Cutting greenhouse gas emissions will be more difficult than most imagine

There will be little chance for progress on international climate change talks until countries start openly dealing with the fact that there’s a direct link between fossil fuel use and economic development.

Bruce Pardy, an associate professor of law at Queen’s University, will tell Congress 09 that fossil fuels are the basis of our industrial economy, accounting for about 87 per cent of the total energy used in the world. Because of that they are – for the time being, at least – absolutely essential for economic development.

Developing countries therefore view any attempt to limit fossil fuel use as an attempt to hold them back economically.

“There’s a direct relationship between fossil fuels and development,” says Pardy, explaining that any country that says it intends to develop is actually saying it intends to increase its use of fossil fuels. That attitude colours international climate change talks, pitting the developing countries against the developed economies.

Developing countries on the one hand, and developed economies on the other, have fundamentally different views on how greenhouse gas emissions should be measured – views that are coloured by the impact cuts to emissions would have on their economies.

Pardy says that if emissions are measured on a per-capita basis, developed countries like Canada get labelled as the big producers – and therefore are seen as having to bear the biggest burden of emissions reductions.

But if emissions are measured on a per-country basis, it’s another ballgame altogether. On a per-country basis, Canada and China are virtually equal, says Pardy, and if that’s how things are measured, Canada and China should have an equal greenhouse gas reduction burden.

Developing countries – not surprisingly – prefer to measure on a per-capita basis.

“The attitude right now on the part of the developing nations is that the major work that has to be done in reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be done by the developed countries first,” says Pardy. “If we’re counting on a per-capita basis, Canada would have to reduce even though now it produces only one-ninth of what China produces.

“But when you add up all the emissions from the developing countries, the totals dwarf what’s coming out of Canada.”

Pardy says that in order for any progress to be made in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, everyone is going to have to agree on a definition. And whatever definition is chosen, it’s going to hurt someone, somewhere. “I think the first thing you have to do is say these things directly and out loud,” says Pardy. “Right now the debate is going on in an unclear way, and much of the history of climate change policy I would characterize as symbolic and nothing more.”

He says the Kyoto protocol was not designed to solve climate change, it was created to be a symbol.

“Governments and citizens are going to have to confront some unpleasant truths if we want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “It’s going to be much more difficult than people like Al Gore make it out to be.”