Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010
Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated. – Ottmar Edenhofer
For those who may not know, Ottmar Edenhofer is the co-chair of the IPCC Working Group III.
Interview by: Bernard Potter
NZZ am Sonntag: Mr. Eden, everybody concerned with climate protection demands emissions reductions. You now speak of “dangerous emissions reduction.” What do you mean?
Ottmar Edenhofer: So far economic growth has gone hand in hand with the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. One percent growth means one percent more emissions. The historic memory of mankind remembers: In order to get rich one has to burn coal, oil or gas. And therefore, the emerging economies fear CO2 emission limits.
But everybody should take part in climate protection, otherwise it does not work.
That is so easy to say. But particularly the industrialized countries have a system that relies almost exclusively on fossil fuels. There is no historical precedent and no region in the world that has decoupled its economic growth from emissions. Thus, you cannot expect that India or China will regard CO2 emissions reduction as a great idea. And it gets worse: We are in the midst of a renaissance of coal, because oil and gas (sic) have become more expensive, but coal has not. The emerging markets are building their cities and power plants for the next 70 years, as if there would be permanently no high CO 2 price.
The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.
That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.
That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.
Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet – and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 – there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.
De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.
First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.
Nevertheless, the environment is suffering from climate change – especially in the global south.
It will be a lot to do with adaptation. But that just goes far beyond traditional development policy: We will see in Africa with climate change a decline in agricultural yields. But this can be avoided if the efficiency of production is increased – and especially if the African agricultural trade is embedded in the global economy. But for that we need to see that successful climate policy requires other global trade and financial policies.
Full Interview h/t to Dr. Benny Peiser at the GWPF
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Ottmar Edenhofer
‘Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet – and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 – there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil’.
———————————————————————————-
Who said so? What is the basis for this claim? Where is the evidence that emitting only 400 gigatons per annum is the appropriate limit for carbon (di oxide) emissions?
These ‘birks’ have no idea of what generates revolution. So they think that ‘wealth redistribution’ can be enforced in countries like the US and Europe putting possibly millions out of work and causing widespread poverty will be accepted lying down? This arrogant myopia can only come from academics so wedded to a utopian theory that they cannot perceive the anger that wells up when people are forced into these situations. He should have a look at what is happening in Greece for example, over what is, by comparison, only a minor economic disruption. The whole of Europe is close to economic collapse right now and he is entertaining this insane notion.
‘Let them eat cake mentality perhaps. Take a look at history Dr Edenhofer. It takes only little co2 to pull out the tumbrels
Douglas
Brian Sussman was spot on.
“And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.”
And we already know the answer is no and that Cancún will be full of people who are eager to deal with so much money.
I expect that he is just cashing out. He has just written a new book and he is on a book tour. Controversy will help increase media attention (though in this case the MSM may completely censor this interview), which will increase sales. The book is not about the environment; it is about making him some money and perhaps line up a new job after Cancun.
Someone at the IPCC is finally stating the obvious. Let’s hope more follow. There’s no quicker way to kill this monster than to shine a light on their true objectives.
Too bad Harper is hemmed in by a minority government. This is what allowed the bill to pass in parliament in the first place. And it might mean we will see this nonsense repeated.
I still find it weird that Canada’s Labour Party, the NDP, or any Labour Party for that matter, would purposefully destroy the jobs and prospects of jobs of their supporters. Liberals I can understand, they believe in all sorts of idiocy, but unions (and their political parties) are supposed to protect their members.
And let us not forget about another prominent member of the UN.
http://mikephilbin.blogspot.com/2010/11/newsweek-shiva-destroyer-cern.html
jimbo –
bloomberg suggesting China will come on board, one day, somehow…
18 Nov: Bloomberg: China Is Studying Cap-And-Trade System to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The government may set emissions quotas for large enterprises and a certain portion of them may be traded, Zhang Junkuo, head of development strategy at the State Council’s development research center, told reporters in Beijing today…
“It’s likely that China will introduce some kind of cap- and-trade system, although it’s not clear when and how it will operate yet,” said Wang Fan, an analyst at Ping An Securities Ltd. in Shenzhen. “The idea of a carbon tax seems much more unlikely to me, as China is a developing nation and I don’t think there’s much support for this idea.”…
A cap-and-trade market in China could be functioning as early as 2013, Richard Sandor, who helped found London-based Climate Exchange Plc in 2003, said at a climate-change forum in Hong Kong this month…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-18/china-studies-cap-and-trade-system-to-spur-reduction-in-carbon-emissions.html
nice to see Sandor now has time to fly to “climate change” forums!
18 Nov: CBC: Consumerism causes climate change: poll
The survey, conducted by Environics Research for eight advocacy organizations and unions, found that 80 per cent of those questioned feel the climate is being negatively influenced by economic and social priorities…
The survey also indicated 77 per cent of Canadians believe a tribunal should be established to penalize countries whose economic actions damage or threaten the environment…
“These polling results indicate willingness on the part of Canadians for significant change in how we understand and respond to the climate crisis,” stated Rick Arnold, co-ordinator for Common Frontiers Canada, a group opposing North American economic integration that co-sponsored the poll.
Other organizations involved in commissioning the survey were the Council of Canadians; Kairos, an ecumenical group that last year had its federal funding reduced; the Canadian Union of Postal Workers; the Public Service Alliance of Canada; the Indigenous Environmental Network; Common Frontiers; and Toronto Bolivia Solidarity…
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/11/18/climate-change-poll-consumerism.html
18 Nov: CBC: Greg Watson: The inconvenient truth about the climate change bill
The latest figures from Environment Canada show the government could send the country back to using the horse and buggy and still not satisfy the greenhouse gas reduction targets in the climate change bill axed by the Senate.
In fact, eliminating all the cars, trucks, bulldozers, railways and airlines in the country wouldn’t get even halfway to meeting the requirements in the bill — namely, cutting annual greenhouse emissions by about 290 million tonnes by 2020.
Similarly, turning off the heat in every home and commercial building in Canada would reduce annual emissions by less than 80 million tonnes.
The largest industrial source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country is the network of electrical power-generating stations fuelled by gas, oil and coal.
Shutting them down would plunge much of the country into darkness. But it still wouldn’t cut emissions by more than about 40 per cent of the annual targets demanded in the bill killed by the Senate.
The bottom line is that unless Canadians would settle for freezing in the dark, no government of any political stripe was going to come close to meeting the emission-reduction targets in the proposed legislation…
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/11/18/greg-weston-climate-change-bill.html
note on above page: Greg Watson
Award-winning columnist, investigative journalist and best-selling author Greg Weston has won numerous awards for his enterprise and original journalism.
Among other accolades, he has won two National Newspaper Awards and the coveted Michener Award for Meritorious Public Service in Journalism, the country’s highest journalism honour
He joined the CBC in 2010
18 Nov: Nature Blog: Canada’s climate bill flattened – November 18, 2010
Posted on behalf of Hannah Hoag
“Spitting mad,” is how the Victoria Times Colonist described Andrew Weaver, a climate modeller at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, following the news that Canada’s climate change bill had been defeated in the Senate late on Tuesday. “Retiring with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s sounds good right now,” Weaver said…
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/11/canadas_climate_bill_flattened.html
I’ve been saying this for years. These “greens” want to use AGW to redistribute wealth, both within and between nations, they want us to transfer our technology and tech know-how to the world, they are using AGW to help start a global government that will manage the world’s resources, and they expect our standard of living to be significantly lowered in order so that there’s more oil and other natural resources for the rest of the world to use.
AGW probably really means (in the inner green circles) Apportioning Global Wealth.
One percent growth means one percent more emissions.
This is the fundamental flaw in all of these peoples thinking. Its shouldn’t be written like this … what it should say is “one percent more emmissions IS one percent more growth”.
The emmissions are the growth and vice-versa. Outr economic prosperity and our emissions are one and the same.
“So now we officially know what we have been fighting whereas before we only surmised.”
No, a former Canadian government minister categorically stated some years back that it was all about redistributing wealth. It’s the dullards among us who kept focussing on the “science” etc and who did not realise the main game in play.
Unfortunately those among us who believe that socialism is a plausible system to organise human society find history somewhat challenging and blithley continue to repeat it. Forrest Gump said it all.
“Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer.”
Newsflash for Mr. Edenhofer: It Never Did.
[Question] The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.
[Edenhofer] That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed.
Apparently Edenhofer has missed the fact that someone’s going to have to take over the World first in order to “distribute” and enforce the emission rights? Meanwhile, the U.N. hasn’t even been able to make Iran follow the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and it wasn’t able to make Iraq follow its Gulf War I surrender accords.
