Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
The Kyoto Protocol is the quixotic attempt by some countries around the world to reduce each participating country’s CO2 emissions to their emission levels in 1990. Since CO2 emissions are a measure of the energy used, that seemed foolish to me, but hey, I was born yesterday. I figured nobody would be that dumb, and although the leaders might agree to such a goofy plan, people would find ways around the restrictions.
There are two very different groups of countries who have signed up to Kyoto to reduce emissions. One group is called the “Economies In Transition” (EIT) group. These are the Eastern European countries who were going from communism to capitalism. They are composed of Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. They’ve done well at reducing to 1990 levels, since their 1990 emissions were all high, and have declined since after the fall of the Soviet Empire. They’ve reduced their emissions, but no thanks to Kyoto. Indeed, some signed on just so they could sell their carbon credits, because their countries were already below the 1990 levels by the time they ratified … and they did very well at the scam, too. Russia made big bucks from selling credits to the rest of the fools …
The other group, called the “non-EIT” group, is composed of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom. This is the group of interest, as they are the group which is like the US—established democracies with generally mature industrialized economies.
I took this issue up because of the recent release of the newest CO2 emission figures for 2009-2010. These gave me the opportunity to investigate the question in the title—what difference has Kyoto made? How much has Kyoto affected the emissions of the countries involved? Carbon saved is carbon earned … Figure 1 shows the emissions of the US, and the emissions of the Kyoto non-EIT nations, from 1990 to 2010.
Figure 1. Annual Emissions of Carbon. Units are billions of metric tonnes of carbon (C, not CO2). “Kyoto Countries” is the total of all of the non-EIT countries, as listed above. Data Source Up to 2008 and 2008-2010 Photo Source
Hmmmm.
Other than the post-2007 drop due to the 2008 global financial crisis and ensuing world-wide depression, what can we see in this data?
Well, the most obvious thing I see is what’s not there. Looking at the pre- and post-ratification behavior of the Kyoto countries, I don’t see any change in the emissions due to ratification. The trend 1990-1999 is no different from the trend 1999-2007.
Curiously, it looks like the US on the other hand slowed down the growth in emissions over the period. Before ratification the US emissions were rising faster than the EU emissions. After 1998, they have changed pretty much in lock-step. This can be tested by fitting a 2nd order polynomial to the 1990-2007 data for both the US and Kyoto countries, as shown in Figure 2:
Figure 2. Same as Figure 1, with 2nd order polynomial trend lines fitted to the data up to 2007.
So to at least a first approximation, I’d have to say that the total amount of CO2 saved by the Kyoto Protocol to date is … well … not to put too fine a point on it, the CO2 saved by Kyoto seems to be approximately zero. There’s been no change in the rate of rise of the emissions by the Kyoto countries. No difference. Zip. Nicht. Zilch. The US reduced its rate of emission growth over the period more than the Kyoto countries did.
In any case, not to worry, the deus ex machina was waiting in the wings all along . What the Kyoto Protocol was incapable of achieving, the 2008 global economic meltdown had no problem doing. Figure 1 shows the total emissions of the Kyoto countries are now well below the 1990 benchmark … so I suppose the unfortunate citizens in the those countries are celebrating their great success, and hoping that the economic depression continues, no?
No?
w.
PS—It is obvious from this data that economic depression causes a reduction in CO2 emissions.
What has not been so obvious to the Kyoto folks is that the converse is true—forcibly reducing CO2 emissions comes at a cost to the economy.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
It looks like Willis gave us a good example of ‘Hide the Decline” in Figure 2.
🙂
@Manfred
Good point on per capita basis observation
Looking beyond the post, if G. Bush had signed Kyoto the U.S. would have had no economic growth in the decade leading up to the current financial crisis and would also have shown much faster decline in CO2 emissions at an earlier point. All of the PIIGS are in the Kyoto list….so much for sustainability arguments.
While I’m not convinced it will stop at “economic depression”, one positive is that money to fund the “pet projects” of everyone+dog will dry up. Who knows “cost benefit analysis” may return to the assessment of proposals. The “cash raining from the sky” era is over and hardship tends to focus minds. You can bet that Obama won’t be using Spain as a shining beacon of green nonsense come 2012.
