Working Together
Thursday, August 8th, 2002Andrew McKillop is an economist, evironmentalist, jounalist, and technical translator. He has traveled and lived throughout the world, but currently resides in West England. The following is an excerpt from his new book on the fossil fuel depletion-global warming crisis still in preparation. I first met Andrew as a contributor to the Energy Resources Yahoo Group.
Oh! Kyoto
Andrew McKillop
The subject matter, as well as the objectives of this strange or even incomprehensible Treaty have mushroomed into a ramifying spiral of political, strategic, economic, environmental, energy and North/South claims and counterclaims, with issues ranging from ice cap melting through energy use by national armed forces, to organic gardening and aquaculture and the struggle of original peoples or Anti Globalists. If the question is posed as to when or how the Kyoto Treaty process begun, several answers could be obtained – certainly at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, perhaps in the 1980s or even 1970s, or perhaps only when the almost unlimited implications of accelerating climate change began to be grasped, well into the 1990s.
Like the World Trade Center attacks and US missile attacks on Baghdad there is little limit on human aggression and violence, but few compare this puny level of violence to mankind´s attack on, and destabilization of planet Earth´s climate through the alteration of its chemical makeup. However, carbon dioxide and other ‘greenhouse gas´ concentrations have risen dramatically since Fossil Energy civilization began its task of extracting and burning carbon-based materials from the subsoil. Change of the chemical constitution of the atmosphere has been on a planetary and geological scale – the last time such concentrations of carbon existed in the Earth´s atmosphere was at least 20 Million years ago, and it is unknown if, but unlikely that there has ever been such rapid build up in the geological and climatic past. What is sure and certain is that rising world temperatures and sea levels are not good news for mankind, as witnessed by increasingly disastrous cyclones, storms and floods, for example in Orissa, India and Western France in 1999, and in large areas of South and East Asia through 2000 and 2001.
The detailed figures on how much temperatures will increase, and how rapidly sea levels will rise through ice cap melt and increased humidity above about 45 degrees latitude are the subjects of an energetic war of words, theories and models, but the UN´s Panel on Climate Change predicts that we will have a temperature rise of between 5∞ and 8∞C this century. This background number drives many scenarios for sea level rise, regional climate change (including local cooling) and an overall reduction in agricultural productivity and output capacity – all of which underlie the apparent or formal objectives of the Kyoto ‘process´, that targets a stabilization then reduction in world fossil energy burn.
The Kyoto treaty and its spiralling documentation, already several dozen kilograms in weight, obscures and ignores at least three facts that flatly contradict any fond hopes on its workability. Firstly it has been so readily accepted by the energy-intensive supposedly ‘post industrial´ developed countries of the North and their leaderships because the process of reducing fossil energy burn will, they hope, shave oil and energy prices, giving their economies an additional lifespan before their inevitable and total restructuring. Secondly, nowhere in the Kyoto documentation is there any acknowledgement of fossil energy depletion – a ‘process´ that will have vast impacts well before the inevitable effects of climate warming and destabilization, due to fossil energy burn, become so strong they can no longer be brushed aside as ‘freak events´. The earnest accent placed on ‘Clean Development Mechanisms´ and on non hydro renewable energy development is surely meritricious, but neatly avoids acknowledging that there will soon be no other non-nuclear alternatives for energy supply to mankind and that energy use per person will and must fall dramatically within 35 years, and particularly in the North. Thirdly the vast majority of mankind – at least 65% – is in the ‘process´ of entirely conventional economic development based on the Northern energy intensive, ‘throughput economy´ model and its Social Darwinist, neoliberal political economy. The potential for or possibility of that economic, social and political trajectory being simply shorted out and replaced by an entirely different resource conserving, collectivist or community-oriented model for civilization is more in the realms of science fiction or romantic folly than a likely outcome – yet there is no alternative. Oh! Kyoto.
