Kyoto Kritik

Setting the record straight on Kyoto.

14. december 2005
Af Dr. Constantin Gurdgiev , Honorary Fellow, Copenhagen Institute & Director, Open Republic Institute.

Last week, after years of negotiations, controversies and dire warnings of impeding environmental collapse, the much-awaited Kyoto Protocol became a reality. With all the hype, it is easy to miss the main point - the Protocol is a powerless and costly example of well-intended politicised voodoo.

The original Kyoto Protocol of 1997 called for the reduction of the green house emissions to 5.2% below 1990 levels and required ratification by the nations producing at least 55% of the world's emissions. The new Kyoto Protocol (NKP) of July 23, 2001 moderated the demands to 1.8% reduction on 1990 levels. Majority of the signatories to the Protocol, including the world's fastest growing polluters China, India and Brazil, have no reductions commitments under the NKP.

Contrary to widely disparate reports, scientists know precisely the rate of global warming for the foreseeable future. Data since 1872 shows that as we emit more carbon dioxide (CO2), each additional increment of emissions results in less warming than the previous one. The bad news is that over the 20th century, emissions were growing at an increasing rate. This means that once we jump-start the climate change, the rate of global warming will be constant, unless we reduce the rate of emissions growth.

This is precisely where the Protocol lobby made a major error. The NKP focuses on the level of emissions, going beyond targeting of growth rates. The environmentalists assumed that demonstration of human activity effect on global temperatures justifies the Kyoto Protocol. In doing so they ignored scientific analysis of the forecasted rates of temperature increases within and outside the NKP constraints. The costs of this error are staggering: the NKP may result in economic losses amounting annually to 1.1-2.3% of global GDP growth, while achieving only marginal environmental improvements. The reason for this is a simple one - even with moderated restrictions, OECD countries are facing the requirement to cut their emissions by 12-15% on 2004 levels.

Despite a wealth of hysterical predictions of climatic meltdown, it is apparent that the global warming trends are modest. In 2001, the US National Academy of Sciences, hardly a conservative body, predicted that "…additional warming in the next 50 years [will reach] 0.75°C, plus or minus 0.25°C". This forecast, based on the 'do-nothing' scenario, is statistically more accurate and 4 times lower than the outlandish claims made by the UN. The only threat to this trend comes not from the US or Europe, but from China and India - the countries exempt from Kyoto restrictions.

The NKP will not reverse this trend. Consider the standard UN assumption of a 4.5°F rise in temperature per doubling of CO2 emissions. Under this deeply pessimistic claim, if fully implemented by all countries, by 2050 the NKP will reduce the world surface temperature by just 0.04°F. By 2100, the savings will add up to a meagre 0.11°F. In short, the mean global temperature forecasted in absence of restrictions for January 1, 2050 will be delayed by only 288 days. Given that the modern surface thermometers cannot distinguish a change of less than 0.19° from normal year-on-year variations, the Kyoto-generated savings are unlikely to register on the radar.

This analysis assumes that the polluting Western industries will remain in the environmentally sensitive developed countries. Yet, at least some pollution will be exported from Europe to the NKP-exempt developing world. Today, China emits 50-70% more pollution than the US per unit of output. This means that every unit of greenhouse gases saved in the West may result in a gain of 1.5-1.7 units elsewhere if the industry migrates in search of lower costs. The irony is that far from reducing CO2 emissions, the NKP may actually raise the levels and the growth rate of global pollution. The Kyoto Protocol fails to consider this scenario.

In a nutshell, the NKP will reduce growth rate of world economies while shifting pollution to the countries where international community has no control over emissions.

It may also reduce incentives for development of greener alternatives in the West. No one remotely sane would subscribe to the idea that such a measure can do much good to our environment. The NKP's enactment is a worrisome reflection of the global leaders' failure to think beyond the standard 'tax-and-charge' policies. It is a sign that the deeply rooted environmentalist hysteria is displacing common sense and science in policy making.

Previously Published: Business&Finance Magazine, February 24, 2005, page 33.

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