Staff Writer Alix Walker observes the “green movement” from an international standpoint.
Alix Walker, Staff Writer
Ideology: Moderate Conservative | Writing In: Madison, Connecticut
Climate change has become a recognized problem worldwide and the debate rages on about what to do about it. The Obama Administration has passed a bill to cap and tax CO2 emissions on companies that exceed a government stated limit on emissions. The global “G8 summit” met last month and, among other things, discussed the troubles of climate change.
It was widely noted that India and China were not present at the summit and did not participate in the discussion about climate change and the economic development involved. I find this unfortunate considering both China and India are economic forces in the emerging markets.
Recently, when Hillary Clinton made a visit to India on her “listening tour,” she sat down with the Indian environmental minister. He explained why India economically couldn’t follow emission-reducing procedures that developed countries are facing.
The general consensus in India believes that it is irresponsible to sacrifice economic growth benefiting hundreds of millions of people; especially it’s impoverished citizens, for the sake of environmental absolutism. India’s per capita GDP is much lower than the counties that are pushing environmental tax. While its mostly state-owned energy industry is grossly inefficient and the country could benefit from less wasteful energy usage, emissions caps are the wrong way to go. Caps would send prices on energy and other goods higher, not to mention the longer-term damage to economic growth. China conveyed similar concerns at the Group of Eight meeting in Italy earlier this month.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has set the stage for environmental control, insisted on exemptions for German industry, including cement and steel, from last year’s EU climate deal, which pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020. Italy engineered its own escape clause, requiring the EU to renegotiate its climate policy after a UN climate change summit in Copenhagen later this year. That probably kills the European deal, since China (the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases), India and other developing countries showed this week that they are unlikely to agree to any draconian emissions cuts.
Developing countries like India and China rely on steel and cement to build infrastructure so increased prices due to tariffs on resources will cripple the economy before it has even developed.
As for the environmental movement that is taking place in our own country, the supposed economic benefits of “green technologies” are at best, elusive. In Germany, government subsidies for installing solar panels were presumed to create domestic manufacturing jobs. This backfired when it turned out that it was more economical to buy cheaper solar panels made in China.
A recent paper from Spanish economist Gabriel Calzada Álvarez noted that since Spain started investing in a “green jobs” policy nine years ago, the country has continued to experience negative growth. According to Alvarez, this amounts to 2.2 jobs lost for every green job created.
In order to get the most effect from a green movement, someone must educate the unskilled to fill specialized jobs.
Call it a more honest form of environmentalism. The Indian government recognizes the public would never be willing to shoulder the costs of emissions controls, and that it’s unfair to ask millions of poor people to try. Former President Bush understood that the developed world can best help developing countries “green themselves up” by supporting freer trade in environmentally friendly technologies. It’s a stark contrast to climate politics in Washington today, where Democrats try to push cap-and-trade through Congress before anyone notices the costs and special interests slip in protectionist carbon tariffs.
I agree with a lot of your points on this, it is clear that if China and India do nothing, no effort of the United States or Europe will matter. Their absence from negotiations does not bode well.
The prospect of taxing them for carbon is ludicrous, I agree with you completely, and it will clearly never happen. The only potentially effective way of helping those countries combat climate change is working with them and helping them to install and utilize efficient technologies in their production processes. Coal is horribly inefficient but it’s cheap – alternate energy sources may have to be internationally subsidized at first. The countries can’t afford it, but it’s my understanding that they are not adverse to more sustainable development, they just need help.
I think its pretty clear that in the States and in Europe, we will have to take some economic hits to truly combat this problem… the idea that combating climate change can be profitable if done right is ludicrous. The primary reason being that unchecked economic growth is inherently the problem and that to ultimately be sustainable, we will have to reduce our consumption of goods and increase efficiencies. Globally jobs will not increase with this overall and I certainly can’t imagine that GDP will increase.
While right now, the United States does have an opportunity to create a green economy in the States off of emerging renewable technologies and this should be advocated for… solar panels may be cheaper in China now but that’s crazy, they are shipped for thousands of miles using fossil fuels. It is much smarter to make them and other technologies in our own country.