Carbon
trading allows
countries to
trade their
permits setting
out how
much carbon
dioxide they
can emit.
The trading
aspect of
Kyoto was
introduced at
the insistence
of the
United States
(which is
still refusing
to sign
the finalized
treaty). The
US was
keen to
be able
to increase
the amount
of carbon
dioxide it
could produce
and Russia
supported it
as it
was keen
to sell
its permits
as its
industry and
emissions had
reduced since
the benchmark
year of
1990 and
so it
wouldn’t
need its full allocation. Russia has still to sign
the treaty, however [it has been reported elsewhere that
advisors to
President Putin of Russia have suggested the effects
of global warming will be good for Russian agriculture
and economy].
There
are some
positive aspects
of the
Kyoto Protocol.
The fact
it exists
shows that
climate change
has become
a policy
issue. Virtually
all nations
have engaged
in the
policy negotiations,
even the
US. The
only parallel
is perhaps
the Montreal
Protocol on
pollutants damaging
to the
ozone layer
(it has
been suggested
that the
US supported
the Montreal
Protocol as
US company
duPont had
developed technology
to seize
the opportunities
it presented).
Kyoto
has prompted
the UK
Government to
introduce ambitious
targets in
its most
recent energy
white paper,
aiming to
cut carbon
emissions by
60% by
2050.
There
are however
fundamental problems
with the
Kyoto Protocol.
Firstly,
the treaty
comes into
force when
countries responsible
for 55%
of emissions
have signed
it. With
the US
refusing to
sign and
Russia prevaricating,
this will
not be
achieved.
Secondly,
the targets
are too
weak. The
UK Government
target is
more realistic,
but its
energy white
paper is
very light
on the
policies required
to deliver
such a
drastic reduction
in emissions.
It will
require re-ordering
of society.
Simply putting
extra taxes
on high
emission activities,
such as
on fuel,
will not
solve the
problem. The
experience with
tax on
fuel for
cars is
that people
complain, but
do not
change their
habits, largely
because society
is structured
around high
car use.
Thirdly,
Kyoto does
not provide
sufficient
incentives
for developing
countries to
join in
as they
attempt to
industrialise.
China
is presently
building many
coal and
gas-fired power
stations. Industrialised
countries are
not setting
an example.
Prior to
the Rio
Earth Summit,
George Bush
Sr. said, “The
American way of life is not up for negotiation.” That
view continues. Europe,
despite its willingness to
support
the Kyoto Protocol is not
on target to hit its weak
targets and European countries
remain bad.
The
role of the Simultaneous
Policy in achieving
sustainable energy us
[Presentation
by John Bunzl, Director
International Simultaneous Policy Organisation
Good evening.
Jonathan has given us an excellent summary of the various
problems associated with global warming and has given
some important
pointers to ways we can solve this globally threatening
phenomenon.
In the brief time I have to explain the Simultaneous Policy
and how it is likely to be relevant to our efforts to reduce
global warming emissions, I’d firstly like to ask you
to step back and take a more general perspective on what we
have already heard this evening. I’d like to suggest
that, in looking at the broader view, we can actually split
all the various actions and policies that are needed to solve
the climate problem into two broad categories. This categorisation
is vitally important because, as I shall explain, each requires
a very distinct and different implementation strategy. Indeed,
one important reason why we seem not to be getting very far
with the climate problem is very probably because we largely
fail to make this vital distinction and therefore fail to select
the right implementation strategy.
Now, the first of these two categories is what I will call
the “positive” category. It consists of any action
or policy that can be undertaken by any nation on its own – or
by any restricted group of nations such as the EU - without
impairing its international competitiveness or attractiveness
to international markets or corporations. An example of such
a policy would perhaps be government subsidies for the development
of new sustainable energy technologies. Indeed, such a policy
would probably enhance a nation’s competitiveness because
it would give its domestic producers an advantage over foreign
competitors. Clearly, any nation contemplating a policy likely
to enhance its competitive advantage will want to implement
it immediately in advance of other nations in order to benefit
from that advantage. This category is therefore called “positive” because
the policies would have a positive or neutral effect on a nation’s
competitiveness if implemented unilaterally.
The second category, by contrast, would encompass all
those policies that would likely have a negative impact
on a
nation’s
competitiveness or capital markets if implemented unilaterally
by any single nation or group of nations. An example for this
category could, perhaps, be higher taxes on polluting industries
or tighter environmental standards, both of which would increase
industry’s costs and thus risk their competitiveness
compared with industries in other countries. Clearly for this
negative category of policies, a transnational approach is
required because no nation can move first for fear of economic
competitive disadvantage. It is only this negative category
to which the Simultaneous Policy – SP for short – would
be relevant. So I will call this category the “negative” or “SP” category.
