By Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus

Japan's blunt declaration last week that it was walking away from the Kyoto climate treaty marked the end of an era. Since Copenhagen, international climate negotiations have proceeded on two parallel tracks, with most major emitting nations simultaneously participating in efforts to extend Kyoto while also working to formalize the Copenhagen Accord - the face-saving agreement among major emitters wrought in the dying hours of the COP-15 meeting in Denmark.

In stating, unequivocally, that it would only make further emissions reductions commitments under the auspices of the Copenhagen Accord, not the Kyoto Protocol, Japan left no doubt about which framework will be the primary vehicle for future international efforts to address climate change.

The announcement set off a small diplomatic riot, largely because Japan had single-handedly destroyed two contradictory fantasies at once. The first, held by Europeans and greens, was that the 2009 Copenhagen Accord would someday merge with Kyoto and require mandatory emissions limits from the U.S. and China. The second, held by China, India, and other big developing nations, was that they could demand emissions reductions from rich countries but adhere to no obligations themselves.

While the Copenhagen Accord, like Kyoto, still maintains the pretense that it will culminate in a binding agreement among major emitters to reduce emissions, the same intractable conflicts among major economies that have thwarted international agreement to legally binding emissions caps are not likely to be resolved through the Copenhagen approach. In reality, the post-Kyoto world is a post-emissions cap world. Future climate action is more likely to resemble what Japan has been proposing since the 2007 Bali climate talks - developed nations primarily focusing on developing and deploying advanced energy technologies in order to reduce their own emissions while working sector by sector with developing economies to transfer the appropriate technologies that can facilitate growth with low carbon technology.

Continue reading "Why Japan Disowned Kyoto" »

By Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus

The failure of the U.N. climate process is proof that shared economic sacrifice cannot be the basis of global action. Nations will not scale up clean energy as long as it remains so much more expensive than fossil fuels. Thinking past talks in Cancun, nations should focus instead on energy innovation, adaptation, and no regrets policies that do not require agreement about global warming. The first step is recognizing that the global market for clean energy exists only thanks to government subsidies and mandates. Instead of imposing emissions controls and subsidizing existing technologies, nations should use competitive deployment to purchase advanced energy technologies, benchmark the winners, and allow intellectual property to spill-over between firms and nations.

This is the framework we propose for pragmatic global climate action in the cover story for a special energy section in today's Wall Street Journal, pegged to the start of U.N. climate talks in Cancun, Mexico. Today also marks the launch of a new web site, Breakthrough Europe, and its kick-off post, "Cancun Can't: The Twilight of European Climate Leadership," which documents the failure of Europe's cap and trade system to reduce emissions.

Our Wall St. Journal essay, "How to Change the Global Energy Conversation," builds on Breakthrough Institute's thinking about the failure of the UN process ("Scrap Kyoto," Democracy Journal), the clean tech intellectual property illusion ("The Revolution Will Not Be Patented," Slate), the green Keynesianism and neoliberalism behind Obama's green jobs fiasco ("Green Jobs for Janitors," The New Republic), and our proposal to make clean energy cheap through technology innovation ("Fast, Clean & Cheap," Harvard Law and Policy Review, Feb 2008).

Continue reading "WSJ: Forget the U.N. Climate Convention, Rethink Innovation Instead" »

Were the European Union to call for a deeper cut in carbon dioxide emissions, it would do little to stem the unrelenting increase in global emissions and is unlikely to have any effect on the international climate negotiations, according to the International Energy Agency.

While Europe's negotiating position in international climate talks remains a target of 20 percent emissions reductions below 1990 levels by 2020, some have pushed it to target an additional ten percent reduction. The EU has long maintained that it would boost its target to 30 percent if other industrialized countries followed suit.

What is the significance of an extra ten percent reduction in EU emissions by 2020? Not much, according to IEA Chief Economists Fatih Birol:

"We estimate extending Europe's plan to cut emissions from 20 to 30 percent would roughly equal China's two-week gas output."

Could the 10 percent EU additional emissions cut really equal only two weeks of emissions in China? We checked the numbers on that (h/t Roger Pielke, Jr.), and Mr. Birol is indeed correct.

Continue reading "Eye on the Prize: China is Make or Break for Climate" »

In another clear sign of the steadily unraveling pollution paradigm, Yvo De Boer, the former head of the UN climate negotiations, has acknowledged that the long debate over targets and timetables for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions is irrelevant. Asked by Bloomberg about emissions reductions targets in the context of the upcoming climate negotiations in Cancun, De Boer replied:

"Discussions about targets have become largely irrelevant in the context of the Copenhagen outcome. I don't think that we're going to see a dramatic increase in the level of ambition."

De Boer was singing a different tune in the run up to last year's Copenhagen climate negotiations, which ended, predictably, without a comprehensive and legally binding emissions treaty. In August 2009, de Boer told TIME Magazine that even if the U.S. didn't show up to Copenhagen with a new climate change law in hand, an ambitious target would be enough to placate the international community:

"The international community is keenly interested in seeing what steps America is making at home to get its emissions under control, but it also wants to see what the Administration says it will do. If the Administration in Copenhagen commits to a target that is good enough for the international community, that will work. It's up to the U.S. to see how the target will be implemented nationally."

Continue reading "Former UN Climate Chief: Emissions Targets and Timetables are Irrelevant " »