Nigel Lawson, a former minister in Margaret Thacher's cabinet, is one of many pointing out that the Copenhagen conference failed. He offers plan B.
He argues that the main problem is that five billion people in poor countries will not stop using cheap carbon based energy as long as they are poor - no matter what the rich countries do (and we can't afford to buy all the alternative energy for them). Most growth in carbon emission will be from those countries. His analysis is fair. His conclusion: There could be no real reduction in carbon emission. His solution: invest the 100 billion oferred by developed countries in preparing for the damage warming will do to the world.
I, for one, think both his conclusion and his charitable solution are misguided.
His conclusion comes from the misplaced notion that developing nations are incapable of leapfrogging our mistake. His solution comes from the assumption that developed countries are benevolent. His plan is trickle-down economics on a global scale. Do we really want to try it again?
I, for one,
think we can solve this based on progressive principles: Be an example, invest in education and self-empowerment, invest especially in women rights, and collaborate with developing nations as if and until they are equal technologically and socially.
- Example to the world: The developed world should be an example by switching to alternative energy everywhere we can, improving the standard of living of the poor in our countries, and reducing personal carbon footprint, so that the developing countries will want to emulate us. Collaboration between developed nations can also help. For example, the developed world should collaborate on wind power from the ocean and on land, because that's where wind potential is. We should also collaborate on heat-capacity "geothermal" heating and cooling - because this will account for 30-70% reduction in heating energy that cannot be avoided in our countries. We should also keep on working on fusion-research. (Personally I believe that we should not rush into fission based nuclear power-plants, since we don't have enough scientists and engineers in that area which means another Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl events before even mentioning the storage problem).
- Female empowerment and education: If one looks at the countries that still have huge population increases it is clear that there is a strong anti-corellation with women education. Some of you may recall that Democratic candidate Jerry Brown in his 1990 campaign louded women empowerment as his number one foreign policy issue. We are now in Afghanistan. Enough said. We should start there: Return women rights as a pillar of our foreign policy. Of course, increase in population in developing countries is the number one issue and should be taken care of.
- G20 should invest in DEVELOPING THE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY INDUSTRY IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD! Educate them with a new "Peace Corps"-like initiatives. Lets call it: "Green Corps". After all, where is it best to develop solar energy, if not near the equator? Imagine South American and African locations for the "silicone valley" of Solar energy! (You may say I am a dreamer - but I have enough friends from those parts of the world that have the education. What they don't have is initial investments, and political support). In short, we are the world, and when we are working together as teams we can solve our toughest problems.
UPDATE/NOTE: Nuclear fusion power, and even recycling of nuclear fission fuel, are not yet available and we do not know that it will be available.