Climate
Change Flap At The G8
By Walden Bello
06 June, 2007
Fpif.org
The
headlines in the lead-up to the Group of Eight (G8) meeting here in
Rostock have focused on the dispute over the proposed declaration on
climate change. German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants the rich countries
to commit to limiting global warming to two degrees centigrade. This
will involve cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 50% of their 1990 levels
by 2050 and increasing energy efficiency by 50% by 2020. Merkel’s
proposal drew predictable opposition from George W. Bush. However, to
contain further damage to his battered image, Bush called for a conference
of the biggest greenhouse gas polluters to deal with global warming.
This has alarmed Merkel, who wants to keep the process securely within
the United Nations.
It is tempting to compliment
Merkel, as many have done. But anybody would look good beside Bush.
In fact, given the immediate, extreme threat posed by global warming
underlined by the most recent report of the International Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), Merkel’s proposal of a 50% reduction from1990 levels
by 2050 figure is simply too little too late. As the German Green parliamentarian
Barbel Hohn noted at a Berlin conference on Sunday, the rich countries
should be talking about at least an 80% cutback.
A close look at a leaked
draft of the G8 declaration reveals that the Merkel-Bush quarrel concerns
details not substance. The guiding principle of the document’s
approach to climate change is to “decouple economic growth from
energy use.” In other words, economic growth remains central and
sacrosanct, meaning that the G8 will not likely propose any cuts in
consumption levels. For instance, instead of calling for a radical cutback
in automobile use, the declaration accepts as given that the number
of motor vehicles will double to 1.2 billion by 2020. It proposes to
expand production and accelerate development of non-fossil fuel alternatives
for future cars such as synthetic biofuels and carbon dioxide-free hydrogen.
The draft declaration cannot
call for deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions because its authors
realize that maintaining a growing “efficient and competitive
economy” while radically reducing greenhouse gas emissions is
not technologically feasible at this point. The solution: lower the
targets and try to convince the public that this is simply being realistic.
Looking for Technofixes
There are three elements
in the declaration’s strategy for dealing with climate change.
One is increasing energy efficiency -- or getting more bang for every
unit of energy generated.
A second element is diversification
of the means of generating energy. Here the draft makes the obligatory
nod toward renewable energy sources like wind and solar. The emphasis,
however, is on nuclear. Indeed, the G8 draft goes out of its way to
present nuclear energy, despite its proven dangers, as a key alternative
because it allegedly contributes little to global warming. Specifically,
the draft states that the G8 leaders “endorse the peaceful use
of nuclear energy by those interested countries that are also committed
to non-proliferation and international nuclear safety standards…endorse
international initiatives to further develop peaceful and carbon-free
nuclear energy and to realize the potential for nuclear energy to contribute
to the energy needs of developing countries…[and] will examine
creative ways for international finance to make nuclear energy more
available to developing countries.”
The third element is technological
innovation. Here the document stresses accelerated development of futuristic
technologies to address global warming. The paper specifically urges
“prioritizing national and international research and technology
cooperation…of the different carbon capture technologies and to
clarify geotechnical conditions for secure CO2 storage.” Indeed,
the document is obsessed with technofixes, among them “clean coal,
carbon capture and storage, offshore wind power, second generation biofuels,
hydrogen...” Although he may be wrong that nuclear power is the
way to deal with climate change, James Lovelock of Gaia fame is right
that it will take 40 years before such new technologies become really
feasible -- and by then it will be too late.
The only effective response
to climate change is to radically reduce economic growth rates and consumption
levels, particularly in the North, and in the very near future. The
climate change section of the G8 declaration is a long and all-too-transparent
exercise to get around this reality.
Promoting Investment
and TRIPs
The other parts of the declaration
are even worse.
Curiously enough, the declaration
begins with a long warning to developing countries that “erecting
barriers” to foreign investment flows will “result in a
loss of prosperity.” According to the document, “freedom
of investment is a crucial pillar of economic growth, prosperity, and
employment.” The G8 is signaling to China, Brazil, India, and
the other dynamic developing economies that their investment regimes
need to be more hospitable to western investors.
Continuing in this vein,
the second part of the document is also addressed to developing countries.
Innovation, it says, is central to economic growth, and it can only
continue to play this role if there is “strong protection and
enforcement of intellectual property rights.” The writing bears
the fingerprints of the northern pharmaceutical industry and the high-tech
lobbies. Here the G8 is warning Thailand, India, Brazil, and African
countries to stop using methods like compulsory licensing to enable
their populations to gain access to cheap drugs to fight HIV-AIDs and
other pandemics, and telling China and the Southeast Asian countries
to restrict the diffusion of advanced technologies through tighter enforcement
of corporate intellectual property claims.
Targeting China,
Recycling Africa
There is, interestingly,
a section entitled “Responsibility for Raw Materials: Transparency
and Sustainable Growth.” The G8, the document states, seek “to
support resource rich countries in their efforts to further expand their
resource potentials while promoting sustainable development, human rights,
and good governance.” Why is the G8 suddenly concerned with “increased
transparency’’ in the extractive sector when their corporations
have so long opposed efforts to control their depredations in the developing
world? The answer is transparent in their “call on our trading
partners to refrain from restraints on trade and distortion of competition
in contravention of WTO rules and to observe market economy principles.”
China, which has been concluding scores of mineral extraction agreements
in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, is undoubtedly the main
target of this section. The document reflects the fear among many rich
country governments and corporations that the Chinese might end up shutting
them out of resource-rich areas.
As for the G8 Declaration
on Africa, it is mainly a recycling of old, unfulfilled promises to
increase development aid, along with the usual platitudes about promoting
good governance and more effective public financial management, institutionalizing
“market-friendly” development frameworks, and “improving
our response to fragile states.” At the Gleneagles summit in 2005,
The Financial Times notes that, “the G8 committed itself to increasing
overall annual aid levels by $50 billion by 2010 and doubling aid to
Africa. Official figures show almost all these countries are behind
their targets.”
I usually don’t agree
with the Times editorial page. But this time it is hard to dispute its
conclusion: “Nobody expects much from this increasingly outmoded
talking shop of the complacent rich.” I couldn’t have said
it better.
Walden Bello is executive director of Focus on the
Global South and professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines.
He is currently in Rostock, Germany to observe the G8 meeting.
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