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Forum convinces audience – carbon reduction not worth the money

Tony Chan | January 15, 2009 | 0 Comments

A debate on the motion ‘major reduction in carbon emissions are not worth the money’, held at the Symphony Space in New York City, managed to convince more than half of the 35% undecided voters to side with the idea.

The debate, which is scheduled to air on BBC World News on 7-8 March, was organised by Intelligence Squared U.S., an Oxford-style debate series sponsored by The Rosenkranz Foundation.

The results of surveys conducted before and after the debate show a large swing of the undecided voters in favour of the motion. Before the event, only 16% of the voters were for the motion, while 49% were against, and 35% were undecided. Following the debate, the group in favour of the motion surged to 42%, while those against dipped slight to 48%. 10% remained undecided.

Speaking for the motion were Peter Huber, author of “The Bottomless Well,” Bjorn Lomborg, author of “Cool It” and “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” and scientist and Emeritus Professor from the University of London, Philip Stott.

L. Hunter Lovins, president of Natural Capitalism Solutions, Oliver Tickell, author of “Kyoto2,” and Adam Werbach, global chief executive officer at Saatchi & Saatchi S, spoke against the motion.

BLAME IT ON THE POOR AND DISEASED
Speaking for the motion, Huber says: “We no longer control demand for carbon… The five billion poor people are already the main problem — not us. Collectively, the poor already emit twenty percent more greenhouse gas than we do. We burn a lot more carbon individually, of course, but they have a lot more children. Their fecundity has beaten out our gluttony and the gap is now widening very fast. China, not the United States, is now the largest emitter of greenhouse gas on the planet and it will soon be joined by others. It’s only a matter of time. And finally, the poor countries have made perfectly clear that they are not interested at all in spending what a low carbon diet would cost. They have more pressing problems.”

Lomborg added: “One quarter of all the world’s deaths are due to easily curable infectious diseases. The equivalent of the population of Florida, wiped off the map, each year. As an example, 1 million people die from malaria each year, and up to 2 billion people get the debilitating disease. Yet, my esteemed opponents will focus on how global warming will cause a slight increase in malaria 100 years from now, and suggest that we should fix that through inefficient carbon cuts… So, this is our chance. Our chance not just to feel good about helping the planet, but actually to do the right thing, the rational thing, and the morally correct thing. I commend this motion to you; do what’s rational, not just what’s fashionable.”

ECONOMICS TO DRIVE REDUCTIONS:
Speaking against the motion, Lovins said: “You know what’s going to get China to cut its carbon emissions? It’s not going to be you and me and it’s not going to be the government. It’s going to be Wal-Mart, which recently said to its Chinese suppliers, ‘You will report your carbon footprint through a little group called The Carbon Disclosure Project.’ Watch China’s emissions start to come down simply because that’s the way the best companies are doing business now.”

At the end of the day, the motion itself is a bit blurred around the edges and probably very US-centric. While it says reductions are not worth the money, it doesn’t exactly say whose money. Does it refer to subsidies from the developed countries to the developing world for low-carbon technologies and energy solutions? Or does it refer to money that the developing world must come up with if it wants to adopt low-carbon solutions?

Meanwhile, the argument that China is now the biggest emitter of emission is misleading, giving the fact that a big chunk of those emissions are used to make goods headed to the US. Simply put, the US, no doubt the highest per-capita emissions country in the world today, also outsources a lot of its production, hence emissions, to the developing world.

Like the Walmart example, US companies can control emissions in some ways, they just doesn’t want to because they might have to pay more for the goods.

I for one am not convinced.

A full transcript of this debate will be available at http://intelligencesquaredus.org/Event.aspx?Event=32