Environmental Law

SORRY TO DISAPPOINT THE GREENIES, BUT BALI CONFERENCE WAS TYPICAL POSTURING

By STEPHEN HOLZER

     Yesterday, the mainstream media went wild with joy when they could announce  that the United States had softened its position at the Bali conference and thus paved the way for a compromise climate-change agreement about carbon-emissions reduction.  Did this exuberance by the usual suspects undercut my repeated point on this Blog that countries sign "feel good" agreements but are not really going to put their economies in the tank by adhering to the agreements? 

      Hardly.  As The Sunday Times (U.K.) reports today ("Bali deal leaves greens in despair"):

AS more than 180 countries agreed a deal on climate change at the UN summit in Bali, environmentalists punctured the mood of self-congratulation by pointing to the failure to agree firm targets for reducing emissions.

Although the main industrialised countries, including America, agreed to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, they refused to agree to an European Union proposal for a target of 25%-40% cuts by 2020.

Campaigners claimed the world?s biggest carbon emitters, including America, Japan and Canada, will now be free to carry on expanding such emissions for many more years to come.

?This deal is very disappointing,? said Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth. ?This conference has failed to give us a clear destination.?

     The real news to come out of Bali was this brief statement in The Times:

? Tomorrow, John Hutton, the energy secretary, will give the strongest hint yet that the UK should go for a new generation of nuclear power stations.

     This, of course, will hardly make the the ROGW (Religion of Global Warming) disciples happy, either.  The ROGW and its pope, Al Gore, basically want the industrialized world to go back to the 18th century as punishment for economic success (which, of course, they believe was achieved only by oppressing the virtuous people of the Third World).  The ROGW disciples also want to produce only energy that carries 0% risk, and nuclear doesn't fit that bill (if civilization had historically adopted such a no-risk philosophy, we'd indeed still be in the 18th century technologically).

     The potential endorsement of nuclear energy by the UK, should such endorsement occur, is sensible not because of the fear of global warming but because for obvious reasons the West needs to reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern oil.  Hopefully Mr. Hutton will make, and carry through on, his expected announcement.

Full post as published by Environmental Legal Blogs on December 16, 2007 (boomark / email).