New climate strategy: track the world’s wealthiest
Source: Reuters
* World’s richest emit about half of Earth’s carbon
* Tracking the wealthy could break climate impasse
* New method would follow individual greenhouse emissions
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) – To fairly divide the climate change fight between rich and poor, a new study suggests basing targets for emission cuts on the number of wealthy people, who are also the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, in a country.
Since about half the planet’s climate-warming emissions come from less than a billion of its people, it makes sense to follow these rich folks when setting national targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions, the authors wrote on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
As it stands now, under the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol, rich countries shoulder most of the burden for cutting the emissions that spur global warming, while developing countries — including fast-growing economies China and India — are not required to curb greenhouse pollution.
Rich countries, notably the United States, have said this gives developing countries an unfair economic advantage; China, India and other developing countries argue that developed countries have historically spewed more climate-warming gases, and developing countries need time to catch up.
The study suggests setting a uniform international cap on how much carbon dioxide each person could emit in order to limit global emissions; since rich people emit more, they are the ones likely to reach or exceed this cap, whether they live in a rich country or a poor one.
For example, if world leaders agree to keep carbon emissions in 2030 at the same level they are now, no one person’s emissions could exceed 11 tons of carbon each year. That means there would be about a billion “high emitters” in 2030 out of a projected world population of 8.1 billion.
EACH PERSON’S EMISSIONS
By counting the emissions of all the individuals likely to exceed this level, world leaders could provide target emissions cuts for each country. Currently, the world average for individual annual carbon emissions is about 5 tons; each European produces 10 tons and each American produces 20 tons.
With international climate talks set to start this week in Italy among the countries that pollute the most, the authors hope policymakers will look at the strong link between how rich people are and how much carbon dioxide they emit.
“You’re distributing the task of doing something about emissions reduction based on the proportion of the population in the country that’s actually doing the most damage,” said Shoibal Chakravarty of the Princeton Environment Institute, one of the study’s authors.
Rich people’s lives tend to give off more greenhouse gases because they drive more fossil-fueled vehicles, travel frequently by air and live in big houses that take more fuel to heat and cool.
By focusing on rich people everywhere, rather than rich countries and poor ones, the system of setting carbon-cutting targets based on the number of wealthy individuals in various countries would ease developing countries into any new climate change framework, Chakravarty said by telephone.
“As countries develop — India, China, Brazil and others — over time, they’ll have more and more of these (wealthy) individuals and they’ll have a higher share of carbon reductions to do in the future,” he said.
These obligations, based on the increasing number of rich people in various countries, would kick in as each developing country hit a certain overall level of carbon emissions. This level would be set fairly high, so that economic development would not be hampered in the poorest countries, no matter how many rich people live there.
Is this a limousine-and-yacht tax on the rich? Not necessarily, Chakravarty said, but he did not rule it out: “We are not by any means proposing that. If some country finds a way of doing that, it’s great.”
This week’s climate talks in Italy are a prelude to an international forum in December in Copenhagen aimed at crafting an agreement to follow the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. At the same time, the U.S. Congress is working on legislation to curb U.S. carbon emissions. (Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
(h/t to Curious George)
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It is what the Chinese have been saying.
Who is John Galt?
Yeah, like Al Gore is going to pay for our carbon dioxide. LOL
So basically we need to punish “rich” people. That strikes me a typical socialist agenda, ergo global warming believers are communists. That fits with the simplified cause and effect login used by AGW supporters.
The troublesome thing here is how do you determine what means rich? Is it everyone over a certain personal income, everyone over a certain business income, do you adjust for currency valuation, et cetera. It could lead to the international tracking of large groups of US citizens. I am not a fan.
But will those whose fortunes were made via selling or trading carbon credits be exempt? Inquiring minds want to know.
“Rich people’s lives tend to give off more greenhouse gases because they drive more fossil-fueled vehicles, travel frequently by air and live in big houses that take more fuel to heat and cool.”
Are they refering to Al Gore?
The idea is so stupid there is no need to comment further.
But if a rich person owns and preserves a hundred acres of forest s/he is forgiven?
If somebody tells me to reduce my carbon footprint, I tell him that I promise never to have a larger carbon footprint than Al Gore
rich people tend to have much less children than poor, and this is the decisive consumption factor in the long run:
take a rich couple consuming 5 units compared to a poor couple consuming 1 unit during their life. let’s assume for simplicity, the rich couple has 1 child the poor couple 5 and the children are assumed to consume and reproduce accord to their parents.
cumulative consumption rich lifestyle
1. generation 5
2. genearation 5+2,5=7.5
3. genearaion 5+2.5+1.25= 8.75
4 . geneartion 5+2.5+1.25+0.625=9.375
5. generation 5+2.5+1.25+0.625+0.3125=9.6875
cumulative consumption poor lifestyle
1. generation 1
2. genearation 1+5=6
3. genearaion 1+5+25= 31
4 . geneartion 1+5+25+125=156
5. generation 1+5+25+125+625=781
over a century (approx 5 generations), the rich lifestyle will lead to a reduced consumption of approx. a factor of 80, though each individual consumes 5 times more. I don’t think this study will help to “save the world”.
The Chinese and Indians have through dint of their own effort become the nations who will be able to afford more of the fossil fuel pie. What is happening now in Europe and America is a battening down of the hatches by those who want to hang onto their wealth and lifestyle against the interests of their poorer compatriots.
