A week ago, Kurt Volker, a U.S. State Department official, gave a speech to a German audience at a meeting of the German Marshall Fund. The subject was climate policy in the United States as compared to our European counterparts, and it sought to examine targets and results instead of treaties signed, or promises made. And if Europeans could read some real numbers through the fog of anti-Americanism clouding their view, they just might climb down off their high horses. (Ha!)
It would be helpful too, if the German media were to give the speech some coverage for the people. Alas, no such luck. Davids Medienkritik has the link to the full text. I have excerpted liberally anyway...
Let me start first with the data, because it is important to have the facts on the table. No question: The United States is the world's largest emitter of CO2. Everybody in the room knows this. But this fact says no more about the United States, than the fact that Germany leads Europe in emissions says about Germany.The United States is number one in greenhouse gas emissions primarily because it is the number one economy in the world. With 5% of the world's population we produce 25% of global wealth. And despite being relatively clean and green, Germany leads Europe in emissions, because it is Europe's largest economy. Our emissions are not out of line with the size of our economy. And it's worth noting: the International Energy Agency is forecasting that China, with a smaller economy, is expected to surpass U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2009.
More important than current emissions is the trend line. What is actually happening to emissions? Are they being reduced? This, after all, is what Kyoto is supposed to address.
According to data from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, from 2000-2004--the most recent period for which we have good, comparative data--U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased by 1.3 percent. This is an increase, but a very modest increase. The EU-25, on the other hand, increased collective emissions by 2.1 percent.
---Posted by dan at February 19, 2007 1:05 AMGermany, I should state, had an admirable record of actually cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 0.7 percent during this time period--but Germany's efforts were overshadowed by increases in most other EU economies.
Now let's be honest--even a 2.4 percent increase for the EU-15 is a very modest increase. But given the way this issue gets talked about publicly in Europe, I would venture to say that few people in Europe know that from 2000 to 2004, EU-15 emissions grew at nearly double the U.S. rate, and that Europe, at least during this period, has been moving away from-not towards-its Kyoto target of an 8 percent cut. (...)
Now notice something else. This time period of 2000 to 2004 was a period of rapid economic growth in the United States. Between 2000 and 2004 we grew our economy by almost 1.9 trillion dollars (or nearly 1.46 trillion Euros). That's about the equivalent of adding Italy to the U.S. economy. And we increased our population by 11.3 million people--adding more than the population of Greece. And yet our emissions grew only 1.3 percent--that tells you a lot about how the U.S. economy is already changing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
It is of course very hard if not impossible to see an actual decrease in emissions when both your economy and population are growing, though we came close. So how do we get a better measure of what is really happening? We do that by measuring the greenhouse gas intensity of an economy--that is, greenhouse emissions per unit of GDP. As our economy soared, our emissions rose only slightly; from 2000 to 2004, we reduced the greenhouse gas intensity of the U.S. economy by 7.5 percent. That is a good result.
How did the EU-25 perform? They also saw a reduction in greenhouse gas intensity. Theirs was about 4.5 percent. Also a good result, though not quite as steep a decline as the United States.
How did the United States achieve this lower emissions intensity ratio? By working very hard to bring cleaner technology into the marketplace. Through a combination of targeted market decisions, incentives, voluntary partnerships and mandates, the Administration's policies have helped speed the deployment of cleaner technology.
And this is the key: Kyoto provides a target for emissions reductions. To actually cut the emissions -whether one is a Kyoto country or not--one needs to put new, cleaner technology in place. And this is where the United States is leading the world. Our approach is producing concrete results, even as our economy expands.