The G-8 did not in my view come to any real decisions about climate change. While it is true that they agreed that warming should be limited to two degrees or less above 1900 temperatures, it is also true that nature does not obey G-8 statements. I’ve had a few thoughts recently.
Tom Friedman makes a point in this column that I’ve been trying to push for some time. If China doesn’t want to be involved in green energy projects it is their loss because whoever creates the technology will reap the financial rewards by selling it to others. China knows that there is a great deal of political resistance in the US to pricing carbon. By sabotaging any climate negotiation, China can essentially ensure that there is no strong action take to curb emissions in the US. Without a carbon price in the US, there will be little incentive for American companies to produce the newest technologies to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Every day the US delays is another day that China’s lead in the sector grows.
Energy is far and away a larger industry than IT. The fortunes made in the IT revolution will pale in comparison to what will be made in the energy revolution. It may be painful at the beginning, but it will be even more painful for America if they let China claim the biggest share of the pie because they were able to move first.
The point here is that the developed world does not need the developing world in order to come to a solution to this problem. Whether we are past, at or approaching peak oil isn’t really relevant. There is an increasing demand for energy world wide (or at least there will be once the global economy recovers) and energy prices will rise to reflect this. Eventually we will cross a threshold where it will actually be cheaper to produce energy from renewable sources, and at that point it’s not going to matter who signed what treaty when. Simple economics will dictate a massive transformation in those places which have not experience it already. And that’s without even considering the positive implications of denying revenue to places like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Russia.
The US electorate needs to decide if they want to take the biggest share of that pie, or leave it to China and Europe to be the beneficiaries of that revolution.
1 comment:
How can we expect nature to obey G8 statements? The G8 doesn't even obey G8 statements...
What I thought was interesting about the most recent summit was how obviously irrelevant the Group is becoming. The most interesting events of the whole summit centred around Harper’s antics: misquoting Ignatieff (though whoever he was quoting was actually making a valid argument) and being late for another photo-op, again quite possibly because he was stuck in the toilet. That, and the incriminating photos of world leaders making googly-eyes and young interns. Nobody even pays attention to the Group’s communiqués anymore. The G20 is where the action is.
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