WILL GERMANY DESTROY THE KYOTO PROTOCOL?

In an effort to give credibility to the European Union (EU) Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), the European Commission (EC) has demanded that member states make additional cuts in greenhouse gas emission limits in their National Allocation Plans (NAPs). The main tool the EU will use to meet its Kyoto target is the ETS. In the ETS, companies that have been able to successfully reduce their greenhouse gas emissions below their caps and have excess credits, can sell them to companies that cannot stay within their emission caps and must purchase additional credits.

In the ETS initial commitment period, which runs from 2005-2007, the EU member states had made the caps on greenhouse gas emissions too generous and as a result, the price of carbon emission credits collapsed. The NAPs the member states submitted this year are for the second commitment period, the Kyoto period, which runs from 2008-2012. In order to meet its Kyoto commitment and make the necessary reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, it is in the interest of the European Union that the carbon trading market be credible. So to avoid the experience of the first commitment period the EC demanded additional cuts from all of the member states who submitted NAPs except Great Britain which had submitted an acceptable plan.

Now however, as reported by Reuters/Planet Ark, Germany is balking at the additional cuts demanded by the EC.

"Germany will ignore a ruling by the European Commission on Wednesday that rejected Berlin's climate change targets for 2008-12, the economics ministry said on Friday....

Joachim Wuermeling, a high-ranking economics ministry official said Germany planned not to implement the EC's changes. It was up to member states how they fulfilled their Kyoto Climate Protocol targets, he said. Germany felt relaxed about a possible law suit if the EC sued as it could take years to be resolved, which was not in the Commission's interest, he said."

Ironically Germany has said it wants to put climate change at the top of the agenda of the G8 next year while it is chaired by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

This may just be an overreaction by the Economic Ministry in Germany or perhaps it is part of some sort of negotiating strategy. However, if Germany bucks the system and refuses to make the additional cuts, other countries will be tempted to do so as well. If it gets out of hand, the whole ETS could collapse and that would have reverberations around the world. It is increasingly clear that the most recalcitrant industrialized countries when it comes to fighting global warming, the United States and Australia, are coming under increasing pressure internally to mandate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions at the national level. In the United States, a number of bills that have been introduced to do just that. The bills include emission trading schemes as one of the primary tools to fight global warming. If emission trading fails in Europe, it will almost certainly cause the congressional sponsors of the bills in the United States to reconsider how they approach greenhouse gas emission reductions.

Are the comments of the German Economic Ministry just a bump in the road on the way to the ultimate success of the European ETS or is it something more dangerous?

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SUPPRESSING DEBATE IN THE USA

Below is the now infamous attempt to lean on ExxonMobil by Senators Snowe and Rockefeller -- a letter addressed to the chairman but copied widely

Allow us to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your first year as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the ExxonMobil Corporation. You will become the public face of an undisputed leader in the world energy industry, and a company that plays a vital role in our national economy. As that public face, you will have the ability and responsibility to lead ExxonMobil toward its rightful place as a good corporate and global citizen.

We are writing to appeal to your sense of stewardship of that corporate citizenship as U.S. Senators concerned about the credibility of the United States in the international community, and as Americans concerned that one of our most prestigious corporations has done much in the past to adversely affect that credibility. We are convinced that ExxonMobil's longstanding support of a small cadre of global climate change skeptics, and those skeptics access to and influence on government policymakers, have made it increasingly difficult for the United States to demonstrate the moral clarity it needs across all facets of its diplomacy.

Obviously, other factors complicate our foreign policy. However, we are persuaded that the climate change denial strategy carried out by and for ExxonMobil has helped foster the perception that the United States is insensitive to a matter of great urgency for all of mankind, and has thus damaged the stature of our nation internationally. It is our hope that under your leadership, ExxonMobil would end its dangerous support of the "deniers." Likewise, we look to you to guide ExxonMobil to capitalize on its significant resources and prominent industry position to assist this country in taking its appropriate leadership role in promoting the technological innovation necessary to address climate change and in fashioning a truly global solution to what is undeniably a global problem.

