Climate change and the curse of political realism 3 July, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Climate change, US climate policy.1 comment so far
The world’s policies on tackling global warming should be based on science, not on “political realism”. The acceptance by the US House of the Climate Bill confirmed (once again) my worst fears that even our greenest political and NGO leaders are just not up to the challenge.
Compared to the Bush administration’s lack of any serious climate policy, the bill that was passed is certainly progress but in terms of really making a difference for the long-term future of the planet, the watered-down proposal is just one big disappointment. Is the glass half-full or have empty? The question is not even relevant as we will need more than a glass to extinguish this burning house.
It is also highly interesting to see some stakeholder reactions to the adopted bill. What about the following quote:
“To curb climate change, the world needs to cut carbon emissions. It needs US leadership on the issue too. But this bill is not the way. A bewildering combination of cap-and-trade, mandates, new regulation, and every kind of open and disguised subsidy, it is too complicated, too prone to subversion and in many ways downright self-defeating.
…
Learning nothing from Europe’s experience, the bill relies heavily on offsets, which let companies pay someone else to plant trees or cut emissions, so they do not have to. The still-unsolved problem is policing the system to ensure the offsets are real. The bill gives oversight of domestic offsets in farming to the Department of Agriculture – good news for farmers seeking a new trough of subsidy. To defend US competitiveness, it proposes subsidies for exporters and penalties on importers. In principle, cap-and-trade does require border adjustments, but the bill is careless and creates a gateway for protectionism.
In short, it is a mess. The key to a better plan is understanding that you cannot cut carbon without making carbon-based fuels more expensive – an obvious point, you would think. But it is one that US policymakers still cannot face.”
Subversive and frustrated reaction from some deep-green NGO, no?
Actually, no, these quotes come from business newspaper Financial Times.
And what did most green NGOs say, Well, they applauded, said this was a milestone, and hoped the Senate would maybe still strengthen the legislation. A case of false loyalty after they put so much hope in the Obama revolution? Wake up, guys, and face the inconvenient truth. As long as governments will be driven by “political realism”, the planet will remain en route to collapse. Better get ready to become a lot more radical and innovative than believing politics can help us out of this mess.
The FT articles on the US climate bill can be found here and here.
Let’s green instead of block Commission President Barroso 14 June, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in European Commission, European Union, sustainability.2 comments
After the European elections, most eyes are now on the nomination of the next Commission President and his team. Although José Manuel Barroso seems to have a majority of governmental supporters, some people in the newly elected European Parliament would like to prevent the big favorite from getting his second mandate. I think this is a losing strategy.
Instead of trying to find enough MEPs to block a second mandate for the Lisbon Agenda President, Greens and progressive members in the parliament should try and help redefine Mr Barroso’s next five-year programme. After five years of focus on deregulation and liberalisation of the internal market, the next Commission should lay the foundations for the Transition to a Sustainable Europe. It should recapture global leadership on climate change, biodiversity, sustainable energy and transport and it should commence the design of a new Europe of Prosperity without Growth. With a Commission President who will no longer have to worry about his next mandate, Mr Barroso could surprise us by telling Europeans how dire the current eco-crisis is and what Europe can do to turn things around in the next ten years. By doing that, Mr Barroso could go down in history as the man who put Europe on track to the new Age of Eco-Prosperity. Think about it, what a legacy that would be 
Restarting the 3eintelligence blog 14 June, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Uncategorized.add a comment
This blog has been silent for more than 3 months, as my other professional activities took over most of my time. Surprisingly, the blog kept its regular regular visitors and therefore I am happy to announce that I will be restarting the blog. That said, I would like to invite some of my followers to send me their guest contributions if they do not have their own blog. The email address for guest blogs is willy.debacker@skynet.be.
I have also started “twittering” these days. On my Twitter, you will find links to documents or speeches/presentations which I think are valuable contributions to the debates on sustainable economy and energy. Check out this Twitter!
How “New Europe” became” Sick Europe” 6 March, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Credit crisis, Economic growth, economic crisis, sustainable development.add a comment
Five years ago, when the Eastern European countries joined the EU, the media sang praises for the New Europe which would be more liberal, more open and more competitive than its Western neighbours (“Old Europe”). Now it looks like Old Europe will have to save the economies of the “modern” Europe from bankruptcy. What went wrong?
