Strafor, 5 June 2007

European leaders have expressed dismay over U.S. President George W. Bush’s June 1 call for the creation of a long-term dialogue among the 15 largest greenhouse gas-emitting countries. The plan, they say, is another stall tactic designed to allow the Bush administration to appear as though it is trying to work with the international community on climate issues, when in reality it is not. Such action, they say, would take time and attention away from the difficult work being done on the issue via the Kyoto Protocol process.

In reality, however, the Bush plan signals the end of Kyoto—and the beginning of a new international consensus that relieves Kyoto’s pressures on governments. The United States, China, India, Canada and Australia produce more than half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions—and those emissions are growing. To be effective, then, any climate regime that endeavors to make real cuts in emissions must include these countries. By bringing the Pacific Rim countries into alignment on the issue, Bush has brought the United States far more power over global greenhouse gas emissions policy than Europe ever has had. With this, Bush takes from Europe its one global foreign policy success story.

Ultimately, the Europeans are looking not just at a policy defeat, but also at the union’s strategic failure to have any joint foreign policy. Kyoto/environmental issues have long been the only significant program in which the union has managed to make its voice heard globally. Should Europe continue to champion Kyoto now, it not only will be left out in the cold, but it also will face sharp internal debate about the reasons for deeply cutting emissions when no one else is. Several European governments already are suing the European Commission over climate-related regulations they consider too restrictive, while a newfound Polish bellicosity has led Warsaw to threaten vetoes over this and a wide raft of issues.

For those who believe that nothing but firm caps, as in the Kyoto Protocol, will forestall global warming, this is an unmitigated disaster. Those who feel that any successful global policy has to include the major non-European emitters, however, will see this is a successful first step in a way that Kyoto never was. See full story here.

With governments on all levels, corporations and traders drooling over the potential of carbon credits for which some will profit enormously without doing anything and with absolutely no benefit for the environment, you may find this tongue firmly inserted in cheek letter to David Miliband, Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from a UK pig “non-farmer” amusing. See Letter to Miliband . Thanks to Bob Carter from Australia for passing it on.

Two days before the G8 summit, China laid out a climate change plan that stresses economic growth over tough emissions standards, and warned wealthy countries not to interfere with the growth of emerging economies. “The international community should respect the rights of the developing countries and allow them enough space for development. The consequences of inhibiting their development would be far greater than not doing anything to fight climate change,” said Ma Kai, the minister of China’s key Reform and Development Commission. China is the biggest greenhouse gas emitter after the United States.

Meanwhile, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called for an end to the “hysteria” over global warming in the lead-up to the summit. The topic is “hysterical, overheated, and that is especially because of the media,” Schmidt told Germany’s Bild daily.  There has always been climate change on earth, Schmidt said. “We’ve had warm- and ice-ages for hundreds of thousands of years,” he said, and added that the reasons behind the multiple climate changes have been “inadequately researched for the time being.” To assume that global climate change can be altered by any plans made at the Heiligendamm summit is “idiotic,” he said.  See full story here.