Ein Gastbeitrag von Benny Peiser

Falls man jüngsten Berichten trauen darf, sehen die Erfolgsausichten für eine neue internationale Klimapolitik besser aus als allgemein angenommen wird. Die Gründe für den neuen Klima-Realismus sind vielfältig: Da ist zunaechst einmal die Einsicht, dass das Kyoto-Protokoll einfach nicht funktioniert. Innerhalb der EU kommt es deshalb zu wachsendem Widerstand gegen eine unilateralte Klimapolitik, die Europas Wirtschaftsstabilität und Konkurrenzfähigkeit ernsthaft gefährdet. Schwer scheint auch die Tatsache zu wiegen, dass die USA in den vergangenen Jahren eine bessere Bilanz hinsichtlich der CO2 Emissionen aufzuweisen hat als Europa - und das ganz ohne Zwangsmassnahmen. Nun scheinen sich beide Seiten langsam anzunähern. Ob die Inder und Chinesen allerdings dem neuen Klima-Realismus mit Wohlwollen gegenüberstehen bleibt abzuwarten. Zum Thema Post-Kyoto zwei meiner Kommentare, die letzte Woche im Wissenschafts-Network CCNet erschienen sind.

POST KYOTO, A NEW CLIMATE REALISM TAKES SHAPE

On Friday, law-makers and politicians from around the world met in Washington and agreed a new policy statement on tackling climate change. They signed a non-binding declaration that is intended to set the agenda for the upcoming G8 meeting in June and the post-Kyoto negotiations up to 2009. (The full statement can be found here http://www.globeinternational.org/docs/content/washington_statement.pdf

As the outcome of the GLOBE meeting is carefully scrutinised by governments, stake-holders and interested observers, much of the media have failed to notice the most significant implications of the new agreement:  Instead of advocating a “new” Kyoto Protocol, the international community has finally decided to move away from the idea of short-term, mandatory CO2 cuts.  In place of short-range targets, the new agreement focuses on the “long-term goal to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere ... at a level between 450-550 parts per million of CO2 equivalent.” It also supports the EU position that global temperature rise should be limited to 2 deg C.

In my view, these new goals are a pragmatic long-term approach to climate change and a realistic basis for the post-Kyoto negotiations. Better still, they are based on measurable temperature rise and the issue of climate sensitivity. While long-term CO2 targets remain part of the statement, their range is broad enough for international climate policy to look towards technological and political responses in the 2050-2100 time frame. Such a long-term policy perspective is much more realistic to pull together the international community. More importantly, it would provide enough time and flexibility to adjust policies, technologies and societies in a non-disruptive fashion.

Perhaps the most important achievement of this emerging realism is the wedge it is driving between climate moderates and climate alarmists, a split that has been growing deeper since the release of the IPCC’s AR4 summary for policy makers. There is evidence that the alarm among the environmental movement is intensifying because the new realism is undermining their campaign of fear and climate apocalypticism. 

Greenpeace have made their position on the Globe agreement clear in no uncertain terms: “The projected target for climate-wrecking gases would result in a disastrous three-degree increase in temperature. This would see the loss of 20-30% of species, melt of two polar ice sheets, add one to two billion more people to those suffering water scarcity and trash the world’s remaining rainforests and coral reefs…”

At the same time, the emerging post-Kyoto realism punctures the claims by climate scientists who famously declared that “if you start talking two or three degrees Celsius, then you’re really talking about a different planet from the one we know.” Sorry, Jim. But that’s exactly what the Globe agreement is talking about! What is more, it also undermines those politicians who argue that “we have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe.” The new approach, in contrast, is looking to develop an framework for international climate policy that looks to address the issue over the next 50 to 100 years.

While climate alarmists are evidently hostile to the moderation of the post-Kyoto approach, it will be interesting to see how the major players in the international community will respond. There are signs that even the US Administration is warming to a more pragmatic approach. On the other hand, open questions remain about how unanimous the Washington agreement really is. The German FAZ newspaper reported on Friday, that “the German delegation noted with concern China’s resistance regarding the goal of limiting the rise of global temperatures to 2 deg C by the end of the century” (Frakfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 16 February 2007).