Having said that, I think you can already start to
see that many of the policies needed to solve not
just global
warming
but many of our other global problems – from arms control
to corporate power and from global poverty to tighter environmental
standards – all largely fall into this negative, or SP
category. Any nation unilaterally attempting to increase corporate
taxes or to tighten environmental regulations or to redistribute
wealth from rich to poor puts itself in danger of becoming “uncompetitive” as
global investors, corporations or other vested interests would
promptly switch employment or investment to some other economy.
So all the many vital measures needed to solve global problems
would be bundled together into the Simultaneous Policy.
The Kyoto Protocol, I suggest, is likely to be another
SP-type policy. This is because, not only do we
have the problem
of getting the world’s most polluting nation, the USA, to
participate, we also have the problem that the Protocol’s
stipulation of a 5% reduction in emissions below 1990 levels
is miserably inadequate and will do little to ameliorate climate
change anyway. Jonathan has said he thinks economists who advise
that reducing carbon emissions would be bad for the economy
of a country are incorrect, but what is important is the view
that politicians and business interests have formed. The argument
of competition between nations still applies.
We also need to ask why are the targets in the
Kyoto Protocol so inadequate? I suggest it’s precisely because of this
problem of international competitive disadvantage; a problem
that can be summarised as “destructive international
competition”.
Indeed, the Protocol is likely to proceed without
the USA’s
participation only because the present reductions it requires
are so pathetically minimal. As such, the loss of competitive
advantage likely to be suffered by those nations proceeding
with the Protocol is not likely to be significant compared
to nations such as the United States who will likely not proceed
with it. But were the provisions of Kyoto to require emissions
reductions of 50 or 60% – as most climate experts agree
would be needed if a really significant impact on global warming
is to be achieved – it is unlikely that any major nation
would be willing to proceed unless all did likewise because
the significant additional costs their industries would have
to bear compared to those of nations not participating would
not be economically sustainable: the competitive disadvantage
would simply be too great.
So, if we are to have a Kyoto Protocal and
other international agreements that have
a really significant
effect on
the environmental or economic problems they’re supposed to solve, we are
unlikely to get them unless all, or virtually all, nations
implement them simultaneously. And that, ladies and gentlemen
is precisely what SP aims to achieve: the simultaneous implementation
by all or sufficient nations of really significant policies
to solve global problems. And as I shall shortly explain, it
is ordinary citizens around the world – not politicians
or governments - who can use SP to lead and direct this process.
But why should citizens lead and not governments?
After all, don’t we elect governments to take care of these things
for us? Well, I’m afraid citizens must now take the lead
quite simply because national governments around the world
are stuck in a race to the bottom in which all politicians,
regardless of party, must, once in power, implement only market
and business friendly policies for fear of investment and jobs
moving elsewhere. This destructive international competition
effectively puts all politicians into a policy straitjacket
that prevents them from implementing the bold measures our
world predicament so clearly requires. It’s little wonder,
therefore, that many have already rightly concluded that we
no longer live in genuine democracies but merely in pseudo-democracies:
an electoral charade in which whatever party we vote for, much
the same market and business-friendly policies get implemented
and nothing much changes except that our problems only get
worse.
This policy straitjacket thus explains
why the world’s
former left-of-centre parties, such as Old Labour, have all
become virtually Thatcherite New Labours; and why even Green
parties, when they have come to power in countries like Germany,
are forced to jettison their key Green policy planks as they,
like all other parties, find themselves forced to maintain
their nation’s “international competitiveness” in
the global market.
So with all parties doing much the same
when they come to power, the public is
quite right
to ask:
what on
earth is
the point
of voting? Indeed, citizens all over
the world have increasingly – and
quite rightly - been demonstrating their frustration by not
bothering to vote at all. This, therefore, is how the destructive
international competition of the global market has made our
votes substantially meaningless. But strange and paradoxical
as it may sound, SP potentially offers voters and apathetic
voters alike a new and potentially very effective way in which
we can use our right to vote to act at the global level to
put an end to pseudo-democracy and to destructive competition;
a way we can, all act at the global level.
We citizens therefore need to recognise
that we can no longer look to governments
to solve
these
problems
on
their own.
We need a political tool or technology
that allows us to lead
governments to implement the necessary
policies at the global level. In doing
so, we will
not only solve
those
global problems,
we’ll also restore genuine democracy to nation states
and real political meaning to our votes. And SP, I humbly suggest,
is just such a tool or technology.
So what exactly is SP? Well, at the
risk of boring those of you here
who already
know, SP is two
things. As I
have already
hinted, it is firstly a range of
policy measures consisting of all and any
measure that fall
into the SP category.
But SP is also a political process
for bringing about the implementation
of those policies by all or virtually
all nations
simultaneously.
As a policy, therefore, SP will likely
include measures such as the re-regulation
of global
capital markets,
the taxation
of transnational corporations,
the cancellation of Third World debt,
the establishment
of higher world
environmental
standards
and measures to promote local economies.
