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Britse Commissie Klimaatverandering signaleert olifant in de zaal
Effect nationaal klimaatbeleid wordt teniet gedaan door invoer producten met hoger CO2-gehalte.
In 2008 werd de eerste klimaatveranderingswet ter wereld met overweldigende meerderheid goedgekeurd door het Britse Parlement. Slechts drie parlementariërs stemden tegen. De belangrijkste bepaling was dat de uitstoot van CO2 in 2050 met 80% zou dienen te zijn verminderd.
Het moet in een vlaag van collectieve verstandsverbijstering zijn geweest, want (fossiel) energieverbruik en welvaart zijn nauw met elkaar gecorreleerd. Vermindert men de een dan vermindert de andere bijna navenant.
Bij de goedkeuring van deze wet werd ook een onafhankelijke Commissie Klimaatverandering, bestaande uit een voorzitter en zeven leden, in het leven geroepen, belast met de implementatie van het Britse decarboniseringsbeleid en advisering van de regering terzake. Onlangs heeft de groep een rapport uitgebracht waarin een olifant in de zaal werd gesignaleerd, wiens aanwezigheid verrassenderwijs niet eerder was opgemerkt.
Onder de titel, 'Climate Change Committee points out the elephant in the room', rapporteerde de Britse 'Scientific Alliance' hierover het volgende:
This month (perhaps rather infelicitously, on 1 April) the CCC has pointed out clearly to the government that the climate change room has a rather large elephant in it. Administrations in all so-called Annex 1 countries (that is, those which have emissions reduction obligations under the Kyoto protocol) have looked specifically at emissions from national activities, including power generation, industry and commerce, transport and domestic use. The attempt to include shipping and aviation in this spreads the net a little wider, but the inconvenient fact the Committee has now restated is that the trend in a countrys own emissions is worthless unless it is matched by a fall in the carbon content of all goods actually consumed. ...
The CCC was tasked with making this investigation by DECC [Departmen of Enery & Climate Change] at the request of the House of Commons Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change in a report published in 2012 (Consumption-based emissions reporting). One of the Select Committees recommendations was ... that DECC explore the options for incorporating consumption-based emissions data into the policy making process, and set out the steps it will take when responding to the Committees report. ...
Having backed up the Select Committees view that consumption-based indices would be more meaningful, the CCC in fact decided that any system of reporting total emissions (including those embodied in imported goods) would be impractical, since they are too hard to quantify. ...
The idea of expressing a countrys carbon footprint in terms of consumption rather than production is simply another way of putting what has been said many times before; that it is overall global emissions which matter rather than the amount of CO2 put into the atmosphere by individual countries. But the difference lies in assigning responsibility. If a production basis is used, then Annex 1 countries are doing fine by the modest standards set in the first Kyoto commitment period (although, as we have already seen, only part of the fall in emissions is directly due to government energy policy). On the other hand, if consumption is the starting point, this shifts responsibility to the consumer, and the not-so-subtle aim of the Select Committee recommendation seems to have been to influence personal consumption. In a world where consumers are already feeling the pinch in difficult economic times, there is little real likelihood that many would willingly change their consumption patterns if it increased their costs.
One suggestion which has been made is to erect tariff barriers for imported goods with high embodied emissions and in the BBC piece we read Mr Kennedy said border tariffs on CO2 embodied in imported goods should not be ruled out as an interim measure while the world struggles towards a global agreement. This is hopefully just sabre-rattling, as the consequences of a serious trade war with China would be highly damaging.
But the difficulty of reaching a global deal on emissions is recognised, and one of the key points made in the report is that policy may need to be reconsidered if such an agreement is not reached this decade: If other countries were to depart significantly from this course, an assessment of global ambition and therefore ambition in UK carbon budgets would be required...
In simple terms, unless China commits to a binding reduction in emissions by 2020, the UK would have to consider scaling back its own targets. To do otherwise would be economic suicide.
Zie verder hier.
Tja, ik schreef het al eerder, klimaat maakt meer kapot dan je lief is.
Voor mijn eerdere DDS-bijdragen, zie hier.
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