Investor's Business Daily, April 20th, 2007
Climate Change: The cracking sound you hear up north isn't the last of winter's ice breaking up, but the mighty "Kyoto consensus" falling apart.
It wasn't long ago that Canada's politicians were cursing the U.S. for its failure to go along with Kyoto's mandate of steep reductions in the emission of greenhouses gases. Now, they're having second thoughts.
For that, Canadians can thank their savvy new Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, who looked at the details and realized the effort just wasn't worth it. That's not just a figure of speech. It's literally not worth it -- not for Canada, and definitely not for the U.S.
Cost estimates for the U.S. alone range from $160 billion to $400 billion a year to meet Kyoto's stringent requirements. By 2050, that means potentially $18 trillion in lost economic output -- an amount too big to ignore.
Canada faces similar crippling costs to its economy. Just last week, Environment Minister John Baird said Kyoto compliance would cost Canada 275,000 jobs and push its economy into recession.
Instead of Kyoto, Canada will join the U.S.-led Asian-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate -- whose members also include Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea. The so-called AP6 was launched in mid-2005 to make voluntary cuts in greenhouse gases.
That's an appealing alternative to Kyoto's draconian, economy-crushing rules.
In case you're wondering, this all but dooms Kyoto -- if it wasn't doomed before. Even before Canada's announcement, the formation of the AP6 had pretty much killed the deal. Global warming advocates just didn't realize it.
As the group's Web site notes, AP6 members "represent about half of the world's economy, population and energy use, and they produce about 65% of the world's coal, 48% of the world's steel, 37% of the world's aluminum, and 61% of the world's cement."
According to Canada's Financial Post, the AP6 also make up half the world's greenhouse gas emissions. So if they don't play, there is no ballgame.
If this bothers you, it shouldn't. Kyoto was a bad deal all along, a giant ball of twine meant to tie down the giant U.S. economy while the Lilliputians caught up. It was explicitly crafted to sock America's economy with massive new costs that would slow growth to a crawl and all but kill its decade-long productivity boom. Wisely, we didn't buy in.
Politicians in Europe and the U.S. have gotten shrill in recent years screaming for the U.S. to sign on, declaring global warming the moral equivalent of war and seeking to silence its critics, despite the uncertain science behind it all.
Yet shockingly, the U.S., which is under no treaty obligation to cut greenhouse gases, has actually done a better job of it than Europe's holier-than-thou green bureaucrats.
From 2000 to 2004, average carbon emissions rose by 1.3% in the U.S., but by 2.2% in the 25 nations of the European Union. That, despite the fact the U.S. economy grew 2 1/2 times faster.
For all the hot air emanating from Kyoto's Euro-defenders, the fact is the Green Grinch -- George W. Bush -- has been quietly effective when it comes to global warming.
As for those who prattle about the "costs" of warming, they should remember there are advantages, too.
As Patrick J. Michaels, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, has written: "During the 0.8 (degree centigrade) warming from 1900 to 2000, crop yields quintupled, life span doubled and wealth was democratized beyond anyone's dreams."
Estimates put the amount of warming avoided by Kyoto at around 0.04 to 0.07 degree centigrade. That means trillions of dollars would have been spent for a cut in warming so small it's not even clear it could be measured.
We're glad to welcome Canada to the club of skeptics. Kyoto was a costly mistake, and it's time to bury it.
