Climate change: a new approach
November 21st, 2007 by Jim JustThe key objective in the face of climate change is to reduce the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuel. Rather than limiting emissions, Chris Vernon at The Oil Drum: Europe proposes an alternative approach that totally ignores emissions but instead focuses on the extraction of fossil fuels from the ground.
The current climate change debate considers only demand. The solution is identified as behavioral and technological change delivering reduced demand and resulting emissions. The Kyoto Protocol attempts to achieve this by signatories all reducing their emissions by agreed percentages. The language of the climate change debate is emissions, national and per person. Carbon trading and offsetting is presented as a way of using the market to achieve cost effective emission reductions.
To be successful, any action that hopes to reduce the atmospheric CO2 concentration must result in reduced fossil fuel extraction. When considering action the following simple test should always be applied:
Will considered action leave fossil fuels in the ground that would otherwise be extracted?
An international climate change bill need have only one objective:
Annual fossil fuel extraction will reduce from year to year.
We haven’t had to convince billions of people, we haven’t had to build new vehicle fleets or infrastructure, we haven’t had to do anything other than pass and enforce a single line of legislation in a couple of dozen governments of fossil-fuel producing countries, many of whom already agree that climate change is serious enough to do something about. The resulting impact on emissions would be immediate.
Equitable considerations would have to be addresses, using an approach such as Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs).