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Smoke stacks of the Mae Moh coal power plant. Coal power stations emit huge amounts of pollution including gasses like CO2 which cause global warming. The 'US - Asia Pacific Pact' does nothing to tackle such emissions.
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The US, Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea - all working
together to tackle climate change and save the planet? Sounds like
good news!
At first glance the new 'US - Asia Pacific Pact' would seem an encouraging development. It is clear that avoiding the very worst of climate change means rapidly developing countries like China and India will need to start 'decarbonising.' And given the US and Australia's previous refusal to take any meaningful action to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, isn't it a good thing that all of these countries have signed up to the pact?
Well the key word here is 'meaningful.' On further investigation the agreement has no targets for emissions reductions, no timetables or deadlines, in fact it doesn't even mention emissions reductions - oh, and it's completely voluntary. In fact it looks like nothing more than a trade agreement on energy technology.
In a perfect world even this could result in better energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies for developing countries but experience tells us that the technologies that most interest the US and Australia are the 'magic bullet' ones that claim to reduce emissions whilst allowing the continued burning of fossil fuels.
Take "carbon capture and storage" for instance; the 'suck it out of the sky and stick it under a rock' approach. This process promises to trap CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels and store it in the sea or under the Earth's surface. Even if it delivers it won't be ready for at least 15-20 years, it will increase the cost of power generation, reduce the efficiency of power plants and require long-term monitoring to make sure the CO2 stays put.
Whilst money is diverted into these future technologies in a bid to continue business as usual, proven renewable and energy efficiency technologies that are ready to use now lack investment from both governments and industry.
Which leads us to motivation. The US and Australia have both refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the one existing international agreement on dealing with climate change. They have spent years trying to undermine and derail the treaty on the basis that developing countries don't have targets so it is unfair.
It is obvious to everyone, including the 152 nations that have ratified Kyoto, that industrialised countries that got rich through the use of fossil fuels have a responsibility to act first to correct the problem.
The average American uses more electricity in two weeks than the average person in India uses in a year. US emissions have increased by 16 percent since 1990 and are projected to be 32 percent above 1990 levels in by 2012. Australian emissions from energy are projected to be 66 percent above 1990 levels by 2020 and its per capita emissions are 6 times as high as China.
Developing countries will not be motivated to adopt targets whilst the world's biggest CO2 emitter and the world's biggest per capita emitter sit comfortably on their hands and refuse to act.
The obvious course of action would be to ratify Kyoto and get on with reducing their emissions. Instead we get this disingenuous attempt to finance minor changes abroad whilst doing nothing at home, with the clever little side effect, focussing as it does on so-called "clean coal" technology, of securing new coal markets for export.
This is a fig leaf of enormous proportions - but it fails to hide anything.
Stephanie Tunmore initially started working in the peace movement in the 80's before joining Greenpeace in 1989. Since 1996 she has worked on climate issues, leading campaigns against BP and Exxon's climate-wrecking policies.
At first glance the new 'US - Asia Pacific Pact' would seem an encouraging development. It is clear that avoiding the very worst of climate change means rapidly developing countries like China and India will need to start 'decarbonising.' And given the US and Australia's previous refusal to take any meaningful action to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, isn't it a good thing that all of these countries have signed up to the pact?
Meaningful?
Well the key word here is 'meaningful.' On further investigation the agreement has no targets for emissions reductions, no timetables or deadlines, in fact it doesn't even mention emissions reductions - oh, and it's completely voluntary. In fact it looks like nothing more than a trade agreement on energy technology.
In a perfect world even this could result in better energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies for developing countries but experience tells us that the technologies that most interest the US and Australia are the 'magic bullet' ones that claim to reduce emissions whilst allowing the continued burning of fossil fuels.
Take "carbon capture and storage" for instance; the 'suck it out of the sky and stick it under a rock' approach. This process promises to trap CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels and store it in the sea or under the Earth's surface. Even if it delivers it won't be ready for at least 15-20 years, it will increase the cost of power generation, reduce the efficiency of power plants and require long-term monitoring to make sure the CO2 stays put.
Whilst money is diverted into these future technologies in a bid to continue business as usual, proven renewable and energy efficiency technologies that are ready to use now lack investment from both governments and industry.
Motivation
Which leads us to motivation. The US and Australia have both refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the one existing international agreement on dealing with climate change. They have spent years trying to undermine and derail the treaty on the basis that developing countries don't have targets so it is unfair.
It is obvious to everyone, including the 152 nations that have ratified Kyoto, that industrialised countries that got rich through the use of fossil fuels have a responsibility to act first to correct the problem.
The average American uses more electricity in two weeks than the average person in India uses in a year. US emissions have increased by 16 percent since 1990 and are projected to be 32 percent above 1990 levels in by 2012. Australian emissions from energy are projected to be 66 percent above 1990 levels by 2020 and its per capita emissions are 6 times as high as China.
Developing countries will not be motivated to adopt targets whilst the world's biggest CO2 emitter and the world's biggest per capita emitter sit comfortably on their hands and refuse to act.
The obvious course of action would be to ratify Kyoto and get on with reducing their emissions. Instead we get this disingenuous attempt to finance minor changes abroad whilst doing nothing at home, with the clever little side effect, focussing as it does on so-called "clean coal" technology, of securing new coal markets for export.
This is a fig leaf of enormous proportions - but it fails to hide anything.
Stephanie Tunmore initially started working in the peace movement in the 80's before joining Greenpeace in 1989. Since 1996 she has worked on climate issues, leading campaigns against BP and Exxon's climate-wrecking policies.
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