Australia has now ratified the Kyoto Protocol and when George Bush’s Presidency expires the United States is also likely to join up. Indeed all counties in the developed world will probably soon become parts of a carbon emissions trading scheme. But the gap between what is agreed and what is achieved in terms of reducing emissions is likely to be significant.
Speaking at the '2008 International Climate Change Conference' in New York last week, the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, described the “robust relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth”. He went on to suggest there are three types of countries in Europe based on their emissions profile and level of economic growth. He talks about his speech in an article in The Australian (March 12, 2008).
He described the less developed countries of the European Union (EU), including Greece, as trying to catch-up economically and in the process, since the signing of Kyoto, increasing their level of carbon emissions by 53 per cent. The post communist countries are seeing their heavy industry disappear and are experiencing a decline in GDP and a drop in emissions of on average 33 per cent. Highly established countries like France and Germany have seen their emissions increase by about 4 per cent since Kyoto was signed.
President Klaus said “the dream” to reduce emissions in the EU by 70 per cent in the next 30 years could only be achieved if there was a dramatic de-industrialisation of Europe - likely associated with a dramatic drop in GDP, a significant drop in population, or a technological revolution.
Klaus questioned the extent to which carbon dioxide, as opposed to natural variability, has driven global warming over the last 100 years. He sees the imposition of carbon rationing through emissions trading as reminiscent of communist era European politics where radical economic change was imposed from above.
These sorts of views are often labelled as climate change scepticism - but it is more climate change realism.
Of course there are those who argue that given the imminent catastrophe of global warming we all need to make some sacrifices and if this requires some draconian top down social engineering, so be it.
Also at the conference in New York was Roy Spencer who leads a team analysing temperature and cloud data from NASA’s Aqua satellite which was launched in 2002. This satellite has, for the first time, enabled the collection of detailed data on cloud formation and evolution, and temperature anomalies in the tropics.
Much of the scientific uncertainty about the size of manmade global warming is related to how the climate system responds to some warming. The climate models suggest a strong positive feedback: that the warming effects of additional carbon dioxide will be amplified by increasing water vapour. But data from NASA’s Aqua Satellite indicates just the opposite - that warming has the effect of slightly reducing the total greenhouse effect by adjusting water vapour and cloud amounts, to keep it in proportion to the amount of available sunlight.
These findings published late last year are still being digested by the meteorological community: if correct it will mean that all current climate models used by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) will require an overhaul.
Dr Spencer’s work supports President Klaus’ hunch that climate systems are more robust than the models suggest and that natural climate variability has been neglected in much of the research and discussion to date. The policy implications are considerable if, as Dr Spencer‘s work seems to indicate, the overhauled climate models eventually show greatly reduced future warming projections.
The conference in New York was attended by 500 so-called climate change sceptics, including meteorologists, geologists, astrophysicists, social anthropologists (studying group dynamics in the climate change community), polar bear specialists and of course lobbyists.
There was diversity of opinion among delegates at the conference as to the causes of global warming in the last 100 years, and also little consensus regarding the future of fossil fuels.
Benny Peiser from Liverpool University in the UK, acknowledged that governments worldwide had no real solutions to rising emission levels but that solutions would come through geo-engineering and the development of solar energy.
In contrast, Michael Economides from the University of Houston in the US suggested this was a pie in the sky fantasy. Professor Economides said the world was likely to continue to source most of its energy from fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
Perhaps it all depends on the extent to which governments in developed countries, including Australia, are prepared to risk a fall in their GDP by insisting on a real reduction in carbon emissions before new low emissions technologies are in place.
Such social engineering, President Klaus warned, would be disastrous.
Instead, we perhaps have to restart the discussion about the very nature of government and about the relationship between the individual and society. Should governments let climate alarmists impose policies designed to limit an individual’s access to energy?
We do need to relearn the lessons from the collapse of communism nearly 20 years ago. It is not just about climatology; it is also about freedom.
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This article has been republished from On Line Opinion: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7124&page=0
I was a delegate at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, March 2-4, 2008, New York City.
You can read some of my blog posts on the conference at the following links:
February 25, 2008
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change: I'm off to New York
March 03, 2008
Climate Change Conference, New York – Day 1, In Review
March 04, 2008
Climate Change Conference, New York – Day 2, In Review
March 06, 2008
Climate Change Conference, New York – Day 3, In Review
"We're paying well over £1 per litre, but it is less than 40p at the pumps without tax."
Which brings up the question, how will the government finance all of the social obligations that they have convinced us only government can deal with when there is no gas to tax and when economies are quickly contracting.
Mark - and finally there will exist soon two choices. Because people, for some reason, cannot imagine that anything short of a huge fossil fuel or nuclear power stations will power society and that oil powered cars are the only acceptable form of transport, we will be confronted one day by the choice of building nuclear reactors to refine tar sands or building more nukes to power electric cars.
In this case the lesser of two evils is nuclear powered electric cars as adding nuclear to the already incredibly dirty and destructive tar sands operations will be an ecological nightmare even worse than conventional nuclear power.
Mark - "Ender, don't let your underlying hatred of the status quo blind you to the possibilities."
I am sorry you have the wrong person - I do not have any hatred of the status-quo at all. The question is why should you operate lots of nukes with unresolved waste and proliferation issues when renewables, with no such issues, can do the same job probably better.