Win Wenger writes: The trick is to put the frogs live into lukewarm water, then gradually heat it. At any time until they lose consciousness, the frogs could, if alarmed, hop out of the pot and escape. But they don’t, because they don’t notice that the gradually-warming water is heating up. Thank goodness we clever human beings, on this gradually warming Earth of ours, aren’t stupid like those frogs! Well, as a matter of fact, we have noticed it – some of us, at least. We even have the data projecting the continuing ocean-rise swamping most of our major cities, and the pending disruption and collapse of our agriculture. Far more is going on than perhaps would suffice to alert a frog, even a very stupid frog. Even worse, at any given point we could fairly readily stabilize or reverse the temptrend, by any of a great many different means, but chances are that we won’t, so settled are we within the walls of our stew pan. (1)
Any serious Internet search engine should readily yield at least 600,000 hits if you enter ‘Kyoto and Global Warming´, but likewise many linked sites will appear if you want to try the exotic fantasies hidden behind the term ‘carbon sequestration´ or yet more arcane aspects of this talkfest, such as ‘emission source and removal sink coupling´ or ‘the Berlin Mandate´: everything relates to Kyoto. At the origin, however, the concept was clear – rather than making carbon dioxide or so-called greenhouse gases disappear from the Earth´s climate system through ‘sequestration´ we have to burn less fossil energy to slow the alarming rate of climate change already under way. For some this has already a doom-laden ring about it for our civilization and economy, and so they prefer to deny any causal linkage between fossil energy consumption and climate change. What could be called ‘climatic revisionism´ has become an important if artisanal activity, as this typical extract shows:
Andrew Kenny writes: The most reliable measurements show no change whatsoever in global temperatures over the last 20 years. What has changed is the perception that Global Warming makes a better scare than the Coming Ice Age. A good environmental scare needs two ingredients. The first is impending catastrophe. The second is a suitable culprit to blame. In the second case, the ice age fails and global warming is gloriously successful. It is not the destruction itself of Sodom and Gomorrah that makes the story so appealing but the fact that they were destroyed because they were so sinful.
This is not a co-ordinated conspiracy but a fashion and a trend in which self-interest and ideology combine, and Green activists, politicians and journalists help each other to get more funding, more sensational stories and more enemies to blame. The climate of our planet is far too important for this nonsense. What we need is more genuine scientific research so that we can understand it better. If we do decide on the ‘precautionary principle´ of keeping carbon dioxide levels stable, we can turn to those many technologies, proven or in prospect, which release no or little carbon dioxide. Nuclear power is the obvious first choice. There is no reason why the world economy cannot continue to grow and prosper…. But,for heaven´s sake, let´s start by telling the whole truth and giving all of the facts. (2)
This revisionism, or amusing provocation is however light years away from the already engaged Kyoto process which, it must always be underlined and taken account of when considering institutional response to Global Warming, has achieved a kind of ‘critical mass’ and has ramified to implicate every aspect of the economy and society, in both North and South. The Kyoto process, to which some 180 nations were signed by June 2002, has gained political credibility – because it is so pliable and vague that it can be used for a host of different ends and offers a final and excellent excuse for ‘decoupling’ oil consumption from economic growth when or if this should be necessary, through a self-induced plunge into recession by interest rate hikes. Press communiquÈs and speeches of that forward time will surely announce ‘We had to do this to comply with solemn undertakings we made on emissions reduction’.
The Treaty itself sets these ’solemn engagements’ for emissions reduction. As Article 3 of the Kyoto Protiocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change puts it:
The Parties…shall, individually or jointly, ensure that their aggregate…carbon dioxide equivalent emissions of the greenhouse gases…(list)…do not exceed their assigned amounts, calculated pursuant to their quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments…(list)…and in accordance with the provisions of this Article, with a view to reducing their overall emissions of such gases by at least 5 per cent below 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008 to 2012. (3) (Emphasis added)
In other words this says that any country retifying the Kyoto Treaty will start seriously limiting greenhouse gas emission by 2008, but there is a lot more than can be tweaked, or stripped out of the list of confused intentions that stray across more than 25 Articles before coming to the bottom line, where countries are invited to sign on for application of its provisions. There are in fact so many potential and possible interpretations of what this Treaty means, that, after wading through the many thousand pages of official and binding documents that have now built up, almost any interest group and irrespective of its political slant can throw up its hands saying ‘Oh Kyoto !’.
