A Torontonian's ramblings on politics with especial attention to the local.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Cracks in EU's Green Wall
Apparently Canadians aren't the only ones who think an economic recession is a good time to implement a massive climate change plan. Members of the European Union are now objecting to making this kind of move at this time.
Global warming: why cut one 3,000th of a degree? - Britain’s efforts to reduce the speed of global warming will cost huge sums of money and have a pitifully tiny effect - Bjorn Lomborg - September 30, 2008 Excerpt: Global warming is seen everywhere as one of the most important issues. From the EU to the G8, leaders trip over one another to affirm their commitment to cutting CO2 to heal the world. What they do not often acknowledge - in part because it would lose them support - is that the solutions proffered are incredibly costly and will end up doing amazingly little good, even in a century’s time. This is the truly inconvenient truth of the politics of global warming. […] However, we need to keep our cool: global warming’s total cost will be only about one half of 1 per cent of the net worth of the 21st century; that is the current worth of all the wealth projected to be generated in this century. Panicking is unlikely to lead to sensible policies. It could lead to exorbitantly expensive policies, which will do great harm. Many of the proffered global warming policies are designed to help politicians bathe in the warm glow of good intentions, with little or no regard to the mounting costs and infinitesimal benefits. It is a well-rehearsed point that the Kyoto Protocol was a terribly inefficient, hugely costly way to do virtually no good. Even if every industrialised country, including the United States, had accepted the protocol, and everyone had lived up to its requirements for the entire century, it would have had virtually no impact, even a hundred years from now. It would reduce the global temperature increase by an immeasurable 0.15C by the year 2100. The cost of implementing Kyoto, taking the average figure from the various top macroeconomic models, would have been almost £100 billion annually for the rest of the century.
Well, we are talking about Berlusconi, the Italian Bush-lite so why is it I'm not surprised. Maybe he'll steal Harper's lines to support his case since they do seem to pass the same play-book around.
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2 comments:
Global warming: why cut one 3,000th of a degree? - Britain’s efforts to reduce the speed of global warming will cost huge sums of money and have a pitifully tiny effect
- Bjorn Lomborg - September 30, 2008
Excerpt: Global warming is seen everywhere as one of the most important issues. From the EU to the G8, leaders trip over one another to affirm their commitment to cutting CO2 to heal the world. What they do not often acknowledge - in part because it would lose them support - is that the solutions proffered are incredibly costly and will end up doing amazingly little good, even in a century’s time. This is the truly inconvenient truth of the politics of global warming. […] However, we need to keep our cool: global warming’s total cost will be only about one half of 1 per cent of the net worth of the 21st century; that is the current worth of all the wealth projected to be generated in this century. Panicking is unlikely to lead to sensible policies. It could lead to exorbitantly expensive policies, which will do great harm. Many of the proffered global warming policies are designed to help politicians bathe in the warm glow of good intentions, with little or no regard to the mounting costs and infinitesimal benefits. It is a well-rehearsed point that the Kyoto Protocol was a terribly inefficient, hugely costly way to do virtually no good. Even if every industrialised country, including the United States, had accepted the protocol, and everyone had lived up to its requirements for the entire century, it would have had virtually no impact, even a hundred years from now. It would reduce the global temperature increase by an immeasurable 0.15C by the year 2100. The cost of implementing Kyoto, taking the average figure from the various top macroeconomic models, would have been almost £100 billion annually for the rest of the century.
Well, we are talking about Berlusconi, the Italian Bush-lite so why is it I'm not surprised. Maybe he'll steal Harper's lines to support his case since they do seem to pass the same play-book around.
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