Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
And the reason is clear. For the developing world, the overriding priority is economic
growth: improving the living standards of the people, which means among other things
making full use of the cheapest available source of energy: fossil fuels.
The position of China, the largest of all the developing countries and the world's
biggest (and fastest growing) emitter of CO
2
, is crucial. For very good reasons, there is
no way that China is going to accept a binding limitation on its emissions. China has
an overwhelmingly coal-based energy sector—indeed it has been building new coal-fired
power stations at the rate of one a week—and although it is now rapidly developing
its substantial indigenous shale gas resources (another fossil fuel), its renewable energy
industry, both wind and solar, is essentially for export to the developed world.
It is true that China is planning to reduce its so-called 'carbon intensity' quite
substantially by 2020. But there is a world of difference between the sensible objective
of using fossil fuels more efficiently, which is what this means, and the foolish policy of
abandoning fossil fuels, which it has no intention of doing. China's total carbon emissions
are projected to carry on rising—and rising substantially—as its economy grows.
This puts into perspective the UK's commitment, under the
Climate Change Act
, to
near-total decarbonisation. The UK accounts for less than two per cent of global CO
2
emissions: indeed, its total CO
2
emissions are less than the annual increase in China's.
Never mind, says Lord Deben, chairman of the government-appointed Climate Change
Committee, we are in the business of setting an example to the world.
No doubt this sort of thing goes down well at meetings of the faithful, and enables him
and them to feel good. But there is little point in setting an example, at great cost, if no
one is going to follow it, and around the world governments are now gradually watering
down or even abandoning their decarbonisation ambitions. Indeed, it is even worse than
that. Since the UK has abandoned the idea of having an energy policy in favour of having
a decarbonisation policy, there is a growing risk that, before very long, our generating
capacity will be inadequate to meet our energy needs. If so, we shall be setting an example
all right: an example of what not to do.
Challenging the orthodoxy
So how is it that much of the Western world has succumbed to the self-harming collective
madness that is climate change orthodoxy? It is difficult to escape the conclusion that
climate change orthodoxy has in effect become a substitute religion, attended by all the
intolerantzealotrythathassooftenmarredreligioninthepast,andinsomeplacesstilldoes
so today.
Throughout the Western world, the two creeds that used to vie for popular support,
Christianity and the atheistic belief system of communism, are each clearly in decline. Yet
