Climate change will add to food, utility bills (misleading headline alert!)

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Climate change presents a tough choice for governments determined both to fight global warming and tackle the rising cost of living.

Climate measures inflate energy costs by putting a price on burning fossil fuels and also stoke food bills by using farmland and crops to produce renewable fuels.

Now near-record oil and food prices coupled with a global economic slowdown have triggered unrest in several countries and demands to ease taxes on fuels and free up farmland for food.

"This important part of the global economy, food and energy, has been grossly distorted due to under-pricing of water and (carbon-free) air," Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz told Reuters.

The fight against climate change made higher food prices inevitable, he said. "People will have to adjust."

Officials from more than 170 countries this week tried to forge a new climate pact in U.N. talks in Germany that included steps such as emissions trading and taxes to brake emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide, which will increase energy costs.

A summit in Rome tried on Thursday to unlock aid for the world's starving and many there blamed record food prices on climate policies which supported using vast quantities of the world's crops for biofuels.

Cutting U.S. and European farm and biofuel subsidies would reduce food bills, but there was no alternative to taxes on fossil fuels like oil to cut greenhouse gases, Stiglitz says.

A record oil price is already triggering street protests in Europe and unease in America and India. This threatens support for a climate fight that this week includes the first U.S. Senate debate of a climate change bill.

"The state of the U.S. economy, it's obviously slowed, makes discussion much more difficult," said chief U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson on Tuesday, a day after the White House said it would veto the bill.

The slowdown and the prospect of "earth-shaking" gasoline prices were making Americans nervous, especially given the uncertainty of future benefits from reducing warming, he said.

Climate policies aim to curb emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. But utilities pass on to consumers the extra costs of carbon taxes, emissions permits and supplying expensive solar power.

UBS analyst Per Lekander estimated the European Union's emissions trading scheme accounted for 15-20 percent of European power prices. Renewable energy policies contributed about 2 percent but were set to rise rapidly under ambitious EU goals.

U.N. scientists and renowned economists like Nick Stern say the climate fight will cost fractions of a percent in annual growth, but that is averaged over the long-term with much more impact in the near term than later.

The costs of major food commodities are climbing, with prices of rice, corn and wheat at or near record highs. This has provoked protests and riots in some developing countries where people may spend more than half their income on food.

Climate change affects food in two ways, directly through events such as exceptional droughts, and via a policy response which has diverted food crops into making biofuels like ethanol, meant to be less carbon-emitting than gasoline.

The price link is debated -- Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer estimated that U.S. biofuels' consumption of corn was responsible for just 3 percent of global food price rises.

Aggressive U.S. biofuels targets will raise conventional ethanol production to more than double current levels, a U.S. state department official told Reuters on Wednesday.

"Say you double that to 6 percent (food price impact), it's still by no means the driving force, which is oil, the weather and emerging market demand," the official told Reuters.

Climate change can also add to household bills through water. Global "very dry areas" have more than doubled since the 1970s, according to a Citi report published in January.

The result is businesses spending more money to increase supply, through desalination plants, new pipes or lower demand via water meters -- costs which they may pass to consumers.

"In Las Vegas, where they have very little water, consumers are likely to pay," said Dan McCarthy, president of the water business of U.S.-based Black & Veatch, referring to a continuing drought in the Colorado River basin.

The headline of this story has been changed since I first saw it yesterday. The headline at the Reuters front page still reads the same as yesterday, but the link through to this article shows a changed headline. The original title "Climate Fallout to Hit Wallets" started like this: "Climate measures will inflate energy costs and stoke food bills....."

So, while the article was meant to be about the increased costs that will come with "climate regulation", the headline leads one to think something entirely different.

Oh well!!

The Liberals have found another reason to raise taxes in man made Global Warming but have to deal with an electorate that is smarting from already high prices. Raising taxes is,after all, their solution to everything. But, how do you sell even higher prices to people who are having enough trouble already paying their bills? Why, "If we don't raise taxes, we're all going to die" is what they've settled on, of course.

We are likely to see many more articles like this justifying "what we have to do to save the planet, mother, apple pie and cute, fluffy puppies."

“People will have to adjust.”

Typical left wing arrogance. Yes, people will die. The question becomes who will be dying, governments or people?

This will get very bloody and ugly.

More nonsense.

Just like the big problems of "acid rain" some years ago. Do you remember that panic? It was turning the forests to deserts?

Turns out it didn't happen. The emissions actually proved beneficial to farming and increased yields. They found that out when they studied it. Oooops.

IF there even is global warming and IF it is the result of human activity (highly unlikely), the net result would be increased agricultural yields as more areas warm up and become suitable for farming.

Government interference is what is causing food prices to raise as the left wingers have decided that it is somehow better for the polar bears if we burn food instead of drilling for oil or building nuclear plants.

Support for climate change fades when it affects people's pocketbooks. Oh sure - people say they like to help the environment as long as you don't spend more money to do it. The Left would like to do just that but knows its two preferred means of getting more money are hugely unpopular. Which is why they seldom mention the costs of reducing CO2 emissions in public debate.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

If the greenhouse effect is so bad for plant life, why do people build greenhouses for plant life?

It takes a journalist and a crooked scientist to explain that one.

Voters can toss governments out of office. Most of the pain inflicted would be in the near term. But that's the time scale politicians operate in - they are always calculating about their electability. Its tough to explain to constituents the need to pay more when in fact they are paying more already. Those who think climate change is a planetary emergency should try to sell massive tax increases and a significantly reduced standard of living to people. And even with all that pain, the greenhouse gases reduction benefits are marginal at best.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

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