| |
|
|
|
Report written by Dani Kaye, SGR
In a challenging and chilling present-ation on global warming, Aubrey Meyer called for the adoption of a policy of international equity and convergence between the industrialised and develop-ing countries, with respect to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. He made it clear that the most pressing question of this era is, as Phil Webber describes it, "how we humans are to share our environmental space in the world, the last great common space of humanity, now threatened by pollution, rising sea levels and climate change".
"The debate concerning the reduction of greenhouse gases by the various
states is not an environmentalist or scientific debate", Aubrey reminded
us. "It is a political and social debate. In essence it revolves around
the question of global equity".
Cost-Benefit Analysis - A Case of Absurd Logic
He rubbished the logic of economists, who insist that the value of human lives depends on their incomes; this idea of theirs involves the unacceptable abandonment of a notion of the intrinsic value of each human life. He presented a strategy with the potential for winning international acceptance, because it would commit each country to cutting its greenhouse emissions according to its level of affluence.
In effect, this would allow less developed countries a certain amount of industrial expansion, while high-technology countries would be committed to more drastic cuts in their energy consumption. Such cuts would have to be accompanied by a change in the present cultural trends which promote high consumption and wastage.
The proposition "Climate change is a survival issue, equity is the price for survival" has been relentlessly pushed by the Global Commons Institute since 1994. Aubrey described GCI's activities at the 1992 Rio Summit, in pursuit of international equity, and its repeated attacks on the solutions proposed by economists, who insist that the answer to the problem of global warming can only be found through the application of cost-benefit analyses to produce an "ideal figure" for greenhouse gas emissions.
Fortunately the economists' argument foundered on the soulless proposition that, in economic terms, 15 dead Chinamen are equivalent to one dead Englishman. GCI attacked their methodology for achieving this conclusion, and the premise was finally thrown out. However, Aubrey warned us, the economists are far from giving up these sums.
How can any efficiency-based solution to the problem of global warming
hope to address the complex issues of individual value and rights? Such
an approach is doomed to failure. Aubrey described in detail - often hilariously
- the various twists and turns in the arguments by proponents of
the economic approach, and his counter-arguments to them. "Efficiency gains
may be desirable", he said, "but they are a road to nowhere, because they
are ultimately illogical, and only reinforce the fundamental tension in
economics between equity and efficiency, a tension which must be resolved".
Expect a Shooting War in the Next 30 Years
Many politicians - notably Tom Burke, principal policy advisor to Mr Gummer - are expecting the whole debate to degenerate into a "shooting war" within the next 30 years; scientists observe the effects, but do not intrude further than to issue warnings and hypotheses, something that Aubrey finds worrying. And economists claim to be doing the same thing, insisting that "this is the way the world works".
The GCI insists that all the above positions are not only inadequate but preposterous, because the question of individual value is left out whenever someone calculates the cost of doing nothing versus the cost of abatement.
Furthermore, because the auditors carrying out this calculation are
themselves the polluters, the cost and inconvenience to "Western" industry
of abatement are automatically exaggerated. This inevitably leads them
to the conclusion "No action is most cost-effective", which, if accepted,
must consign untold numbers of humans to death.
Equity is the Price for Survival - and Our Only Hope
Having demolished the economic efficiency approach, Aubrey went on to outline the basis of his new proposition, starting with the statement that between 60 and 80 percent of CO2 production needs to be cut just to stabilise emissions at 1990 levels. Having presented this breathtaking figure as his starting point, he then told us that emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel burning are almost perfectly correlated with a nation's money supply, and that the global distribution of fossil fuel emissions is positively correlated with income. This leaves high-income societies with no sensible choice but to embrace the principles of convergence and equality, and to commit themselves to reducing emissions drastically, thereby enabling controlled economic growth to continue in the developing world.
As his chart showed, this would make it possible for the global community to reduce emissions progressively to an internationally pre-defined level, for instance to 40% of 1990 levels by the year 2100, while still allowing developing countries to reap many of the benefits enjoyed by the industrialised world.
Aubrey ended by warning us that, should the industrialised world refuse to grasp the nettle and accept the need to cut emissions at levels commensurate with their income, this would send a message to developing countries that they are considered expendable. The result would be total non-cooperation by these latter countries, and ecological disaster must inevitably follow.
The good news is that Labour MEPs appear to be committed to the idea
of convergence as proposed by the GCI, and a number of countries are in
favour of the principle, including India, which voiced its support at the
1995 Berlin conference.
New Science - New Danger?
During the lively debate which followed, the pros and cons of technology transfer solutions were explored, and the dangers of "quick-fix" thinking were highlighted. The case of the two experiments in iron fertilisation of the southern oceans was cited as an example of events which were quickly picked up in the common media as having potential for "solving" the world's greenhouse problem at a stroke. The overall effect of such events could easily be to turn industrial societies away from their critically important commitment to regulating their own activities. It was concluded that such "new science" carried the potential for great social and ecological danger, if unregulated and misinterpreted.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Back to SGR ConferencesSend
correspondence about
the web-site to webmanager@sgr.org.uk |
|||