ninme

Power Line yesterday:

A Stroke of Genius?

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

Hyperbolic? Well, maybe. But consider Bush’s latest master stroke: the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. The pact includes the U.S., Japan, Australia, China, India and South Korea; these six countries account for most of the world’s carbon emissions. The treaty is, in essence, a technology transfer agreement. The U.S., Japan and Australia will share advanced pollution control technology, and the pact’s members will contribute to a fund that will help implement the technologies. The details are still sketchy and more countries may be admitted to the group later on. The pact’s stated goal is to cut production of “greenhouse gases” in half by the end of the century.

What distinguishes this plan from the Kyoto protocol is that it will actually lead to a major reduction in carbon emissions! This substitution of practical impact for well-crafted verbiage stunned and infuriated European observers.

A yes, a genius idea, the world’s most productive countries coming together, the world’s most worthwhile countries coming together (with the usual reservations about the Chinese government, but not its people, certainly), coming together to actually get something done, and where is the first place they meet?

Chrenkoff - Good news week

Kyoto is dead, long live Vientiane?

Australia will host in November the first meeting of six nations which have agreed a pact to combat global warming by developing technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions, diplomatic sources said on Thursday.

Note the contrast in approaches: Kyoto is every liberal internationalist’s wet dream - a meaningless strength-in-numbers exercise that attempts to get everyone inside the tent (or greenhouse) regardless whether they actually contribute much to the problem (or the solution) or not. At the same time, it places the biggest burden on the developed world, while some of the biggest offenders come from the ranks of the developing world. And it tries to achieve its objective by regulation that would put a dampener on economic growth.

Vientiane, on the other hand, is an example of effective, targeted multilateralism - it brings together states who are the biggest greenhouse gas producers, and the states with access to cutting edge technology (with some, like the United States, in both categories), and it plans to address the problem using the best that the humanity has to offer - technological innovation, that is using our ingenuity to solve the problem without inflicting collateral damage on the world economy. To me personally, one of the greatest stories in our species’ history have been the efforts to successfully have the cake and eat it too.

Ah, I love it when people set off to actually accomplish something, especially something important and worthwhile.

Meanwhile, poor New Zealand:

TVNZ - Climate pact leaves NZ out in cold

New Zealand should have been party to the US-led Asia-Pacific climate change pact just announced, according to the Northern Employers and Manufacturers Association.

Unlike the 152-nation Kyoto pact, the accord between the United States, Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea sets no binding goals for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels blamed for rising temperatures…

“The pact focuses on accelerating the development of new technology to capture carbon emissions, not on the carbon tax which will artificially hike the price of energy in New Zealand,” says Employers and Manufacturers Association chief executive Alasdair Thompson…

If New Zealand joined this group of our major trading partners we would be better placed to make use of our 1000 year coal reserves, Thompson says.

“Instead, under the Kyoto Protocol, we are likely to end up paying Russia for using our coal, and may find nuclear power cheaper.”

The new pact will see New Zealand and Australia’s economic policies diverge, rather than drawing us together, and our future standards of living demand the transtasman economy is integrated under the Single Economic Market, Thompson says.

NZ Pundit - Actual Climate Change Progress

Unlike the moral arrogance that symbolises the Kyoto protocol, this agreement provides an optimistic, technology based approach to greenhouse gas emissions.

By sticking with Kyoto, New Zealand remains (as usual) on the show pony side of world affairs.