Thursday, December 21, 2006

Kyoto and emissions trading a really good idea like dehydrated water

The media accelerated Climate change politicization ,has seen the western democracies politicians across the spectrum jumping onto the bandwagon of feel good environmental issues and embracing mechanisms that will accentuate the relegation of the western world and the OECD countries to theme parks visited by rich Asians .

In the early 1990’s the Economist predicted Asia excluding Japan will account for 57 percent of the global economy by 2050,the OECD will have 12%.In 1990 the OECD had 74% and Asia 9 %.The increasing foreign reserves of Asia, growth, and market economies removal of beaurecratic roadblocks and inertia are some of the reasons ,other are the ability to turn a 5 million dollar cost into a 500 million dollar income stream from western taxpayers through the emissions trading schemes (no wonder Al Gore and his emission trading company are globally active).

Even as hundreds of millions of dollars from the program are devoted to the refrigerant industry, countries in sub-Saharan Africa, which were originally envisioned as big beneficiaries of emissions trading, are receiving almost nothing. Just four nations — China, India, Brazil and South Korea — are collecting four-fifths of the payments under the program, with China alone collecting almost half.

Two-thirds of the payments are going to projects to eliminate HFC-23.
Those payments also illustrate conflicting goals under Kyoto and the Montreal Protocol, a 1987 agreement that requires the phasing out of ozone-depleting substances. The problem is that the trading program backed by the United Nations, known as the Clean Development Mechanism, is helping support an industry that another international organization is trying to phase out.

Under the program, businesses in wealthier nations of Europe and in Japan help pay to reduce pollution in poorer ones as a way of staying within government limits for emitting climate-changing gases like carbon dioxide, as part of the Kyoto Protocol.
Among their targets is a large rusting chemical factory here in southeastern China. Its emissions of just one waste gas contribute as much to global warming each year as the emissions from a million American cars, each driven 12,000 miles.

Cleaning up this factory will require an incinerator that costs $5 million — far less than the cost of cleaning up so many cars, or other sources of pollution in Europe and Japan.

Yet the foreign companies will pay roughly $500 million for the incinerator — 100 times what it cost. The high price is set in a European-based market in carbon dioxide emissions. Because the waste gas has a far more powerful effect on global warming than carbon dioxide emissions, the foreign businesses must pay a premium far beyond the cost of the actual cleanup.

1 Comments:

Blogger maksimovich said...

generation investment management.he is in partnership with David Blood (oil will be $100 barrel Goldman Sachs)

http://www.generationim.com/foundation/

3:40 PM  

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