Summary:
Dieter Helm (Oxford) claims that the apparent decoupling of economic growth and emissions in the West (slowing CO2 output growth) is smoke and mirrors. The West has outsourced its carbon emissions to China and India. China is energy-intensive but highly export oriented. West consumes its products, therefore the West "owns" the emissions. European Commission's proposal to cut carbon emission by 20% by 2020 is not far-reaching enough. Cost of halting global warming will be far greater than believed. Living standards in the West will have to be significantly reduced if goal is to be achieved. The West is living beyond its - and the planet's - means. (Published: 10/03/08)
Notes:
- Kyoto framework
- looks at the emissions that countries produce within their border
- seductively flattering
- both the US and Europe have seen their CO2 output growth slowing even as economic growth has marched on
- it might appear that economic growth and emissions have been decoupled
- smoke and mirrors!
- projected growth of global emissions clearly tracks the growth of energy demand
- world's CO2 output is likely to increase by 50% by 2030
- paralleling the growth of energy demand and economic growth
- no global decoupling!
- US and Europeans say this is because of China and India and their failure to match our emissions reductions
- US insists that any post-Kyoto agreement must at a a minimum involve emissions caps on China as well
- indeed, there will be no solution to global warming if China builds 1,000 new coal power stations in the next couple of decades
- Only half the right
- critical question: "Who owns the emissions?"
- China is an energy-intensive, export-oriented country
- makes many of the highly polluting industrial products which used to be made in the US and Europe
- We have exported our smoke-stack industries to developing countries like China and import their products!
- if this carbon outsourcing is factored back in, UK's impressive emissions cuts over the past two decades don't look so impressive anymore
- rather than falling by 15% since 1990, they actually rose by around 19%
- US and EU together account for nearly half of world GDP
- it is consumption, not production, that matters
- if global warming is to be limited, the US and Europe will have to take much more drastic action to reduce those emissions embedded in their own consumption
- their appropriate emissions-reduction targets will have to be based on the consumption of goods that cause those emissions in the first place
- conclusions
- true scale of required emissions reductions in the Western world will be much higher
- impact on economic growth and living standards will be more severe in the West than so far believed
- US and Europe refuse to acknowledge that halting the relentless rise in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will take a significant slice out of economic growth
- living standards will have to be cut if our consumption is going to be environmentally sustainable
- we are living beyond our - and the planet's - means
- politicians should stop pretending that the enormous challenge of decarbonizing the major economies can be done on the cheap
