If Not Kyoto, What?

Missed Pete DuPont's piece in the Journal yesterday (free link).

Like me, Pete (a man who might have been President of the United States had mom not named him "Pierre...") is not going to concede that global warming is man made. He makes some of my favorite skeptic arguments: The ice-age scare in the 1970s, plus that it is happening on Mars, as well, where SUV sales have been slow. If true, he is not a fan of the Kyoto solution as a possible remedy:

We also know that the Kyoto Treaty will do little to solve the carbon-dioxide problem. Masquerading as a global environmental policy, Kyoto exempts half of the world's population and nine of the top 20 emitters of carbon dioxide--including China and India--from its emissions reduction requirements. It is in fact an effort to replace the world's markets with an internationally regulated (think U.N.) global economy, perhaps better described as a predatory trade strategy to level the world's economic playing field by penalizing the economic growth of energy efficient nations and rewarding those emitting much greater quantities of noxious gasses. Which explains why in 1997 the U.S. Senate voted 95-0 to oppose the signing of any international protocol that would commit Western nations to reduce emissions unless developing countries had to do so as well.

As The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, almost none of the nations that signed on are meeting Kyoto's requirements. Thirteen of the original 15 European signatories will likely miss the 2010 emission reduction targets. Spain will miss its target by 33 percentage points and Denmark by 25 points. Targets aside, Greece and Canada have seen their emissions rise by 23% and 24%, respectively, since 1990. As for America, our emissions have increased 16%, so we are doing better than many of the Kyoto nations.

He then discusses a study by two Princeton profs detailing what would be required to cut emissions if the reduction of C02 were necessary: replace all incandescent bulbs; two million wind turbines; Liquid Natural Gas docs and pipes; an India-sized parcel of land to grow sugar cane for ethanol (get Arizona and Texas hooked on ag subsidies?); build 700 noocyooler plants.

Other than the light bulbs there are committed opponents to every plan -- and the Sylvania lobby has not been heard from yet. DuPont doesn't say it, but I don't think any of them have a strong economic basis either. I suspect that if regulations could be lifted, that nuclear and LNG might pay for themselves, but it's a no go.

The solution is technology: improvements in generation and efficiency will eventually get us out. I have to add a Silence point here from a recent coffee klatch. He can describe it better, but he is interested in micro-generation. An Army of Davids solution, with photovoltaic solar tiles, personal windmill power. Technology is making these economically viable. A Hayekian power grid with lots of producers and consumers instead of one producer and many consumers would be very cool.

Posted by jk at March 29, 2006 12:57 PM