As the Conference of Parties in Copenhagen approaches next week, 192 nations of the World prepare to meet to solve the global pollution problem and find a workable replacement to the Kyoto Protocol. Being something that the US has still not signed up to, what was desperately needed to add weight to this gathering was an official emissions-reduction target from the United States. However the US and China, the 2 largest polluters in the World responsible for 50% of global pollution, have given us little more than a publicity stunt.
Following an historic meeting in mid November 2009, both President Hu Jintao of the People’s Republic of China and President Obama of the United States of America, outlined their “Action Plan”. In this the US and Chinese administration agreed to invest US$150m (yes million, not billion) over 5 years in “research & development” toward mitigating climate change. Breaking it down, they will be investing $75m each over 5 years, so $15m each, each year. It doesn’t take much to see through these glossy magazine-selling statistics and realise that this is little more than a get-out-of-Copenhagen-free card.
In the UK, Nicholas Stern outlined that we need to be spending 1% of GDP (recently increased to 2%) to have the minimum necessary impact on climate change. Other recent estimates suggest over €1trn in the next 10 years is the minimum required and these funds are needed immediately to have the desired impact. Without arguing over the highly debated cost of climate change mitigation, the fact is that the figures are very high and much higher than those proposed by the US-China “Action Plan”. Whilst we can argue over the state of our economies (in the US unemployment and health care are considered much more important in public opinion), this latest offering is nothing less than a slap in the face to those attending Copenhagen.
To ensure the critics did not focus on the figures, the US and China employed a typical diversion tactic agreeing and highlighting that “climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time” and confirming that they are both “fully committed to a successful outcome in Copenhagen this December”. Yet President Obama will be attending for just one day, and President Jintao is not attending at all. Confused? So rather than commit to any levels of reduction, or play any major part in Copenhagen, we have a new “US-China Energy Efficiency Action Plan” to hang our hopes on.
The US Department of Energy and the National Energy Administration of China will invest $150m over 5 years on solutions for energy efficiency in buildings, clean coal including carbon sequestration, and clean vehicles. The “US-China Electric Vehicle” initiative aims to advance the electric vehicle market whilst they also launched the “US-China Renewable Energy Partnership” which will chart a pathway to wide-scale deployment of wind, solar, advanced bio-fuels and a modern smart electric power grid in both countries. Meanwhile to engage a short-term solution, “Coal in the 21st Century” initiative will promote cooperation on carbon capture and storage projects. See the White House website for details: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/us-china-joint-statement
Tags: Carbon, China, Copenhagen, emissions, environmental, U.S
