The Kyoto Protocol? Darling, that was so last century. Even the Japanese, who founded it, have moved on to the next big thing. The plastic wristbands aren't yet printed, but the new logo is ready: growth is green.
The Kyoto Protocol? Darling, that was so last century. Even the Japanese, who founded it, have moved on to the next big thing. The plastic wristbands aren't yet printed, but the new logo is ready: growth is green.
Last week, a new environment pact was agreed in Laos by India, China, South Korea, Australia, Japan and the United States: to go for economic growth and use the proceeds to produce new clean energy technology.
Rather than see business growth as a rapacious process which fells forests and warms the planet by belching out greenhouse gasses, the Laos deal argues that such growth is the solution to the environmental problems.
Few saw this coming. The countries had gathered in an Asia-Pacific forum, but Australia and the US had for months been working in secret about a successor deal to Kyoto, which neither of them have signed.
Both countries were concerned that Kyoto was all about slamming on the economic brakes and putting the world on an energy diet -- with targets which sought to tie the hands of rich countries, while leaving India and China unconstrained.
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The Kyoto creed is certainly a snapshot of 1990s world politics. It reflected a centre-left consensus that globalisation and soaring business profits posed a threat to the environment and that companies had to be reined in.
Its target, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent by 2010, did not affect India and China, who were patronisingly seen as too small to make any significant contribution towards the problem.
Now, better research shows just how backward and dangerous the Kyoto principles were -- it would have slowed global warming by six years over the next century. A pitiful result for an economic cost of £200bn.
The creed behind last week's six-nations deal was that economic growth -- not placing shackles on energy consumption -- is the best way to helping the environment. Growth is not only good: growth will save the planet.
The White House released a fact sheet spelling it out: "Stagnant economies are one of the world's greatest environmental threats, because people who lack foodÅ cannot be expected to preserve the environment at the expense of their own survival," it said.
A 1995 World Bank study found just this: a "very strong, positive association between environmental indicators and economic development". This is why the environment has been getting better since the 1970s, quite contrary to the projection given by politicians who have not grasped the facts. In every country, the green revolution has been fuelled by growth.
In 1970s America, air was judged to be unclean for 100 to 300 days a year. Today, this is true for fewer than 10 days a year. Emissions from its factories and cars have halved, while the economy trebled in size.
America is investing far more than Europe in researching hydrogen fuel cells, clean coal, excavating methane from coal beds, "carbon capture" recycling technology -- costly and ambitious schemes shared by the Laos countries.
This is not because President George Bush is a closet Greenpeace member. He just hates America's reliance on oil producers like Saudi Arabia: the sooner he can come up with an all-American hydrogen device, the better.
It is hard to overstate how serious the Bush administration is about this project. Being reliant on "foreign sources of energy" is repeated every week by the White House like a curse the president is desperate to fight off.
A generation ago, China was told it could never hope to have phones for all its people, because there was not enough copper in the world to wire up its houses -- and copper, it was feared, could one day run out.
Wireless technology provided the answer. And so it may prove with energy: the US federal government is working harder than anyone else to come out with the energy equivalent to mobile phones.
There is a good reason that the Laos deal wasn't struck at G8 summit in Gleneagles. That involved France, Germany and Italy: countries who specialise in wagging their finger at America while duly delivering low economic growth.
At present, between 1 percent and 2 percent of world economic output is spent on the environment. Slowing growth cuts this budget: going for growth will produce the green tools to tackle head-on the problems which Kyoto simply seeks to defer.
Laos represents a fundamental change of mindset from Kyoto. It is one the European Union (EU) is certainly not ready for, and is designed for a world in which the EU is destined to play an ever-dwindling part.
The Laos signatories say they complement existing environmental treaties -- but we can see what's really happening. Japan, the host of the Kyoto summit, has now left its own party. European countries with an eye for the future should follow.
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Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
