The Copenhagen climate talks cannot save the planet

Copenhagen is magnificent political theatre. We have the wealthy nations, desperate to look as if they’re ready to move beyond the Kyoto protocols without ever fulfilling them; the developing nations, who hope to monetize their comparative poverty; and a sea of earnest individuals and interest groups, many of whom have a flair for photogenic street demonstrations. It must be impossible to rent a polar bear or whale costume anywhere in Denmark these days.

Whatever agreements come out of the Copenhagen COP15 climate talks, you can be assured of two things: their primary effect will be the creation of a lucrative carbon trading economy, and they won’t directly address what is really driving the world’s environmental problems.

The cap and trade shell game

Let’s assume that the majority scientific opinion is correct — that global warming is happening, it’s linked to human activity, and carbon dioxide is the greenhouse culprit.

The idea behind negotiated carbon caps (and a multi-trillion dollar market in trading emission allowances and derivative scams) is that by making it more expensive to be a carbon polluter, nations and industries will have financial incentive to develop cleaner technologies. That sounds good, but many scientists think the cap and trade system will be too full of loopholes to have the desired effect. It’s also much easier for polluters to pass their increased energy costs down to their customers than innovate and actually reduce emissions.

So it becomes a shell game. When you lift your walnut, what you’ll find is the bill. And these increased costs will be reflected in anything that requires energy to produce — which means, in effect, pretty much everything. When we talk about progress in the Industrial Age, what we really mean is cheap and plentiful energy.

It’s really about overconsumption

I know plenty of otherwise rational environmentalists who get all misty eyed at the thought of fantastically expensive electricity or $20 per gallon gasoline. They’re right that higher prices will significantly curb demand, and that’s one way to get everybody serious about renewable energy and investment in greener infrastructure. But it’s also the worst way, because people won’t stand for it.

Make it impossible for a beleaguered Middle Class to heat their homes in the winter, and they’ll burn environmentalists for cordwood. Cap and trade is inherently draconian, devolving straight upon the people least able to afford higher prices.

What we really need to do is address the root of carbon emissions, which over-consumption. This is where the principles of minimalism come in, because like it or not, we live in the Minimalist Century.

A better, more efficient way

Cap and Trade is a form of taxation that will be largely administered by unaccountable, privately held utility monopolies. It’s an inefficient tax destined to line the pockets of middlemen and profiteers — the same banks and investment houses which so recently tanked our economy.

There’s no arguing that we and our children are going to pick up the tab for a half century of living beyond our means. The real question is how, and a conventional tax is a more honest means yo an end. This way, at least, the scale and distribution of the burden is subject to the ballot box. And we can earmark every penny toward fixing the problem, rather than padding corporate balance sheets.

If we’re going to use price to reduce demand, let’s return this windfall to the end users. We can free people from the expensive and inefficient ways we currently live, giving them fresh choices and opportunities. On a governmental scale, we can invest in dramatically accelerated development of green energy and mass transit. Instead of doling out a few hundred billions of dollars to carbon commodity traders, let’s give it to households. Imagine the widespread adoption of home technology designed to help people generate their own power, reprocess rain and greywater, and reduce their use of increasingly precious resources.

There are other ways to curb consumption — encouraging savings, for instance — but here’s a start. And we shouldn’t be distracted by whatever is eventually held up a solution in Copenhagen.

Copenhagen street protest image by Greenpeace Finland. Smokestack photo by otodo. Both distributed under a Creative Commons license.