Global warming is happening right now

The US and the environment

Under Bush the US has rejected every multilateral treaty and agreement that does not strictly benefit its own global business interests and or agree with its ideological beliefs. These range from nuclear disarmament to small arms control, from population control to human rights. And if existing treaties get in the way they are ignored unless they suit the US, (for example consider the convention intended to protect cultural material in times of war). The unrelenting stand on Kyoto is a part of this.

In 2001 Bush decided Congress would not be asked to ratify the Protocol in effect removing the US from Kyoto. US Vice President Al Gore signed it in 1997. The Senate made clear that US economic interests would be considered and that developing as well as developed nations were to be bound and voted to unanimously not support it. Governments of European countries and of many others including Australia protested the action.

The US position is driven exclusively by sections of the business community that have Bush’s ear. (Recall the direct involvement of Enron in US Government energy policy in the first Bush term.) Alleged damage to the economy is constantly highlighted. Scientific evidence is consistently claimed to be inconclusive. Further research is called for. (The Senate has allocated funds for it.) The huge and inefficient energy use and dependence on oil has fuelled past recessions. Despite the Administration’s stance, business, individual US states and federal agencies are taking action to reduce energy use and promote efficiencies. And even a report for the Pentagon claims very significant climate change as do other recent books.

The Bush Administration is certainly one of the most dangerous in respect of the natural environment, for example under new Environmental Protection Agency plans, millions of Americans will face an increased threat from bacteria, viruses and parasites in their water: sewer operators are to be allowed to dump inadequately treated sewage into the nation's waterways. Relaxation of laws and closer relations with industry have significantly worsened the outlook. The Endangered Species Act is being reshaped to sharply limit the impact of a 30-year-old law to protect the most vulnerable plants and animals. The “Healthy Forests Initiative” and “Clear Skies” policy betray their name.

And there is alleged misuse of science. Early 2004 the Union of Concerned Scientists said, “When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with its political goals, the administration has often manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions”.

Oxley’s article takes the same line as does Reason science correspondent Ronald Bailey in his December 2004 article "The Kyoto Protocol is Dead" . Bailey was a Fellow at CEI in Washington 12 years ago. His article attracted numerous responses from the pro- Republican, anti-Clinton, anti-Green constituency: one termed the Protocol “the United Nations of environmentalism”. Last September The Observer revealed that White House officials had help from CEI in undermining government scientists' research into climate change. Research warning that the impact of global warming is serious was edited or removed: Scientists producing work seen as accepting too readily that pollution is an issue, were attacked. CEI was instrumental in having Bush reverse his campaign pledge to reduce carbon emissions and recently (reported in The Independent on January 17, 2005) CEI’s Myron Ebell said on BBC Radio 4 that Britain’s Chief Scientific Adviser Sir David King “is an alarmist with ridiculous views who knows nothing about climate change".

Australia and the Howard Government

The Howard Government has followed blindly along on the US’s coat tails. This isn’t confined to the abhorrent stand on Australian citizens classified as “enemy combatants” or the rush to embrace a Free Trade Agreement. It even extends to agreeing to jointly sponsor a resolution in the UN General Assembly proposing a worldwide ban on therapeutic cloning (TC). According to Professor Irv Weissman of Stanford University, TC would allow diseases to be studied in ways never possible before. But ideology and fundamentalism - of the same kind that has been used to oppose abortion and prohibit funding of population programs in other countries - will allow hundreds of thousands of people to die who would otherwise have lived.

When the Protocol was signed in 1997 then Australian Minister for the Environment, Senator Robert Hill, described it as “a landmark agreement for the global environment [and the occasion was] the first time that the international community has agreed on specific and substantive measures to combat climate change”. Four years later Hill claimed the Kyoto accord could not succeed without United States support, and suggested using it as a framework to negotiate a new treaty.

At the close of the Buenos Aires conference Australia’s Minister for the Environment, Senator Ian Campbell  disagreed with the US stance against future greenhouse gas targets and its claim that economic growth and technology innovations will be the only answer to reducing heat-trapping emissions. “The difference between the US and Australia is that we are prepared to engage in a new agreement [post Kyoto] as long as it is comprehensive … But a new agreement will have to include the US and the developing world.”

Australia’s energy policy, launched amid great fanfare in June 2004, removes some costs on business and households, provides some monies for new technologies and requires reports on assessment of energy efficiency opportunities. Australia’s reserves of gas and other fuels are specifically highlighted. There is to be reliance on carbon sequestration, as in the US position, but little support for renewables. New ACF President Ian Lowe pointed out that, contrary to the Statement, renewable technologies are increasingly being used in the US and Europe.

Conclusions

We cannot escape two conclusions about global climate change. First, very large numbers of scientists do consider that warming has occurred in the last few decades, that it is global in extent and rapid, is likely to continue and is due mainly to human activity. Attempts to show that locally there were warmer periods 100 or 500 years ago somewhere or other are not evidence that recent warming has not occurred. Propositions that other factors such as sunspot activity can explain global warming have been traversed in the last 10 years and discounted. The “sceptics' theory that climate feedbacks will eliminate any CO2 warming effect has not been substantiated by either observations or modelling.”

Second, scientific argument over data and its meaning is not “unravelling of scientific opinion” but science in action. Yes there are economic and scientific questions about the Protocol, whether it will work when large numbers of countries are not a party to it, how much the enforceable targets will significantly reduce greenhouse gases and the costs.