Environmental policy proclaims unrealistic political goals
Joe Schroeder, Staff Writer
Fears of carbon-emission-fueled global warming are leading to what might be a profound mistake: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
President Obama will attend the UNFCCC in Copenhagen beginning Dec. 7. During this conference, the final text of the convention treaty will be discussed and new provisions will likely be established.
The 180-page draft of the treaty contains a proposal designed to establish a governing body which would enforce carbon emissions reductions on developed economies. This body would be given the power to levy taxes on various activities deemed offensive to the climate, like airline travel, and could intervene in sectors of a participating country’s economy.
Emissions targets are not yet set in stone, but goals to reduce present emissions levels by approximately 50 percent by 2050 are not on the high end.
Developing countries would commit to “sustainable” development, a catch phrase for expensive, unrealistic attempts at growing economies even as people starve.
The difficulties involved with such development would be made up, at least partially, by what would essentially be reparations for past climate crimes committed by the developed world.
The Washington Times claims that, if the draft version of the treaty is signed as is, the U.S. would owe $800 billion and would need to pay it over a period of five years.
In 1991, Dr. William Nordhaus estimated that the cost of reducing global carbon emissions by 50 percent would be around $200 billion each year. This equals $343 billion when converted to the 2008 U.S. dollar value.
Such costs underestimate the challenges involved in reducing today’s carbon emissions levels, as the amount of greenhouse gases emitted annually is now substantially higher than it was in 1989. The benefits of reducing such emissions remain unclear.
Even if emissions targets were reached, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere should, assuming most theories are correct, warm the world substantially even if no more carbon was added to it.
Thus, one wonders whether simply reducing carbon emissions would still be a viable strategy for saving the planet, which is the point environmentalists have traditionally made.
Even more problematic is that signing a treaty as sweeping as the UNFCCC would severely compromise U.S. sovereignty, allowing nebulous institutions like the “Conference of Parties” and its executive arm to exercise poorly defined and thus easily expanded authority over American economic and political life.
Non-government environmental organizations would be allowed representation in the Adaptation Fund Board. This would allow the likes of Greenpeace, which had been thoroughly penetrated by Marxists seeking a cause after the Cold War, along with numerous foreign governments, have a say in the direction of U.S. policy.
Even if the policies proposed at next month’s Copenhagen Conference are necessary, the U.S. would be unwise to bind itself to a higher world government. The long-term consequences of such a move are highly unpredictable.
Luckily, the conference is unlikely to produce the sort of legally binding agreement that its proponents are pushing for. The presently strict draft version of the treaty will likely be heavily modified.
However, the conference may lay the groundwork for such an agreement in coming years, a prospect that Americans should view with extreme caution.
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