The apparent squabble seems to indicate that there is still some reservation about the final details and fine print of the dual goals of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and global temperature rise. This double goal, however, might actually be an opportunity to bridge international disagreement: it leaves open to future research and observation the question of how increasing levels of CO2 will actually impact on temperature rise in the next 50 years or so. As far as I am concerned, I welcome the new realism and think it is a satisfactory basis for future negotiations.

POST-KYOTO: A WHOLE NEW BALLGAME

It is hard these days to keep up with the accelerating reworking of national and international climate policies. On Monday, the US Administration pre-empted a preparatory G8/climate meeting between Angela Merkel and Tony Blair by announcing, in Berlin no less, an energetic, new approach to international climate policy: ‘We’re doing better in recent years on reducing greenhouse gas emissions than you folks - so why don’t you join our technology-driven path to success instead of sending Chinese communists billions of Euros for worthless carbon credits? ’ (excuse my rather rough translation of diplomatic niceties)

Today, the European Parliament, in one of its emblematic consensus votes, decided by a majority of 615 - by 25 votes against - that instead of getting wobbly on Kyoto, the EU should enforce a 30% emissions cut by 2020 - and a staggering 80% reduction by 2050. (http://euobserver.com/9/23496). Not that anybody in Europe would take note, given the routine nature of such show of hands.

Tomorrow, Canada’s three opposition parties will most likely succeed in winning its Kyoto vote in the House of Commons, thus possibly triggering new elections that may be decided on the contentious climate treaty. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=2de17e3f-76c1-4cd4-8d8c-849c5d7c872a&k=5894

What these developments have in common is that they are taking place in a significantly reshaped political landscape where traditional positions and habutual disparities on climate change policies have been diluted beyond recognition - if not abandoned for good. In short, what we are witnessing is the internationalisation of what I call the ‘Cameron-Effect.’

By this I mean the greening of the conservative parties of the Anglo-Saxon world. This strategy is a mainly PR driven restyling of conservative parties in the European fashion that has transpired over the last ten years or so. What Australia’s, Canada’s and America’s political right is beginning to learn from their British counterparts (and have had to learn under pressure from political opponents) is the need for environmental camouflage - in more or less exactly the same mode socialist, labour and even traditional free market liberals have painted themselves in populist green varnish.

Now that everyone is outdoing each other in green spin and rhetoric, now that every single government on the planet is clamouring for the green vote (left, right and centre), it has become increasingly frustrating for the political left to attack their opponents on environmental credentials. This is one of the reasons why the ostensible conversion of Presidents Bush as a champion of environmental protection is regarded as suspicious if not outrageous as David Cameron’s original scheme to don the eco-mantle and call Labour’s green bluff.

Which brings us to the touchy Kyoto game. As the economic burden and hurt of EU’s Kyoto experiment becomes progressively palpable for ordinary citizens, common businesses and whole sectors of European industries, the opposition to Europe’s unilateral policy is mounting. Whether it is growing hostility by the energy intensive manufacturing industry, Europe’s airline or Germany’s car industries, the traditional ritual of keeping tight-lipped on Kyotoy owing to political correctness has been shattered in recent months. Even Germany’s once powerful trade unions have begun to publicly voice their concern about (and started to march in protest against) the detrimental impact of Europe’s unilateral climate policy on economic stability and job security.

All things considered, Europe seems to be suffering from a severe bout of Kyoto-schizophrenia. Its governments and political elite (not to mention its science establishment) have invested incalculable amounts of political capital and prestige on the Kyoto Protocol. In more than one way, it has become the foremost and tragic symbol of Europe’s “leadership role.” A political failure of the Kyoto process would, without a shadow of doubt, cause incalculable trauma to European pride and standing.

Which is why the widely anticipated climb-down on Kyoto-style mandatory emissions cuts and short-term targets that will almost certainly feature in any post-Kyoto agreement that aspires to include China, India and the US is now carefully presented as Angela Merkel’s accomplishment or Tony Blair’s lasting legacy, etc. In reality, international climate policy will have to become much more realistic (as in Realpolitik). It will almost have to start from scratch if a truly global, transparent and cost-effective agreement is to be achieved in the real world of highly disparate and conflicting interests. As far as I can judge, it remains to be seen whether a face-saving and economically viable compromise can be achieved in the next few years among the world’s superpowers.

Benny Peiser is a researcher at Liverpool John Moores University and editor of CCNet (http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/CCNet-homepage.htm)