Does Tom Friedman read 3eIntelligence? 20 December, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Climate change, Global Warming.add a comment
The American author and three times Pulitzer prize winner agrees with my analysis two days ago that we need a new race, a race to become the first low-carbon, low-resource country in the world in his latest comment on the outcome of the Copenhagen summit. Friedman argues that we need a new strategy to combat climate change, one which does play to the self-interest of nations instead of the moral arguments about global warming. He wants to replace the “Earth Day” strategy with an “Earth Race” strategy:
“I believe that averting catastrophic climate change is a huge scale issue. The only engine big enough to impact Mother Nature is Father Greed: the Market. Only a market, shaped by regulations and incentives to stimulate massive innovation in clean, emission-free power sources can make a dent in global warming. And no market can do that better than America’s.
Therefore, the goal of Earth Racers is to focus on getting the U.S. Senate to pass an energy bill, with a long-term price on carbon that will really stimulate America to become the world leader in clean-tech. If we lead by example, more people will follow us by emulation than by compulsion of some U.N. treaty.”
That said, I am a bit less optimistic about the wisdom of the market and the vision of political leaders to see the light. Also, as a good American Friedman still believes green technologies will save the day. Maybe he should read 3eIntelligence a bit more 
“Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting” (updated) 19 December, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in China, Climate change, Copenhagen, Global Warming.add a comment
The Copenhagen Accord will go down in history like the Münich Agreement of 1938, when political “leaders” did not have the courage to oppose Hitler’s dreams of world domination. Churchill later used the words of the Bible: “Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting” to criticize British Prime Minister Chamberlain. No doubt, those “leaders” who brokered the “shame of Copenhagen” will later be known as the “Guilty Men”.
Here are some of the first reactions to the US-China-led deal:
Polly Toynbee in the Guardian: “This is the way the world ends, in communiques expressing insufficient commitment”. But it is not all politicians fault, says Toynbee. Citizens are just not willing to accept that they have to change their lifestyles and therefore politicians have no guts: “If politicians ask voters, "Do you sincerely want the planet to survive?" the answer is by no means obvious. Eat, drink, fly and be merry, hope for the best, cling to the comforting deniers. Imagining three generations ahead is a stretch. If voters cared about people drowning in Bangladesh, more aid would have been sent decades ago. If 20 million climate refugees arrive in boats, fend them off”.
George Monbiot gets angry in his comment (also from The Guardian): “Goodbye Africa, goodbye south Asia; goodbye glaciers and sea ice, coral reefs and rainforest. It was nice knowing you. Not that we really cared. The governments which moved so swiftly to save the banks have bickered and filibustered while the biosphere burns”.
Climate deniers, on the other hand, are over the moon. In a third Guardian contribution, Benny Peiser calls the Copenhagen fiasco “inevitable” and predicts “an indefinite moratorium on international climate law-making”. He also rejoices at the end of the green movement: “the biggest losers of the Copenhagen fiasco appear to be climate science and the scientific establishment who, with a very few distinguished exceptions, have promoted unmitigated climate alarm and hysteria.It confirms beyond doubt that most governments have lost trust in the advice given by climate alarmists and the IPCC. The Copenhagen accord symbolises the loss of political power by Europe whose climate policies have been rendered obsolete”. Well, I suppose Peiser might have a good point declaring the end of the climate hysteria and he could even be right that climate change will disappear from the political agenda in the next years (I have predicted that myself at several occasions, but for other reasons). That said, the climate and energy collapse and the “long descent” will just continue its course with all of us happily whistling in the dark. Live well and prosper!
It is time to change perspective on climate leadership 18 December, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in China, Climate change, Global Warming, resource depletion, sustainability.1 comment so far
With the Copenhagen summit on the verge of failure, it might be a good time to rethink our approach to dealing with global warming.
Why do we have a complete lack of planetary awareness and solidarity at Copenhagen and an inherent nationalistic reflex where each country or continent tries to put the blame on others and demands others to carry the burden? Because our political leaders are still thinking within their national boundaries and national interests. They call this “sovereignty”. Even their discourse on the need for more globalisation is embedded in a defensive reflex of “adapting” to this trend instead of actively trying to rethink a country’s interest in an age of global interconnectedness and dwindling resources.
From this 20th century perspective of “my country first”, the climate/energy revolution becomes a competitive sacrifice. All political leaders and lots of business chiefs still firmly believe that “who moves first, loses” (see the debate on border carbon taxes to compensate for the competitiveness loss when one country moves faster than another in terms of climate mitigation). It is time to leave this old thinking behind.
As Thomas Friedman argues well in his book “Hot, Flat and Crowded”, first mover countries (and companies) will be the long-term winners, not losers. In a recent interview with CNBC, Friedman said he told Chinese leaders to wait with the energy revolution, so that all the green technologies and innovations to deal with the future energy challenge will be developed in the US. This is exactly the new knowledge which should inspire political as well as business leaders. Unfortunately, the trend is going in the other direction as China seems to become the world leader in lots of areas of the green economy, and Western economies hesitate under the increasing counter-revolution of business lobbying. One can even wonder whether the Chinese do not have an interest of having the Copenhagen process fail or at least by delayed as long as possible. Because, in the end, it can force through the transition to a green, resource-constrained economy without having to deal with strong lobby groups or unwilling citizens. As such, it seems more and more clear that authoritarian regimes are more capable of dealing with the “unsustainability” challenges.
The transition to a new low-carbon, low-resource throughput society will be inevitable. It can be postponed by bad decisions but there is no escaping it, so you better prepare for it early and go for the immediate short pain than the long decline in the future.What we need is a new race, like we had the “race to the moon” and the “arms race”; only this time it will be a race to a new age of low-resource-use prosperity. The countries (and businesses) which will take the leadership in this race, will be the ones surviving and prospering in the 21st century.
The positive thing is that lots of new entrepreneurs as well as sub-national political elites in towns and cities seem to have understood this much faster than our national so-called leaders (look at the rise of the Transition Towns movement, the actions of the C40 coalition of cities and the leadership of some regional leaders – e.g. Schwarzenegger in California).
Let’s follow their example and get ready for the sustainability race. May the best country win
Some pros and contras of a border carbon tax 11 December, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Border tax adjustment, Climate change, Global Warming, Trade policy, carbon leakage.1 comment so far
The debate about the necessity to introduce a European border adjustment tax or border carbon tax heats up. Today two interesting contributions highlight some of the elements of the interesting debate.
A Financial Times’ editorial calls it the “easy way” to start “the biggest trade war since the Great Depression”. The author of the article puts forward two arguments to make his case:
“First, it is not easy to estimate the extra cost that, say, a cap-and-trade scheme imposes even on a domestic company. And given disaggregated supply chains, it will be all but impossible to calculate which country added which bit of the overall carbon content of the end product, and hence what the weighted average final tariff should be”. Seems a good argument indeed to me.
Second and more interestingly: “it is far from clear that carbon leakage is a serious problem. Most studies show some impact, though not a huge one, on very energy-intensive industries such as paper, glass and steel, but little effect on the economy as a whole. This is worth neither starting a trade war nor imperilling the future of the environment about”. OK that’s what I thought but then we also do not need all the free allowances the EU wants to give to these industries in the first place. I wonder what Business Europe will think about this FT position
The second contribution comes from the excellent VoxEU blog where a series of high-level EU economists comment on policies. In it, CEPS’ (Centre for European Policy Studies) senior economist Daniel Gros defends the idea of a border tax, not to “’level the playing field’ for EU industry but to protect the global environment” and improve global (versus national) welfare. The article is a bit technical but the main policy recommendations are sound and attractive:
“The economics of a carbon import tariff is clear. The politics is rather messy. A massive increase in EU tariffs against developing-country exports would certainly make them feel disadvantaged. While global welfare would increase, they might lose. However, there is an easy way out of the political problems. The EU could simply promise to use the proceeds from the tariff to help poorer exporting countries reduce the carbon intensity of their economies.”
Copenhagen will not save the planet 9 December, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Climate change, Copenhagen, EROEI, sustainability, sustainable development.3 comments
In all the hyperbole about the COP15 meeting in Denmark, you might be forgiven to think that this event is the last chance of humanity to save Planet Earth.
Well here is the good news: I am convinced that the planet does not need saving. Gaia can take care of itself, thank you, even with all the plagues we are trying to throw at it. What is at stake is not the planet but the future of our societies. You see, I am not even saying “humanity”, because – fortunately or maybe unfortunately -, we are a resistant breed and I am sure before we reach Venus-like runaway temperatures, our current economic system will have collapsed and new (probably agricultural) societies will re-emerge. It will be a difficult process with some serious die-offs but on the whole the planet will survive and lots of species will survive – including species man.