PROPOSALS TO LIMIT GHG EMISSIONS
Clinton Proposal: Developed countries would be obligated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012, (and a reduction of 34 percent from projected levels in 2012) with further reductions afterward; unspecified participation would be required of developing countries; and an international system for trading permits for greenhouse gas emissions would be developed.
Japanese Proposal: Developed countries would be under legal obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
European Union Proposal: Developed countries would be under legal obligations to reduce emissions to 15 percent below 1990 levels by 2010; such enforcement mechanisms as trade sanctions would be imposed on countries that fail to comply; there would be no change in developing country obligations.
Small Island States Proposal: Developed countries would be obligated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2010.
Group of 77 Proposal: Developed countries would be under legal obligations to reduce emissions to 35 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. (4)
Perhaps through an attempt to cover their creation from any accusations of partiality or exclusivity, while never stating that the major energy objectives feature reduction in oil and gas consumption which any right-minded energy importer knows will reduce prices, the teams drawing up this rambling Treaty included a multitude of different and often incoherent, that is mutually contradictory areas of application and means for achieving various goals on emissions reduction. While fossil energy stands out in the jungle of greenhouse gas emitting facets and activities included in various Articles of the Treaty, this also extends to forestry, agriculture, animal husbandry, refrigeration and airconditioning, fisheries and aquaculture, urban development and transportation, and many other things besides. Being a post-neoliberal treaty it was de rigueur that there would be something in it for excited traders on world bourses, and this is more than amply provided by the Treaty´s inclusion of tradeable licenses to pollute. In very simple terms if you are a country that in 2010 emits less greenhouse gases than the quota limit set by Kyoto, then you have credits, also and delightfully termed ‘Hot Air Credits´; if you emit more than your quota of ‘baseline reference case´ then penalties will be levied, based on your percentage overrun from the retained base, for example ´ 1990 + 9% º when in 2010 your country exceeds its negotiated target level for greenhouse gas emissions by 9%. There is then one alternative to paying penalties and this is to purchase credits from those lucky, well-managed or poor countries that are below the limit. After that your country can pollute, in tranquility, happily knowing that by paying a low emitter country this country will receive cash it can use to invest in industrial equipment, consumer goods and machines that will increase its own emissions, and one day have to pay penalties or buy the credits that your country might have at that future date, God willing.
Perhaps more strange is that the USA, which in March 2001 loudly slammed the door (as press and media would have it) on all idea that Uncle Sam would adhere to and ratify this socialist minded attempt at hobbling America´s energy appetite, has from the start of the Kyoto process in the period of 1992-97 taken a great interest in the economic, fiscal and trading aspects of this treaty. This in some ways could be compared with UK government, media and public interest in the European single money – so hateful to abide and so interesting to calculate exactly when the UK should dump sterling and rush to join the Euro monetary union, as it unerringly will. None other than the US Department of Energy (DoE) has played a leading role in analyzing what ratifying Kyoto may or might do for the USA, and especially in that which concerns tradeable licenses to pollute. This eccentric and surely unworkable Treaty, as noted before, has made heroic attempts at being inclusive and definitive, setting apparently fixed targets, only contradicted by a myriad of escape clauses and provisions that sometimes cancel each other out, but also sometimes reinforce each other. One attempt at hard-edged definition is to set ‘cases´ for increase or decrease in emissions, for any Treaty member, using the 1990 base of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as the reference. This is used to work up scenarios for the vague amounts or quantities of tradeable pollution that will be ‘generated´, thus creating possible values for the licenses or permits that could or might be shifted round world bourses at some stage in the future. For the US DoE the cash implications were and are of great interest:
