Whatever Chris Huhne says, Durban hasn't changed anything
Matthew Sinclair 6:34pm
This morning the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) told us that the climate summit in Durban, which concluded over the weekend, has been ‘heralded a success’. As
they say, the ‘talks resulted in a decision to adopt the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol next year in return for a roadmap to a global legal agreement covering all parties for
the first time’. Should anyone be heralding that as some kind of step forward? Was I wrong to be sceptical last week?
As it happens, the various parties were actually trying to secure that ‘global legal agreement’, covering all of them, two years ago in Copenhagen — not just talking about securing it in the future. The new roadmap, the ‘Durban Platform’, merely pledges an agreement by 2015, and succeeds the Bali Roadmap that was agreed four years ago and pledged an agreement by 2009. Richard Tol has written about this on his blog, and also notes that ‘Canada, Japan, and Russia have already indicated that they will not take [the new Kyoto commitment period] seriously.’
So, for all the talk of ‘legal force’, the final result is to maintain the status quo. European countries — and particularly Britain, thanks to tougher targets and policies like the carbon floor price which breach the Osborne Doctrine — will keep pressing ahead rationing fossil fuel energy, while the rest of the world does not.
The reality is that even the pretence that Kyoto would be followed by another deal encompassing the other major emitters has now been abandoned. And the timing couldn’t be worse for those backing our draconian climate regulations. Even if the new Platform is any more meaningful than the old Roadmap, they are going to have to sustain the political will behind these policies for years while they get more and more expensive; while the people who pick up the bill are facing more and more pressure on their living standards; and while the rest of the world isn’t playing the same game.
Citigroup put the investment in the energy sector alone required to meet our environmental targets at around £200 billion by 2020. Paying for that and other climate policies will be tough. The Renewable Energy Foundation just released a new report looking at how ‘government energy policies are likely to become a significant contributory factor to increasing the risk of hardship across the entire population, both through direct and indirect effects on bills, and through macroeconomic effects reducing incomes and employment.’ Listening to the grim news from the Autumn Statement, who really thinks we can afford to pile that kind of burden on top of already-pressured family budgets?
As academics like Gwyn Prins have been arguing for some time, the plan that politicians have been working to was quickly patched together from other initiatives that were felt to have worked in addressing very different challenges, from nuclear disarmament to controlling CFCs. It just hasn’t worked. The approach I set out in Let Them Eat Carbon would be more productive: directly support research and development to make low carbon energy cheaper rather than deploying it while it is so expensive; prepare to adapt to any changes in the climate; and build a society free and prosperous enough that it can respond well to whatever the natural environment throws at it.
Heralding dubious successes at Durban won’t mean our climate policy makes sense. We need a more realistic approach that isn’t predicated on a grand global agreement.
Matthew Sinclair is director of the Taxpayers' Alliance.
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Prodicus
December 12th, 2011 6:48pm Report this commentPlease do not put up photographs of Mr Huhne. I sometimes browse your pages while eating. Thank you.
Number7
December 12th, 2011 7:03pm Report this commentSo it looks like the Big Players (US, Russia, China plus Canada and others) have kicked the ball into the long grass and Huhne et al are in (expensive) face saving mode.
Could it possibly be that the countries which have stalled this charade are using their own scientists to do some genine research and, as a result, are just waiting for the whole scam to collapse?
roger37
December 12th, 2011 7:03pm Report this commentHopefully, Huhne will be in jail next year for his speeding offence so that should be the last of him.
WIlliam Blakes Ghost
December 12th, 2011 7:10pm Report this commentAnyone who has ever worked in the Global environ knows that the greater the claims of success the more likely the whole thing was an abysmal failure.
Why is it that Clegg and Loony Huhne have made us so isolated amongst the Global community world over this issue?
nobody wants to follow their rabid extremist zealotry?
Edward Sutherland
December 12th, 2011 7:16pm Report this commentYears ago at law school I was taught that "an agreement to agree" was no agreement. I think that's still very much the case.