Now for the bad news: the problem with Copenhagen is that the most important questions facing our human future are not even on the table. Or, at least, not all of them. Climate change is just one of the heads of the “unsustainability” hydra (remember the Greek mythology beast that grew two new heads when you chopped off one?).
So what is not being discussed at Copenhagen?
- the energy descent and the declining Energy Return on Energy Invested of new, so-called energy solutions. No there is no silver bullet, there is not even a bullet with which to kill the fossil-fuel devil. All “energy solutions” (even renewables) will be unable to replace the greatest gift of Mother Nature ever: oil. The energy density of oil is what made our Western lifestyle possible.
- the constant and dramatic decline of biodiversity and eco-system services, the physical basis of all our life on this planet;
- the regional shortages of fresh water;
- the soil, fisheries, food challenges;
- the growing population taboo
- and so on, and so on.
Get it? As long as we cannot as one humanity of this Spaceship Earth formulate what is really the problem, how we would be able to come up with effective solutions?
Is there a way out? Yes there is, it is called lifestyle revolution, just redistribution and new global governance. It is called “prosperity without growth”.
Are we ready for it? Unfortunately not. Copenhagen will confirm that 
Yes, in my front yard! 8 December, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Climate change, Global Warming, IEA, renewable energy.add a comment
The International Energy Agency just launched a new publication on the role of cities in greenhouse gas reduction and energy security. The new study called “Cities, Towns and Renewable Energy – Yes In My Front Yard” showcases good practices in several cities and towns for introducing renewable energy technologies. Read the IEA’s press release.
Is the EU’s carbon trading scheme making the rich richer? 6 December, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Climate change, European emissions trading scheme, Global Warming, carbon taxation, carbon trading.add a comment
Yes according to a study undertaken by Sandbag, a UK-based climate change think tank. The organisation calculated that industry giant Arcelor-Mittal is expected to reap windfall profits of over 1 billion pounds by 2012 as a result of lax targets and free allowances in the European Emissions Trading scheme. See the Sunday Times coverage on 6 December.
This example confirms the case against the current implementation of the ETS. Due to the power of heavy lobbying, industry has been able to turn a cost into an opportunity. Good business for sure, but good for the planet?
Sandbag calls upon Lakshmi Mittal, CEO of Arcelor-Mittal to cancel the 80 million surplus permits and become the world’s biggest climate philanthropist.
Read Sandbag’s full report (“ETS S.O.S”) on the flaws in the ETS.
“Climategate” organised by Russian KGB? 6 December, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Climate change, Global Warming.add a comment
O, the irony of history! Are the climate deniers, who have been celebrating the leaked emails of UK climate experts, being manipulated by the Russian secret service?
The Mail on Sunday has this story today which really throws another interesting light on the “scandal” which was supposed to derail the Copenhagen summit.
Remember: these same climate policy opponents have on several occasions claimed that global warming efforts are nothing more than a communist Trojan Horse to undermine our beautiful and just capitalism.
Copenhagen: is biggest taboo the cheapest solution? 4 December, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Climate change, Copenhagen, Global Warming, Population growth.add a comment
According to the UK’s Optimum Population Trust, the cheapest solution to climate change is population control: “The cost-benefit analysis commissioned by the trust claims that family planning is the cheapest way to reduce carbon emissions. Every £4 spent on contraception, it says, saves one tonne of CO2 being added to global warming, but a similar reduction in emissions would require an £8 investment in tree planting, £15 in wind power, £31 in solar energy and £56 in hybrid vehicle technology.” (see The Guardian 3 December). The full report and press release of the Trust are available via their website.
Save the planet – let Copenhagen fail! 3 December, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Climate change, Copenhagen, Global Warming.add a comment
Now there is a man with guts
Climate scientist James Hansen says it would be better for the planet and for future generations if the Copenhagen summit would fail. Read the arguments of one of the strongest warriors to REALLY save the planet in the Guardian.
Another thought along the same lines. If we look at the ecological footprint of all the global meetings of the Copenhagen climate diplomacy (staying polite here) in the last years, and compare it to what will likely be the flawed compromise result, should we not ask the question: was it worth it? And why are more than 60 members of the European Parliament going to be in the Danish capital? What added-value do they bring which compensates for the carbon impact of their flights and stay? And these are the same people who tell us today that we can save the world if we would not eat meat one day per week
