Copenhagen and the demise of Green Utopia

For too long, West leaders have been convinced that they are pursuing a clever strategy. The EU promised, in principle, a financial transfer of US$30 billion in the next three years to poor countries. However, Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, made perfectly clear that the climate billions are conditional on an international agreement with binding emission limits.

The Copenhagen fiasco will undoubtedly trigger a rethink of the European climate policy. Especially East European member states - but probably also the Italian and German governments - will be demanding a drastic reassessment of unilateral climate targets which are turning into an economic liability and a political risk. They are already putting a heavy burden on European economies as well as driving ever higher the costs for energy, industrial output and the general public.

Most likely, all efforts of reaching a binding climate agreement will fail in coming years. The pressure of lowering expectations of a green utopia will therefore increase. The developing countries can not afford to slow, let alone reduce their dependence on cheap energy and economic development as any significant curtailment would undermine their social and risk political stability.

Even in the Western world, the general climate hysteria shows a marked cooling. If recent opinion polls are to be believed, the obsession with climate change, which was a common feature during much of the 1980s and 90s no longer exists. In its place, climate fatigue is spreading. The novelty of climate change and the habitual alarms have lost their original shock value. Instead, the public seems to be warming to the idea of gradual and inevitable climate change.

International climate politics face a profound crisis. Green taxes and climate levies in whatever form and shape have become political liabilities. Revolts among eastern European countries, in Australia and even among Obama's Blue Dog Democrats are forcing law-makers to renounce support for unilateral climate policies. In the UK, the party-political consensus on climate change is unlikely to survive the general elections as both Labour and the Tories are confronted by a growing public backlash against green taxes and rising fuel bills.

However, the biggest losers of the Copenhagen fiasco appear to be climate science and the scientific establishment who, with a very few distinguished exceptions, have promoted unmitigated climate alarm and hysteria. It confirms beyond doubt that most governments have lost trust in the advice given by climate alarmists and the IPCC. The Copenhagen accord symbolises the loss of political power by Europe whose climate policies have been rendered obsolete.

Loss of credibility

Climate science too is facing a crisis of credibility. It is confronted by growing doubt and criticism, not in the least as a result of the so-called Climategate scandal, the revelations about the behind-the-scene shenanigans by leading climate researchers. Moreover, the unforeseen arrest of the global warming trend has only increased the credibility crisis and has led to growing and deepening scepticism among wide sectors of the public. The standstill global warming, as well as the global economic crisis have greatly dampened the enthusiasm for expensive climate policies as well as for green taxes and exorbitant subsidies.

Above all, the debacle of Copenhagen shows that conventional climate policies have no future. What is necessary now is the development of alternative approaches that are politically realistic and economically feasible. In order for a new climate realism to be successful, governments and government agencies should start, at last, to engage and involve critics of conventional climate politics. Instead of continuing to follow the futile approaches and failed policies promoted by climate alarmists for far too long, governments would be well advised to be introduce more balanced and more transparent assessments of climate science and policy research.

It is quite possible that global temperatures might start rising again in the foreseeable future. Admittedly, no one knows exactly if and when this will happen - and if, whether the renewed warming trend will be pronounced, moderate or insignificant. In all likelihood, we will not know for the next 20 or 30 years who will be right or wrong - the climate sceptics or the alarmists. Nevertheless, as long as the global warming standstill continues, more or less, and as long as the political deadlock between the West and the rest of the world lingers, international climate politics will remain firmly on ice.