Global Bureaucracy
Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 12:27 pm by Neal(Hat tip: HR)
Want to know what “global warming” is really about? If you thought it was about “saving the planet” from nasty humans then you may not want to read this bit of beauro-babble from EU bean counters who are as adept at “fudging the numbers” as their hired scientists:
In the latest installment of what has become an increasingly sorry drama, the European Union’s Ambassador to the United States, former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton, has written to Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). …
Specifically, Mr. Bruton’s letter is in response to an assertion by White House spokesman Tony Snow that although “there is a carbon cap system in place in Europe, we are doing a better job of reducing emissions here.†Senate Democrats rushed to Europe’s defense with charts purporting to denigrate the U.S. performance but which, as my colleague Iain Murray noted, merely changed the subject from an accurate assertion while upon scrutiny also affirming it. …
Regardless, it is nice to see the debate shifted from Europe’s mythical super-performance to how badly they are performing.
Global warming is a beaurocratic numbers game played by politicians. It is nothing more than an accounting gimmick. Here’s the reality of how “on track” Europe is with respect to curtailing emissions under Kyoto:
Obviously, Europe’s emissions are rising, not falling. Only a bureaucrat from the Ministry of Warming could see otherwise. So how does Europe plan to comply given this fact? Here you go:
Let’s be clear: Europe’s GHG emissions are rising, and despite two clever provisions they insisted on in Kyoto were as of 2004, according to Bruton’s letter, only 0.8 percent below 1990 levels (again, so long as one grants them their ever-spiking 1990 level of choice, which Bruton understandably eschews addressing). That is, they are not “on track;†their emissions are up, not down, from when Kyoto was agreed and rising, not falling.
The sole way that Europe can claim “compliance†is through paying other countries to purchase their emissions-not-emitted due to economic collapse, or paying the Chinese to create then destroy the very powerful GHG HFC-23 (12,000 times as powerful as CO2).
Smoke and mirrors, my friends, and bureaucratic double-speak, but honestly, what more would anyone expect from the EU? Here’s the bottom line:
With so much European political—and now economic—capital invested in this struggle over environmental gestures—that is, no proposal under any scenario or set of assumptions would have according to anyone a detectable influence on the climate. This bob-and-weave campaign will, of course, continue. As such, let’s get this straight: Europe can only comply with Kyoto through a dog’s breakfast of: a) coercive policies making energy ever more scarce, but far more than they’ve enacted to date: b) cheating up their baseline; and c) paying other countries for indulgences, or “emission reduction credits,†such wealth transfers affording the EU certificates to approximate reductions as if they had undertaken them…which they demonstrably have not.
Second, of late, the EU is undoubtedly increasing its CO2 emissions far faster than the U.S., either since Kyoto was agreed or since 2000. That Europe not only must continue changing the subject—and that is so desperately wants to, time and again—buttresses the legitimate suspicion that Kyoto is less about emission reductions and climate change as it is about having an anti-U.S., and particularly anti-Bush, totem. When he leaves office, what ever are the poor continentals to do?
Indeed.