The process of auctioning emissions permits would raise large sums of money. If permits were purchased from other countries, as is assumed in both the 1990+9% and 1990+24% cases, there would actually be two revenue flows–domestic and international. The carbon permit revenues remaining within U.S. borders for each case are calculated as the carbon permit price for that case times the level of carbon emissions in the 1990-3% case. Thus, the number of carbon permits purchased domestically remains constant; only the price at which they are available varies across cases. Permits are assumed to be purchased abroad in order for U.S. carbon emissions to continue above the 1990-3% level. Therefore, the international revenue flow equals the difference between actual emissions in the 1990+9% (or 1990+24%) case and those in the 1990-3% case, times the carbon permit price in the 1990+9% (or 1990+24%) case. (5)
While pollution credits trading might appeal to the business minded because of various possible interpretations of how this would operate, such as investing in low-emission industries and energy production in a creditor country then importing products or energy from that country to claw back credits, business milieux, especially in the USA, have been very hostile to the Treaty – despite it being ratified by some 180 countries as of June 2002. Every possible facet of the economy would be negatively impacted according to the hardest of Treaty opponents in the USA, as shown by this extract:
In a study for the U.S. Department of Energy, the Argonne National Laboratory found that, if the climate change treaty were adopted, all U.S. aluminum smelters and paper producers would be forced out of business; 30 percent of the basic chemical, steel, and cement industries would move to developing countries or be forced to close; and petroleum refinery output would be reduced by 20 percent within 20 years [The Clinton administration's] proposal to address global warming would result in lower economic growth in every state [of the USA] and nearly every sector of the economy. This lower economic growth would lead to reduced employment and deteriorating wages. Before committing the United States to such an austere economic course of action, Members of Congress should examine the relevant studies closely and assure themselves that the benefits of adopting the global warming treaty would be worth the inevitable costs of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. (6)
Estimates by various US think tanks and Republican-oriented consulting groups have heaped on the bad news, arriving at figures of ‘3300 Billion dollars of lost national output through to 2020′ if the US were to ratify and apply the Treaty from 2010. Perhaps worst of all, however, some shocked defenders of US national integrity and capacity to fight wars found out, by deep thought, that ratifying this Treaty would severely hamper national security:
The Pentagon estimates that a 10% cut in its fuel use, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, would reduce tank training by 328,000 miles per year, flight training and flying exercises by 210,000 flying hours, and the number of steaming days – days on board ship in port and at sea for training and naval exercises – by 2,000. These reductions would substantially hamper military readiness -adding as much as six weeks to the time air forces and tank corps need to deploy in a time of crisis. What would our enemies be doing while our troops got up to speed? And a 10% emission cut would be only one-third of the military’s share of the cuts needed to meet our commitments under the treaty. (7)
Before giving these rather precise figures on reduced tank mileage, the author of these shocking figures, H. Sterlin Burnett indicates the exact fossil energy dependence of the US military:
What does a treaty….to prevent human-caused global warming have to do with the U.S. military? More than you think. It turns out that the federal government is the United States’ largest consumer of energy. And 73% of the federal government’s energy use goes to the Defense Department. Finally, if the Pentagon [was able] to get a blanket exemption, that just means the private sector will have to make even deeper cuts to make up for it. Harming the U.S. economy would not seem to be any more in our interests than hog-tying the U.S. military in case of a security threat. (7)
As we shall see in some detail (Section 2) the military implications of Peak Oil are probably more important to how the world changes over the next 25 or 30 years than the almost inevitable sequence of boom and bust, followed by bust and bust that fossil enery depletion promises for the shaky, fragile and increasingly virtual foundations of current ‘prosperity’ in the high energy nations of consumer civilization. In fewer words it is hard to fight a modern war without gasoil, jetfuel, electricity and energy intensive industrial products. Consequently the national security of any nation except those that will sink beneath the waves due to sea level rise (perhaps a dozen by 2100) will increasingly mean that oil and gas producing regions become not only economic prizes, but must be acquired and held to assure future war readiness both for defence or expansion and conquest.
It is hard not to overemphasise the spreading of ‘the Kyoto message´ into practically all and any aspect of our lives, rather like the ever-rising mass of carbon dioxide in the Earth´s atmosphere.
