BLAIR DESERTS KYOTO
Financial Post, 8 December 2005
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=38f480f2-dc88-4b42-90c4-66d9cd926794
By Benny Peiser
As the UN’s climate convention in Montreal draws to a
close, it is becoming apparent that, despite the usual rhetoric, all attempts
will fail to extend the Kyoto Treaty beyond its expiration in 2012. No one will
be surprised about this outcome. After all, the U.S. administration has
insisted time and again that it would not budge.
What is largely overlooked, however, is that - for the
first time ever - hardly any pressure was put on the U.S. to yield. It seems
that quite the opposite of capitulation looks likely to ensue. In front of our
noses, America’s long-standing position that economic considerations should
take priority over environmental concerns is being converted into a new
international consensus on tackling climate change. In place of the customary
press-ganging of the U.S., Montreal is witnessing a momentous turnaround. The
driving-force behind this seismic shift of the political landscape is one man
and one man only: Tony Blair.
No other world leader has raised the issue of climate
change as high on the international agenda as the British Prime Minister. No
other person has tried harder, longer and more doggedly to sway the Bush administration.
For years, he was the acclaimed champion of environmental activists throughout
the world. No wonder then that Blair stunned incredulous observers and green
campaigners by his conversion from advocate of command and control ecology to
crusader of a more sensible environmentalism.
Alert political observers had spotted the first signs
of a conspicuous change of tone earlier this year. Already in January, at the
World Economic Forum in Davos, and then even more so at the G8 meeting in
Gleneagles, Blair highlighted the key issue of his new line of reasoning:
“No-one is going to damage their economy in trying to tackle this problem of
the environment. There are ways that we can tackle climate change fully
consistent with growing our economies.” He dropped the real bombshell a couple
of months ago at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York when the fall-out of
Blair’s new thinking blew apart the green consensus: “I don't think people are
going to start negotiating another major treaty like Kyoto.”
Yesterday, when Britain’s green, new Tory Leader
confronted Blair on his apparent Kyoto U-turn in the House of Commons, the
Prime Minister revealed his true colours: Of course, he was still in favour of
a post-Kyoto treaty, the PM retorted. But only if the US, China and India were
to agree to binding targets -
which is as likely as Christmas and Easter falling on the same day.
Many analysts have commented on Blair’s change of
heart. But few have fully grasped the historical implications of his about face.
The significance of his new stance cannot be underestimated: Instead of basing
future climate policies on state-imposed emission targets, Blair has embraced
free market solutions to the issue of climate change, forcefully advocating the
employment of market forces and the development of new technologies.
The reasons for Blair’s radical transformation are not
difficult to discern. Europe is in turmoil as an enlarged EU is struggling both
politically and economically. Worryingly, there is a growing realization that
the Kyoto Protocol, contrary to the assurances of its advocates, is having a
deleterious effect on Europe’s already sluggish economy. While the
implementation of Kyoto and the myriad of other environmental regulations are
strangling Europe’s lethargic economies, the economies of its international
competitors (that is the U.S., India and China) are enjoying boom times
unrestricted by self-imposed limits of growth. Besides, most European countries
have been unable to achieve their Kyoto targets and will be forced to pay huge
amounts of corrective payments that are mandated under the Kyoto treaty.
Even a small country like Ireland is currently facing a
bill of £300-million to £400-million for failing to meet its Kyoto targets. The
cost that Britain will incur by 2050 as a result of its current emission
targets are estimated to range from £60-billion to £400-billion. Obviously,
such economic costs are simply untenable. It is the realization that Europe is
facing a potential nightmare that has driven Blair to state the obvious:
"The truth is, no country is going to cut its growth or consumption
substantially in the light of a long-term environmental problem.”
To be sure, Blair’s new policy is no longer limited to
empty rhetoric. Under his leadership, the EU has finally downgraded the
environment as a priority - behind economic growth and job creation. The
prioritization of the economics pillar over and above the environment is a real
turning point. For almost a generation, EU decision–making was subjugated by
the precautionary limit-to-growth doctrine. Techno-phobic and risk adverse,
Europe’s key set of guidelines was the precautionary principle that has often
been applied regardless of its devastating consequence on economic growth or
technological advancement.
In Britain too, Blair has begun to drive back the
obstructive influence of green power. In face of growing economic concerns,
Tony Blair and his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, have recently set up a government
committee that will look into the actual costs and benefits of Britain’s
climate change policies and the Kyoto process. Instead of relying on the
habitually alarmist predictions by climate scientists and environmental
agencies, Blair’s astute move will help to restore economics to their proper
role as the principal driver of political decision-making. Most likely, other
governments will follow. The basic question is simple: Which course of action
will prove more cost-effective: forgoing cheap energy as result of mandatory
emission cuts (a la Kyoto) or adapting to whatever moderate climate change may
throw at us in the next 50 years?
That Blair is daring to confront the green movement
head-on has another reason: its fall from power and declining influence. The
seismic shift that is reshaping the European landscape can be best gauged by
the fading of green parties from political power. During much of the last
quarter of a century, European parliaments saw the steady rise of green
political influence and techno-phobic regulations. Green parties were part of
coalition governments in five European countries, turning command and control
ecology and the precautionary principle into the strategic framework of
European policy-making.
At the same time, the apocalyptic radicalization of
environmental campaign groups is throwing them back to the early beginnings of
the Green movement that was dominated by extremists at the fringes of the
political process. As Europe’s green era is fizzling out, a shrewd British
Prime Minister is exploiting this opening by coupling free market and
environmentalism on the international scene.
Tony Blair’s political career as Labour leader began
with his famous victory over his party’s defenders of a state-controlled
command economy. Whether his period in office will be long enough - and whether
he will be strong enough - to move Britain and the international community away
from the obstructive tenets of a command ecology remains to be seen. At the end
of the day, however, Europe and the rest of the world have no alternative but
to overcome the old credo of risk-adverse eco-pessimism that is placing
perilous limits on economic growth and prosperity, elements that are imperative
for any society to adapt to the environmental challenges of the future.
Benny Peiser, a researcher at Liverpool John Moores
University, is the editor of CCNet.
Copyright 2005, National Post