Century

During the next three weeks we will hear a great deal about the problem of global warming. I do believe that global warming is taking place, that the actions of human beings contribute to it, and that it lies within our power to do somethning about it. But put aside that entire discussion for a moment, and consider what other reasons there might be to cut back on burning fossil fuels.

Not all countries produce oil, coal, and/or natural gas. Advanced industrial nations that lack supplies are not coincidentally in the forefront of finding alternatives. Germany has virtually no oil or natural gas, and its more accessible coal has already been mined. Therefore Germany finds it highly interesting to develop wind turbines and solar power, and indeed has been one of the leading countries in both sectors for years. France, in much the same energy situation, has more nuclear power than any other nation. More than 80% of its electricity comes from nuclear plants. Sweden has no oil, and it relies on nuclear power and hydroelectric dams.

In contrast, countries like the United States and Britain which have oil fields and coal mines have been far slower to develop alternative energies. One can take this argument further, and say that within the US, places without fossil fuels like New England, New York, Oregon, and Washington are far more supportive of wind and solar energy than are states with coal fields. Montana, Illinois, Wyoming, and West Virginia together supply 55% of US coal production, and they are not supporting the shift to alternatives. One finds the same resistence to change in the biggest oil producting states, Texas, Alaska, and Lousiana.

Without going into arguments about global warming, it seems obvious that the current energy regime favors fossil fuel exporting regions and in effect imposes a tax on those who import oil, gas, and coal. Half a century ago the cost of these energy sources was so low as to be almost a negligable part of the total cost of production. This is no longer so. Fuel prices, over the long term, have risen and can only continue to rise as demand increases. Already in Russia, more than 20% of the gross national product (GNP), comes from oil and gas exports; in Nigeria 35%; in Venezuela 27%; and so on for all the major oil producers.

It is always a good idea to "follow the money." Most of the world's powerful economies - the US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, South Korea, Japan, Australia, China, and India - are all net importers of oil and gas. The United States imports almost 12 million barrels of oil every day. Japan imports a bit less than half that. China imports "only" 2.9 million barrels a day, but this figure is rocketing higher, as its citizens now buy more cars every month than consumers in the US. The major industrial nations need alternatives, and in the next two decades they will probably develop them.

There is one other argument in favor of a shift to alternative energies. Quite simply, the world's reserves of oil, coal, and gas are not infinite. Why keep paying a premium to use someone else's well, when it is drying up?

Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma Champions Copenhagen Consensus

After the American Century

My American readers may be embarassed, but those from Europe will perhaps be delighted to hear that the buffoon of the United States Senate, James Inhofe says he plans to come to Copenhagen for the December climate conference. Since the media yesterday told us that the great powers have informally agreed that nothing binding will actually happen in Copenhagen, it is good to know that other entertainment is on the way.

Senator Inhofe is a most militant opponent of environmentalists. He famously declared that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” For years during the Bush majority he chaired the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee. Inhofe favors drilling for oil and gas in the Alaskan wilderness, and he resists efforts to save endangered species. He frequently quotes the Bible in his speeches.

Danes should not feel too smug when laughing at Inhofe, however, as he also likes to quote their own Bjorn Lomborg, whose crusade against global warming has been, well, warmly supported by their own government. Inhofe has used Lomborg's arguments at some length in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post.

The Copenhagen Consensus, Lomborg's "think tank" gets a direct grant from the government. Lomborg is not a scientist, but a statistician. If he has actually had an original scientific idea of his own, I am not aware of it. However, he says what big oil and coal companies like to hear, and he gets major economists to confuse talking about apples as though they were oranges, (i.e. with such questions as which is better, to solve the global warming problem (orange) or to save children who are malnourished (apple)?) When Inhofe comes to Copenhagen to declare that there is no global warming problem, count on Lomborg to line up some compliant Danes to sing backup vocals.

And so, the Danish government will have it both ways. They will sponsor the conference and appear to be leading a reluctant world toward a cooler and greener future. But for years the same government has paid Lomborg and funded his center to attack the whole idea that any money should be spent on global warming at all. With one hand they admonish the Obama Administration to help stop global warming, and with the other hand they give completely different advice to Senator Inhofe.

Is Anyone Really Saving Energy?

After the American Century

Is anyone really saving energy? Time for a little reality check, as all the green rhetoric might make one believe the use of electricity and gasoline is falling.