Europe will be pushing for Kyoto nonsense. Here it is a stealth tax and boy does Europe need those show those taxes right now. What will change is that most of that tax will stay within the EU. I can’t really see us exporting the proceeds of the Euro carbon scam to the “developing world”. The Maldives “parliament” will have to buy their own oxygen and wet suits from now on.
Dave Springer,
“It’s not my fault if others chose to spend their free time taking vacations they could hardly afford or putting money into down payments on real estate at the wrong time. I spent my leisure time making myself more valuable to the international corporation that employed me and I continued renting and put the money I could have used for a down payment on a home into the purchase of stock in the company I worked for ”
You’re the sort of guy who makes socialists apoplectic 🙂
barry,
“A good number of economic assessments estimate only the cost of implementing various policies, and make no impact analysis from climate change.”
With all due respect, what’s the point of a study that looks only at the costs and not the benefits? Lord Monckton has shown that even allowing for the supposed IPCC sensitivities, the benefit in terms of temperature from implementing Kyoto in the West is as near zero as makes no difference. In other words, even acheiving set targets, the reduction in temperature would be negligible – and that is taking the IPCC average sensitivity of 3.5C per CO2 doubling.
But your studies saying that the cost of CO2 reduction strategies are low, are plain wrong. They may have thought they would be low, but reality is catching up. They are now causing energy costs to escalate in the UK and driving energy intensive industries eastward. More UK households are being driven into fuel poverty. And that is before we have got anywhere near the renewable targets.
I say reality is starting to catch up, but there are still some politicians with their heads in the sand. The UK energy minister, recently condemned as “rubbish” two studies that showed that renewable energy costs would continue to rise. He apparently still believes in the same studies you do.
Ok. So emissions declined from roughly 2008 – 2009 ish, during a global recession… Was there a detectable and corresponding dip in the rise of atmospheric co2 content during the same period? Would we expect to see that or not?
@Dave Springer,
Err… did you not notice that the fall in everyone’s economies happened with the GFC? Kyoto didn’t cause emission decreases after its ratification–emission speeds remained unchanged in the signing countries. It was when the world markets dropped like a rock that suddenly no one could produce much CO2 due to loss of industry. That’s what Willis shows so plainly… I have no idea what you are going on about.
Interestingly, the US economy, and emissions, fell less than the Kyoto signed countries, according to the first graph. There could be many reasons for that, related or unrelated to Kyoto affecting economic robustness.
So the way I see it CO2 is up everywhere, trillions spent on carbon capture and non efficient power production, BUT where is the heat? we must all be toast and not realise it, other wise the whole thing is a con, which it cannot be as the Politicos tell us it is true. I need to see my Doctor.
Spector says:
November 10, 2011 at 11:05 am
“It looks like Willis gave us a good example of ‘Hide the Decline” in Figure 2.
:-)”
Glad I wasn’t taking a sip of my coffee the moment I read that. LOL
I suppose Willis could mount a defense based on “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”. At any rate that’s MY fallback position when I get caught red handed using the same intellectually dishonest tactics as an opponent. 🙂
@GED
What I’m going on about is probably above your pay grade but even though I figured it out by myself I’m hardly the first one to make the connection.
Start here:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/243509-do-oil-price-spikes-cause-recessions
You would also have to classify trillion dollar stimulus packages and zero interest rates by central banks as forcing factors for CO2.
@GED
Or try these:
http://daily.sightline.org/2008/10/13/oil-addiction-and-recession/
http://www.heatingoil.com/blog/energy-analyst-kopits-oil-prices-recession/
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/10/2/111911/949
http://peakwatch.typepad.com/peak_watch/2008/09/bottoming-out.html
Or pick some of your own. There’s literally millions of google hits on images relating oil price spikes to business cycle downturns.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=&q=oil+price+recession&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGHP_en___US455&ie=UTF-8&biw=1280&bih=615&sei=%20WzG8TqjxNMKC2AX1y7DIBw&tbm=isch
Every major and minor downturn of the business cycle in the second half of the 20th century has been preceded by a spike in price of oil. This latest one is no exception – its the biggest spike and the greatest downturn too. It was quickly and temporarily arrested by oil dropping like a stone from >$100/bbl to <$50/bbl. The arrest likely had nothing at all to do with government bailouts, TARP, or stimulous spending and everything to do with suddenly cutting the price of oil in half. Everything else is a distraction. Manipulation of oil price is letting both domestic and foreign interests play the U.S. economy like a fiddle bleeding every last drop of money out of it by keeping it teetering on the edge of financial meltdown.
