A shift of leadership

On Wednesday I mentioned the 160 odd countries that have ratified Kyoto (actually169 as of December 2006) and the two countries that have refused. USA and Australia are those two countries; they have signed the protocol document (agreed with it in principle) but refused to ratify (no implementation) showing what a lack of leadership two great countries can have.

Right now the only thing we need is leadership. Let me explore that thought…..

Over the past 10 years (coincidentally during the Bush administration) Leadership for Environmental Policy has migrated from the US to EU (European Union). At the same time enlightened companies (many of them US based multinationals) have changed from a Policy of controlling production waste (air, water and land pollution) to a Policy of preventing waste. That is they have sort to reduce their output of chemicals and gases (spilt from chimneys, waste water and landfill creation). They have, of their own initiative, sort to reduce their formation of Greenhouse Gas. The sensitivity for industrial output, as a result of their operations is (ie through electrical consumption of fossil fired power generation, and transport) is becoming more inline with what the needs of society are…... It is a heartening trend in industry but not in some Government Policy.

Now this is what I mean about leadership. While the U.S represents only five percent of the world's population, it consumes 25 percent of its energy and generates about 25 percent of its total greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. citizens, for example, use more energy per capita for transportation than do citizens of any other industrialized nation. With those statistics what is the US government doing? The US government seems to support the fact that the consumption of the average car in the USA is way under that of say the average car in China or Japan. In fact if you compare car standards in China you will see that fuel consumption is about 3 times better than the average American car. Why won’t the US leadership do something about that?

The consumption of the average car in Europe is better than that of China, and the fuel prices are manipulated to ensure that consumers are fuel consumption sensitive. Australia also has the “World Price Parity” policy on fuel pricing despite the fact that it is over 70% self sufficient on fuel production. It is the consumer in the end that will dictate the consumption demanded by the vehicles they buy; so governments can and do act to work on the pricing of fossil fuels to adjust the demand. Some figures I saw recently showed that in fact the American public is very price sensitive, and an increase in US fuel prices to world parity levels would drastically cut consumption at the motorist level. This shows the lack of appetite for addressing the problem at a political level in the US (again demonstrating lack of leadership).

We can look further than the humble car. We can look to the use of renewable energy sources in electricity production. The countries of the European Union, taken together, constitute the leading world power in the development and application of renewable energies. Promotion of renewable energies plays an important role both in the reduction of the EU dependence on foreign energy imports and in the measures which it must take to combat climate change.

The Maastricht Treaty set an objective of promoting stable growth that is also protective of the environment. The Amsterdam Treaty added the principle of sustainable development to the objectives of the EU. Since 1997, the EU has been working towards a having renewable energies supply 12% of total EU energy consumption in 2010.

In the European Conference for Renewable Energy (Berlin 2004), the EU defined more ambitious goals. The recommendation is to meet a 20% of total energy consumption requirements with renewable energy sources by 2020. The EU and other nations have formed the group of "pioneer countries", to establish further go-getting national or even regional goals to achieve global targets. A key organization in this scheme is the Johannesburg Renewable Energy Coalition (JREC) has a total of more than 80 member countries, the EU, Brazil, South Africa and New Zealand among others. It is ambitious targets and goals set by these governments that clearly demonstrate where the leadership resides in respect of Climate Change and Green House gas reduction in the world. It’s not unfortunately in Australia or America.