01/08/2005 - Smoke stacks
of the Mae Moh coal power plant. Coal power
stations emit huge amounts of pollution including
gasses like CO2 which cause global warming.
The 'US - Asia Pacific Pact' does nothing
to tackle such emissions.
Top climate bad guys, the US and Australian
governments, have unveiled their own shiny
new pact to allegedly save the climate. Our
climate guru Stephanie Tunmore exposes the
announcement for what it really is.
The US, Australia, China, India, Japan, South
Korea - all working together to tackle climate
change and save the planet? Sounds like good
news!
At first glance the new 'US - Asia Pacific
Pact' would seem an encouraging development.
It is clear that avoiding the very worst of
climate change means rapidly developing countries
like China and India will need to start 'decarbonising.'
And given the US and Australia's previous
refusal to take any meaningful action to reduce
their greenhouse gas emissions, isn't it a
good thing that all of these countries have
signed up to the pact?
Meaningful?
Well the key word here is 'meaningful.' On
further investigation the agreement has no
targets for emissions reductions, no timetables
or deadlines, in fact it doesn't even mention
emissions reductions - oh, and it's completely
voluntary. In fact it looks like nothing more
than a trade agreement on energy technology.
In a perfect world even this could result
in better energy efficiency and renewable
energy technologies for developing countries
but experience tells us that the technologies
that most interest the US and Australia are
the 'magic bullet' ones that claim to reduce
emissions whilst allowing the continued burning
of fossil fuels.
Take "carbon capture and storage"
for instance; the 'suck it out of the sky
and stick it under a rock' approach. This
process promises to trap CO2 from the burning
of fossil fuels and store it in the sea or
under the Earth's surface. Even if it delivers
it won't be ready for at least 15-20 years,
it will increase the cost of power generation,
reduce the efficiency of power plants and
require long-term monitoring to make sure
the CO2 stays put.
Whilst money is diverted into these future
technologies in a bid to continue business
as usual, proven renewable and energy efficiency
technologies that are ready to use now lack
investment from both governments and industry.
Motivation
Which leads us to motivation. The US and
Australia have both refused to ratify the
Kyoto Protocol, the one existing international
agreement on dealing with climate change.
They have spent years trying to undermine
and derail the treaty on the basis that developing
countries don't have targets so it is unfair.
It is obvious to everyone, including the
152 nations that have ratified Kyoto, that
industrialised countries that got rich through
the use of fossil fuels have a responsibility
to act first to correct the problem.
The average American uses more electricity
in two weeks than the average person in India
uses in a year. US emissions have increased
by 16 percent since 11000 and are projected
to be 32 percent above 11000 levels in by
2012. Australian emissions from energy are
projected to be 66 percent above 11000 levels
by 2020 and its per capita emissions are 6
times as high as China.
Developing countries will not be motivated
to adopt targets whilst the world's biggest
CO2 emitter and the world's biggest per capita
emitter sit comfortably on their hands and
refuse to act.
The obvious course of action would be to
ratify Kyoto and get on with reducing their
emissions. Instead we get this disingenuous
attempt to finance minor changes abroad whilst
doing nothing at home, with the clever little
side effect, focussing as it does on so-called
"clean coal" technology, of securing
new coal markets for export.
This is a fig leaf of enormous proportions
- but it fails to hide anything.
Stephanie Tunmore initially started working
in the peace movement in the 80's before joining
Greenpeace in 1989. Since 1996 she has worked
on climate issues, leading campaigns against
BP and Exxon's climate-wrecking policies.
