OK, we’ve got several weeks to go until the Pennsylvania primary, so to keep from going stark raving mad with all Obama-Clinton, all the time, here’s some food for thought in the meantime:
The problem: Developing nations, most prominently China and India, have issues with the Kyoto protocol, but due to their sheer immensity and rapid industrialization, they have a large and rapidly growing impact on the levels of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere. There is both a need and a desire to get them on board with some post-Kyoto treaty to control GHG, but they are unwilling to accept proposals that would cap emissions and limit their opportunity for modernization. After all, goes the argument, if the Europeans and Americans were entitled to pollute for progress, then so are we.
And we need to get America on board – which all three presidential candidates at least seem to recognize, and have addressed in their proposals to varying degrees. So that is at least some progress post-Bush.
But how do we get past the obstacles in the way of an effective climate change agreement? This is what we’re going to collectively brainstorm today: What suggestions / recommendations would you give the next president for how to get the process moving in the right direction?
Any solution (it seems to me) must meet the following (by no means exhaustive) criteria:
- It must put all nations on a path to reduced GHG emissions (although the “glide path” for reductions on the part of nations like China and India – and the rest of the “developing world,” for that matter – may be adjustable to allow for their right to develop and their specific national circumstances).
- It must have sufficient “carrots” in it to get developing nations to agree to it. It must be worth their while to get on board, and not just “to save humanity.” That argument hasn’t gotten US on board, so how can we expect it to fly for folks in more dire circumstances? Realistically, nations are not going to buy into a return to the 18th century. We need to offer a vision of progress, but sustainable progress. Which likely means it’s going to look more like this than this, no matter what our personal thoughts on the matter, if we’re to avoid this and this.
- It must have a fair system of “sticks” for everyone. Even signatory nations, while paying lip service to Kyoto, are failing to meet their agreements under the existing treaty (for example, Canada). We’re not going to get the job done at this rate: the science increasingly shows that the scenarios presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (co-winners of the Nobel Prize with Al Gore) are too optimistic – we need deeper cuts, sooner, if we’re to avoid catastrophic climate tipping points. I won’t detail those here, to keep the discussion on the post-Kyoto treaty; you can check out the links in this sentence for more details.
Some possible pieces of the puzzle: These may or may not be part of the next-generation treaty we develop – I’m throwing them out for group consideration to get the discussion going:
Do we want to consider a global carbon tax? To be politically realistic in the US, it probably would have to be administered at the national level, with funds going into a “World Carbon Bank” (WCB) whose mission is to reduce GHG levels by apportioning a scientifically-determined and annually-shrinking pool of carbon emission credits between nations.
The WCB may also work with organizations like the World Bank to fund carbon sequestration projects and take actions to promote energy-generating technologies that do not release GHG. Do we give nations credits against their carbon taxes for implementing clean energy technologies? How?
China yesterday announced they intend to keep their one-child policy in place, and explicitly pointed out that by not giving birth to an additional 300,000,000 people, they have cut their GHG emissions by 1,300,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year from what they would have been. Since the environmental issue that dare not speak its name (although it once could) is the link between population growth and rising GHG emissions (absent technical innovations), is it reasonable to somehow reward this behavior in terms of their national carbon tax debt? How? How to keep this from causing a massive reaction against the treaty, torpedoing it? (Not just US Republicans, but also the Roman Catholic Church, Islamic conservatives, those who see it as a secret genocide policy against non-Caucasian races, etc.) The policy isn’t popular in China – do we offer this as a temporary option for credits until a nation gets through its developmental and demographic transition?
And how do you deal fairly with nations that are already relatively energy efficient but are concerned that under a new regime they’re not going to get credit for good works already accomplished – like Japan?
Anyway, that’s enough on the table to get the discussion going. I look forward to reading your thoughts.