The economic crisis we are facing is the crisis of a market fundamentalism which was wholeheartedly embraced and promoted by most of the Eastern and Central European member states. Huge financial investments, low labour costs and even lower tax burdens made countries like the Baltics, Slovakia or the Czech Republic the favorites of the ”Lisbon Agenda lovers”.
Unfortunately, now that the old neo-liberal formulas have been discredited, the economic growth model of these countries has fallen flat on its face too. It could have been very different if the new member states would have looked to the future instead of to the examples of the Western past when building their new economies. Instead of trying to create tax havens and stimulating the delocalisation of car and other manufacturing industries via low labour costs, they could have become the leaders of the green industrial revolution which would have protected them better against the storms of the current and future economic downturns.
But then again, they probably lacked the visionary political leadership, the enlightened entrepreneurs who looked further than quick richness and the strong civil society to educate and prepare its citizens for a different European path to quality of life instead of more consumption.
What is even more worrying is that these countries, whose European aspirations and dreams have now been broken, could well become the breeding ground for a new authoritarian radical populism which could turn Jeremy Rifkin’s “European Dream” into a new European nightmare.
If this happens, the responsibility of the old member states will be overwhelming. Not because they did not bail out the troubled Eastern countries when they got into to trouble but because they send them unto the wrong road (the neo-liberal Lisbon-agenda-inspired growth path) in the first place.
Economic crisis: remedies from the past will fail 16 February, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Green New Deal, economic crisis.1 comment so far
The current crisis is different from all the ones we have known before but policymakers continue dealing with it as if it were the 1930s crisis. The tragedy is that their remedies (including green “new Deals”) might clear the way for similar outcomes as in that period: a new populist and more modern form of totalitarianism and global resource wars as a result of failed global governance.
Last week, I got really depressed when during the EU’s sustainable energy week I heard a leading German environment official say the current turmoil is just the normal cyclical downturn and the renewable energy sector just needs to “sit back, relax and ride this one out”.
A much more accurate analysis of the current crisis was provided by Le Monde editorialist Hervé Kempf (”Le passé ne reviendra pas“) last weekend. Here are a few extracts of Kempf’s brilliant contribution:
“La crise économique est une bonne nouvelle. … En stoppant cette croissance folle du PIB mondial, la “crise économique” permet d’atténuer les assauts de l’humanité sur la biosphère, de gagner du temps et de réfléchir à notre réorientation.”
…
“l’économie mondiale ne “repartira” pas comme avant, la croissance mondiale du PIB ne reviendra pas à 5 %, l’expansion très rapide de la Chine et de l’Inde est finie. Il nous faut dessiner un monde nouveau, une autre économie, une autre société, inspirés par l’écologie, la justice et le souci du bien commun“
What to do?
“Arrêter de singer Keynes et de se croire en 1929 quand on est en 2009 : la dépense, l’endettement, l’inflation, ne sont pas la solution. Replâtrer l’édifice ne réparera pas des fondations ruinées. Il importe au contraire d’opérer une redistribution de la richesse collective en direction des pauvres ; l’outil pourrait en être le revenu maximal admissible (RMA). La réduction de l’inégalité aidera aussi à changer le modèle culturel de surconsommation, et rendra supportables les baisses nécessaires et inéluctables de la consommation matérielle et de la consommation d’énergie dans les pays riches. Autre exigence : orienter l’activité humaine vers les domaines à faible impact écologique, mais créateurs d’emploi, et où les besoins sont immenses : santé, éducation, culture, énergie économe, agriculture, transports collectifs, nature.
Facile ? Non. Mais plus réaliste que de croire possible le retour à l’ordre ancien, celui d’avant 2007.”
The carbon capture and storage illusion 12 February, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in CHP, Carbon capture and storage, Climate change, Energy technologies.1 comment so far
What if the new “silver bullet”, large carbon capture and storage (CCS), would finally get commercially available at the time when the world will start running out of coal? Will we then look upon all the money being poured into this “clean coal” as another folly of “the Age of Stupid“?
