. . . With sad lessons for little ol' NZ
Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation and the editor of the climate policy network CCNet. has written a piece arguing that Copenhagen's failure represents the beginning of the end of climate hysteria. It also marks the end of Western dominance in geo-politics.
He makes the following points:
1. Copenhagen was never going to succeed. The hope was hype; it was credible only to the credulous.
The failure of the climate summit was not only predictable – it was inevitable. There was no way out from the cul-de-sac into which the international community has manoeuvred itself. The global deadlock simply reflects the contrasting, and in the final analysis irreconcilable interests of the West and the rest of the world. The result is likely to be an indefinite moratorium on international climate legislation. After Copenhagen, the chances for a binding successor of the Kyoto Protocol are as good as zero.2. Europe has been sidelined in a global sense.
The extent of the debacle and the shift in the balance of geopolitical power was demonstrated by the fact that the final accord was made without the participation of the European Union. The exclusion of Europe is a remarkable symbol of the EU’s growing loss of influence, a green bureaucracy that was not even asked whether they agreed with the non-binding declaration of China, India and the USA. Although the Copenhagen conference was held in a European capital, the negotiations and the final result of the conference were totally outside European involvement.
The failed climate summit caused a tectonic shift in international relations and left behind a new political landscape. After Copenhagen, green Europe looks rather antiquated and the rest of the world looks totally different. The principles on which Europe’s climate policies were founded and which formed the basis of the Kyoto Protocol have lost their power while the EU itself lost authority and influence.
3. India and China's persistent "no" was powerful. We might also add that the West had no bargaining chips. Once China could have been levered by the promise of entry into the WTO; India by promises of military support in the face of a Pakistani threat. But the West, severely indebted to the East, held no bargaining chips.
. . . there is little doubt that China and India are the big winners of the Copenhagen climate poker. The two emerging superpowers managed to win new strategic allies, even among Western nations. China’s and India’s strategy to align themselves with other developing countries in opposition to protectionist threats by the U.S. and the EU proved itself as very successful. In the end, their persistent No even forced the Obama administration to join the anti-green alliance.4. Europe has not yet realised the extent of its diminution. It continues to speak as if Mexico in 2010 will reach a binding agreement. (One could add our own Prime Minister's voice to this Greek chorus.)
The Asian-American Accord connotes a categorical No to legally binding emission targets. This means that a concrete timescale for the curtailing of global CO2 emissions, not to mention the reduction of the CO2 emissions, has been kicked into the long grass. The green dream of industrial de-carbonisation has been postponed indefinitely.
Despite the manifest fiasco, considerable resistance to admit defeat and to accept the new reality still exists in many European capitals. Thus, we hear the usual post-conference mantra: but at the next climate conference we will be successful. The decisions which were postponed in Copenhagen will be agreed to at the next summit Mexico later this year.5. Eventually, European countries will back away from climate politics and policies.
This green rhetoric has no basis in reality. It’s a green fata morgana. After all, the rejection by the developing world to commit to legally binding emission targets is not a tactical negotiation ploy. The categorical NO is absolute and non-negotiable. Due to the evident lack of realistic energy substitutes, developing countries have no choice but to continue to rely on the cheapest form of energy, i.e. fossil fuels - for the foreseeable future.
The Copenhagen fiasco will undoubtedly trigger a rethinking of the European climate policy. Especially East European member states – but probably also the Italian and German governments – will be demanding a drastic reassessment of unilateral climate targets which are turning into an economic liability and a political risk. They are already putting a heavy burden on European economies as well as driving ever higher the costs for energy, industrial output and the general public. . . .
Even in the Western world, the general climate hysteria shows a marked cooling. If recent opinion polls are to be believed, the obsession with climate change, which was a common feature during much of the 1980s and 90s no longer exists. In its place, climate fatigue is spreading. The novelty of climate change and the habitual alarms have lost their original shock value. Instead, the public seems to be warming to the idea of gradual and inevitable climate change.
5. Unilateral Green policies are now becoming a political liability.
International climate politics face a profound crisis. Green taxes and climate levies in whatever form and shape have become political liabilities. Revolts among eastern European countries, in Australia and even among Obama's Blue Dog Democrats are forcing law-makers to renounce support for unilateral climate policies. In the UK, the party-political consensus on climate change is unlikely to survive the general elections as both Labour and the Tories are confronted by a growing public backlash against green taxes and rising fuel bills.
On the assumption that Australia shows a marked swing towards Tony Abbott in the next election--and Abbott has already made rejection of "cap and trade" the signature issue of this year's election--New Zealand will be left in a pickle. We have unilaterally committed to stabbing ourselves in the back with our reckless "cap and trade" legislation. When will the government repeal the legislation?
We are not holding our breath. Our Prime Minister shows signs of substituting the stubbornness of ideology with the stubbornness of, well, stubbornness. "Because I said so," is becoming the signature and hallmark of John Key as Prime Minister. Beneath the cheery demeanour may well lurk a growing cancer of arrogance. Power doth corrupt so quickly.
It is interesting that John Key's Prime Ministership has become marked so far not by what he has done, but by what he has refused to do--to the point of recklessness. His refusals have been damaging to all.
His stubborn refusal to amend the anti-smacking legislation has left him in the ridiculous and dangerous position of endorsing "modest" lawbreaking for every household in the country.
His stubborn refusal to scrap or at least suspend the Emissions Trading Scheme has substantially weakened the country economically--when we are already in hock up to our eyeballs. And let us never forget that insisting on an ETS being in place was to give New Zealand street cred in Copenhagen. Now there is an oxymoron of gargantuan proportions.
John Key will take years to wipe the thick layers of egg now plastered all over the face of his "because I said so--I know best" government.
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