The Kyoto Protocol was intended to help reduce pollution and CO2 levels. Signed by most of the world's nations beginning in 1997, it went into effect in 2005. However, during this eight-year interval, the signatory nations failed even to restrain consumer demand, which galloped ahead each year by an average of 500 billion additional kilowatts.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, in 2005 the world was using one third more electricity annually than it had in 1997. This growth was by no means evenly distributed. Japan, whose economy was not growing much anyway, nearly achieved zero energy growth (4%) in contrast to China's rampant 223% increase. Germany (10%), France (17%), and the United Kingdom (12%) grew rather than shrank their demand, but they were less profligate than Ireland (51%), India (40%), Argentina (39%), or Brazil (27%). Almost everywhere the consumer wanted more and no nation had managed to reverse the trend.

The failure to reduce energy use cannot be explained by cost-benefit analysis. US energy efficiency could be improved by 23% through off-the-shelf technologies such as better insulation, replacement of inefficient appliances and light bulbs, and the like. The cost of making these changes would quickly be recovered through large savings on electricity bills. But consumers do not want to invest up front to get the longer term benefits.

Likewise, automobiles are on sale that are twice as efficient as the average car on the American road. Moreover, Europeans and Asians, who once could sneer at Americans for driving so much have adopted the car in ever increasing numbers. Indeed, earlier this year for the first time the Chinese topped the US in new car sales, with more than 1 million new vehicles sold each month. Not much help for global warming there.

Do not be lulled by green rhetoric into thinking that politicians have actually done anything much to stop global warming. CO2 emissions are rising along with consumer demand. This is a global problem and no nation has yet really demonstrated that it can reduce its level of emissions and consumption to below the 1997 level - which was the idea of the Kyoto Protocol. So far, it is all wishful thinking.

Global Warming: Lomborg's "Idea" is Not New

After the American Century

Denmark's Radio once again has failed to do a background check on a story. In this case, they report that "1900 unmanned ships should said around the world's oceans and spray saltwater up in the air. This is Bjørn Lomborg's latest idea." ( "1900 ubemandede skibe skal sejle rundt på verdens have og spraye saltvand op i luften. Sådan lyder Bjørn Lomborg seneste ide.") Nonsense, this is not his idea, nor is it new. Last autumn newspapers outside Denmark reported the same idea, attributed to a 69 year-old inventor in Maryland, USA, named Ron Ace. He has filed for a patent on precisely this idea.

Whether this particular kind of geo-engineering (or any other kind) will work is not easy to say, but it will cost a good deal of money. Before endorsing this "solution" to global warming, I urged my students to consider some of the other ideas that have been advanced. Last spring I gave a seminar on eleven of these, notably,

Eleven Technological Fixes for Global Warming

1. Carbon sequestration, i.e. pump liquid CO2 underground and hope it does not resurface later.

2. Add tons of iron filings to the oceans, stimulating algae to grow. Dead algae falls to the ocean flood, taking CO2 with it. This is being tested in the Pacific Ocean as I write.

3. Create a ring of tiny particles around the earth, using satellites to "shepherd them" thereby reducing sunlight. Cost estimate a mere $6.5 trillion. However, how much would it cost to remove these particles if they cool the earth too much?

4. Pipe water from the ocean deeps, bringing more nutrients to the surface, which will stimulate plankton to grow and remove more CO2. This would also cool the ocean surface. What would it do to fish and other ocean creatures?

5. Bury massive amounts of charcoal, taking this carbon out of the system.

6. Launch 16 trillion small reflective disks into space. These will act as "high-tech" parasols. Would take 25 years to do this, and not clear how one would remove them if they caused problems.

7. "Fake volcano" irruptions, injecting suffer dioxide int the atmosphere. This would create a cloud of droplets that block sunlight. The claim is that we would need to launch 5 million tons each year for four years, to stop global warming.

8. Create 500,000 giant artificial trees, the size of windmills, equipped with special filters that remove CO2. There is no prototype.

9. Grind up a cube of volcanic rock ten km across. Grind small, and dissolve in the sea, making it less acidic. CO2 will then be absorbed, returning sea's alkalinity to where it was 60 million years ago.

10. Change the diet of cows, which produce 100+ liters of methane a day, mostly form belching. Making cattle and sheep feed more digestible will cut back on global warming,

11. Spay sea water into the air from a fleet of unmanned wind-powered ships - the idea mistakenly attributed to Lomborg.

All of these ideas have been proposed by responsible persons, some at universities such as Harvard, Columbia, or Arizona. However, I do not endorse any of these ideas, and in fact have some aversion to the very idea that the "solution" to global warming is a technological fix. At root, all of these ideas say: "No need to change human behavior. Use just as much energy as before, and let scientists monkey around with the atmosphere, the oceans, or outer space, without a definite idea of what might happen." No thanks, whether the idea comes from a publicity seeker with no scientific credentials such as Lomborg or a real scientist.

