My good friend from Delhi, India, Barun Mitra, opened a new blog called
http://chinaindiacitizensinitiative.blogspot.com/
It's a good blog, it encourages the citizens of the two biggest countries in the world in terms of population size to a civil and high level discussion and dialogue.
One of Barun's posting is entitled "China and India agree on a common platform on climate change". It was a good observation by Barun that the 2 countries have formed a number of important joint positions, like (a) both will not agree to legally-binding norms, (b) both will oppose trade barriers linked to climate change issues, and (c) both will undertake joint mitigation activities to reduce carbon emission.
I am just wondering if there are enough known Indian and Chinese climate scientists, preferably solar physicists, who can explain to the Environment Ministry, the legislators and the public of both countries, that the current global cooling and deep solar minimum is a prelude to a Dalton Minimum type of 2 or more decades of severe cooling. And that CO2 has very little or nothing to do with global climate.
The environmental scammers and bureaucrats cannot understand solar cycle dynamics and Sun-climate link. They only understand CO2-warming theory and even this theory is highly discredited by current global cooling, at least over the past 7 years.
Australia's parliament set a good precedent by killing PM Rudd's cap and trade or emission trading system (ETS) bill. I sincerely hope that India and China governments will kill efforts to propagate poverty by making their otherwise cheap energy sources very expensive to "fight" a non-existent enemy. It should be impossible for China and India to grow fast and lift from poverty hundreds of millions of their poor citizens if their energy sources become very expensive. Even the poorest rice farmer need gasoline for his hand tractor. Even the poorest rural villagers need some electricity for their house, for their children's studies. Now the UN IPCC and FCCC bureaucrats, almost all of whom are non-scientists (Pachauri of IPCC is an economist, de Boer of FCCC is a diplomat), want energy prices to be as expensive as possible even for the poor countries, so that said bureaucrats can "save" the Earth from global warming?
A related note, below is my oped paper that was published by The China Post: last April:
What's killing the poor is poverty
Friday, April 4, 2008
By Nonoy Oplas, Special to The China Post
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/commentary/the%20china%20post/special%20to%20the%20china%20post/2008/04/04/150307/p1/What%27s-killing.htm
There is a growing notion that rich countries should slash imports from poor countries whose antiquated factories are heavy carbon emitters: this eco-protectionism is in fact good old-fashioned protectionism and would hit the poor hardest.
"We want a binding decision now that we will take measures to protect [EU] industries in 2012 in case there is not agreement," European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told London's The Times this March, talking about import curbs to protect Europe's energy-intensive industries.
Import duties or compulsory carbon quota purchases on goods "from countries that refuse [carbon] restriction efforts seems therefore indispensable," French President Nicolas Sarkozy wrote to Barroso in January.
This week, the U.N. official in charge of climate talks on climate change in Bangkok, Yvo de Boer, evoked the specter of "food miles" -- a tax on imported food: the greater the distance, the higher the fee. In fact, you get fewer carbon emissions overall by growing green beans in Kenya and flying them to Europe in big bad aeroplanes than you do by growing them in Europe and selling them at a charming rural farmers' market.
This is just another protectionist racket that would do little or nothing to reduce carbon emissions. What it would do is push up food prices at a time when high prices are causing street protests from Mexico to India and Cote d'Ivoire.
Such trade sanctions would slow down worldwide economic growth but not climate change.
Trade barriers would not even help industries in developed countries. After benefiting a few industries in the short-term, they would eventually raise costs for industry and consumers -- stifling growth, innovation and competitivity in world markets.
"Goals to reduce EU emissions by 50-80 percent by 2050 are pointless if this is done through pollution displacement -- by increasingly importing CO2-intensive products from the rest of the world. For the EU to reduce its global CO2 emissions, systemic changes to the European economy are needed," a recent World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report said. The WWF wants developed countries to import "cleaner" goods but climate activists, unions, Barroso and Sarkozy want developed countries to cut their imports of CO2-intensive goods, especially from China, India, South Africa and Brazil. The European Trade Union Confederation demands "carbon taxes" on imports.
Copyright © 2008 The China Post.
--------
See also:
China Watch 1: World's Largest Economies, Population, 2005, April 20, 2006
China Watch 2: China's Tourism, May 17, 2006
China Watch 3: World's Largest Traders, 2004, June 03, 2006
China Watch 4: Chinese Nationalism, Tibet, April 23, 2008
China Watch 5: China's New Patent Law, February 10, 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment