Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter

[jeff]

A farewell message from Bush to the world:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-polluter.html

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/pres...-his-fina.html

How many days are left?

[fencerchica]

Simply too bizarre. What was going through that man's head? I think he lives on an entirely different planet from (most of) the rest of us.

[Epee_Pox]

See, now I thought the big news from Kyoto this year was that, after years of people complaining that the U.S. should take the lead on international environmental policy, the rest of the G-8 adopted the very policy that Bush has been pushing for 6 years -- namely, that any real results are going to require China, India and other industrializing nations to be part of the program; and that technological advances will be critical; and that any negative impact new rules would have on economic growth will have to be balanced or outweighed by the benefits of those rules.

Now, these three things seem like no-brainers, so it's not as if they're catching up to the Bush policies so much as stating the obvious. But the U.S. has had to stand firm and take a hell of a lot of flak for insisting on these things for years. Finally got results.

Not surprised, of course, that the news is more about personal foibles than the more meaningful policy achievements. Goes with the territory.

[Epee_Pox]

Hm, should've bothered to read the paper first. Would have saved myself the trouble of thinking.

One of the mysteries of the universe is why President Bush bothers to charge the fixed bayonets of the global warming theocracy. On the other hand, his Administration's supposed "cowboy diplomacy" is succeeding in changing the way the world addresses climate change. Which is to say, he has forced the world to pay at least some attention to reality.

That was the larger meaning of the Group of Eight summit in Japan this week, even if it didn't make the papers. The headline was that the nations pledged to cut global greenhouse emissions by half by 2050. Yet for the first time, the G-8 also agreed that any meaningful climate program would have to involve industrializing nations like China and India. For the first time, too, the G-8 agreed that real progress will depend on technological advancements. And it agreed that the putative benefits had to justify any brakes on economic growth.

In other words, the G-8 signed on to what has been the White House approach since 2002. The U.S. has relied on the arc of domestic energy programs now in place, like fuel-economy standards and efficiency regulations, along with billions in subsidies for low-carbon technology. Europe threw in with the central planning of the Kyoto Protocol -- and the contrast is instructive. Between 2000 and 2006, U.S. net greenhouse gas emissions fell 3%. Of the 17 largest world-wide emitters, only France reduced by more.

So despite environmentalist sanctimony about the urgent need for President Bush and the U.S. to "take the lead" on global warming, his program has done better than most everybody else's. That won't make the evening news. But the fact is that the new G-8 document is best understood as a second look at the "leadership" of . . . you know who.

The G-8 also tends to make grand promises that evaporate as soon as everyone goes home. This year, picking up the "accountability" theme pressed by the U.S., envoys grudgingly accepted a plan that will track -- and publicize -- how well countries are living up to their word. So when the G-8 endorsed greenhouse reduction "aspirations" that are "ambitious, realistic and achievable," the emphasis fell on the last two attributes.

Put another way, global warming is an economic, not a theological, question. It is not at all clear that huge expenditures today on slowing emissions will yield long-run benefits or even slow emissions. Research and development into sources of low-carbon energy is almost certainly more useful, and the G-8 pledged more funding for "clean tech" programs. This is vastly preferable to whatever reorganization of the American economy that Barack Obama and John McCain currently favor in the name of solving this speculative problem.

The G-8 also conceded that global-warming masochism is futile and painfully expensive. If every rich country drastically cut CO2, those cuts would be wiped out by emissions from China and India. "Carbon leakage" is a major problem too, where cutbacks in some countries lead to increases in others with less strict policies, as manufacturing and the like are outsourced. This whack-a-mole won't stop without including all 17 major economies, which together produce roughly 80% of global emissions.

Much to the ire of Kyotophiles, Mr. Bush started this rethinking last year when he created a parallel track for talks on a post-2012 U.N. program, luring China and India to the table with more practical options. But developing countries, led by that duo, still refused to sign on to the G-8's 2050 goal. They aren't eager to endanger their growth -- and lifting people out of poverty -- by acquiring the West's climate neuroses.

The irony is that Kyoto has handed them every reason not to participate. Europe knew all along that it couldn't meet its quotas, so it created an out in "offsets." A British factory, say, buys a credit to pay for basic efficiency improvements in a Chinese coal plant, like installing smokestack scrubbers. This is a tax on the Brits to make Chinese industries more competitive. Sweet deal if you can get it.

It gets worse. The offsets are routed through a U.N. bureaucracy that makes them far more valuable in Europe than the cost of the actual efficiency improvements. So far, Kyoto-world has paid more than €4.7 billion to eliminate an obscure greenhouse gas called HFC-23; the necessary incinerators cost less than €100 million. Most of the difference in such schemes goes to the foreign government, such as China's communist regime.

Given these perverse incentives, the magical realism of Kyoto has backfired in a big way. The global warming elite will never admit this, because that would mean giving up their political whip against George Bush. But Kyoto II is already collapsing under its own contradictions. By sticking to a more realistic alternative, this reviled President has handed his green opponents a way to save face.

[Lemonaide]

Yes, he does live in a different world, a world so unlike any other world, that he can wear silk purple ties all day long with secret service surrounding him and protecting his butt, while I must wear black silk. It was a very tough President to defend. But I made my mind up several years ago that we elect someone and should try everything we can to back him up until the next election. I developed a theory that if a country is 'so united' it can't fail. Even if I lost everything in the process, I feel that we at least had a chance to stand together for a short while. And when the next President is elected, I'll do the same for him, [and keep my fingers crossed for a rebound economy, one that will permit me to work and continue to work alongside the multitudes practicing a wide range of faiths .

[mrbiggs]

It's obvious that India and China need to get on board to make any significant progress in terms of environmental policy.


However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't reduce our own emissions (and tighten up our environmental policy in general) as well. We're #1 in CO2 emissions and #2 in greenhouse gas emissions, in both categories essentially tied with China. I'm having a harder time finding good statistics for pollutants in general (and I'm sure that you can get widely differing results depending on how you define them), and I have no doubt that China and India beat us significantly in that area, but we have to realize that we're part of the problem. It's like not sorting your recycling because your neighbors don't and live in bigger houses. Sure, it's more important that they recycle, but it's also important that you do.

[Zilverzmurfen]

Yes, he does live in a different world, a world so unlike any other world, that he can wear silk purple ties all day long with secret service surrounding him and protecting his butt, while I must wear black silk.

And this from the man who wears a purple wool suit.

[Epee_Pox]

Don't knock it -- it goes great with the foil hat!

[BrianH]

Simply too bizarre. What was going through that man's head?

Not much, I'd guess. Perhaps a slight breeze.

[telkanuru]

Not much, I'd guess. Perhaps a slight breeze.

When the wind is southerly, does he know a hawk from a hand-saw?

[Lemonaide]

He was talking with China I think? If you listen to his speeches, you'll notice that he 'talks backwards' sometimes, ironic, which mean: Not quite sarcastic. It's not always a good policy as it makes Americans look glib, but, his point was that China has been guilty of major pollution: ie - lead pollution in product manufacturing, which everyone sort of forgot in order to play Olympic Games. While it's nice to 'boycott' if you will for the sake of others, perhaps the political and religious difficulties that are present in China, maybe the protesters could have included the fact that China had been sending poisoned good around the world. It doesn't help them.

Watching China play basketball was difficult, Yao doesn't move too good, while the other players did a bit better. They're not aggressive players, they don't guard aggressively and very few took the ball down the middle of the court. America beat them, but they had to take Yao out due to lack of movement. He seems like a great guy, but I would have put him in Javalin.