While ExxonMobil's activity in this area is well-documented, we are somewhat encouraged by developments that have come to light during your brief tenure. We fervently hope that reports that ExxonMobil intends to end its funding of the climate change denial campaign of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) are true. Similarly, we have seen press reports that your British subsidiary has told the Royal Society, Great Britain's foremost scientific academy, that ExxonMobil will stop funding other organizations with similar purposes. However, a casual review of available literature, as performed by personnel for the Royal Society reveals that ExxonMobil is or has been the primary funding source for the "skepticism" of not only CEI, but for dozens of other overlapping and interlocking front groups sharing the same obfuscation agenda. For this reason, we share the goal of the Royal Society that ExxonMobil "come clean" about its past denial activities, and that the corporation take positive steps by a date certain toward a new and more responsible corporate citizenship.

ExxonMobil is not alone in jeopardizing the credibility and stature of the United States. Large corporations in related industries have joined ExxonMobil to provide significant and consistent financial support of this pseudo-scientific, non-peer reviewed echo chamber. The goal has not been to prevail in the scientific debate, but to obscure it. This climate change denial confederacy has exerted an influence out of all proportion to its size or relative scientific credibility. Through relentless pressure on the media to present the issue "objectively," and by challenging the consensus on climate change science by misstating both the nature of what "consensus" means and what this particular consensus is, ExxonMobil and its allies have confused the public and given cover to a few senior elected and appointed government officials whose positions and opinions enable them to damage U.S. credibility abroad.

Climate change denial has been so effective because the "denial community" has mischaracterized the necessarily guarded language of serious scientific dialogue as vagueness and uncertainty. Mainstream media outlets, attacked for being biased, help lend credence to skeptics' views, regardless of their scientific integrity, by giving them relatively equal standing with legitimate scientists. ExxonMobil is responsible for much of this bogus scientific "debate" and the demand for what the deniers cynically refer to as "sound science."

A study to be released in November by an American scientific group will expose ExxonMobil as the primary funder of no fewer than 29 climate change denial front groups in 2004 alone. Besides a shared goal, these groups often featured common staffs and board members. The study will estimate that ExxonMobil has spent more than $19 million since the late 1990s on a strategy of "information laundering," or enabling a small number of professional skeptics working through scientific-sounding organizations to funnel their viewpoints through non-peer-reviewed websites such as Tech Central Station. The Internet has provided ExxonMobil the means to wreak its havoc on U.S. credibility, while avoiding the rigors of refereed journals. While deniers can easily post something calling into question the scientific consensus on climate change, not a single refereed article in more than a decade has sought to refute it.

Indeed, while the group of outliers funded by ExxonMobil has had some success in the court of public opinion, it has failed miserably in confusing, much less convincing, the legitimate scientific community. Rather, what has emerged and continues to withstand the carefully crafted denial strategy is an insurmountable scientific consensus on both the problem and causation of climate change. Instead of the narrow and inward-looking universe of the deniers, the legitimate scientific community has developed its views on climate change through rigorous peer-reviewed research and writing across all climate-related disciplines and in virtually every country on the globe.

Where most scientists dispassionate review of the facts has moved past acknowledgement to mitigation strategies, ExxonMobil's contribution the overall politicization of science has merely bolstered the views of U.S. government officials satisfied to do nothing. Rather than investing in the development of technologies that might see us through this crisis--and which may rival the computer as a wellspring of near-term economic growth around the world--ExxonMobil and its partners in denial have manufactured controversy, sown doubt, and impeded progress with strategies all-too reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years. The net result of this unfortunate campaign has been a diminution of this nation's ability to act internationally, and not only in environmental matters.

In light of the adverse impacts still resulting from your corporations activities, we must request that ExxonMobil end any further financial assistance or other support to groups or individuals whose public advocacy has contributed to the small, but unfortunately effective, climate change denial myth. Further, we believe ExxonMobil should take additional steps to improve the public debate, and consequently the reputation of the United States. We would recommend that ExxonMobil publicly acknowledge both the reality of climate change and the role of humans in causing or exacerbating it. Second, ExxonMobil should repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make public its funding history. Finally, we believe that there would be a benefit to the United States if one of the world's largest carbon emitters headquartered here devoted at least some of the money it has invested in climate change denial pseudo-science to global remediation efforts. We believe this would be especially important in the developing world, where the disastrous effects of global climate change are likely to have their most immediate and calamitous impacts.

Each of us is committed to seeing the United States officially reengage and demonstrate leadership on the issue of global climate change. We are ready to work with you and any other past corporate sponsor of the denial campaign on proactive strategies to promote energy efficiency, to expand the use of clean, alternative, and renewable fuels, to accelerate innovation to responsibly extend the useful life of our fossil fuel reserves, and to foster greater understanding of the necessity of action on a truly global scale before it is too late.

