Global Warming

[James Heartfield]

The WEEK
ending 1 April 2001

GLOBAL WARMING TREATY GOES UP IN SMOKE

President George W Bush trashed the consensus on global warming with the
blunt announcement that the treaty on climate control was not in the
interests of the US. European leaders like Germany's Gerhard Schroeder
could hardly contain their anger, while British PM Tony Blair struggled
to pull the US back into the club.

The consensus on global warming was always a political consensus
masquerading as a scientific one. Those climatologists that failed to
support the findings of the International Panel on Climate Control were
denounced in McCarthyite smear campaigns. The panel itself masqueraded
as a scientific body, but operated not according to the open system of
peer review but on a committee basis, more akin to the drafting of a
government document. Rather than winning the argument on the facts, the
IPCC sought to bludgeon opponents into submission by weight of numbers.
Signatories to the IPCC report were not necessarily experts in the
field, but scientists from many different disciplines, their signatures
reflecting personal beliefs rather than research. Not since the three
International Congresses of Eugenics met between 1912 and 1932 has
science been so thoroughly subordinated to political goals.

The real force driving the International Panel on Climate Control was a
debate about economics, not climate. The proponents of climate control
were supporters of a system of managed capitalism; the opponents, free
marketeers. Scientific evidence of anthropogenic global warming gave the
rationale for managing industrialization. Seen in terms of pollution,
industrialization - especially in the third world - could be presented
as a problem, rather than a gain. If, as was argued, permissible CO2
emissions were limited, then a political system of rationing industrial
output could be justified.

 The decisive driver behind the IPCC treaty has been the competition
amongst national interests. 


World energy consumption, in quadrillions of British thermal units
Region                  1990    1996
World total             343.8   375.5
North America           99.7    111.6
United States           83.9    93.3
C and S America         13.7    17.7
Western Europe          60.0    64.0
EE and fSU              73.6    52.4
Middle East             13.1    17.3
Africa                  9.2     11.1
Far East and Oceania    74.4    101.4


While US and East Asian energy consumption rose precipitately in the
period leading up to the climate treaty, European consumption moderated
in the West and fell in the East. At that time, the treaty was largely
driven by anxiety over the competition from the East Asian tiger
economies - a fear that has waned since the Japanese recession stalled
growth in the region. But European governments realized that the treaty
was a protectionist bat to beat the US with. Just as the US used the
threat of middle eastern terrorism to politicize world energy policy to
its advantage, Europe used the threat of Global Warming to advance its
interests.

While Bill Clinton and Al Gore were in the White House the differences
between the 'Third Way' leaders of the Western world could be contained.
With the election of George W Bush the consensus has collapsed - at
least for the moment.
-- 
James Heartfield