Following mick’s post which live-blogged the G8 conference it is worth considering just how it’s results might interplay with the UN post-Kyoto agenda and Howard’s desire to have a ‘Sydney declaration’ on climate change at the APEC conference in September.
Just to recap, in Merkel’s words, there was a “a clear commitment to continuing the UN climate process.” This means a conference in Bali in December, 2007 to kick off planning the post-Kyoto arrangements to be completed by 2009.
Secondly, the goals of limiting warming to 2C and reducing emissions to 50% of 1990 levels by 2050 will be considered seriously.
We commit to achieving these goals and invite the major emerging economies to join us in this endeavour.
Third, Bush will continue with his plan to convene meetings of the major polluters, but the results will be folded into the UN process.
Finally and most importantly, Bush himself signed on to the UN post-Kyoto process.
Geoff Kitney in the Australian Financial Review has been emphasising the limits of G8 power, especially in the light of the emerging Asian economic zone. Paul Kelly was on the same theme on Insiders, suggesting that the Asian region will be less and less inclined to accept a minor role in important world issues. But he saw shifting positions from the US, Japan and Canada, so the situation with respect to climate change policy was still quite fluid and the outcomes of APEC unpredictable.
On whether it matters much what the G8 thinks about anything. Susan George in this interview, as far as I can make out, is saying that the leaders are leaders of eight countries only, and to assume that what they say goes for the rest of us is highly offensive.
Part of the problem has been that it is a photo-op talk-fest and what they say isn’t always taken all that seriously even in their own countries. There is no implementation structure attached to the G8. This time they established the “Heligendamm” process to follow through and monitor progress. See the final statement (pdf).
Shanahan in his article in the Australian
said:
The developing economies of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa immediately warned they had different interests and a duty to alleviate poverty and develop their economies.
This report from Malaysia suggests that they will do an as yet undefined “fair share� but are some distance away from accepting targets. Praful Bidwai suggests India will
doggedly refuse to make any time-bound commitment to reducing [emissions], and strongly resist legally binding caps.
The thing with APEC is that the membership includes many influential countries. Of the G8, Japan, Russia, Canada and the US are there. Of the plus five who attended G8, China and Mexico are there.
Missing in terms of world influence are India (fourth largest economy), Brazil, Africa and Europe. Leave the Europeans out and you’re likely to get backsliding towards no quantiative targets with everyone making up their own ‘aspirational goals’, towards relying mainly on technology and emphasising economic development in favour of each member’s national interest.
Most of the world’s poor still come from India, China and Indonesia. Two of the G8 who will be present, Japan and Canada, who supported the European position, will hardly persuade the meeting. Given their own problems in meeting Kyoto targets, they are unlikely to try.
At the very least the G8 outcome avoided the possibility that Kyoto would simply die after 2012. The UN sponsored post-Kyoto planning will now move to Bali in December. But the fight to have long-term targets is not yet won and whether APEC will hold to targets is far from certain. In fact I think it is highly unlikely.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon “plans to hold a ’special high-level meeting’ among world leaders in New York on Sept 24″ (from a Forbes article I refuse to link to because of their in-your-face advertising) to prepare for Bali.
It’s interesting to think what ‘high level’ means in this context. At best I suspect environment ministers, many of whose bosses may well have just signed up to the Sydney declaration. So Howard’s APEC escapade may not be ineffectual and irrelevant. It may be much worse than that. It may be a step backwards and a major irritant to those who are truly on board with what G8 appears to have confirmed as the mainstream process.
So when Quiggin says that “the idea of a Sydney declaration is dead on arrival� I’m not so sure.
And when Australia comes to integrate back into the mainstream process we may find that everything that has happened for us since Robert Hill got us a plus 8% concession in Tokyo in 1997 is set aside. We may be told that in order to demonstrate credibility and establish good faith with the developing countries we need to reduce by at least 20% by 2020.
And so we should.
PS: James Hansen has just upped the ante by saying that the tipping point for dangerous climate change may well be 1.7C rather than 2C. And the comments thread at RealClimate is very depressing.
Good overview Brian and sobering links. I tend to agree with you that APEC will just be too tempting for the Rodent to not want to play the statesman facing re-election and grandstand. The misuse this occasion may provide some participants will not worry Howard and Downer one jot.
‘It’s the final communique stupid’ …that will be waved at us as the election countdown begins.
I was meaning to do a post on China’s recently announced greenhouse policy, but have been crook the past couple of days (over it now).
The short version is that while the document lays out just how much damage global warming will do to China, and there’s a whole pile of low-hanging fruit they’re going to tackle, there’s absolutely no commitment to set emissions targets. But they’re considerably advanced on India, who haven’t really admitted it’s a problem yet (I wonder how they’ll feel if a couple of hundred million Bangladeshi Muslims need resettlement in a few decades’ time…).
Carbon tariffs is something we’ll be hearing more about pretty soon, methinks.
Robert, sorry to hear you were crook. I thought you might have gone away!
Carbon tariffs are worth thinking about. It’s just an extension of polluter pays to the international level.
Monbiot has a different notion which he doesn’t seriously pursue, because his focus is on what to do about Britain.
He suggests that everyone on the planet could have a personal carbon credit based on their equal shares and with limits determined by what the planet can absorb. This could lead to significant wealth transfers as poor peasants sold their credits to rich consumers over the internet.
It’s an interesting idea, Brian, but on first glance sounds impractical.
How in the hell would you ensure fraud was kept at acceptable levels?
Imposing a global environmental tax on carbon emissions and imposing counterveiling tariffs on the exports of countries that do not comply has several advantages: (i) It is universal; (ii) it promotes taxes which attack bads (greenhouse gas pollution) not gopood things (work effort, savings)and (iii) it is economically efficient – maximising the value of world trade less carbon emmission costs.
Moreover, it is not ‘pie in the sky’ stuff since it is already happening with European moves to tackle unpaid for US emissions.
Harry, in case it was not clear, I was referring to trading individual carbon credits between citizens of random third world places and random first world places.
In most of Africa and large parts of Asia, I doubt much of the money would ever reach the slums or the outlying villages.
Robert, I’d need to check it again, but I think he was making the point in principle. You know, the average Ethiopian vs the average Brit.
Harry, do you have more detail or a link on that European challenge to the US? I thought I heard something about it on radio, but on second thoughts it was this one about Canada.
You’d have to make sure that the WTO had it’s head on straight, though, because some of their rulings don’t seem to have much to do with the public interest.
“he” referring back to Monbiot!
Here is one quote.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/world/europe/01climate.html?ei=5090&en=718095d16a7c2e7f&ex=1327986000
Thanks, Harry. Clearly we could expect the same treatment.