Kyoto and its paradoxes
Milan (AsiaNews) -- The Kyoto treaty, today, enters into effect. It obliges countries worldwide to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as to reduce global warming. India, China and other emerging countries are exempt from the Kyoto protocol's initial phase, by which all other countries must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2%, between 2008 and 2012.
However, India and China are among the nations that pollute the most. Meeting Kyoto standards would have come at a huge cost to them. Economic growth in India, China and other emerging countries would have been slowed down greatly, to the detriment, it has been said, of the fight against underdevelopment and poverty in those countries. However, the great increase in the amount of fossil fuel being imported into these countries raises some doubts about the exemptions they will enjoy up to 2012. India is home to some of the most polluted cities in the world: in many of them, clouds of toxic fumes produced by automobiles and industries form a permanent blanket of smog that irritates eyes to the point of making them water. As in China, car sales in India are also booming: in 2004, car registration increased by 27.4%. A U.N. study warns that millions of people are at risk in South Asia due to the pollution blanketing large parts of the continent. A cloud of smog, 3 kilometres thick, stretches from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka, with its toxic mix of dust, acid compounds, aerosol and other fine particles. This cloud of pollution is causing considerable damage to agriculture (with acid rain ruining harvests), as well as significant climate change in the entire region.
Indian industry is refusing to take into consideration measures to limit the exponential expansion of local manufacturing. K. P. Nyati, an expert in environmental issues at the Indian Industry Confederation stated: "If India were to ever agree to limits on emissions, they would be on a per person basis, not a per nation basis."
Pollution in India, China and the United States
In fact, despite India's polluted cities and fast-paced industrialization, it has a relatively low pro-capita emission rate: about 0.25 tonnes in 2001. By comparison, the United States produces 22 times more pollution per person. India, however, contributes to the worldwide increase in toxic emissions at a rate of 3% per year, while the United States' contribution amounts to 1.5%. Furthermore, while India has a population of 1.05 billion people, the U.S. has a population of about 290 million. And while the United States covers an area of 9.6 million km2, India's territory amounts to 3.1 million km2, with 324 inhabitants for every square kilometre: 10 times more than density in the United States which amounts to 29/km2.
Figures in China differ but go in the same direction and cannot be overlooked as they are fundamental to how smog dissipates and to environmental impact. What counts most, however, is that the level of energy efficiency in India and China, as well as in other developing countries, is much lower than that of developed economies in the West. These differing levels mean that, for every percentage point increase in gross national product (GNP) in India and China, the increase in consumption of fossil fuels is relatively much higher and, consequently, so is the emission levels of carbon, fine particles and greenhouse gases.
Kyoto: a more confused and more polluted world?
Hence, Kyoto's first paradox: if a large part of the world's population is exempted from Kyoto parameters for understandable and valid reasons (2.3 billion of the world's population of 6 billion live in India and China), that creates the incentive to transfer pollution-intense production to countries that will carry out such production at even higher levels of pollution. It stands to reason, therefore, that the Kyoto protocol will likely cause an overall increase and not an overall decrease in pollution.
Kyoto's second paradox is that, on the basis of current climatic models, even if countries worldwide applied the treaty's parameters strictly, the effects of global warming would be postponed by only 6 years in 2100, but at a cost of about 150 billions dollars each year up to that date. Bjørn Lomborg, an expert on environmental problems (once a Green Peace activist and now an environmentalism critic), has a proposal: instead of spending such an enormous amount for so little benefit to climate in 100 years, would it not be better to spend that amount for other and much more urgent humanitarian emergencies? Lomborg points out for example that, according to a United Nations report, providing drinking water, hygienic services, basic medical care and education for the world's entire population would cost half that amount. In conclusion, the Kyoto paradox means spending an enormous amount to obtain scant climatic benefits, but also to devastate the world, in economic, social and political terms, as well as in terms of increased pollution. Various newspapers and environmentalists extol Kyoto as "a sacred undertaking" that comes to the rescue of "blue skies, green forests, and pure water".
We at AsiaNews have another view of the sacred, but respect all opinions. Our only hope is that environmental issues be debated on the basis of data and facts, and not on preconceived notions and the cultural fashion of the day.
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01/10/2021 13:28