For example are you quite happy for Iran to operate lots of nukes? I guess not because you do not trust them to not divert material to weapons programs. You have no such issues with wind and solar.
The main other problem with nukes is what average demand do you set them up for? It is totally uneconomic to run then as load followers so you are usually left with a huge amount of unused baseload than cannot vary efficiently.
However if it was a choice between tar sand oil in IC cars and nuclear powered electric cars the nuke cars would win as the tar sands is a desperately dirty form on energy. I realise that nuclear is, despite the shortcomings, going to rise to prominence however for Australia at least we do not need or want it and we will be the better for not going down that path. With our small population and absolute wealth of renewable energy nuclear is just plain stupid unless we want to get into the whole nuclear fuel cycle. The more countries that do not have nuclear the better and safer the world will be.
The idea is to make nuclear obsolete by providing smaller flexible power systems that coupled with energy gains can power a technological society without leaving dangerous legacies for others to clean up, and is sustainable for as long as the sun shines not for the life of one or other stored resource.
"The last thing that we need is more inflexible base load particularly one like nuclear that is even less flexible than most."
Ender, don't let your underlying hatred of the status quo blind you to the possibilities. What's good for the goose is also good for the gander! In the same way V2G can assist with the varying supply provided by most renweables, it can also help with varying demand. You operate a set of nuke plants geared to average load - V2G can then help meet peak demand while soaking up excess supply in periods of weak demand.
phil - "Paul, Aaron and mr T...the peak oil theory, beloved of the red/greens, not only ignores the tarsands, oil shales, and heavy crude deposits of the world that are now economic at current prices, and which constitute many times the quantity of all the oil already pumped, but ignore the even bigger potential of coal to liquids techniques, which bring the worlds accessable coal deposits into the equation."
No they do not ignore it at all. All these resources have an energy return that is very much lower than crude oil. The Tar Sands at best are 3:1 and release an enormous amount of CO2.
Peak oil is not about running out of oil. You are correct we will never run out of fossil fuels however can we produce enough to meet demand which is currently at 83 million barrels per day. By using all the current gas exports of Canada to make oil from tar sand we possibly could increase it to 10 million barrels per day by 2020. Shale oil is even worse.
Solar panels by contrast have an energy return of 8:1. Given a suitable battery and electric car will have up to 4 times the energy return of an IC car powered by tar sands oil and no CO2 emissions.
"But at $80 a barrel, all the alternatives mentioned above are profitable."
And this is yet another myth. At $80 per barrel ALL the running costs of the tar sands operation also increase. For that last 40 years or so unconventional oil has been economic of only the oil was $20 dearer. However when it gets to this level mysteriously it is alway still a problem. Well now we have $110.00 per barrel oil and nothing has changed.
"Of course, unless the batteries are charged with nuclear power there will be little point in the exercise from an emissions standpoint. Less smog of course, enough reason in itself to have switched to nuclear/electric years ago. But spineless and scientifically illiterate politicians, in kowtowing to the Caldicott lobby, have stymied the switch to nuclear for years"
Absolute rubbish. Electric transport with V2G can HELP the renewable smart grid and not be a burden at all. All it takes is to break out of the 1890s mindset of huge central power stations. The last thing that we need is more inflexible base load particularly one like nuclear that is even less flexible than most.
There are also the problems of waste disposal and nuclear proliferation that you conveniently sweep under the carpet.
Whilst at the back of my mind remained an outrageous thought of recommending to Jennifer n Co they start saving carbon emissions by separating the layers of double toilet tissue before using them, we discussed our perceptions of society in general with some interesting people who had the time to stand and chat over a pile of 2nd hand books etc. in the brightest sunshine of the day.
An old friend turned up so we quickly covered what one does after moving on. Surprisingly; the issue of counter T-------m popped up again. My comment was “give them time” re the ability of our new govt to succeed in various fields given their proposed cutbacks. How agile are we now in maintaining the most useful global connections?
Reading Phil several times I have to say our greatest challenge still lies in our ability to train the next generation in operational matters. Wot boom depends who handles the resources. Another couple grabbed a box of near vintage tool bits after rejecting all that cheap made (you know where) recent imports. Turns out he runs an interstate trucking fleet and is looking for more from the good old days of post war2 manufacturing. Pipelines like highways need more than fuel as we expand.
Beyond our initial materials extraction there is a whole world of practical technical disciplines that political party comrades and governments overlook. Our downstream processing ability has to be restored before any long term dependence on fresh technology can be assured. Processing plants start with design and construction but like hospitals, delivery depends on staff. I reckon commissioning, establishing routines and allowing for constant feedback in the evolution of engineering are the least canvassed issues in most scientific papers.
I once ran a program study on rechargeable batteries used daily in state of the art portable communications. Team performance is often limited by the most basic routine. Policy is one thing, practice is another. Eventually manufacturers employed computers in battery chargers to over come some of the problems with maintaining battery life. However the success of any technology in distributed systems comes down to personal desire.
Those near the top in servicing our building industry merely laugh at the thought we may successfully run a nuclear power program. Keeping good people after training is now huge problem for all employers. But security of a service requires more than training. Loyalty to the community we live in precedes all else.
There is not enough give in taking from this crowded globe..