Sustainability and policy - Climate Change: Biological and Human Aspects - page 524

difficult. Even if the Kyoto Protocol was implemented globally in full then the curbing
of our current growth in emissions will only amount to saving a few years' worth of
warming and climate forcing by 2100 (Chapter 8). It is therefore difficult to envisage,
at least from our early-21st-century perspective, that international political measures
will have any significant effect in halting global warming. The best that may perhaps
be hoped for is that measures above and beyond the Kyoto Protocol might begin to
meaningfully slow matters down.
Given this, is it worth investing in the curbing of carbon emissions? The future
may be one of continued global warming. Reducing its rate would certainly help both
natural and human systems to adapt as well as humans facilitate natural adaptation,
but there is (from a purely human materialistic and well-being perspective) another
motivation for cutting fossil carbon emissions. This stems from two facts. First,
we know that fossil carbon reserves are finite. Second, we know that the human
demand for energy to power our technological global society is also certainly set to
increase (barring some global human catastrophe). Consequently the need to curb
emissions should not be perceived as an economic threat, but an opportunity to
develop alternative ways of generating energy and using it more efficiently. Nations
that succeed most in doing this will be more protected from fossil fuel shocks and will
see more economic benefit per unit of energy consumed and so be more competitive
globally (Cowie, 1998a). This economic benefit will also help protect us from some
of the adverse effects of climate change and help conserve wildlife. It is up to
us, and nobody else, to seize this opportunity. In short, distinct from purely climate
change arguments, there is a raft of (largely sustainability based) reasons for reducing
our consumption of fossil carbon. That these chime perfectly with climate change
arguments for reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be positively welcome
(Cowie, 1998b). Yet as global greenhouse gas emissions deviate from the Kyoto path
such a welcome is far from being practically realised, even if a few nations espouse
the rhetoric.
The null-hypothesis approach is equally compelling. Suppose some nations do not
adapt to a low-fossil carbon economy. Well, before the end of the 21st century these
nations will be competing for dwindling reserves of oil and gas in a world with a
far larger population. One of these factors alone - be it the larger population or the
dwindling supply - would drive up the price of fossil fuel; both factors together will
have a synergistic effect. This is due to what economists call the law of supply and
demand. Economists have long known that if supply decreases but demand stays the
same then price rises. They also know that if demand increases and supply stays
the same the price also rises. Economists equally recognise a worse situation, that
of supply decreasing while demand simultaneously increases. This prospect is the
one which prudent national leaders need to take into account when framing policies
to develop their respective nations' economies. The conclusion on purely economic
grounds, irrespective of climate change's biological and environmental impacts, is
that renewable and alternative energy (arguably including nuclear power) need to
provide the vast bulk of society's energy needs.
From a human ecological perspective, if human societies are to be environmentally
sustainable then one of the fundamental factors is the need to rely on sustainable
energy and not the planet's finite fund of fossil photosynthetic energy.