I have already written about “peak coal” and CCS (”Brussel’s New Silver Bullet“) last year but there are now two new reports confirming again that coal reserves have been overstated and that we probably have about 20 to 30 years instead of 200 years of the black gold left. Joseph Romm has a good analysis of both reports (”Are we approaching peak coal – part 2?”) on his blog.
Maybe the EU and the US should launch some fact-finding investigations on the REAL long-term potential of coal and invest the big CCS money in some less sexy but already existing and working technologies such as combined heat and power (CHP) ?
Apologies will not solve this crisis 11 February, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Financial crisis, economic crisis, sustainability.add a comment
The public humiliation of four bankers before the UK’s Parliamentary Treasury Committee might have made the jealous political elites feel better about themselves but this quest for scapegoats will do little to solve our systemic crisis. That said, I would not mind if in the future we will see similar “I am sorry” hearings from politicians over their failure to prevent the climate collapse and energy descent.
As I wrote before on this blog (”Stop blaming the bankers“), it is an easy way out for our decision makers to point fingers to the greedy bankers and their financial “innovators”. These kinds of hearings as shown in the UK yesterday (and later this month in the US) just reflect the urge of our societies to close the eyes for the bigger lessons of the current economic depression. They are like rituals which have to convince us that “business as usual” can continue after we have eliminated the bad guys.
But in order to really tackle this crisis, we will need to do more than just punish the villains. What announces itself in our current economic, ecological and energy crisis is no more and no less than a fundamental collapse of the Western “way of life” which recognised no moral, social and ecological limits and as a result is now starting to hit the brick wall of these limits. German psychosociologist Harald Weltzer has analysed this perfectly in a brilliant essay published in Der Spiegel (”Blindflug durch die Welt“) and translated in Le Monde (”Crise, le choc est à venir“):
“C’est justement en temps de crise qu’on voit ce qui se passe, fatalement, quand une entité politique commune ne procède d’aucune idée de ce qu’elle veut vraiment être. Des sociétés qui se contentent de satisfaire leur besoin de sens par la consommation n’ont, au moment où, alors qu’elles se sont coupées de la possibilité d’acquérir une identité du sens et un sentiment de ce qu’est le bonheur quand l’économie fonctionnait encore, plus de filet pour retarder leur chute. Cela tombe au moment où les experts n’ont aucun plan à proposer. Peut-être leur vol à l’aveuglette est-il le signe d’une renaissance. Celle du politique.”
Green Business as Usual 7 February, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Credit crisis, Financial crisis, Green New Deal, economic crisis.add a comment
For all the rhetoric about a Green New Deal, there is very little real green and very little new in most of the economic recovery plans governments are presenting. A good example is France’s 26 billion “Plan de Relance” launched in December 2008.
French web portal Actu Environnement has an excellent analysis (“décryptage”) of the proposed recovery plan. Here are a few extracts:
“Ce catalogue de mille mesures hétéroclites est majoritairement concentré sur l’entretien et l’extension de l’existant plutôt qu’en faveur d’une nouvelle orientation de l’économie, au service, par exemple, de l’environnement et de la réduction des consommations d’énergie, de la promotion de l’agriculture biologique et de la préservation des ressources naturelles.”
…
“Le plan de relance à la Française, finalement très traditionnel, peut laisser perplexe. D’autant que la crise financière a montré les limites du modèle actuel : on ne sortira pas de la crise sans aller vers une société plus sobre et plus solidaire. Au-delà des effets d’annonce, le mode d’emploi existe. Il est urgent de l’appliquer.”
The real new deal for a post-carbon world 19 January, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Peak oil, economic crisis, energy security.1 comment so far
There is a new general consensus that the current economic collapse can only be solved by massive injections of public money into the economy. Policymakers have rediscovered Keynes and calls for a “New Deal” can be heard from Washington to Beijing. But neither blunt Keynesian stimuli nor big infrastructure programmes let alone dramatic sector bailouts will solve this crisis if there is not recognition of the fundamental links between the “economic crisis of 2009″ and the new energy and resource scarcity of the post-oil era.
One of the best analyses of this predicament has just been published by the Post Carbon Institute of Richard Heinberg. The 24-pages plan for the Obama administration (”The Real New Deal. Energy Scarcity and the Path to Energy, Economic, and Environmental Recovery”) outlines the priorities of a future energy policy confronted with climate change and the accelerating energy descent.
