Some Straight Thinking About G-8 and Climate Change
By S Fred Singer

As heads of G8 nations meet in Scotland on July 6-8, Britain's prime minister Tony Blair has set two chief priorities: fighting poverty in Africa and settling the science of climate change - or more correctly, of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). It seems to have escaped notice that these goals conflict: A higher living standard means more energy use and, inevitably, more greenhouse (GH) gas emission.

It's time for some straight thinking.

First, a hopeful sign. Blair seems to agree with George Bush that the science is still uncertain. At the World Economic Summit in Davos last Jan 26, he emphasized the ongoing debates among climate scientists: "So it would be true to say the evidence [on anthropogenic global warming -- AGW] is still disputed." < http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page7006.asp>.

Right. Yet that's not what his own science adviser keeps preaching, ignoring the many hundreds who disagree. According to Sir David King: "Global warming is a greater threat than terrorism" and "Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked." But independent data, from both weather satellites and balloons, do not show appreciable atmospheric warming.

The Royal Society, Britain's science academy, has managed to sign up other academies, including the US National Academy, to a much-hyped Statement endorsing AGW; it basically regurgitates the 2001 conclusions of the UN-sponsored IPCC. But these lean heavily on the so-called "hockey stick" graph of global temperatures, which claims that the 20th century was the warmest in 1000 years, a claim that has since been discredited. It is no surprise, therefore, that Russian climate scientists have called on the president of their Academy to retract his signature.

The consensus seems to be unraveling. As the BBC reports on July 5, the president of the US National Academy of Sciences, Bruce Alberts, has taken exception to the Royal Society's press release accompanying the statement. It claimed that US Government policy on climate change was misguided, and that the Bush administration had consistently failed the advice of American scientists. In a strongly worded letter, Bruce Alberts accuses the Royal Society of misrepresenting the NAS position, considerably changing the meaning and intend of a report the Academy published in 1991, which forms the basis of their policy. "As you may appreciate, having your own interpretation of US Academy work widely quoted in our press has caused considerable confusion, both at my academy and in our Government."

Anyway, the sum total of the academies' recommendations is "cost-effective energy conservation." We can all agree on that - even without consensus on AGW. Conservation can save money by cutting waste, but it has negligible impact on atmosphere and climate, and won't make energy resources sustainable. At best it will slow down somewhat the inevitable rise in the world price of oil -- as low-cost oil becomes depleted. This will benefit all oil consumers, ESP in China. Conservation will also slow down our increasing rate of oil imports. We conducted such an experiment in conservation when automobile fuel efficiency doubled in the past few decades. Yet imports and prices have increased.

In his June 29 op-ed "Greenhouse Hypocrisy," Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson points out that scientists don't know "how much warming will occur, what the effects (good or bad) will be or where." Yet "politicians and [some] scientists constantly warn of the grim outlook [from AGW]. But all this sound and fury is mainly exhibitionism -- politicians pretending they're saving the planet. The truth is that, barring major technological advances, they can't (and won't) do much about global warming."

But many of the highly touted technological solutions are just pipedreams: "Clean coal" programs do reduce pollution but at the cost of using energy, i.e. emitting more CO2 - a terrible dilemma for those who maintain that CO2 is a pollutant. "Sequestration " of CO2, i.e. removing it from combustion gases in the smokestack and storing it underground or in the ocean, is wildly expensive, roughly doubling the cost of electric power. (Another way of looking at sequestration: We need twice as many plants to produce the same amount of electric power.) And the hydrogen economy faces many tough problems -above all, an economic method to manufacture the stuff.

Samuelson refers to Europe as the "citadel of hypocrisy." Having ratified the Kyoto Protocol, most European nations (and Canada and Japan) are unlikely to meet their Kyoto targets; but there are no real penalties for cheaters. Besides, Kyoto-sanctioned trading schemes -- buying up unused emission rights, mainly from Eastern Europe -- amount to legalized cheating; they don't reduce actual emissions. They mainly transfer money from West European consumers to Russia.

In the United States we have our own display of hot air: grandstanding from attorneys-general suing power companies -- for emitting CO2 while supplying needed electricity; grandiose declarations from the U.S. Conference of Mayors; even an impossible target from the governor of California; and abject surrender from CEOs of major corporations to politically inspired shareholders' resolutions. The US Senate just passed energy legislation, but turned down decisively the McCain-Lieberman bill to impose mandatory emission cuts, and also dropped similar efforts by Senator Bingaman that would have faced certain defeat. Instead, the Senate passed a nonbinding resolution endorsing a

"program of mandatory, market-based limits and incentives on emissions of greenhouse gases … that--(1) will not significantly harm the United States economy; and (2) will encourage comparable action by other nations that are major trading partners and key contributors to global emissions."

