A party atmosphere at the UN Climate Change Conference

The UN Climate Change Conference is underway. From Reuters via ENN (U.S. to battle ...):

Up to 10,000 delegates from 189 nations meet in Montreal from Nov. 28-Dec. 9 for the first annual climate talks since the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol on curbing heat-trapping gases, mainly from human use of fossil fuels, entered into force in February.

Many Kyoto nations want Montreal to launch negotiations, likely to last years, on setting new curbs once Kyoto's goals run out in 2012. Kyoto is a bid to slow climate change that may trigger more hurricanes, droughts and rising sea levels.

But the United States and Australia, which have rejected Kyoto as a straitjacket threatening economic growth, do not want to discuss binding commitments.

Here is what I think, I guess.

From a July 19 pair of comments on Tim's proposal:

"... our most conservative estimate of annual household [willingness to pay] for ratification of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce global warming is $200 ..." (Berrens, et al., JEEM, 2004). Adding up, $200 x 100,000,000 U.S. households = $20 billion. As reviewed by Shogren (2004), cost estimates range up to .54% of annual GDP (with global trading). If annual GDP is $12 trillion then the costs are about $60 billion. Annual net benefits of Kyoto would have been [minus] $40 billion?

In other words, a benefit-cost analysis indicates that Kyoto is a bad idea for the U.S. So, what should we be doing? I think the Bush admin's proposals are not enough and I still like Stavins' ideas.

And, surprise, there is already high-level disagreement (from the AP via ENN, U.S. Defends ...):

Leading environmental groups spent the first hours of the conference blasting Washington for not signing the landmark 1997 agreement that sets targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions around the world.

Dr. Harlan L. Watson, senior climate negotiator for the State Department, said that while President Bush declined to join the treaty, he takes global warming seriously and noted that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions had actually gone down by eight-tenths of a percent under Bush.

"With regard to what the United States is doing on climate change, the actions we have taken are next to none in the world," Watson told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the conference.

Watson said the United States spends more than $5 billion a year on efforts to slow the deterioration of the earth's atmosphere by supporting climate change research and technology, and that Bush had committed to cutting greenhouses gases some 18 percent by 2012.

Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club Canada, however, accused the world's biggest polluter of trying to derail the Kyoto accord, which has been ratified by 140 nations.

"We have a lot of positive, constructive American engagement here in Montreal – and none of it's from the Bush administration, which represents the single biggest threat to global progress," May said.

Says who! Says me! Oh yeah? yeah!

Comments

[joshua corning]

"U.S. greenhouse gas emissions had actually gone down by eight-tenths of a percent under Bush."

anyone know if there is any truth to this statement...and if true why?

[SC]

The Bush administration is fond of quoting GHG "intensity" statistics-- that is, GHG emissions relative to economic output. According to the EIA, GHG intensity has certainly fallen. I'm not sure if 0.8% refers to absolute emissions or emissions intensity.

It is also possible that absolute emissions levels have fallen slightly, but CO2 and methane emission levels continue to rise as NOx and fluorocarbons fall.

The EIA publishes a good report called "Emissions of GHGs in the United States 2003". The 2004 report will be released in December 2005.

[tc]

Not doing any research on this, I'd guess the answer would be economic slowdown - especially if the most recently available numbers don't include the past year.

[Dano]

The main anthropogenic GHGs are CO2 and CH4, neither of which are decreasing in emissions. Intensity is an accounting trick, and absolute numbers are what you want.

Best,

D

[chv]

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