The conventional wisdom that it's the United States against the rest of the world in climate change diplomacy has been turned on its head. Instead it turns out that it is the Europeans who are isolated. China, India, and most of the rest of the developing countries have joined forces with the United States to completely reject the idea of future binding GHG emission limits. At the conference here in Buenos Aires, Italy shocked its fellow European Union members when it called for an end to the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. These countries recognize that stringent emission limits would be huge barriers to their economic growth and future development.In other words, Kyoto can't work. Which would be good news, were Europe to agree. But I fear Bailey underestimates the influence of enviro-NGOs, and the pessimism infused in liberals desperate to apologize for the success of Western capitalistic civilization. Despite the myths, the environment is dramatically cleaner than just 35 years ago--at least in nations sufficiently wealthy to afford new technologies. Were Euro leftists serious about climate change, they'd quit demonizing the World Trade Organization:
They apparently fear that economic growth and prosperity for the poor will destroy the natural world they are anxious to preserve. Consequently, they devise schemes aimed at persuading the poor to continue low-tech communal farming and small scale production; they want the poor to stay out of the world trading system. These schemes fly in the face of the clear evidence that shows that it is precisely in the richest countries that the natural environment is improving, that the air is clearing, the rivers run cleaner, and the forests are expanding. Economic growth and environmental improvement are not opposites; they go hand in hand.Bailey thinks reality will overpower myth. I hope he's right--but fear he's overestimated the appeal of "Reason."
(via Belmont Club)
No comments:
Post a Comment