I didn't want to leave the impression from my last post that I am wholly cynical about progress on confronting the climate change crisis. On the contrary, I am entirely bullish. I think my posts over time here have very often been about some of the truly extraordinary breakthroughs , politically, socially, and economically , that are transforming the landscape.
I give all due credit to the efforts of the UK and Germany, for instance. See recent posts below. I also have to say that the EU is right in there pitching. It's just that the performance of my own country's government has been so abysmal. It's not just the Bush-Cheney Administration that's been at fault either. I quoted Bill McKibben in my very first post almost a year and a half ago, from the NY Review of Books: "After twenty years of inactivity‚ a remarkably successful bipartisan effort to accomplish nothing‚ the first few weeks of the new Congress have witnessed a flurry of activity." The 110th Congress has indeed been more active. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 is a good indicator of that. But the present administration, which has been a nightmare on climate change (among other things) will give way, on January 20, 2009, to a new one, and there will be considerable progress made next year by the White House and Congress.
The G8 is just one vehicle and, if history is any judge, a not particularly efficient one. To put too many eggs in this sort of basket is to court disappointment. The WWF released its G8 Climate Scorecards 2008 last week in advance of the summit. See this story from "ClimateBiz." The US, according to the scorecard, has done the least on climate change, the UK, France and Germany the most. "The WWF study also looks at the climate and energy policies of five emerging economies: China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa." These five leading emerging economies, by the way, rejected the 50% GHG cut that the G8 announced. See this from the "FT." These hugely important countries " issued a statement saying that rich countries needed to slash carbon emission levels by 80-95 per cent from 1990 levels." The UK agreed. Here's the statement and some further commentary from the excellent Gristmill.
Don't worry overmuch, folks. We're making progress, even if many of the oft-benighted "leaders" of the big industrial economies don't quite yet get it. As the editor of "ClimateBiz" said on this: "As G8 political leaders meeting in Japan struggle for consensus on post-Kyoto pathways to effective global climate policy, the pace of innovation in business and national/local government programs remains brisk." Here's a good example: Jobs in Renewable Energy Expanding from the Worldwatch Institute. "Currently about 2.3 million people worldwide work either directly in renewables or indirectly in supplier industries. Given incomplete data, this is in all likelihood a conservative figure." The article predicts a continuing swell of new jobs.
