Can Kyoto Really
Save The world?
By Hamish McRae
16 February 2005
The
Independent
After
seven years, huge international debate and the freezing out of George
Bush's United States from the international community, the Kyoto Protocol
is formally ratified today.
The agreement, which
seeks to limit the world's carbon emissions, was signed by 84 countries
in Japan's former capital city in 1997. It bound the industrialised
countries to cut emissions by 5 per cent from their 1990 level by 2012.
The treaty has been
hailed as the key step forward in confronting the environmental challenges
posed by climate change. But it remains controversial: is it a great
leap forward in international co-operation or another example of empty
political posturing? Or maybe, just maybe, something of both?
The case for cutting
the global output of greenhouse gases is the link between such emissions
and global warming - a link still unproven but for which there is strong
circumstantial evidence. This is accepted by most industrialised nations.
But for the agreement
to become international law two things had to happen. One was that 55
countries had to get it approved by their national legislatures. The
other was that the countries approving it had include a sufficient number
of industrial countries to account for 55 per cent of their global emissions
in 1990.
The first target
was relatively easily met, but the "early signers" were largely
small countries that did not use a lot of energy. The second was tougher,
particularly since in March 2001, the new US President, George Bush,
said his country was not prepared to ratify the treaty. The US unsurprisingly
is the world's largest user of energy (and hence accounts for 36 per
cent of carbon emissions of the industrial countries) so the second
hurdle became harder to surmount. But last November Russia, which had
previously indicated it would not sign up, switched sides. Russia has
been a huge (and inefficient) user of energy and accounted for more
than 17 per cent of global emissions in 1990. Suddenly the 55 per cent
barrier was breached and the protocol could become law.
For many people
this is a time for rejoicing, an example of international co-operation
for a common good. Like the Montreal Protocol of 1987, which banned
the production of CFCs, it has demonstrated that countries were prepared
to implement policies that might act against their short-term national
self-interest in order to promote long-term global environmental aims.
Countries that have refused to ratify Kyoto, most notably the US and
Australia, are duly pilloried. President Bush has been particularly
singled out as a bad global citizen.
For others, this
has been an exercise that at best is wishful thinking and at worst hypocrisy.
Unlike the Montreal Protocol, which had a clear objective and clear
benefits - reducing the damage to the ozone layer - Kyoto is both badly
constructed and uncertain in its impact. And the countries that matter
most have not signed up.
How should the thoughtful
non-specialist respond to these conflicting perspectives? What we really
want to know is whether in 20 or 30 years' time it will be seen as an
important first step towards keeping the world a habitable place, or
as a failed experiment, setting the wrong priorities and actually making
future international co-operation more difficult to sustain. Perhaps
the best way forward is to look at the criticisms of Kyoto and then
see whether, despite those criticisms, it is still a useful process.
Take first the argument
that it is badly constructed and in particular that it excludes the
country that is increasing its emissions fastest at the moment and which
is now the second largest importer of oil: China. China is already the
world's fifth or sixth-largest economy. It is growing at around 9 per
cent a year and relies heavily on fossil fuels for powering this growth.
Last year China installed as much new electricity generating capacity,
mostly fossil fueled, as the entire electricity output of the UK.
And we have seen
nothing yet. By the Kyoto target year of 2012 China will in all probability
have become the world's third largest economy, behind only Japan and
the US. Indeed were China not to have become the world's third-largest
economy, everyone would be the worse for it as it would suggest some
kind of political and economic collapse there, with all the misery that
would entail.
The other great
global giant, India, is also increasing its energy use. Its economy
has been growing at almost as fast a pace, around 7-8 per cent a year.
Its energy use at the moment is much lower, for it has not experienced
such rapid industrialisation and its building boom has been more muted.
But it has become almost as large a car market as China, has the world's
largest road-building programme and the spread of air-conditioning will
ensure that its energy use continues to soar.
So does the exclusion
of these two giants - and much of the rest of the developing world -
destroy the rationale of Kyoto? It certainly weakens it. Our perspectives
of economic power have changed radically since 1997. Maybe we should
have realised that the new industrial countries would determine the
world's energy demands and hence its carbon emissions and sought to
bring them into the tent. But the debate within both China and India
in some ways supports the Kyoto ideal, even if neither country is bound
by it. Anyone who has been to China recently will be aware of the problem
of air pollution with which the country is wrestling. Shanghai is beset
with power shortages. Within China there is a serious debate as to how
it can continue to grow at its present pace without being held back
by environmental pressures.
In India much the
same debate is happening, too. It is clear that India cannot follow
the Chinese growth model, for its population pressure is even greater
and its natural resources scarcer. So it has to find a way of growing
by using energy more efficiently. In lots of small ways - taxis, for
example, run on natural gas - it is seeking to improve its environment
standards.
So it is very much
in the self-interest of both China and India to expand their economies
in the "greenest" way possible. But how? Both use technology
developed in the rich world. If that technology becomes more efficient,
cleaner, and less carbon-intensive, they will apply it. Insofar as the
efforts to meet Kyoto standards drive western Europe and Japan to develop
better technology, that will inevitably improve the environmental performance
of China, India, and other fast-growing developing countries.
