Global Warming Wash Out

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203518404577094081344492356.html?grcc=3613e2dde038d8c460e062470151dc46Z3&mod=WSJ_hps_sections_opinion

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"When you reflect, you are able to put an experience into perspective." (John C. Maxwell)

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The subtitle to today's WSJ editorial on "global warming" is: "The Kyoto Protocol can now be ignored for another 5 years." As global warming conferences go, the one that ended Sunday in Durban, South Africa was "...by common consensus..." a wash out.

What emerged from the meeting was an agreement to extend the Protocol (never ratified by the U.S.) to 2017. Russia and Japan have said they'll ignore the extension. Yesterday, Canada said it is quitting Kyoto entirely.

The WSJ editors interpret the latest activities post-Durban as creating an extended agreement that Europe has made with itself.

The Durban meeting produced promises from China, the U.S. and India to "develop a new protocol, another legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force" by 2015, and to implement that by 2020. Rich countries are supposed to provide poor ones with $100 billion a year as of 2020 for climate mitigation. But Durban offered few details as to how that fund might be collected or disbursed.

Seriously.

I wouldn't hold my breath for the U.S. to fork over any portion of that $100 billion when the clock strikes 2020. Besides, what does that fix?

I'm guessing that what the U.N. was looking for in those meetings was a strong deal to cut carbon emissions. Assuming that such a deal could occur, Bjorn Lomborg points out that a 50% cut in emissions below 1990 levels by 2050 - an extremely unrealistic scenario - would produce a difference in temperature of 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050.

Enough with the math and carbon capping. Lomborg points out that we can begin to fix carbon emissions smartly thru technological innovation. His perspective: adaption is the key.

According to Exxon's energy outlook, coal use will begin to drop by 2025 (in the developing countries where it is most used), and hybrid vehicles will move from the margins of the market to the mainstream (40% market share) sometime after 2030. Overall fuel efficiency will grow from 27 miles per gallon in 2010 to 48 mpg in 2040. This will lead to a flattening of fuel demand in passenger cars despite a doubling of the fleet to 1.6 billion by 2040.

It would appear that reasonable future projections of energy use have more potential impact than any carbon capping approach which most countries can't agree on anyway.

While I'm sure Al Gore can shed some light on all of this, I won't bet a Nobel on it.