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 Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 7:07 am Post subject: Thankfully, No Chance Now For A Carbon Pact |
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Terry McCrann
July 31, 2008
QUOTE: In your, very wet, dreams, all those anti-carbon enthusiasts
QUOTE: There>s an increasingly fin de seicle - increasingly hysterical,
completely out of touch with reality -- flavour to the anti-carbon
enthusiasts.
CHINA didn>t just bury the trade negotiations overnight Tuesday.
It killed any prospect of a global agreement to cut carbon dioxide
emissions.
This makes Kevin Rudd>s emissions trading scheme (ETS) an even more
pointless exercise in utter - but nevertheless potentially devastating -
futility.
We would set about cutting global emissions by almost undetectable
amounts while China would be pumping out 10 or 100 times as much.
But nevertheless 'achieving' two big outcomes. Imposing great costs on
ordinary and every Australian, and destroying the economy.
In an exercise in classic, that>s unintended, krudd irony, the prime
minister described the collapse of the trade talks as a 'body blow' to
the world economy.
Yes, prime minister. Given that the collapse will do arguably
one-hundredth of the damage to the world economy that your ETS scheme
would do if you got your way and had it globally imposed.
And given that you were denying that the collapse in the trade deal
pointed to the likelihood of a similar (non) outcome for any deal on
carbon emissions.
Oh yeah. Would you like to put money on that?
In sum and in short, that you are determined to press on with your
unilateral plan to deliver an even more devastating body blow to our own
economy. Irrespective of what the world did.
Opposition leader Brendan Nelson got his timing wrong by one day.
If he hadn>t committed to a pallid version of Rudd>s ETS plan on
Tuesday, maybe he - and more importantly, his ETS-enthusiast colleagues-
might have digested the very simple, very clear message from the
collapse of the Doha trade round.
If China (and India and the US) refuse to commit to something which
'might' hurt their economies very much at the margin, there is no
prospect of them committing to something - cutting emissions - that
would cripple them.
This is particularly the case with China and to a lesser extent - only
of degree - with India.
The sticking point in the trade negotiations was the right of countries
like China and India to impose tariffs on food imports to protect their
farmers.
Yes, the ability to do so 'might' be important, if more so in India. But
it>s something that lies at the very periphery of those countries'
future economic development.
Not so energy. Especially not so to China, which is building a new
coal - carbon-dioxide emitting - power station every few weeks; and is
consuming nearly 10 per cent of global oil, heading for 20 per cent.
So China is going to die in the ditch so to speak to protect farmers at
the margin of its future - and happily agree to cut its entire economy
off at the knees on energy?
Believe that and you not only believe in the tooth fairy, but that it is
Kevin himself that goes from house to house in his spare time to slip a
dollar under pillows.
The contrast - and so, the absolute certainty that China will never,
never, agree to cut its emissions - is even more striking if you factor
in the global food reality.
Ten years ago, we lived in a world of global food oversupply. Yes, I
know millions were starving. But I>m talking about demand and supply, at
a price, in markets.
Take Europe. It wanted to, and did, protect its farmers and their
production from food imports - especially from Africa.
Or Japan protecting its rice farmers and local meat from Australian
producers.
But that was before 2.5 billion Indians and Chinese started their
marches to western levels of calorific consumption. And, western levels
of energy use.
Does anyone seriously think that farmers anywhere are going to need
protection, going forward. That>s as silly as saying we might need to
protect local oil producers by slapping tariffs on cheap oil imports.
You wish.
This emphasises how even more peripheral protecting farmers was/is. But
China and India were prepared to kill seven years of trade negotiation
to retain the right to do so.
And they are going to agree to cut energy use across their entire
economies and not simply dramatically reduce their economic growth rates
but probably turn them negative?
In your, very wet, dreams, all those anti-carbon enthusiasts.
There>s an increasingly fin de seicle - increasingly hysterical,
completely out of touch with reality -- flavour to the anti-carbon
enthusiasts.
The self-named Climate Institute welcomed the coalition>s move to 'come
in from the cold' by signing on to the government>s ETS scheme. As if
wishing, and then wishing again can make it so.
Earth to Institute: just quietly, it>s not going to happen.
You don>t like carbon? Don>t move to China.
Oh wait. Their carbon is our carbon.
Find another planet.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24103931-36281,00.html
--
Warnest Regards
Bonzo
"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods
but by perpetual repetition." Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of
Meteorology, MIT |
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