Consequently, a new branch of thinking, even a doctrine has emerged, that has been given the eccentric name of ‘carbon sequestration´. We are now invited to hunt down the element carbon of the ‘greenhouse gases´ emitted by the family car, livestock, zoo animals and even family pets and ourselves when we breathe, any agricultural activity, and in fact everything from uranium mining for fuel used in nuclear reactors to throwaway gas cartridges for picnic barbecues. This rogue carbon must be ‘sequestered´, that is taken out of and away from the atmosphere for as long as possible. This fantastic, and practically impossible task has already generated projects showing the almost unlimited capacity of the human being to imagine that wishes can be fulfilled – and if not can at least turn a profit through generating new business ventures and activities.
We should not therefore be surprised to find that, for example, the international federation controlling world Formula One motor racing (FIA) purchased 5000 tons of carbon dioxide in 2001 to be sequestered and guarded by ´ an indigenous peoples organization in SE Mexico º, the 5 kilotons being estimated as the quantity of CO2 that the 2001 season of F1 race events would generate (source/ FIA, Web, 2002 and ecosur.mx/scolel). Other projects, almost as wacky abound in various parts of the world, for example the ‘Oporto-Rotterdam Sequestration Project´ by which investors or savers can help pay for tree planting, to absorb carbon dioxide thus ‘sequestering´ it, starting with a former football field in Oporto. Those participating in this project, by sending at least 10 Euros, will receive payment receipts in the form of ‘bills´ issued by the Holland-based ING Bank:
(8)
The receipts, it can be noted, are described as ‘tradeable´, that is ‘able to be sold to other business or private users with an obligation to reduce their emissions´. This activity, if not very practical in ‘sequestering´ carbon dioxide through fixing it in the form of wood (that ideally should never be burned or allowed to rot through being kept away from the biosphere when dead) can at least give a rosy feeling of doing things for the environment and climate, and might turn a profit, to the greater glory of the financial players taking an interest. The same Web site inviting purchase of 10 Euro carbon sequestration bills indicates that EU per capita average carbon dioxide emission in 2001 was 666 kilograms per month or about 8000 tons per year, while also indicating the number of forested football fields, whether around Oporto or elsewhere, that would be needed to sequester all CO2 emitted by the 600,000 inhabitants of Rotterdam. The total is 995,215 standard size football fields forested each year, every field being planted with a mix of fruit, conifer and deciduous trees, for a total of about 65 Million hectares of woodland, each hectare absorbing about 70 tons of CO2 per year.
If you find we are already into big figures, simply for handling Rotterdam´s carbon dioxide emissions, then you are right because this forest area is about 12.5 times the total land area of Holland which is some 41,700 square kilometers. Going a little further, we can compare annual world release of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning, at about 29 Billion tons, with total world biomass production which is in the range of 25 – 33 Billion tons per year. If this CO2 was to be ‘sequestered´ as sugar cane, one of the world´s most productive plant species in carbon fixation per unit area, then the annual sugar cane pile, which would of course not be burned or consumed in any way (preventing it from releasing captured carbon as CO2) would form a green pyramid approximately 35 km x 35 kms at its base and 3.5 kms at its peak. If all CO2 emissions from current fossil fuel burning were to be captured and prevented from entering the atmosphere through the ‘forest capture´ route then somewhat more than the entire land area of Europe (4.3 Million sq kms) would have to be forested each year, and the wood never burned or, preferably, never allowed to rot for example by storing it in sealed caverns or underwater, or by other ‘carbon trapping´ technology or procedures.To be fair, even the most ardent fans of carbon sequestration do not advocate total elimination of carbon dioxide from every stack, exhaust and vent emitting combustion products from fossil fuel burning, and have focused single, large sources of emission notably power plants and cement factories, usually by proposing reinjection of exhaust gases into underground seams, disused that is empty gas reservoirs, or specially constructed holding tanks or reservoirs. That this is purely symbolic, however good the intentions, is shown by the above calculations, but research continues into carbon sequestration, while the culprit runs free, and will run riot in the atmosphere for at least a hundred years before being captured by the Earth´s carbon fixation and cycling system, of the oceans, then biological and geological capture.
