Posted on 11/18/2010 8:45:15 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010
Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated. – Ottmar Edenhofer
For those who may not know, Ottmar Edenhofer is the co-chair of the IPCC Working Group III.
Former WG III Co-Chair Bert Metz (left) congratulates Ottmar Edenhofer on his election in Geneva.
Interview by: Bernard Potter
NZZ am Sonntag: Mr. Eden, everybody concerned with climate protection demands emissions reductions. You now speak of “dangerous emissions reduction.” What do you mean?
Ottmar Edenhofer: So far economic growth has gone hand in hand with the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. One percent growth means one percent more emissions. The historic memory of mankind remembers: In order to get rich one has to burn coal, oil or gas. And therefore, the emerging economies fear CO2 emission limits.
But everybody should take part in climate protection, otherwise it does not work.
That is so easy to say. But particularly the industrialized countries have a system that relies almost exclusively on fossil fuels. There is no historical precedent and no region in the world that has decoupled its economic growth from emissions. Thus, you cannot expect that India or China will regard CO2 emissions reduction as a great idea. And it gets worse: We are in the midst of a renaissance of coal, because oil and gas (sic) have become more expensive, but coal has not. The emerging markets are building their cities and power plants for the next 70 years, as if there would be permanently no high CO 2 price.
The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.
That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.
That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.
Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet – and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 – there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.
De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.
First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.
Nevertheless, the environment is suffering from climate change – especially in the global south.
It will be a lot to do with adaptation. But that just goes far beyond traditional development policy: We will see in Africa with climate change a decline in agricultural yields. But this can be avoided if the efficiency of production is increased – and especially if the African agricultural trade is embedded in the global economy. But for that we need to see that successful climate policy requires other global trade and financial policies.
Full Interview h/t to Dr. Benny Peiser at the GWPF
Major News ping!
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The Battle is going to the next level now!
ping for use in my daughters upcoming ‘climate change’ report.
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Donna Laframboise says:
I’ve done a post today about how at least four people named to work on the IPCC’s AR5 report are employees of something called the United Nations University.
So one UN body – the IPCC – appoints employees of another UN entity, whose “research” is assisted by still other UN bodies. That research is then brazenly presented to the press under the guise of a Media Training Workshop sponsored by the UNFCCC – the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Talk about inbreeding and nepotism.
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Geraldo Luís Lino says:
Almost twenty years ago, Maurice “Mr Carbon” Strong spilled all the beans about the true agenda of the environmentalist movement to the also Canadian prize-winner journalist Elaine Dewar. It’s all in her book “Cloak of Green” (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1995), that is mandatory reading for the understanding of this stuff. Last January, Potsdam Institute’s Herr Hans Joachim Schellnhuber also admitted to Der Spiegel that he was – literally – the inventor of the 2 degree “magic limit” mentioned by his countryman Edenhofer. So, there’s nothing new in such “confessions,” they come out from the self-sufficiency and arrogance of those who regard themseleves as the self-appointed movers and shakers of the world.
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James Sexton says:
Anyone still under the misconception that the U.N. is about world peace? It is well past time for the nations of the world to withdraw from such an enterprise. What is interesting, though, is that this economist is correct in many assertions he made.
That is so easy to say. But particularly the industrialized countries have a system that relies almost exclusively on fossil fuels. There is no historical precedent and no region in the world that has decoupled its economic growth from emissions. Thus, you cannot expect that India or China will regard CO2 emissions reduction as a great idea. And it gets worse: We are in the midst of a renaissance of coal, because oil and gas (sic) have become more expensive, but coal has not.
But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.
But the most important quote, Ottmar Edenhofer: So far economic growth has gone hand in hand with the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. One percent growth means one percent more emissions. The historic memory of mankind remembers: In order to get rich one has to burn coal, oil or gas. This remains true today and will tomorrow.
Sheesh, they don’t even pretend anymore
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Andrew30 says:
I expect that he is just cashing out. He has just written a new book and he is on a book tour. Controversy will help increase media attention (though in this case the MSM may completely censor this interview), which will increase sales. The book is not about the environment; it is about making him some money and perhaps line up a new job after Cancun.
See #11.
Well, there you have it. The agenda is now on the table after decades of dissimulation.
If they’re bold enough to say something like this, they have an Ace up their sleeve. Something’s up. They just put a effing bull’s eye on all of them.
Thanks for that. Just ticks me off so much how our schools are teaching this crap, meanwhile the country wonders what we can do to improve education.
And the ClimateGate one year anniversary was just a few days ago.
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kramer says:
Jimbo said:
As a result Cancun will be a bigger failure than Coenhagen. How many rich countries would agree to this? What if just China said no way?
The democrats (and a few RINOs) in our country would. For example, remember Clinton and Gore? They tried to get us to sign onto Kyoto and according to Cass Sunstien, America would have probably paid up to 80% of the costs of Kyoto and China and India would have probably received the bulk of these funds.
http://www.georgetownlawjournal.com/issues/pdf/96-5/Posner-Sunstein.PDF
I believe this move by Clinton to get us signed onto Kyoto was payback for the illegal contributions the communist Chinese government gave Clinton (and the DNC) in the ’90s. (Clinton also paid them back with PNTR and the result since then has been millions of jobs lost to China over the last 10 years.) What a legacy he left behind. And I didn’t even get into his role in the subprime economic mess.
Of course it is. (Thanks for posting, Ernest.)
Life, liberty and the pursuit and destruction of totalitarians.
It all boils down to this:
Henry Kissinger declared in the 1970’s, ‘If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population.
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Well doesn’t that just put the “D” in “Duh”. I have been saying that it was just a scam to scare people into buying into a “wealth redistribution” scheme for years.
How many years have people been saying this? 4, 5? At least. So it’s now coming out in the open as if it were a good thing. That’s the spin. The progressive agenda is a GOOD THING . It’s a good thing that we will all be “equal” ( equally miserable in reality). My answer to that: BITE ME.
Well timed earthquake, or meteorite blast. Accept no substitutes.
He’s from the IPCC and says this publicly? Did they drug him? Is the IPCC collectively suicidal now?
Nice to see he’s not even shy about admitting it.
Okay, this guy goes in the ‘evil’ bucket…
The Green Revoloution does a collective Facepalm.
“You’re supposed to keep that a secret!”.