Apart from a vastly strengthened
Kyoto Protocol, another measure,
for example,
could be a global tax on fossil
fuels which would make long-distance transportation
much more costly,
thus
making
locally produced
goods more competitive and so boosting
local economies all over the world
and reducing
emissions
into
the bargain. By
the same token, SP could redistribute
the
tax revenues mainly to poorer countries
to help
them out of
poverty and to enable
them to meet higher standards.
One
could perhaps say that SP would
consist of
all the measures
the Global
Justice
Movement is presently calling for
- but with the key condition that
they are each to be implemented
by all, or virtually all, nations
simultaneously.
But
the measures I have mentioned remain only provisional because
SP is not a
policy ‘cast in stone’ but,
rather, a ‘policy-in-the-making’:
a policy, the measures of which
all our members will gradually
define with
help of independent policy experts
in an open, flexible and democratic
fashion as the SP campaign progresses.
Indeed, this
meeting on sustainable energy
use is part of the process for
discussing and identifying what
SP’s policy content should
be. So that, in a nutshell, is
SP as a policy.
But
before explaining the other side of SP - SP as a political
process -
please remember that
the
stipulation
of “implementation
by all nations simultaneously” should not be understood
as a rigid, inflexible pre-condition. Because, by removing
governments' and business’s key objection of uncompetitiveness
and their fear of ‘first-mover disadvantage’, SP
represents a new and vital consensus-building strategy. It
provides the critical basis upon which governments can readily
say “yes” instead of “no” to policies
like the Tobin Tax or any other policy whose unilateral implementation
might threaten their international competitiveness. With SP
they can say ‘yes’ because simultaneous implementation
removes everyone’s risk of losing out. We can thus build
a consensus, if not of all nations, then of sufficient nations.
As I have said, however, SP
is also a process; a political
process
by
which politicians
and political parties
around the world can gradually
be brought to adopt SP in
principle and
then, finally, to implement
it, simultaneously,
when
all other nations do likewise.
I say ‘brought to adopt SP’ because
many politicians will not willingly adopt SP of their own volition.
We citizens will have to force them to do so and, fanciful
as it may at first seem, this can, I suggest, be achieved by
citizens around the world – you and me - simply signing
a piece of paper confirming our adoption of SP.
Adopting SP means that we
each make a personal commitment
to vote in
future elections
for ANY political party
or politician – within
reason – who also adopts SP. Or if, unlike me, you still
have a strong party-political preference, adopting SP signifies
your desire for your party to adopt it. So instead of choosing
passively between the largely redundant policy programmes served
up to us by today’s political parties, by adopting SP,
we’re turning the tables by saying to all politicians, “we’ll
vote for ANY OF YOU, within reason, that adopts SP”.
Now, with more and more
parliamentary seats – and even
entire elections - around the world being won or lost on very
small margins, this novel method of citizens pledging to vote
for any politician (within reason) that adopts SP should be
capable of presenting politicians in all countries and constituencies
with an attractive, yet compelling, “carrot and stick” proposition.
Since SP is only to be implemented simultaneously, there’s
absolutely no political risk to politicians who adopt it. Indeed,
they can adopt SP while continuing to pursue their existing
policy programmes until such time as all nations have adopted
and implementation proceeds. But failing to adopt SP could
cost them dearly, especially if they’re fighting closely
contested elections, for they’ll likely lose to rivals
who have adopted SP to attract the SP voting bloc. So SP’s
growing number of adopters – even if relatively few -
could make the vital difference between politicians winning
or losing their seats, or even an entire election. ….
So, as I’m sure you will have recognised, SP is a campaign
likely to appeal strongly to the world’s largest and
fastest growing political constituency: the apathetic/protest
voter! By not being a political party but instead by bringing
existing parties into competition with one another to adopt
SP, the International Simultaneous Policy Organsation hopes – with
the help of NGOs and activist groups around the world - to
become a novel and decisive political phenomenon capable of
ushering in a new era of global cooperation and mature international
community in which individual nations are freer than they are
today to pursue independent economic and social objectives
that protect local economies, local communities and our planet.
I therefore hope you’ll want to investigate the SP technology
further. The SP campaign is operating now in over 20 countries
around the world, local SP campaign groups are starting in
parliamentary constituencies around the UK, the Cambridge SP
Adopters Group being one of them. And just recently we got
the news that SP came in the top 10 in the PoliticsOnline worldwide
survey of initiatives changing the world of politics through
the internet. So, I hope you’ll want to join us by adopting
SP if you haven’t already. As the PoliticsOnline survey
suggests, SP is one very useful way you can now act globally
while continuing with any locally-focused campaigns or actions
you may already support. Instead of merely thinking globally
and acting locally, with SP we can now use our votes to act
globally as well!
Thank you very much
for your patience
and attention
and
I look forward
to any questions
you may
have and to a
lively debate.
John Bunzl – Founder and Director. January 2000
The
discussion
forum
on
the
BBC
iCan
site can
be
used
to
post
comments
and
suggestions
prompted
by
these
articles.