The document’s main starting point is that the “financial crisis must be addressed by pursuing an energy transition“. But this transition, says the study, “must not be limited to building wind turbines and solar panels. It must include the thorough redesign of our economic and societal infrastructure, which today is utterly dependent on cheap fossil fuels. It must address not only our transportation system and electricity grid, but also our food system and building stock.”
The “Real New Deal” offers five components of the solution:
- a “massive and immediate shift to renewable energy”
- electrification of the transportation system
- rebuilding the electricity grid
- de-carbonisation and re-localisation of food production
- retrofitting the building stock for energy efficiency.
Year Two of the Long Emergency 6 January, 2009
Posted by Willy De Backer in Climate change, Economic growth, European Union, energy security.add a comment
Not only will global economic depression and rising unemployment plague 2009, but intensifying geo-political tensions will lead to new trade protectionism and (very likely) new wars (Middle East, Pakistan-India, US-Iran?). Collapse will be on everyone’s lips as, at the same time, the long-term threats of resource scarcity and global warming intensify. Happy New Year!
It will be difficult to do as well as with my predictions for the previous year (”2008: Annus Horibilis?”) but here are my gloomy forecasts for 2009. (BTW: I got most of my inspiration for this post from James Howard Kunstler’s excellent “Forecast for 2009“)
- “It’s the economy AND the ecology, stupid“:
- The economic storm will hit even harder than it did last year and the specter of unemployment will raise memories of the seventies. More money will be pumped into the economy but this will only postpone the necessary start of the transition to a more sustainable society. The new Keynesian revival risks to be no more than an effort to “rescue the Status Quo” (James Howard Kunstler) and will lead to new inflation pressures by end of 2009. What is really needed is not even a “Green New Deal” but a complete re-think and re-engineering of our current economic goals and instruments. A good starting point for EU policy makers would be to read Herman Daly’s “Big Idea: Steady-State Economy” in the AdBusters online journal.
- “Maybe we can or can’t we?”
- Climate change will be the biggest game in diplomat town but very little will be gained at the end of the ride. Copenhagen will unfortunately find a weak compromise which will give political “leaders” an excuse for continuing business as usual. Like in 2008, we will get more insight into the energy descent but our societies will keep closing their eyes. That said, defence and intelligence circles will start sending out more worrying reports, but can we handle the truth? The media will start publishing more climate-sceptic stories again.
- Oil prices will remain unpredictably volatile. Contrary to what some critics are saying this is exactly what peak oil analysts have predicted. Nevertheless I think there is a high probability of a price range between 40 and 60 dollars for the first half of the year unless the Middle East blows up or new terrorist attacks hit. In that case, oil prices will rise to 150 dollars again. More important than the oil price is the real demand-supply situation (the oil price volatility is one of the best examples that the market is NOT the best instrument to allocate resources). The current demand destruction (as a result of the economic downturn) is already leading to supply destruction as investments in new developments are no longer profitable. In the long run, this will only speed up our future energy descent.
- “The World is NOT flat”
- The economic downturn will lead to growing protectionism (read “Welcome to hell of protectionism in 2009“). Here I agree again with Kunstler when he writes: “The over-arching geopolitical theme of 2009 will be the end of robust globalism“.
- The economic crisis will intensify nationalistic reflexes and send the European project in a downward spin. The European Parliament elections in June will demonstrate (once more) the utter disconnect between EU elites and the citizens. Mr Barroso will stay on as Commission President but the position of a vice-president for communication will be scrapped. Despite all climate change rhetoric, the neo-liberal “competitiveness first” wind will prevail in the new Commission’s priority plans
- The Irish will say “NO” a second time in the new referendum on the Constitution. As usual the crisis will not be seen as an opportunity to reboot the Union. Ireland might have to vote a third time in 2010
- The Czech EU Presidency will stumble over its own contradictions and the Swedish one (which will be more worried about sustainability issues) comes to early in the new cycle to have a real influence on the EU’s agenda for the next five years.
PS: another gloomy forecast for the financial world in 2009 from the peak oil community was published today on the Oil Drum blog: “Financial Forecast for 2009, Considering Resource Limitations“.