So Kyoto helps China
and India become cleaner, even though they are not bound by it.
What of the next
criticism, that Kyoto does not fully reflect different countries' starting
points? Well to some extent it does, as countries have been set different
targets within the 5 per cent overall cut, so Switzerland has to cut
its carbon output by 8 per cent while Australia increases its by the
same amount. In addition, countries that take measures to absorb carbon,
for example through reforestation, are allowed to unleash more of it.
But the fundamental point does stand - it is easier for some countries
to meet their targets than others.
For example, it
is relatively easy for Russia to cut its energy use because in 1990
it had large and inefficient heavy industries that have now been shut
down. And from a base of huge inefficiency, the first steps in cutting
emissions are relatively easy - all you need do is to apply good practice
developed elsewhere. Rationally you can argue that the Kyoto accord
is not in Russia's self-interest, as not only would it benefit from
a slightly warmer - and therefore more prosperous - Siberia, but as
an exporter of oil and gas it would gain from the continuing energy
profligacy of its main customer, Western Europe.
And yet, signing
up costs Russia nothing. Russian membership of the club will not significantly
affect global carbon emissions, but brings political benefits. It can
present itself as a virtuous friend of the EU and of the international
community - unlike the US.
A further point
is that the targets do not fully reflect differences of population growth
or economic success. For example, they do not take into account a shrinking
population in Germany and a rising one in the US, nor Germany's economic
stagnation or America's boom. When Kyoto was negotiated it was thought
the fall in Germany's population would not begin until well past 2012.
As things have turned out, it started last year. Meanwhile, America's
population growth has run ahead of forecasts. Similar differences in
economic performance were not expected either - and it would be hard
to defend Kyoto if it became a way of punishing economic success.
But it should not
become that. You can acknowledge that it is crude, despite the tweaks
to try to make it less so. You can acknowledge that the information
on which the original deal was based was flawed. But you can still believe
that it nudges countries in the right direction rather than the wrong
one.
Energy prices look
likely to remain high for a generation. Countries that can grow - both
in population and in living standards - without stretching energy supplies
will find it easier to make progress than those that can't, so the agreement
pushes countries towards policies that are, in general, in their self-interest.
A US that had a more efficient car fleet now would be richer, for it
would be better able to withstand high oil prices. Living standards
would be higher and the dollar would be higher, for it would be less
dependent on oil imports. Strategically too, it would be more secure.
Beyond economics
there is such a thing as politics. Democracies have to work with the
grain of public opinion. A Russian president can force through legislation
in the way a US one cannot. Criticism of the US has to be tempered with
an acknowledgment of the will of its people. Arguably by immediately
acknowledging that Kyoto would never be passed by Congress, the present
President was at least being more honest than his predecessor, who sidelined
political debate on the matter until he was out of office.
Yet here again,
while acknowledging the separation of powers in the US, it is surely
possible also to acknowledge the power of persuasion. There is a significant
minority within the US that seeks to reduce environmental damage caused
by high energy use. The fashionable car for Hollywood stars is the hybrid
Toyota Prius, which does more than 50mpg. America can look to places
such as Copenhagen, which has over 20 years sought to get people out
of cars and on to bikes and public transport - and has created a much
more livable city than similar US cities. So politics can lead as well
as follow and environmentalism feels modern in a way that profligate
energy use does not.
There is one final
line of criticism of Kyoto that needs to be acknowledged: that it is
not the highest priority. Other aims, such as the elimination of malaria
or combating Aids in Africa, have greater claims on scarce resources.
The Danish statistician Bjørn Lomborg has controversially argued
that Kyoto slows the growth of emissions by an insignificant amount
at a very high cost. While it is certainly desirable to do so, it would
better to put resources into the development of alternative energy and
tackling the effects of global warming.
These objections
need to be taken seriously. Economic resources - just like fossil fuels
- are finite and they need to be directed where they will be most effective.
Money spent on wind farms is money not available for drugs in Africa.
But the best response to this, surely, is to see Kyoto as an early and
imperfect step along a long and difficult road.
Its huge benefit
is to focus attention on a global problem - and a global problem that
the market cannot fix. The costs of global climate change are very long
term and most uncertian. The markets can match supply and demand today
but their focus is inevitably short-term. They find it hard to look
30 years out. And there are external costs - felt beyond the countries
that produce and consume energy - that are carried by the world as a
whole. That is why the world, or much of it, signed up to Kyoto and
it is why we should celebrate today.
What matters most,
though, is what happens next. Somewhere out in the future is the next
generation of technologies that will wean the world off fossil fuels
and provide it with renewable power. But we cannot see those clearly
so meanwhile we have to be careful with what we have got.
If Kyoto encourages
the hunt for the new technologies - as it has - that is worth something.
If it makes us think a little more about our own use of energy that
is worth something too. If it is the start of a wider global process
of co-operation in conservation, then it is worth a huge amount. A good
day for the world