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Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007 JAPAN TIMES
The vanity in 'green' virtues
By DAVID HOWELL
LONDON — When it comes to energy efficiency and a greener future, Japan
has got itself very well-organized these days — some would even say
over-organized.
Ties are discarded in the office and shirt sleeves rolled up, with air
conditioners turned down in summer. Householders scrupulously sort every
bottle, bottle top and waste item into a number of categories, every
product and activity has its "eco" label, recycling is everywhere,
super-economical vehicles pour from the factories, roads and streets are
spotless (except for cigarette butts), cleaner and better infrastructure
systems are in place, and greener buildings have sprung up.
In short, a better environment all round is visibly taking shape and the
grubbier aspects of 20th-century industrialization are fading away.
For the visitor to Japan, all this is remarkable and commendable. It makes
Europe seem rather messy and old-fashioned. But there is a colossal snag.
True, if the aim of this virtuous activity is to cut air pollution, make
life more pleasant and healthy, encourage a calmer and more spiritual
lifestyle in the near future, and cut utility bills and enhance national
energy security, it may well succeed and provide many lessons from which
other countries can learn.
But if the aim in the long term is to reduce the invisible greenhouse
gases that are warming up the atmosphere, it could turn out to make no
difference at all.
Why is this? The answer for Japan, in a word, is "China." China is now set
to become the world's largest emitter of CO2and other greenhouse gases,
bigger even than the United States. Unless and until that CO2ceases to
pour into the atmosphere in ever more millions of tons, and unless the
same applies to India and the developing world, all the virtuous efforts
of the rest of the planet will be marginal.
The atmosphere, regrettably, knows no national boundaries. CO2emissions in
profusion will blow over Japan and indeed around the globe. It is already
doing so. The promises of both Japanese and European politicians,
CO2reduction targets, elaborate carbon pricing schemes, bold international
declarations could turn out to be in vain.
Or, put another way, the very best behavior and the very strongest green
commitment by advanced societies will not be enough. The rate of carbon
being added to the world's atmosphere, and the total volume in the
atmosphere, will continue to rise unless the Chinese and the Indians — a
third of the human race — also find a low-carbon route to a more
prosperous future.
At the moment that looks unlikely. It is not just the Americans who are
reluctant to embrace carbon-cutting targets in a second Kyoto agreement.
The Chinese, Indians and others on the path to industrialization say that
they must put economic growth first; besides, it was industrialized
nations who caused the problem, so they should sort it out.
Well, perhaps they should, but in fact they cannot — or not unless they
can help the developing world somehow to switch, and switch soon, to lower
carbon energy sources. This means three things:
Overcoming the challenge of clean coal burning, using coal with the carbon
sequestrated and siphoned away, and doing this without burdening the poor
with extra costs. India's and China's massive coal reserves are going to
be burned anyway. If old methods are used, we have lost the greenhouse-gas
battle.
Rapidly developing and expanding safe and economical nuclear-power
generation plants while solving the waste problems. For developed and
developing countries alike, the future is going to be electric, and this
electricity must be cheap and clean.
Pushing ahead faster than ever with the so-far successful moves to
transform transportation to low-energy consumption — less oil, lighter
materials and safer vehicles. Each year from now, some 50 million (yes, 50
million) new vehicles will come on the roads, many of those in China
alone. If they are gas-guzzlers or conventional cars, then again we are
lost.
The Chinese problem is the most serious, even more so than India's,
because the Chinese political system's survival depends on continued rapid
economic growth. That has priority if the enriched class who run China is
to survive.
Unless the advanced world can focus its entire effort on meeting these
three challenges, and help developing nations achieve cheap but clean
energy, the long-term goals of carbon emission reductions just won't be
reached, and that will make people very angry.
In the green debate as a whole, a seam of dishonesty exists that needs to
be purged. All efforts in the advanced countries to achieve a less
polluted environment immediately will bring good results and must be
continued. But all suggestions that these efforts will also curb
greenhouse gases in the decades ahead will be empty unless the huge
developing nations can be brought into the equation.
So the policymakers and promoters of a greener world should be careful.
They should not promise what they cannot deliver and they should be open
about the real challenges. They should warn their publics that while
national efforts alone can certainly put greener and more energy-secure
prospects in reach, they cannot deliver the low-carbon world so often
promised. That can come only from international cooperative endeavors on a
titanic scale that embrace the awakening developing giants.
And toward that mighty goal the first faltering steps have yet to be
taken.
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