Sunday, December 21, 2008

Circular

The new European Union agreement on climate change may require GHG emission reductions of only 4%. Modest. But, it turns out there are loopholes in the agreement. The best is Section 10, page 8, of document 17215/08, the final compromise regarding the energy and climate change package:
permission to exceed the carry-forward rate in the event of extreme meteorological conditions (Effort Sharing Decision)

Member States may exceed their annual emissions ceilings by a maximum of 5 %. However, in 2013 and in 2014, a Member State may ask the Commission for an increased carry-forward rate if it experiences extreme meteorological conditions leading to substantially increased greenhouse gas emissions.
In other words, as Planet Gore's Chris Horner translates from Euro-speak:
EU states may cite "global warming" as an excuse for failing to comply with rules imposed to fight "global warming."
This is even more cynical than Australia's supposed agreement, conditional on cuts by countries not yet committed to GHG emission reductions.

As Roger Pielke says, "The Obama administration should be paying attention."

2 comments:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

It's something that educated Americans just don't get about Europe: they talk pretty, but don't ante up. Our Euro-centric education system, stressing the descent of American ideas from European ones, causes the better educated to overestimate how much they are like us. They aren't. There were good reasons that our ancestors left there to come here.

@nooil4pacifists said...

Agreed. I've always said that this country's vibrancy stems from the fact that its was populated by the people who had the get-up-and-go to get up and go.