Wither Kyoto
The Kyoto Accord represents a noble dream of countries recognizing their responsibility to our shared planet in the wake of humankind's rapacious appetite for and wasting of natural resources. It was an agreement made in the spirit of good global fellowship and an admission of poor past stewardship of the world's environment, ecology and natural resources. Alas, the very real and present danger to various countries' economies through deceleration of energy expenditure proved too egregious a price to pay for salving the collective conscience.Perhaps the real fly in the ointment was another kind of selective conscience; the realization that the economies of the first-world countries realized boom-time at the expense of emerging countries. And with that in mind the collective great minds of the assembled nations' politicians averred they had the will to effect meaningful and effective change to accrue to the benefit of mankind, present and future.
But, in the interests of fairness to emerging, lagging economies, no demands would be placed on them in the forms of restricted use of energy sources. Bad move. India and China, huge countries with immense populations representing a huge whack of the world's population, are moving into centre stage of economic development at a pace far outdistancing anything the developed countries experienced, reflective of populations.
China alone is responsible for a full one-third of world demand for energy for its rapidly emerging and expanding economy. An economy that has seen a startlingly-swift increase in relative prosperity for its population. And China is on the prowl for the acquisition of all manner of minerals and metals and energy sources to continue feeding the hungry maw of her rapacious economy.
At one time an exporter of coal, the People's Republic is now an frantically energetic importer of coal to stoke the furnaces of her economic expansion. Of course, gas and oil too, but coal is cheaper and goes a lot further, even as it despoils and fouls the atmosphere. Beijing has yet to be persuaded to sign on to a plan to curb carbon emissions, however slightly. For there is no halting this locomotive; it travels on a straight and true track to achievement with no stops in between.
In the advanced countries of the world, surfeit with economic success, we lay awake nights to worry and debate and invest in experimental and fringe potentials for energy production. Everything from the installation of home solar energy systems, to huge wind farms, to the most discredited form of energy production of all, bio-energy production from corn and other mealtime substitutes. In the hopes of sustaining our affluent, chugging-along lifestyles.
India's and more to the point, China's rapid and voracious consumption of energy to fuel her factories and farms, trucks and ever-increasing numbers of personal vehicles will handily submerge into nothingness any sacrificial advances in attempting to clear greenhouse gas emissions entertained by advanced economies. It's a fool's game, and we're the fools. We're entirely too competitive in nature as humans, all foraging and demanding our due, rather than co-operating and sharing, both opportunities and responsibilities.
Resource competition will only increase as the emerging economies ratchet up their needs and consumption. Energy will continue to become costlier, and with it the cost of all the goods, all the products, from edible consumables to hard goods that everyone is so desirous of acquiring, no holds barred. Some countries, less concerned and less committed to battling environmental degradation are in fact pedalling backward, returning to the use of coal-fired energy.
Oil is expensive and becoming more so all the time. Gas is relatively less expensive, but it too is reaching heights of unaffordability. And then there is coal. A natural and dependable resource more abundant than any other source of energy in this world. Despite all the research which has as yet gone into scrubbers and scientific ways to ensure that coal burns cleaner, more efficiently, it remains a dirtier, albeit far cheaper alternate for energy production than any other source.
Which leads us invariably to nuclear-derived energy. Which presents additional dilemmas. Costly to build and to operate, with always the deadly spectre of potential for danger in its use, it offers a cleaner alternative to the other energy sources. Cleaner in some respects. Deadlier in much others, since nuclear-waste storage is and will remain a problem; a highly dangerous commodity no one wants to think too much about.
Downright headache-inducing.
Labels: Environment, Political Realities, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, October 17, 2007
<< Home