A new report on Global Warming was issued today. This one was written by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank, and so carries some clout - in contrast to the plethora of authoritative scientific reports issued over the past couple of decades.
The big difference with Sir Nicholas's report is that it talks
money. The prospect of millions dying across the world and of mass extinctions is insignificant when economic growth is threatened.
So now even the UK Government has been galvanised into action. Well, at least talking about action. Their bold new initiative: increase taxes. How incredibly imaginative. Tax and Spend UK chancellor Gordon 'Greedy' Brown has the exit strategy already in the bag: «The truth is, we must tackle climate change internationally, or we will not tackle it at all». So not at all then. More taxes, same emissions.
The US is often blamed for contributing more than its fair share to greenhouse gas emissions. And with good reason. However, The Impressionist dug up some figures that showed US emissions dropping. These can be found in
this document from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Figure 2-2 shows decreases in CO2 emissions. The bad news is that these correlate with the recessions of the early nineteen-nineties and early years of this century. And they're more than made up for by the increased emissions in other years.
Still, the picture isn't quite as bad as it might be - at least US emissions are falling relative to increasing Gross Domestic Product: less Carbon per Dollar. Again the bad news is that the per capita emissions are roughly constant - and the population is increasing.
So what we really need is a strong, sustained slump. A slump of window-jumping intensity. One that lasts several years. A global recession. Nature will settle it if we humans don't. It's a bit like tax returns, housework or digging the garden - the longer you put it off the worse it's going to be.