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COMMENT FROM THE WSJ ON THE ATTEMPT TO STAND OVER EXXONMOBIL

Washington has no shortage of bullies, but even we can't quite believe an October 27 letter that Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe sent to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Its message: Start toeing the Senators' line on climate change, or else.

We reprint the full text of the letter here, so readers can see for themselves. But its essential point is that the two Senators believe global warming is a fact, and therefore all debate about the issue must stop and ExxonMobil should "end its dangerous support of the [global warming] 'deniers.' " Not only that, the company "should repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make public its funding history." And in extra penance for being "one of the world's largest carbon emitters," Exxon should spend that money on "global remediation efforts."

The Senators aren't dumb enough to risk an ethics inquiry by threatening specific consequences if Mr. Tillerson declines this offer he can't refuse. But in case the CEO doesn't understand his company's jeopardy, they add that "ExxonMobil and its partners in denial have manufactured controversy, sown doubt, and impeded progress with strategies all-too reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years." (Our emphasis.) The Senators also graciously copied the Exxon board on their missive.

This is amazing stuff. On the one hand, the Senators say that everyone agrees on the facts and consequences of climate change. But at the same time they are so afraid of debate that they want Exxon to stop financing a doughty band of dissenters who can barely get their name in the paper. We respect the folks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, but we didn't know until reading the Rockefeller-Snowe letter that they ran U.S. climate policy and led the mainstream media around by the nose, too. Congratulations.

Let's compare the balance of forces: on one side, CEI; on the other, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, the U.N. and EU, Hollywood, Al Gore, and every politically correct journalist in the country. We'll grant that's a fair intellectual fight. But if the Senators are so afraid that a handful of policy wonks at a single small think-tank are in danger of winning this debate, they must not have much confidence in the merits of their own case.

The letter is so over-the-top that we also wonder if Mr. Rockefeller in particular has even read it. (He and Ms. Snowe didn't return our call.) The Senator hails from coal-producing West Virginia, where people know something about carbon emissions. Come to think of it, Mr. Rockefeller owes his own vast wealth to something other than non-carbon energy. But perhaps it's easier to be carbon free when your fortune comes from a trust fund.

The letter is of a piece with what has become a campaign of intimidation against any global warming dissent. Not only is everyone supposed to concede that the planet has been warming--as it has--but we are all supposed to salute and agree that human beings are the definitive cause, that the magnitude of the warming will be disastrous and its effects catastrophic, that such problems as AIDS and poverty are less urgent, and that economic planners must therefore impose vast new regulatory burdens on everyone around the world. Exxon is being targeted in this letter and other ways because it is one of the few companies that still thinks some debate on these questions is valuable.

Every dogma has its day, and we've lived long enough to see more than one "consensus" blown apart within a few years of "everyone knowing" it was true. In recent decades environmentalists have been wrong about almost every other apocalyptic claim they've made: global famine, overpopulation, natural resource exhaustion, the evils of pesticides, global cooling, and so on. Perhaps it's useful to have a few folks outside the "consensus" asking questions before we commit several trillion dollars to any problem.

Imagine if this letter had been sent by someone in the Bush Administration trying to enforce the opposite conclusion? The left would be howling about "censorship." That's exactly what did happen earlier this year after James Hansen, the NASA scientist and global warming evangelist, complained that a lowly 24-year-old press aide had tried to limit his media access. The entire episode was preposterous because Mr. Hansen is one of the most publicized scientists in the world, but the press aide was nonetheless sacked.

The Senators' letter is far more serious because they have enormous power to punish Exxon if it doesn't kowtow to them. A windfall profits tax is in the air, and we've seen what happens to other companies that dare to resist Congressional intimidation. It's to Exxon's credit that, in its response to the Senators, the company said that it will continue to fund free market research groups because "there is value in the debate" that helps promote "optimal public policy decisions." Too bad that's not what the Senators care about.

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INDIA REBUFFS STERN ON CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY

India understands the gravity of the climate change story but feels it's not ready to take on any commitments to cut carbon emissions for now. This was communicated to Nicholas Stern, whose review on the economic impact of climate change added a new and alarming dimension to the debate after it was released in October. He is in India to share findings of his research with key stakeholders in the Government. His report estimated that a temperature rise between 2-3.5 degrees Celsius over the next century could lead to a revenue loss of 9-25%.

