Why Copenhagen Is A Waste Of Time Even For Global Warming Alarmists

09 Dec, 2009 by John Hawkins

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For the length of this post, let’s set aside the fact that not only is there no manmade global warming going on, there’s no global warming at all occurring right now.

Let’s say that I’m a global warming alarmist who’s absolutely convinced that manmade greenhouse gasses are going to super heat the earth and kill us all in 100 years. If I were that sort of person, I would be getting excited about geoengineering or hoping for a major technological breakthrough because there is not the slightest chance that there is a political solution to this issue.

Why?

Well, even if every nation got past Climategate and accepted that global warming is caused by man (and not only are they not there, they’re getting further away from that by the day), the question of who’s going to take a bath — the rich or the poor countries, probably isn’t solvable. Here’s the Guardian explaining the latest development on that front:

The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations.

The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

…The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol’s principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol — the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.

The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as “a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks”.

A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:

– Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;

– Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called “the most vulnerable”;

– Weaken the UN’s role in handling climate finance;

– Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.

Despite all the happy talk you hear from Al Gore and company, limiting manmade greenhouse gasses is actually an extremely painful undertaking. To do it on the scale that the environmental extremists want would be incredibly expensive, would severely curtail economic growth, and would mean stagnating or deteriorating lifestyles across the globe.

Of course, in situations like this, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” The politicians want credit for being “environmentalists.” The poor countries want to rake in loot from the rich countries. The rich countries want to hurt their economic competitors and set things up so that their companies benefit from carbon credit schemes, etc.

So then, it becomes a question of perspective: the richer nations produce more carbon emissions by virtue of their wealth, but the rapidly industrializing poorer nations are likely to grow more percentage wise in the future. Cuts for the rich nations may actually force their citizens’ lifestyles to go backwards, but if the poor nations bear the brunt of this nonsense, their economies will be retarded and they’ll be prevented from ever truly becoming prosperous.

Now, if this were a small matter, some face saving compromise could probably be worked out. But, the losers here are going to lose big and given the state of the world economy and the doubts there are about how real manmade global warming is in the first place, there’s not a chance in hell that a real worldwide agreement can be worked out in the foreseeable future.

That means this is really nothing more than a world wide economic suicide pact and the dumb nations are the ones that agree to put the gun in their mouth first and pull the trigger. In any case, no matter which nations agree to pull a Kurt Cobain, this isn’t an issue that can be effectively dealt with over tea in Denmark.