Vote for Rick Perry. He knows the score and will end it by producing all the energy the U.S. needs from American land and American territorial waters. BUH-BYE OPEC you caustic illegal price fixing MOFOs! Without US demand to prop up your oil prices you'll go broke. If it was up to me I'd bust up OPEC by force if necessary taking out every sovereign government of every member nation if there was no other way. I don't believe when you're the only superpower in the world you should let an oil cartel composed mostly of pissant petty dictators and communists illegally f*ck with the world economy like that. Price fixing is a violation of international law. It needs to end one way or another.
Vince Causey says:
November 10, 2011 at 11:08 am
“You’re the sort of guy who makes socialists apoplectic :)”
Atheists too although I’m not sure there’s much difference between the two. In other words membership in the one club is a really good predictor of membership in the other.
Freud, Marx, and Darwin. The three pillars of post-modern culture. Two down and one to go.***
***A detour to take out the global warming brigade appears to be necessary. Of course the global warming brigade are also predominantly those who still embrace Freud, Marx, and Darwin so it’s really just different battles all within the same culture war.
DirkH says:
November 10, 2011 at 10:58 am
Dave Springer says:
November 10, 2011 at 10:14 am
“Suggest you read the comments to that article.”
I have. Of course there are different opinions – and people who thrived and people who went under during the time period in question, and everything in between – , we don’t have to rehash the back and forth here.
———————————————————————
I just wanted to make the point that Cullen’s opinion lacks credulity and validity to virtually everyone whose lives actually encompassed both the 1960’s and the 2000’s. He can’t imagine living without a cell phone, internet, and cable TV. I don’t have to imagine. I spent the greater portion of my life without them. I’m a baby boomer born and raised in a working class family in small town America and I still live a modest lifestyle well within my means. There is no larger demographic group in America than the one I’m in so I can speak as a majority member of American culture both then and now. Cullen is full of crap and is just making stuff up he knows nothing about.
Dave Springer says:
November 10, 2011 at 12:13 pm
So if your theory is correct, why not convince the PTB to increase crude prices to $300 a barrel and see a simply amazing rise in the GDP. And if that doesn’t work, try $1,300 a barrel, or $2,300 a barrel, or $3,300 and so on and so on. (Or is that series of numbers too complicated for someone at “your pay grade” to understand?)
Dave Springer says:
November 10, 2011 at 10:14 am
Thanks for that, Dave, I’d never looked at it that way, a most interesting and insightful point of view.
w.
PS—Not sarcasm. Honestly meant.
Dave Springer says:
November 10, 2011 at 10:37 am
One man’s handwaving is another man’s logic.
I notice that both the US and the Kyoto counties’ emissions were rising steadily until 2007. I notice that the emissions of both the US and the Kyoto countries dropped in 2008 and 2009, and then rose slightly in 2010.
I deduce, not handwave but deduce, something from this.
The drop in emissions 2008-2009 was due to the worldwide economic meltdown.
If you disagree, what is your alternate explanation?
More to the point, my analysis did not depend on that period at all. Look at my Figure 2, comparing the pre- and post-ratification periods.
If Kyoto worked … then where is the reduction in emissions after ratification? Or five years after ratification? There was no drop.
This does not depend on any logical deductions (or even illogical deductions) about the source of the 2008-2009 drops in emissions. It doesn’t consider those at all.
To summarize:
1. My analysis (see Figure 2) does not depend on the period containing the global financial crisis.
2. I hold that the 2008-2009 drop in emissions was a result of reduced economic activity stemming from the global financial crisis. I say this for two reasons:
a) It has a direct and logical chain of cause and effect. Less economic activity means less fuel burnt means less CO2 emissions …
b) There were no other worldwide changes that I know of that would have affected all the Kyoto countries and the US at the same time. It was not oil prices, because oil prices crashed with the financial crisis. After the crash fuel was cheap, so fuel costs were not holding down emissions. What else explains it?
