Syun-Ichi Akasofu
International Arctic Research Center
University of Alaska Fairbanks

The most serious issue heads of state in the world faces today is the health of the economy of their own countries.  This issue is of the same importance whether they were democratically elected or not.  If their economic policies fail or collapse, they face a vote of non-confidence or may not be re-elected in a democratic country.  In a dictatorial country, revolution might occur.

However, because the economy, energy consumption, and the amount of manmade CO2 released are closely tied together, they cannot simply reduce the release of CO2.  And efficient use of energy and conservation alone will not be sufficient to maintain the present economic growth, unless a vast amount of sustainable energy unrelated to CO2 can be found.

One of the major topics today is the great economic growth of China and India.  Both countries have reportedly stated that they will refuse any international regulation on their CO2 release.  On the other hand, some countries are demanding that both China and India should reduce their CO2 release.  Here is a great contradiction.  The developed countries, including the US and Japan, have made China in effect the ‘factory’ of the world by outsourcing their production.  This can easily be recognized by the fact that practically everything available in our retail stores is “Made in China”.  It is reported that China plans to build 650 coal-fired power plants by 2010.  Therefore, it appears that China plans to continue to be the ‘factory’ of the world in the future.

Therefore, it is selfish for the outsourcing countries to demand that China and India, the ‘factories’ of the world, reduce their CO2 release.  If the developed countries have to stop outsourcing the work presently done in China and India, they will have to bring their factories back to their own countries, which would not resolve the CO2 problem.
If the great disaster scenario predicted by the IPCC were to occur, it could be said to be the fault of the developed countries, which have been promoting “outsourcing” by promoting global capitalism.  Following this line of thought, one could even say that if the IPCC predicted disaster were to occur, global capitalism will collapse by itself and destroy the world.

The heads of the worlds must be well aware of the simplistic scenario mentioned above, but they cannot reduce their economic activities and CO2 release.  Indeed, carbon is money.  Thus, in order to escape from this seeming quagmire, they hold high-level, international meetings, including the G8 summits, one after another.  In the past, they could not reach any substantive agreement on the reduction of CO2 release, nor did they respect any of the agreements they did reach.  For instance Japan, the host country of the Kyoto Protocol, could not follow it, in spite of their efforts.

It appears that the sole purpose of such meetings in the past has been (and probably will be in the future) nothing more than to make joint declarations to the world to show that they are serious about global warming, in order to avoid being called ‘enemies of mankind’ by the world mass media and global-warming-mongers.  So far, I have not heard of any serious initiatives by economic and financial institutions to take measures to meet the IPCC’s recommendations.  At present, they are busy in dealing with the “sub-prime lending” problems, which should be somewhat less important than the future of mankind.

In reality, however, there is a high probability that most of the present warming trend is caused by natural changes, in spite of the fact that the IPCC claims “most” of the warming is caused by the greenhouse effect of CO2 (IPCC Summary, 2007).  It is important to note that the IPCC claim is only a hypothesis, it is not a fact.  The earth experienced a cool period called the “Little Ice Age” (LIA) from about l400 AD.  The recovery from the LIA began in about l800 AD or earlier.  This recovery trend has been in progress since then almost linearly, continuing even at the present time, at a rate of about 0.5°C per 100 years.  There is no way to explain this linear temperature increase in terms of the CO2 greenhouse effect.  The IPCC claims that the temperature rise is about 0.6°C per 100 years.  Thus, it is possible that the greenhouse effect on temperature increase is about 0.1°C per l00 years, instead of 0.6°C.

There were at least several periods during the last l00,000 years, when the temperature was higher than at the present, so there is nothing unusual or abnormal about the present warming trend and the present temperature.  This fact is quite obvious when paleoclimate and geological data are examined (even including the temperature trend during the l930’s in the US).  The existence of dinosaurs supports the past long-term data.  The IPCC focused its main efforts only on the recent temperature increase from 1900.  Examining only such recent data provides a sort of snap-shot view from the climatological perspective.  It is like chasing dragons, which are imaginary creatures, corresponding to the IPCC’s unproven hypothesis and the exaggerated greenhouse effect of CO2.

Basing their predictions only on recent data, it is possible that the IPCC has greatly over-estimated the greenhouse effect, and their future predictions are also uncertain.  Their climate models are nothing more than a sort of academic exercise at the present time and should not be used for international policy-making.  There is much uncertainty about climate change, and careful, basic research is needed, instead of harmful, panicky decisions that may severely affect the world economy.  It is not possible to stop the climate change caused by natural processes.  Our adaptation to naturally-caused climate changes should be different from our actions to address man-made causes.  If the natural causes are dominant, the reduction of the man-made CO2, while made at a great expenditure to the world economy, will not have much effect.

What is needed now is an international panel on environmental destruction (IPED).  In his book entitled, “The Crisis of Global Capitalism”, George Soros, a well-known investor, mentioned that global capitalism cannot deal with environmental destruction. Indeed, environmental destruction, can be and should be a major and worthwhile topic for joint discussion by the heads of state of the world.