Climate Changes Faster Than Lawmakers

After the American Century

The climate is changing more quickly than lawmakers are. We know that species of fish along the coastlines are moving out from tropical zones into new areas. For example, fish not seen before in the North Sea have arrived because its waters have become milder. We know that summers are getting longer, that hurricanes are becoming stronger and more frequent, that the glaciers covering Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster each year.

Researchers at MIT plug statistics from such developments into a computerized model of the world's weather system. They include projected economic growth rates, and run hundreds of simulations, to see what might happen given different combinations of factors. Their latest findings are dire. Global warming is occurring twice as fast as previously thought, and they project a global temperature rise of 5.4 C by 2100. Their worst case scenario is a change of more than 9 Celsius. Most of southern Europe would likely become desert. The only good and fair thing is that in the US the predominantly Southern politicians would see their constituencies dry up or sink under rising seas.

We have now had quite a few such studies, but they have not led to major efforts to change human behavior. Every year the world has more CO2, more coal-fired power plants, more cars, and more electricity use. And this is true for almost every country. The United States House of Representatives, with only a small majority, has passed a law (that still must be approved in the Senate) which recognizes the problem and begins to take some mild measures toward change. It is not enough, although it is good to see the United States begin to take responsibility for its pollution. Meanwhile, the nations that signed the Kyoto Accords, promising to lower their CO2 levels have little reason to be smug. Most of them have failed to live up to their promises.

It may be that human beings are just not capable of long term planning. Is it possible that the time horizon of the brain remains somewhere between one to five years? However, it will take decades to replace existing housing and transportation systems with energy saving alternatives. The problem of global warming must be confronted immediately, because it will take decades of concerted action just to slow it down. Permanent changes in energy use are needed, but most governments have done far less than they might.

A small case in point. The Danish government put together a stimulus package for the economy, focused on home repairs and improvements. I applied for money to insulate the last remaining part of our house that is not insulated. The application was turned down, emphasizing explicitly that insulation was not covered. Now my little job will get done anyway. But does it make any sense for the Danish state to pay for such things are painting and wallpapering, but not insulation? Such policy mistakes tell Danish citizens that climate change is not really on the government's agenda. (Not that this surprises me. The government created a little independent agency, as a special platform for a prominent denier of global warming who is a statistician, not a scientist.)

Many national economies are shrinking, yet global warming is speeding up. Politicians do not yet realize that the goal can no longer be just to keep economies expanding. The old, high-energy form of expansion is at the core of the global warming problem.

Global warming is not merely a technical matter awaiting some technological fix that will make it go away. It is a problem of changing human behavior, including prohibitions and incentives built into the laws of each nation.

Why You Should Turn Off the Lights Tonight

After the American Century


Turn off the lights for one hour, tonight. Why?

(1) Because this is a way for people all over the world to demonstrate, quite painlessly, that we are concerned about global warming and the over-intensive use of fossil fuels.

(2) Because all of us can use less energy every day, without sacrificing anything, and we need to remember that we are not passive spectators, watching global warming. We are actors. We can make a difference, if we act together. In 1997, the average home in the OECD countries used 38 watts every day just to keep appliances on standby. These 386 million households were wasting 14,634 megawatts a day. Does anyone think this waste is necessary? Of course not. But we need to make an effort.

(3) Because the electrified world is historically new, and once in a while we need to remember what darkness looks like. Human beings evolved without artificial light, and during this hour we might reflect on where we stand in relation to the more than 100,000 years of human history. Human beings have used electricity for light and power for less than one tenth of one percent of human history. In that blink of an eye, historically speaking, we have polluted the atmosphere and the sea and unbalanced ecological systems in ways that we are struggling to understand.

(4) Because your house and your family seen by candlelight are beautiful in ways that you may not have seen lately. The human eye did not evolve to see the world blanketed in electric light, but rather evolved to see somewhat differently by day and by night.

(5) Because if the sky is clear, you will get a good look at the heavens. The urban landscape especially can be improved by reducing electric light. Most urbanites scarcely see the heavens at night, because excessive artificial light reflects into the atmosphere, making it impossible to see more than the brightest stars.

So why let this night be like all the others? Why not turn out the lights, and look for a local arrangement celebrating "Earth Hour" as it is called in many places, following the Australians who began this ritual in Sydney. The Danes are calling it something else, and starting not on the hour but at 20:30.

As the Toronto Star put it last year, “This event is an opportunity to show how individuals acting together as a community can have a huge impact. Ultimately, we hope it gets people thinking and talking here in Toronto and in cities around the world about real solutions to what is arguably the most important issue of our time.”