CO2 Measures In A Single Country Don’t Make A Difference

By Collin Maessen on 13th March 2013comment

Climate Changes, But Facts Don’t: Debunking Monckton

On the 19th of July in 2011 the National Press Club of Australia held a debate on climate change. In this video I will be analysing the claims Monckton made during the debate and if they are correct or not.

The reason I’m doing this is that Monckton challenges his critics to check his sources, or like he put it in this debate “to do your homework”. I’m going to follow him up on this to see if the scientific literature, and other available sources, corroborate what he’s saying.

Watch this video on YouTube

Video description

On the 19th of July in 2011 the National Press Club of Australia held a debate on climate change. I will be analysing the claims Monckton made during the debate and if they are correct or not.

In this particular section of the debate Monckton makes the point that Australia alone cannot significantly impact global CO2 concentrations to make a difference. Which is true, the problem is, Australia isn't the only country reducing its emissions.

Transcript

And then Professor Denniss raised the question of the insurance principle. Just in case there might be a risk of a large asteroid hitting us we should spend 150 percent of global GDP for now and forever to try to make sure we have a large cricket bat to knock them out of the way again.

[Laughter]

And in the London insurance market we have a saying, and that is that if the cost of the premium, exceeds the cost of the risk, don't insure.

And that brings me to the carbon tax and the mineral resources rent tax. Now both of these taxes are going to cost more than the cost of letting global warming happen in the first place.

One question we should ask is how much global warming will a five per cent reduction in Australia's emission, which represent in turn 1.2 per cent of global emissions, actually achieve? Well, here's the numbers: 0.06 per cent of world carbon emissions remitted over the next 10 years, and the amount of carbon dioxide that would have been in the atmosphere, according to the IPCC, would fall from - wait for it - 412 to 411.987 parts per million. And this would forestall - wait for it again - 0.00007 Celsius degrees of global warming. This is consensus mainstream calculation and this is one-fourteen-thousandth of a Celsius degree. It is one-seven-hundredth of the threshold below which no modern method or instrument can detect any change in global temperature at all.

Monckton is forwarding the argument here that there is no sense in proceeding with reducing CO2 emissions if it is only Australia. It is true that if nobody else around the world is doing it no single country can make a significant dent in global CO2 emissions.

But there are several problems with this: Australia isn't alone. For example the European Union has a Carbon market, although it does have its issues. Also individual nations in Europe are pledging to become carbon neutral, which means that they won't be adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Two examples of countries which have done that are Iceland and Norway.

But there are several problems with this: Australia isn't alone. For example the European Union has a Carbon market that has been successful in reducing emissions. Also individual nations in Europe are pledging to become carbon neutral, which means that they won't be adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Two examples of countries which have done that are Iceland and Norway.

In the United States several states have joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which is a carbon trading market, in the effort to reduce emissions. These are, in dark red, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Also these states aren't the only states in the U.S. that have joined forces to reduce their carbon emissions.

There are many more examples of countries which are doing similar things. Unfortunately it isn't enough to stop the increase in CO2. In fact, the measures that most countries have implemented do not go far enough to reduce emissions, nor are they reducing emissions fast enough, according to what our best research indicates.

We do need an international treaty and coordinated approach to address this effectively. Australia isn't alone and adding it all up means they are making a difference. Also of note is that Monckton uses this argument in every single country he visits where they are considering implementing measures to reduce CO2 emissions.