And no, that’s not handwaving. That’s logic. If you have another logical explanation for a world-wide drop in CO2 emissions, please expound it.
w.
Dave Springer says:
November 10, 2011 at 11:00 am
Generally, I agree with both of you gentlemen that there are inaccuracies in the data. Any data gathering exercise of this nature will inevitably contain errors and problems.
However, it’s not as bad as you think, Stas. This is because so much fuel is traded on the international market. The guys that collect these figures aren’t stupid. If country X says they burned 300 million barrels of oil, and the international shipping records show that they were delivered 900 million barrels of oil, it raises a flag.
So then they have to do a couple things. Get back to the folks that told them “300 million barrels” and point out that they must have an inadvertent error or an accidental transposition of digits in their figures, could they please recheck? And they have to look at other estimates of fuel use from other sources.
In other words, for many (but by no means all) of the reported oil/gas/coal use figures, there are more than one way to check the data. For the fuel producing countries, data is more dependent on the honesty/diligence/accuracy of the local barrel-counters. However, even there the oil companies have records of how much each and every one of their wells produces. So some production is recorded there as well.
Here’s how it breaks down.
For all the nations that don’t produce fuel, we can keep tabs on their fuel use and verify their domestic figures by comparing their results with the shipping data. That’s a huge chunk of the world right there, including many of the Kyoto nations like say Japan and France.
For oil producing nations like say Canada and Norway and the US, we can trust their production figures. In an open society, there’s a variety of ways being used to track how many barrels go where.
For nations like say the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the oil there is extracted by one of the major oil companies, they’ll have records of how much the DRC uses for their own needs.
The Saudis or the Venezuelans, who pump their own oil, could be exaggerating (or minimizing) the amount of oil used domestically.
That leaves the big question mark, China … I mean, if they were to shade their coal use figures by say 10%, would we notice?
Well, we might notice. People look at things like how much energy it takes to produce a thousand dollars worth of GDP. If that gets way out of line, then people say “What’s up with the Saudi figures this quarter”, and the like.
Remember, Stas, that the energy we are talking about (coal / oil / gas) is the economic lifeblood of the planet. There are people who spend their lives doing nothing but analyzing exactly how much and what kind of energy a country is consuming. In the oil industry, there are trade publications ($3,000 per year) that do nothing but report on the ebb and flow of coal and oil and gas. There are companies which do nothing but research these very questions for their clients … because all those flows are flows of dollars as well as flows of energy. Big dollars. Huge dollars.
As a result, it’s not like we’re collecting information on global butterfly distributions. There’s not a dime in butterflies, so nobody but scientists and interested people study them. On the other hand, there’s a whole industry of people making their living recording and looking at and investigating (and making large-dollar bets on) the coal / oil / gas flows. Which means that we have a lot of information available to cross-check our CO2 emissions data.
To summarize:
Yes, there are sure to be errors and inaccuracies in the CO2 emission figures. However, enough of them are double-checked against independent sources that in general I think they are reasonable. And in particular, I do think that they are generally good to excellent for the Kyoto countries and the US.
w.
Dave Springer says:
November 10, 2011 at 1:03 pm
“I just wanted to make the point that Cullen’s opinion lacks credulity and validity to virtually everyone whose lives actually encompassed both the 1960′s and the 2000′s.”
I didn’t post the link because of Cullen’s opinion but because of the data he shows.
Vince,
So you’re talking about a subject you are not familiar with. That’s ok, my knowledge of it is not too deep either. But the answer is pretty straightforward. Economic studies that look at one side of the ledger are very common. Think military expenditure. Carbon policies are about risk management. Politicos are mostly interested in direct impacts to the economy.
The causes of rising energy cost in the UK are many. Carbon policies contribute, but are most certainly not the primary cause. One of the chief determinants of energy (and other) price shifts is the price of oil, which is 400% greater than it was 9 years ago. This is not because of carbon policies. Nor was it in the 80s. Oil is a volatile commodity. The UK is suffering from the GFC, same as most countries.
I don’t find Monckton at all credible. Surely there are other, credible sources to refer to for your views?
There are other European countries that before the GFC were doing fine with carbon policies. There are 10 US states that have implemented carbon policies from 2008. It would be a great exercise to see how their economies stack up against non-carbon policy states in the US. I can think of no simpler way to tease out carbon policy impacts from the impact of the GFC.