Since keeping warm uses more fuel than driving, it will be the temperate latitude urban commuting lower middle class who will be hit by this scam. The rich will simply buy a chunk of forest or buy creds from those who can no longer afford to run a car or heat their homes.
This is fuel rationing by the back door, with a de facto exemption for the rich. This is not a socialist scheme, this is the reinforcing and codification of the wealth divide in the face of diminishing fuel supply.
The ugly face of the plootocracy is becoming sufficiently confident to remove it’s mask. They have spirited away the wealth of nations through investment scams, refilled their accounted coffers from the public purse, and will now impoverish those who are ordinary decent honest working people.
Time to start beating ploughshares into swords before burning coal in the local smithy becomes illegal.
Seryl Crow tells us all to use less loo paper and sings songs about being poor, while buying a posh new Mercedes Benz to cruise about in.
She needs to pay a visit to http://www.celebritypaycut.com and have a think about the word ‘hypocrite’.
Mostly OT but heartfelt – Ms. Crow is hot… er, warm. And sings well.
Great demonstration!
I have been saying something similar to this for a long time. If you want to control pollution, CO2, population, etc… Make them wealthy, not poor! Prosperity is ALWAYS cleaner and more efficient in the long run.
Har har har.
Who will be the next celebrity that leaps onto the greenie bandwagon.
The idea that there are people stupid enough to even propose such a concept is frightening.
Well, at least they’ve the cause of Global Warming down to known billion people. Now all we’ve got to do is track these people and keep tabs on them. The problem is almost solved.
Alas poor edit button, where art thou. * at least they’ve narrowed the cause down to a known billion *.
What a load of rubbish.
So in other words, if say I run a large developing nation, I just need to maintain a higher percentage of “low emitters” to maintain my per capita quota to sustain development. Basic law of unintended consequences!
Sounds like “low emitters” will be a highly valued commodity. Perhaps even a new visa class …. low emission migrant…. Oh isn’t it wonderful to be poor. Pat them on the head and say good boy, keep those emissions down er .. or is that up? Wouldn’t it be lovely to live in a mud hut and gather fruits and berries all day long …. ok but I digress.
But then I suppose if you look at life as them and us, you probably also believe that Government is the source of wealth and prosperity .. but I am rambling and Orwell wrote a book about it.
If the Feds are so concerned with the disastrous effects (hurricanes and sea level come to mind) associated with global warming, why are they rebuilding New Orleans?
From a scientific point of view I’ve never quite understood the direct correlation being asserted between “wealth” and “CO2 emissions.”
Take me, for example. I’m a fairly successful individual, a software developer. I have the luxury of living in a very nice neighborhood in the Los Angeles area, and the luxury of power over my work condition for the company I work for. Those two facts alone seem to establish that I’m a high CO2 emitter, someone who burns fossil fuels at a higher rate than my lesser-well-to-do friends.
Except…
One of the luxuries of my neighborhood is a local shopping district walking distance to my house, complete with a neighborhood butcher and general grocery store. And the luxury of power over my work condition means I get to work at home most of the time rather than driving 20 miles into the office. Because of this I have the luxury of being able to walk and ride a bike rather than drive–and my total commute is the walk from my bedroom to my home office–except perhaps once every two weeks when I have to drive in for in-person meetings.
My point is that relative wealth and power (I’m certainly not in the 5% of salary makers in the US, but compared to some I’m doing pretty well) has permitted me the luxury of a lifestyle where I can live in an area where I am able to walk to the grocery–most people in Los Angeles live too far away–and I’m able to telecommute.
Yet my salary is presumed to result in a net consumption of fuel and a net set of emissions–regardless of how I earned it (writing software is not the same as heavy manufacturing) or how I spend it (on produce from the neighborhood farmer’s market).
It strikes me as absurd.
And unscientific.
It’s almost as if we have drawn the conclusion that the United States emits 25% of the CO2 in the world because we have 25% of the world’s economy–and by Marxist economic thinking, 25% of wealth means 25% of raw material consumption, regardless if we’re talking about $1 million in software (virtual patterns of electrons on a platter) or $1 million in coal tailings.
Am I missing something here? Because it sure feels to me like someone baked the conclusion to support the thesis, in order to advance a political agenda here…
For every citizen, a clerk will be assigned, following his carbon footprint. Green youth groups will roam the streets in Mao Cultural revolution style, burning down suspects houses. Maybe mass move of people from cities to the rural regions in Pol Pot style would help as well.
I have desire to punch somebody as Mr. Buzz did.
It’s a rubbish idea, but it has the benefit of shutting up all the hollywood hypocrites.
I love the idea of a celebrity paycut.
Not rich people – just the airheads who preach to us. I’m looking at you, Bono.
And this from the “Land of the Free”!
Where, Oh, where is America, once the great shining beacon of hope and freedom to the world, now going?
Slavery to an ideology that is increasingly intent on destroying all individualism and the dreams and hopes of all men.
And all in the name of an earth worshipping ideology that is founded on a on nothing more than a vaporous collection of totally unproven and mystical computer models.
the not so hidden agenda of the greenies is to exterminate half of the world population and make the rest live in the middle ages. they probably realized that their current systems are contributing to exterminate the wrong half of the population (the poor), eliminating the rich would make the whole process a whole lot faster.