Hexhamgeezer
December 12th, 2011 8:16pm Report this commentI hope his 7 houses are all fitted with energy saving bulbs. Not to do so in his 7 houses could leave him open to charges of hypocrisy and self-indulgence.
disenfranchised
December 12th, 2011 8:18pm Report this comment"heralded as a success" but only when completely ignoring the fact that the usual suspects won't take a blind bit of notice of their protocols.
i want this coalition to fall apart as soon as possible, if only to get rid of huhne before he can do any more damage.
what he's done so far has been disastrous for the country, not only for our beautiful landscape and pillaged coffers, but also for our personal wellbeing, like when we're sitting shivering because his bleedin' windmills are producing one candle power.
my advice to him when he's thrown out of politics would be to get the hell out of the country as well, because i would imagine there are one or two who won't take kindly to the privations he will have caused.....
Faceless Bureaucrat
December 12th, 2011 8:19pm Report this comment"...As they say, the ‘talks resulted in a decision to adopt the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol next year in return for a roadmap to a global legal agreement covering all parties for the first time’."
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...........
The Law - EitherNot Blind or Slow
December 12th, 2011 8:50pm Report this commentWhat precisely are the Crown Prosecution Service playing at? How long has this been dragging on for? Are they waiting for the coalition to have been voted out before proceeding? What are they afraid of? Ripe for an FOI request.
Whatever happened to "without fear or favour"?
Matt
December 12th, 2011 9:06pm Report this commentPlease, please Santa, please ask Mr Plod to take Huhne away
Robin Guenier
December 12th, 2011 9:26pm Report this commentIn negotiation, it’s nearly always the party proclaiming success that has failed: why shout when you know you’ve won? China and India (and the US) have got what they want: all they’ve agreed is to take part in a “process” that may (or may not) lead to “an outcome with legal force” (whatever that means) by 2015 – effective 2020 (when the world will have changed utterly). Will it be about emissions – or something else? Unclear. If emissions, what are the targets? There are none. Will it apply equally to all? Doesn’t say so. What if China and India decide that, in the meantime, the West is not doing its bit – which of course it (especially the US) won’t be – can they back out? Unclear – and anyway what are the sanctions if they do? There are none. Yet it was Europe that said it would commit to an extended Kyoto only if there were a strong, specific legally binding deal applicable to all parties. It didn’t get it – but nonetheless it agreed to the extension.
In other words, Europe blinked.
EC
December 12th, 2011 9:50pm Report this commentDurban - quote of the week:
"The UN plan will shift wealth from the first world’s poor to the third world’s rich without making any difference in climate control."
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/10/the-true-failure-of-durban/#comment-826280
Daizee
December 12th, 2011 9:53pm Report this commentAn interesting perspective Matthew and you are right to be sceptical. it seems to me that all that has happened is that the goal< a href= “http://keurigspecialeditionbrewingsystem.com” >-posts have been moved back four years and in 2015 we will be no further forward than we are now!!!
Gwyn Jones
December 13th, 2011 9:48am Report this commentThe are many things that get me about politics these days but CO2 emissions driving climate change takes the biscuit. We are in desperate financial straits and yet idiots like Huhne cost us an enormous amount in taxes and lost jobs. China, India, Brazil must be laughing at their good fortune. When we are in desperate need to reduce our costs to survive and to be more competitive in the market place, these idiots are hell bent on ensuring our decline. My hearty congratulations to Canada that announced their withdrawl from the Kyoto Treaty today, saving at a stroke, 14 billion Canadian Dollars per year.
Chris lancashire
December 13th, 2011 10:23am Report this commentDurban was yet another expensive gabfest where self-important pratts like Huhne preened on the public stage, ate large dinners and issued communiques and achieved absolutely zero. Unfortunately the taxpayer was funding it.
Ghengis
December 13th, 2011 11:07am Report this commentI see it reported that Canada has withdrawn -saying they cannot afford it.
john williams
December 13th, 2011 12:13pm Report this commentCan't help but notice that, so far, the Canadian withdrawal is not getting the same exhaustive exposure on the BBC as they gave to the "triumph" of European diplomacy claimed by the dreaded Huhne earlier.........
Andrew Shakespeare
December 13th, 2011 4:57pm Report this commentThese climate-change conferences have made progress in a sense: Poznan ... Copenhagen ... Cancun ... Durban ... Bali, next time? How about the Seychelles?
Why don't they reduce their carbon footprint and just teleconference?
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