* My column in BusinessWorld, December 02, 2019.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC)
25th Conference of Parties (COP 25) is held in Madrid starting this week, Dec,
2-13. In a press release dated Nov, 29, “COP25 to Be the Launchpad for
Significantly more Climate Ambition,” it reiterated the target of annual
climate money: “We will continue to urge developed nations to fulfill their
pledge of mobilizing $100 billion annually by 2020. We also must see overall
global finance flows… away from carbon-heavy investment and towards more sustainable
and resilient growth. Drops in the bucket are not enough: we need a sea
change.”
For more than two decades now, the UN and its various
multilateral agencies have been demonizing fossil fuels and CO2 emission then
they use lots of fossil fuels in their annual COP meetings with tens of
thousands of participants, plus several thousands in various pre-COP meetings
worldwide.
The reality is that many developing and newly
industrializing economies embrace more fossil fuels to sustain their growth.
Data in Table 1 delineate the G7 countries and major East Asian economies plus
Australia, from 1995 COP 1 to 2018 COP 24.
Now, when we get the total fossil fuel use of countries
and compare with their GDP size, a correlation is shown — all G7 countries that
“decarbonize” faster, their fossil fuel consumption from 1995 to 2018 expanded
only 0.8 to 1.3x, also have slow GDP expansion. The other group expanded their
fossil fuel use by 1.4x or higher and experienced GDP expansion of 2.5x or
higher (see Table 2).
The Philippines has the smallest fossil fuel use of only
42 million tons oil equivalent (mtoe) in 2018, very small coal use of only 16
mtoe, and has the second-lowest GDP size of only $331 billion. And many groups,
both government and non-government, are pushing and lobbying that the
Philippines should cut its oil and coal plants via higher oil-coal tax, have a
carbon tax upon the prodding of the IMF and other multilaterals, or a “climate
tax on electricity” (CTE), a lousy idea filed by Congresman Luis Raymund
Villafuerte.
While most climate activists abroad do not delineate the
three types of fossil fuel energy and demonize all, several big environment and
leftist groups in the Philippines demonize only oil-coal and praise gas. When
the TRAIN (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act) law was enacted in
2017, they successfully lobbied to have a higher oil-coal tax and exempted gas
from the tax hike. They seem to be in cahoots with gas companies here.
The UN and its attached multilaterals, the anti-coal,
anti-fossil fuel environmentalists and lobbyists deny that climate change is
cyclical (warming-cooling…) and natural (nature-made, not man-made), for the
past 4.6 billion years when planet Earth was born. They distort basic geology
and climatology because they are blinded by their ecological central planning
mindset and hunger for more carbon taxes and multi-billion dollar climate
money.
The IMF should focus on its original mandate of global
macroeconomic and balance of payments stability, and get out of fanning climate
alarmism and anti-inequality leftism. And Brexit is a good move partly to
escape the EU’s heavy and restrictive environment and climate policies that can
stifle stronger economic growth and business expansion.
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