Other than that, the ipcc’s brilliant plan for its fabricated emergency is still only the same old grandiose, completely nutty Totalitarian redistribution of another resource made artificially scarce – coal.
No thanks, we ‘evil’ freedom and profit loving Capitalists want the World Wealth GDP Map above to become totally blue via energy resource expansion! How would that be for a Utopia?
This has always been a goal of the climate agreements for a long time now. Even the Copenhagen Conference was supposed to agree to a $100 billion fund for developing countries (with a $30 billion immediate start-up amount).
But there is a “climate justification”.
The developed countries are the ones who put most of the CO2 into the atmosphere to start with. If we are going to slow-down emissions, the developing countries cannot adopt the developed world’s high-CO2-emitting lifestyle. If they are going to catch up in terms of standard of living, (and no agreement should entail the assumption that they shouldn’t catch up), it will have to be with less-emitting technology.
Hence, the funds/transfer would be both a “price” on the developed countries for causing the problem in the first place and two, a “subsidy” for the developing countries to modernize with lower emitting energy technology.
So, its a little more complicated than the initial reaction but lots of left-wing transfer-wealth types can buy into the idea and support global warming “action” simply on that basis alone with no regard to the climate at all.
brc said: The frustrating thing is that people think that the reason some countries are poor is because another country has all the resources. They think that giving them a boatload of money will somehow fix this.
Just recently I was pointed in the direction of Ronald Reagan’s speech in support of Barry Goldwater from 1964.
In it he says:
“We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they’re going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer — and they’ve had almost 30 years of it — shouldn’t we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn’t they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?”
The cheapest and most agreeable way to redistribute wealth is by choice through free trade. Developed nations buying goods and services from developing nations raises the wealth *of the people* in developing nations and lowers living costs *of the people* in developed nations. Both parties then have more spare money to afford to spend money on adapting to climate change, *if it has malign consequences for them*.
The central planning method is bad for everyone except those doing the planning. Developed nations see their cost of living increase due to taxation, the revenues of which are then shuffled into the Governments of developing nations to be spent buying the goods and services of developed nations (engineering project, luxury goods etc). It perpetuates a parasitic elite in both rich and poor nations – in rich countries the ability to pay tax is being exploited and in poor countries their lack of wealth is being exploited. And that is before you begin to investigate whether the forced redistribution of wealth is buying any benefit in terms of combating any negative effects of climate change.
Are you assuming that Africa does not have sufficient oil, gas and coal for its needs? I think it’s more about a lack of investment.
Africa Gas Summit 2011
Oil and gas map
Coal
Africa expected to pass North America as the 3rd largest producer of oil by 2011.
“Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated. – Ottmar Edenhofer”
======================
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. ”
H. L. Mencken
***** DEEBEE says:
November 18, 2010 at 3:15 pm
From each according to his mental acuity, to each according to his procreative energy.
******
That is a big DOUBLE-PLUS GOOD!
Mr. Ottmar Edenhofer = Jesuit shill. See CV for further information. Thanks, but no thanks. Time to bring in various religious actors into debate.
Jimbo said:
As a result Cancun will be a bigger failure than Coenhagen. How many rich countries would agree to this? What if just China said no way?
The democrats (and a few RINOs) in our country would. For example, remember Clinton and Gore? They tried to get us to sign onto Kyoto and according to Cass Sunstien, America would have probably paid up to 80% of the costs of Kyoto and China and India would have probably received the bulk of these funds.
http://www.georgetownlawjournal.com/issues/pdf/96-5/Posner-Sunstein.PDF
I believe this move by Clinton to get us signed onto Kyoto was payback for the illegal contributions the communist Chinese government gave Clinton (and the DNC) in the ’90s. (Clinton also paid them back with PNTR and the result since then has been millions of jobs lost to China over the last 10 years.) What a legacy he left behind. And I didn’t even get into his role in the subprime economic mess.
Further to my last comment, this is why restricting poor countries access to their own fossil fuels will only fuel deforestation.
“That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.”
He’s basically saying that throwing money at the problem is the preferred choice,
If it’s true, then why is Africa still a third world continent?
Could it be because…..wait for it…. Wealth Distribution isn’t economically viable?
Or, to put it bluntly: a failure.
Nuts
Climate Policy: the grift that keeps on shivving