Finally, the Australian government a couple of days ago ratified a carbon tax effective July 2012. This will be an interesting test case indeed. Australia’s economy has weathered the GFC virtually unscathed. IMO this has been because 1) our real estate sector was a bit more heavily regulated than other countries and our bubble burst less cataclysmically; 2) strong trade relationship with China; 3) two major stimulus boosts from government coffers and beyond; 4) boom in mining and coal exports.
So we’re going to tax our 500 biggest emitters at $23 a ton of carbon and rising for the first three years, whereafter the tax will evolve into an ETS. We will be taxing the primary industries that support the economy – particularly mining and coal. This is the largest tax price on carbon in the world. And it provides an opportunity for all the economic theorists out there.
Vince, and anyone else. can you predict what will happen to the Australian economy. How quickly will it subside? If you make your prediction below, I will save the posts to my computer. What will the Australian economy be like 5 and then 10 years from July 2012?
(I have no idea myself)
Kyoto countries “reduced” their emissions by these 4 ingenious methods:
1. They exported their factories and shifted emissions to developing countries.
2. They bought “credits” from east European countries.
3. They did some funny accounting with other “credits” for forests planted
4.They lowered their standard of living due to the recession, and due to money wasted on windmills.
They cheated God…
I think the whole point of Kyoto was to induce poverty (err.. to halt over consumption), and as such it had some success.
barry says:
“Economic studies that look at one side of the ledger are very common. Think military expenditure. Carbon policies are about risk management.”
Both examples are flawed. Military expenditure has a direct, known and equal benefit for every citizen. And “carbon” policies are predicated on the argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy: “Since we can’t think of any other cause, then CO2 must be the cause.” Nonsense.
And:
“I don’t find Monckton at all credible. Surely there are other, credible sources to refer to for your views?”
As we can see, yours is an unsupported and baseless opinion. Lord Monckton has consistently spanked his debate foes, to the point that now they hide out from debating him. If he said anything that was not credible or factual, his opponents would rip him to shreds. The simple fact that Monckton wins his debates while his opponents quake in fear confers credibility. You may not like Viscount Monckton. But he has his ducks in a row; he knows his facts.
Finally, every “carbon” tax is just a convenient way for mendacious, kleptocratic governments to separate productive workers from their money. Until China and India agree to the same restrictions [which will not happen], carbon taxes will do nothing whatever for the atmosphere. Not that it matters a whit, because CO2 is harmless and beneficial. More is better.
Not in dollar values. But you’ve missed the point.
You haven’t followed the conversation or the links. Many (maybe most) economic impact studies don’t factor in the cost of climate change, CO2-induced or otherwise.
If your argument is that the science is completely empty therefore carbon policies are needless, then fine. The logic is superb. Someone else may be interested in taking you up on that.
Forgot to add,
I’ve cited numerous economic studies by groups of experts on the matter and provided links to them, pointing out that the weight of expert opinion corroborates what I’m saying. I’ve asked for similarly doughty reports in rebuttal. The defence is currently resting its case on one Lord Monckton, who has no credentials in economic theory (or climate science), and no links whatsoever have been provided to his testimony.
I report, you invent.
barry says:
“But you’ve missed the point.” No, barry, you miss the point: military expenditures are equally beneficial for every citizen, because without them the country would be invaded and taken over. Defense is what allows us to defend our country, and keep us out of slavery.
“You haven’t followed the conversation or the links.” In fact, I have, barry, ever since Enron pushed “carbon” trading. The only benefits of “carbon” trading are based on complete “what if” speculation, which totally ignores the fact that Ice Ages happened when CO2 was many times today’s levels, and much warmer temperatures occurred when CO2 levels were very low. The CO2=CAGW conjecture is absolutely based on the argumentum ad ignorantium fallacy; the argument from ignorance. It is an untestable conjecture.
Finally, I properly responded to your completely baseless attack on Lord Monckton. Backing and filling now is too late. You made a fact-free ad hominem attack, and now you’re simply trying to justify it.
Now, if you want to defend your belief system, try to falsify this hypothesis:
CO2 is harmless and beneficial. More is better.
Use the scientific method, me boy. Give it your best shot.