Competitors try to choke US growth at Bali

Pete DuPont:

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Fast forward to the just-concluded global environment conference in Bali, and the discussion had much the same theme. On the surface it was about global warming, but in reality it was as much about mandating an international agreement that would slow economic growth in developed nations.

The developing country parties still believe they must be exempted from a requirement to reduce global warming. The G77 Group (150 developing nations) said they were not ready to cut emissions from fossil fuels to fight climate change. India argued that it should receive compensation for protecting its forests rather than having to pledge to reduce emissions.

China is vastly expanding its factories and power plants--it is building another coal-fired power plant every seven to 10 days--and so opposed emission targets that would bind it. As the New York Times reported a year ago, China now "uses more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined," and so "the increase in global warming gases from China's coal use will probably exceed that for all industrialized countries combined over the next 25 years." China is already home to 20 of the world's 30 most polluted cities, but Su Wei, China's top climate expert in Bali, said the burden of reducing global warming pollution is one that belongs to the wealthy, not China.

Developing countries nevertheless signed on to the Bali Action Plan, agreeing that with financial and technical help from developed nations they would consider "nationally appropriate mitigation actions"--not "commitments or actions" as developed countries had to agree to--to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

What they did not get was the binding emission reductions for developed nations that the European and United Nations delegates sought: emission cuts 40% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 50% by 2050. That disappointed the anti-American Bali establishment--the Papua New Guinea climate change ambassador said, "If you cannot lead, leave it to the rest of us. Get out of the way." American environmentalists werfen't happy either. Hans Verlome of the World Wildlife Fund remarked that we had "lost substance" in removing the emission reduction requirements for developed nations.

But America's Bali delegation, understanding that economic limitations were more significant to nations than environmental ones, succeeded in getting rid of the Bali-favored emission standards that would limit America's--but not developing nations'--economic growth.

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Neither Kyoto nor Bali will solve our global energy emission problems. According to a Princeton University study a few year ago the world could hold its carbon dioxide emissions flat if 700 nuclear power plants were built around the globe, for they do not increase global warming. But they are not favored by the climate establishment, and so are not a part of the Bali solution.

Which makes one wonder whether the Kyoto/Bali emotion isn't really energy ballyhoo. Progress can be made in reducing global emissions through technological breakthroughs, not by an economic equality effort by nations irritated by America's economic success over the past decades.

There are good reasons to be suspicious of the watermelon environmentalism of Bali. The bawling of one of the participants demonstrates that much of the momentum is based on emotion instead of logic and reason. There is significant arrogance in the religious belief that men can cause global warming. The worry over its effects also seems to be misplaced. The models used to predict future warming gave false indications of warming over the last 25 years when applied to existing data. The worry over melting ice caps, omits the effect of refreezing that will naturally occur during the winter months.

I remain skeptical of the effects of global warming, and extremely skeptical of the intentions of the globo warmers. They have not earned our trust.