In the next three days, he will meet officials of the Ministry of Power, External Affairs and Environment and the Planning Commission. His first meeting with key policymakers was chaired by Montek Singh Ahluwalia in the Planning Commission today. After Stern presented a summary of his review, India responded by presenting a paper by Indian economists to show that there is no need for India to agree to any binding emissions and the focus must clearly be on achieving domestic goals like eradicating poverty.

Ever since the Kyoto mechanism came into force, developing countries like India and China are under pressure to agree to some commitments to cut carbon emissions in the next phase. An academic paper by Jyoti Parikh and CK Krishnamurthy was presented that showed that unless there is adequate compensation, India will lose significantly in terms of GDP if it takes on binding targets. According to the paper, contrary to many predictions, the emission intensity of the Indian economy is seen to reduce after a point while the per capita emission shows a rising trend. "There can be a broad understanding on the agreed baseline but if we emit more, there should be no penalty,'' said Kirit Parikh, member, Planning Commission, after the meeting.

Earlier in the day, at a meeting organised by ICREAR, Stern admitted that the equity debate was important. The common but differentiated principle in the Kyoto protocol should be followed, which would mean that mitigation measures should be financed by richer countries since they had polluted the earth several time more than countries in the developing world. He said it was not true that countries like the US were not taking action. California and some of the other US cities had very ambitious targets. The US was investing a lot in R&D on energy-efficiency and renewable energy sources.

If it were business as usual, according to Stern, the global temperatures were likely to go up by 4 to 5 degrees Celsius within the next 100 to 150 years. This according to Stern would be comparable to changes seen during the Ice Age. Stern then went onto explain what it would mean to stabilise the emissions to a manageable level like 550 ppm (they are 450 ppm now). It would mean cutting emissions by 60-80 per cent by 2050. "We start moving now and start peaking in 15-20 years and then begin reducing emissions,'' he said. The costs for all this would be 1% of the GDP every year for the world. The way out, he said, was to tax carbon, find technology alternatives to carbon and making markets work to influence behaviour leading to "low-carbon economy''. According to him, countries like India and China have to fuel the "supply side of the carbon market'' to keep the carbon prices high.

The report has a substantial background paper on India by Joyshree Roy, professor, Jadavpur University. It finds that climate change will lead to crop yield decrease, change in forest cover and desertification among other things.

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Warmest European winter for 1300 years

They sure must have had a lot of SUVs 1300 years ago

IT was warmer in Europe's Alpine region now than at any time in the past 1300 years, the head of a wide-ranging climatic survey said today. From Ottawa to Moscow, temperatures generally have been way above average at the start of winter in the northern hemisphere, with flowers blooming on snow-starved slopes of Alpine ski resorts and bears struggling to hibernate.

"We are now experiencing the warmest period (for this season) in the past 1300 years,'' said Reinhard Boehm, chief climatologist at Austria's Central Institute for Meteorology and Geo-Dynamics in Vienna. He cited a study by a group of European climatic institutes that reconstructed more than a millennium of weather patterns in a region ranging from France's Rhone Valley in the west to Hungary in the east, and from Germany's Nuremberg area in the north to Italy's Tuscany in the south.

Temperatures generally did not diverge from a naturally frigid winter level except for one thaw between the 10th and 12th centuries, and Alpine glaciers reached their greatest size around 1850, Boehm told Austrian press agency APA. Industrial pollution originating in the 19th century began to affect climate from the mid-20th, he said. Unfiltered factory smoke and other emissions initially cooled temperatures somewhat as they impeded the sun's rays, he said.

The latter-day warming trend set in about 20 years ago from the cumulative use of fossil fuels giving off clear greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide, Mr Boehm said. "This has led to ever higher temperatures since the 1980s and the models indicate that it's going to get even warmer in future,'' Mr Boehm said.

Many scientists say a single warm winter is most likely part of the natural variations of an unpredictable climate. Still, years of mild temperatures fit predictions of global warming, widely blamed on human use of fossil fuels. Like many places, Austria had its mildest autumn since records began and many ski resorts have delayed the season's kick-off. Snow cannons sit still on green slopes that would usually be pistes, shrinking the billion-dollar winter business.

Glaciers are receding. Rare December pollen is troubling asthma sufferers as far north as Scandinavia, sales of winter clothing are down and Santa Claus is having to reassure children his sleigh will take off on Christmas Eve, snow or no snow. From Siberia to Estonia, bears have had trouble going to sleep for their winter hibernation because their dens are uncomfortably warm, soggy and damp.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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