In other words, a great big "nothing-burger." It is functionally equivalent to the 1997 Byrd-Hagel Resolution in which the Senate voted 95:0 against any Kyoto-like treaty unless the same two conditions are satisfied.

A final word about the conflicting goals of the G8: Alleviating poverty in Africa will increase energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Just look at China. But cynics have already concluded that neither goal is realistic, and that G8 is mainly a sop to enviros and left-wing Laborites. Tony Blair's real concerns are reducing Britain's disproportionate contribution to the EU budget and paring down subsidies to French farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy. CAP now consumes 40% of the EU budget. Ah, but there is a French election coming up. What was that we said about political hypocrisy?
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S. FRED SINGER 7/5/2005
The writer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, has served as a consultant to the secretaries of Energy and the Treasury. An atmospheric physicist, he was founding director of the US Weather Satellite Service.
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Supporting Material

ROYAL SOCIETY ISOLATED, AS US NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES THREATENS TO WITHDRAW FROM FUTURE COOPERATION

BBC Radio 4, Today Programme, 5 July 2005, (transcript)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/

James Naughty: Only last month we reported that the scientific academies of the world's leading industrialised nations had agreed a statement, pretty well unprecedented, urging their governments to take prompt action on global warming. Climate change was real, it said, human activities had caused atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to rise, above pre-industrial levels, there was a need to take action to reduce the causes of climate change.

Now that consensus seems to be unravelling. A few days after that joined statement - there was a great fanfare about it, you remember, at the Royal Society in London, the president of the American National Academy of Sciences, Bruce Albert, fired off a pretty angry letter to the president of the Royal Society here, Lord May, accusing him of misrepresenting their position.
Our science correspondent, Tom Feilden, is in the middle of all this and watching it.

Tom, just remind us of the background here.

Tom Feilden: Well, as you said. It all goes back to the beginning of June when the world's leading scientists issued this unprecedented joined statement. Setting out the consensus view, if you like, on climate change ahead of the G8 summit.

Now, exactly how climate is changing and how much of burning fossil fuels is to blame, has really been a major bon of contention in the whole debate over global warming. And this was a statement that a majority of American scientists, crucially, felt they could sign up to. It was certainly presented in that way that whatever we may choose to do or say about climate change - one thing was certain: the facts, the science was clear.

Jim Naughty: And what are the Americans now saying?

Tom Feilden: It seems that the president of the US National Academy of Sciences, Bruce Albert, has taken exception to the way the Royal Society has spun the story, if you like, in a press release issued to accompany the text of the statement. Now, in it, the Royal Society's Lord May claimed that the US Government policy on climate change was misguided, and that the Bush administration had consistently failed the advice of American scientists.

In his strongly worded - it has to be said - letter, Bruce Albert says he is dismayed by that and accuses the Royal Society of misrepresenting their position, considerably changing the meaning and intend of a report the Academy published in 1992, which forms the basis of their policy. Now, he makes clear that Lord May's comments have caused a great deal of trouble behind the scenes in Washington and even threatens to withdraw from future collaborative efforts with the Royal Society:

"As you may appreciate, having your own interpretation of US Academy work widely
quoted in our press has caused considerable confusion, both at my academy and in
our Government. By advertising our work in this way, you have, in fact, vitiated
much of the careful effort that went into preparing the actual G8 statement."

Jim Naughty: The words of Bruce Albert from the United States. What is the Royal Society saying in response?

Tom Feilden: The Society wouldn't put up anyone for interview this morning, but they did stress that this is a row about a press release, not about the joined statement on climate change, that stands and is not being challenged.

They have sent me a copy of Lord May's reply to Bruce Albert. And it starts with a pretty forensic line-by-line rebuttal of the points he makes in his complaint. It rejects the idea that the press release misrepresented the Academy's position. Lord May does acknowledge that the political sensitivity of the issue in the US is very severe:

"I understand that the Academy may have received criticism for re-stating its position so clearly and so appropriately now. It is clearly not a politically convenient message for the US Government, particularly at a time when media reports have suggested that there have been attempts to doctor official documents relating to the science of climate change. I am confident that we acted perfectly properly in this matter, and am surprised at your comments."