All biological activity is in fact based on carbon uptake or cycling of carbon-based chemical compounds, and the emergence of life on this planet from a static and wholly inorganic environment changed the atmosphere´s composition, as well as that of the seas and the top layers of the solid crust, through creating soil. Annual biomass production of all land surfaces runs at about 25-33 billion tons of fixed carbon per year and ocean biomass at about 35-45 billion tons per year, with the ‘reservoir´ capacities of existing carbon in the land and ocean areas of the planet being around 10 exposant 15 (10 Peta) tons. Perhaps more interesting is that at least 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolves in the oceans each year and is replaced by about the same quantity of CO2 from the oceans, and that the constant addition by fossil fuel burning – and erosion, forest conversion to croplands and other human activities releasing or generating carbon dioxide – is without question increasing biomass production on land and in the seas. Even there, however, we have to qualify this. It has been proved (inset/ tree ring samples 1901 and 2001, CNRS regional arboretum, Alsace, France) that tree growth rates across Europe have increased by the stupendous rate of about 50% in 100 years, and that carbon dioxide enrichment of the atmosphere, as well as global warming are certainly two of the causes of this change. At the same time erosion, due to ever more intensive, monocrop, energy- and chemicals-based farming, and urbanisation, road construction and other land use changes speeding rainwater runoff increases carbon dioxide release but also reduces fertile land areas able to support vegetal life. World erosion has now reached the also stupendous figure of about 26 billion tons per year. (9)
In some ways, then, this a race between destruction of the thin, fertile and carbon rich part of the Earth´s crust we call soil, and increased biomass production and productivity (intensity of growth per unit area) due to ‘doping´ by carbon dioxide. As noted previously, world fossil fuel burning produces about 82 Million tons of carbon dioxide per day, and the annual amount produced, about 29 Billion tons, is very close to annual planetary biomass production.
The only winner, in this race to erode massive quantities of the Earth´s surface while ‘enriching´ the atmosphere with CO2 and legtimately but very tardily fearing it climatic consequences, is ocean phytoplankton, and then only in areas not seriously affected by pollution from industrial and urban effluents. Other non winners certainly include world fish stocks, where overfishing – made possible only by intensive use of fossil fuels – has reached critical limits in many, and increasing areas of the world´s seas and oceans. These factors in the equations deciding what human population sizes, densities and lifestyles can and will survive the Final Energy Crisis are discussed further in Section 4. What counts in relation to the strange, even unfathomable and surely unworkable set of economic, environmental, fiscal, energy sector, lifestyle and North/South geopolitical and geoeconomic changes predicated by the Kyoto process is that they are unrelated in their finality to the accelerated atmospheric and climatic changes now under way. These, it is not necessary to add, were set in motion by fossil fuel burning from the 1860s up to now in early 2002, shortly before Peak Oil. In theory this rush to burn fossil fuel should not continue or intensify, there should be no need to consume the other half of the world´s endowment in perhaps 35 years, but this outcome is in fact the most likely, and annual decline in physical production beyond Peak Oil, this decade, will make intractable economic and geopolitical crisis a near certain bet.
References:
(1) Win Wenger, ‘Frog Warming´, Winsights #38, Project Renaisance
(2) Andrew Kenny ‘Spectator´, London 24 June 2002
(3) United Nations Treaty N∞ 003912, Ecolex Web site, May 2002
(4) Proposals as of late 1997 – subsequently modified, with US refusal of ratification in March 2001 and ‘tentative´ consideration of re-entry to the Treaty from May 2002
Heritage Foundation, US, Background Paper series, 1997-2002 ‘GHG´ – Greenhouse Gases
(5) US DoE Internet Home Page, June 2002
(6) Heritage Foundation and WEFA Inc Web sites
(7) ‘Global Warming Treaty Threatens National Security’, Investors Business Daily, October 15, 1998
(8) International Carbon Sequestration Common Air Project Web site 2002)
(9) D. Pimentel et. al. “Environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits”, Science Magazine, p. 1117, Feb. 24, 1995; L. Brown, et.al. State of the World 1988 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1988), p. 60. World Game Institute
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