Carbon phobes worried by economic downturn

NY Times:

Just as the world seemed poised to combat global warming more aggressively, the economic slump and plunging prices of coal and oil are upending plans to wean businesses and consumers from fossil fuel.

From Italy to China, the threat to jobs, profits and government tax revenues posed by the financial crisis has cast doubt on commitments to cap emissions or phase out polluting factories.

Automakers, especially Detroit’s Big Three, face collapsing sales, threatening their plans to invest heavily in more fuel-efficient cars. And with gas prices now around $2 a gallon in the United States, struggling consumers may be less inclined than they once were to trade in their gas-guzzling models in any case.

President-elect Barack Obama and the European Union have vowed to stick to commitments to cap emissions of carbon dioxide and invest in new green technologies, arguing that government action could stimulate the economy and create new jobs in producing sustainable energy.

But as the United Nations prepares to gather the world’s environment ministers in Poznan, Poland, next week to try to agree on a new treaty to reduce emissions, both the political will and the economic underpinnings for a much more assertive strategy appear shakier than they did even a few weeks ago.

“Yes things have changed,” said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in a phone interview. He is organizing the meeting in Poland.

“European industry is saying we can’t deal with financial crisis and reduce emissions at the same time,” he said. “Heads of government have other things on their minds.”

The economic decline also could complicate the political calculus of limiting emissions in developing countries, especially China.

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Magic thinking about energy is bumping up against the cold reality that what the carbon phoebes demand will cause an economic downturn anyway. Now that we are in one the carbon phoebes could make it worse and steeper. That has been one of President Bush's points in opposing misguided treaties like Kyoto.

Another reality that the phoebes have yet to acknowledge is that the climate is not getting warmer. It is getting cooler over the last 10 years. These two factors should give pause to the prudent, if not the true believers in the church of global warming.

I am glad that I like warmer weather. We need to fight global cooling though.

We also need to increase our domestic energy production in all forms and remove the limits that have been strangling that production. The so called "green jobs" revolution promised by Obama and other believers in magic energy is not going to happen, with out some technical magic that does not yet exist and is not even on the drawing boards. If there was something really out there it would be happening without the election of Obama.

If the carbon phoebes were really serious about reducing emissions they would not be opposing the expansion of nuclear plants.