The View from the West

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Obama's emission cuts: pragmatic suicide

By: Gwynne Dyer

7/04/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 4

We want to be in (the new UN climate pact), we want to be pragmatic, we want to look at the science," said Jonathan Pershing, the head of the U.S. delegation, during the talks on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in Bonn last week. So how will the Obama administration reconcile political "pragmatism" with the scientific realities? "There is a small window where they overlap. We hope to find it," Pershing explained. But it doesn't really exist.

Signing the United States up to the new climate treaty that will replace the Kyoto accord in 2012 is essential. The 1997 Kyoto treaty was gutted to accommodate American objections, but even so President Clinton, who signed it, never dared to submit it to Congress. Then President Bush "unsigned" it.

A dozen wasted years later, the climate problem has grown hugely, so this time everybody else is determined that the U.S. must be aboard -- and Barack Obama also wants the United States to be part of the treaty. But we recently learned what he thinks is "pragmatic." It is that the United States should cut its emissions back to the 1990 level by 2020.

"Pragmatism" is the excuse you use when you do less than you should, because doing more is too hard. Taking a dozen years just to get U.S. emissions back down to where they were in 1990 definitely qualifies as "pragmatic," but it also qualifies as suicidal folly.

The Hadley Climate Centre in England, one of the world's most respected sources of climate predictions, recently released a study showing that even rapid cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions, turning the current one per cent annual growth into a three per cent annual decline within a few years, would still warm the world by 1.7 degrees Celsius by 2050.

That is dangerously near the two degrees C rise in average global temperature which is the point of no return. Further warming would trigger natural processes that release vast quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from melting permafrost and warming oceans. These processes, once begun, are unstoppable, and could make the planet four, five or six degrees hotter than the present by the end of the century.

At those temperatures, much of the planet turns to desert, and the remaining farmland, mostly in the high latitudes, can support at best 10 or 20 per cent of the world's current population. That is why the official policy of the European Union is never to exceed two degrees of warming.

The Obama administration's offer falls far short of that goal.

Under the Kyoto accord the U.S. promised a seven per cent cut on 1990 emissions by 2012, but President Bush abandoned that target and American emissions are now 16 per cent above the 1990 level. Obama is only promising to get back down to the 1990 level over the next 11 years, and forget about the further cuts that the U.S. signed up to make a dozen years ago.

Obama is clearly calculating how much he can get through Congress.

As Pershing said in Bonn, "If we set a target that is un-meetable technically, or we can't pass it politically, then we're in the same position we are in now -- where the world looks to us and we are out of the regime."

But this isn't an ordinary bill where you settle for what you can get through Congress after the usual horse-trading. If there's going to be a 40-day flood, you either build an ark or you learn to breathe underwater. Building half an ark is not a useful option.

Obama's offer means that the United States would be cutting its emissions not by three per cent annually, the minimum global target if we hope to avoid more than two degrees of warming, but by only half that amount. In the long term, it leads inexorably to disaster.

The other two major delinquents among the industrialized countries are following similar tactics. Australia, which had long been in denial about climate change, ratified the Kyoto accord after the 2007 election, but the new government is offering emissions cuts of only between five and 15 per cent by 2020. That is a target that makes even Obama's offer look good.

Canada, which ratified the Kyoto accord long ago and promised a six per cent cut in emissions by 2012, simply ignored its obligations and is now 20 per cent above its 1990 level of emissions. It has no intention of trying to make up the lost ground, and has unilaterally moved its benchmark from 1990 to 2006.

Most other industrialized countries are on track to meet or exceed their modest Kyoto targets. Britain and Germany will both be 20 per cent below their 1990 emissions level by 2012, and Germany is promising 40 per cent cuts by 2020. The European Union as a whole promises a 20 per cent cut by 2020, but will go up to 30 per cent if other industrial countries do the same.

Even that would barely meet the annual three per cent cut in emissions we need if we are not to sail through the two-degree point of no return and trigger runaway warming. And we have yet to figure out how to bring the rapidly developing countries into the regime, for their emissions, though starting from a low base, are growing very fast.

We are in deep trouble, and "pragmatism" will not save us.

Gwynne Dyer's new book, Climate Wars, was published recently in Canada by Random House.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 7, 2009 A13

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4 Comments

Posted by: Chuck Lambert

April 7, 2009 at 8:29 PM

Reverend, I have read what expert scientists and environmentalists have said. The non-biased ones are saying, "we just don't know; it's probably a combination of many factors." That is the only correct answer. And what about the 32,000 scientists who have signed the Oregon Petition (that disputes the theory that humans are causing climate change)?

Even the IPCC says that full Kyoto compliance by all countries would only reduce temp. increases by 0.2 degrees (assuming CO2 is causing climate change).

Like I said, being enviro-friendly is just common sense - and not just for clean air but for "clean Earth." Throwing massive amounts of money and resources at a weak, politically motivated theory will only continue to prevent meaningful enviromental change.

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Posted by: rck

April 7, 2009 at 8:04 PM

I'm of the opinion that it really is too late to do whatever the Gwynne Dyer's of the world would have us do about Global Warming (don't get me wrong, Mr. Dyer is one of my favourite columnists). Whether you are of Mr. Lambert's opinion or Rev. Blair's (personally I'm on the fence) it matters not. We are not capable as a species of relinquishing our desire for greater economic wealth, and no threat of imminent doom is great enough or near enough at hand to change the course of our civilization, period.

I myself am very conscious of what I consume and always will be, no matter if I am preventing Global Warming or not. I do so because I believe a better life for me does not exist in things, and I also believe that the generations that come after me should not have to suffer unduly for my greed. But I am also aware that my views are in the minority, and understand (not out of cynicism or spite) that most people want to live for today, have been told to live for today and can only live for today. If the world goes through an apocalyptical climactic change sooner rather than later so be it, geologically speaking it was bound to happen anyways. Drive your cars, live your lives, but don't neglect to prepare your children for the tomorrows that you will be lucky enough to escape—perhaps they will be among the few to survive the wars and mass starvation that are bound to follow if the predictions are anywhere near right.

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Posted by: Reverend Blair

April 7, 2009 at 6:49 PM

I think you need to have a look at what the working scientists are saying, Chuck Lambert. The message from those who actually do the work and look at the facts are that things are progressing ever faster than they originally thought they would. We are in deep trouble.

That's not politically-biased fear-mongering, that's what the scientific facts tell us.

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Posted by: Chuck Lambert

April 7, 2009 at 5:41 PM

One problem: more and more scientists and environmentalists are no longer supporting the CO2/global warming theory. The computer models being used to support the theory are far too biased to be believed. Also, the science is far more complicated than we can properly understand at this point in our history. Yes, we must clean up our act but I would prefer to take action based on scientific fact, not politically-biased fearmongering.