Conservative Principles Now

The Heritage Foundation’s Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman are live at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference reporting from a conservative perspective. Follow their reports on The Foundry and at the Copenhagen Consequences Web site.

Rather than the much anticipated (by environmental activists) or much feared (by those concerned about the economy and American sovereignty) binding new greenhouse gas emission reduction targets to replace the expiring provisions in the existing Kyoto Protocol, the final Copenhagen agreement is shaping up to be much less than that. Though this modest outcome had been anticipated for months, the reality of it is a disappointment (or relief) to those following this issue. It now looks like all that will come out of this conference is a political agreement that sets out broad goals but leaves all the difficult details to be worked out next year - and even that is running into last minute difficulties.

Though the Obama administration and others will try to spin this as a breakthrough, it is important to remember that for nearly two years, Copenhagen had been hyped as that critical future meeting where everything will be hammered out. Now the can is getting kicked down the road yet again.

It won’t get any easier in 2010. The problems that derailed a major agreement here in Copenhagen are not going away. Most stem from the sky high cost of reducing emissions from fossil fuel use and the impact they would have on energy prices, jobs, and the overall economies of any nation that undertakes them. That the global recession is lingering only makes this expensive pill even harder to swallow. Most significantly, China, India and other fast developing nations still want exemptions from binding emissions reductions. However, since their emissions growth will dominate in the decades ahead (China already out-emits the US and its growth is projected to be 9 times faster than ours), leaving them out would make any agreement futile.

President Obama’s speech was remarkably uneventful and broke no new ground. Simply put, he cannot promise more here in Copenhagen than he can deliver in Washington. Cap and trade legislation is stalled in the Senate and faces a difficult battle ahead. After all, 2010 is an election year, and the American public’s interest in expensive solutions to global warming - which was never high in the first place - is declining. A costly climate bill would be even less popular than legislation as it would raise sovereignty concerns as well. Even the administration’s new pledge to contribute to a $100 billion annual fund to assist developing nations in addressing global warming - such income transfers is the only real reason many poor nations have any interest in these negotiations - is also unlikely to make it through a Congress that will soon face an electorate angry over runaway spending and the poor domestic economy.

One of the elephants in the room here in Copenhagen has been Climategate - the release of emails and other documents evidencing gross misconduct amongst some of the key scientists involved in the main United Nations scientific report that was to be relied upon here. The fact that temperatures have been flat for over a decade only adds to the justifiably growing public skepticism whether global warming really is a crisis.

Negotiations will probably continue into Saturday, but all that appears to be in the cards is some face saving agreement to agree at a later date. So, they’ll try again in 2010. Perhaps the Heritage Foundation’s Copenhagen team should start planning for the next big global warming conference in Mexico City next November!

Forget the dire economic consequences of a Copenhagen climate change treaty for a second and think about the fraud involved.

Carbon Trading Fraud

Take the European Union, for instance, which implemented a carbon trading scheme analogous to a cap and trade system. And it has been fraught with fraud. French officials are investigating a $230 million carbon trading fraud scheme and this is only the tip of the iceberg in what is a startling revelation and huge blow to the climate talks in Copenhagen:

Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement arm against organized crime, announced on Wednesday that carbon-trading fraud has cost the bloc’s governments $7.4 billion in lost tax revenue over the last 18 months.

“We have an ongoing investigation,’’ said Soren Pedersen, Europol’s chief spokesman, in a telephone interview on Thursday from The Hague. “We’re afraid the fraud is not completely finished yet, unfortunately. But it’s positive to see that actions are being taken and we hope soon it will disappear.”

These Enronesque situations will inevitably occur in the United States, guaranteeing that emissions will not be reduced, but what it will do is invite more burdensome regulations that thwart economic activity, adding on to the economic pain of higher energy prices as a result of carbon caps. It allows for corporations to manipulate a system at the expense of the consumer and the taxpayer while giving the market economy a bad name. This is not a market economy; it’s fraud and deceit that results from politicians trying to create their own desirable system.

Moreover, since the United States is largely blamed for “causing the climate catastrophe”, other countries will be monitoring the U.S. while they fall short of their own emissions targets and other treaty requirements.

Global Warming’s Robin Hood

Sadly, that’s not the only scandal at Copenhagen. The way things are going between developed nations and developing nations at Copenhagen, one would think that Robin Hood was the secretary-general of the United Nations, not Ban Ki Moon. One of the underlying themes has been to take from the rich and give to the poor…to fight climate change, of course. George Soros said $100 billion in funds from developed countries to developing ones “could just turn this conference from failure to success.”

Or it could add to the fraud of the climate change debate. Why wouldn’t leaders of developing countries play the global warming blame game if they can secure billions of dollars?

Scandalous Science

Then there’s the scandal behind the whole reason for cap and trade and climate treaties: the scientific consensus. Climategate revealed conspiracy, exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction and manipulation of data, and attempts to freeze out dissenting scientists from publishing their work in reputable journals.

Although proponents of cap and trade, Environmental Protection Agency regulations and/or climate treaties argue that now is the time for urgency, the reality is just the opposite is true. Now, more than ever, is the time to pull back the reigns on expensive global warming regulations.