by Paul K. Driessen
Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services
October 2003

WASHINGTON, DC, October 2003 ¾ Kudos to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Not only did he resist intense pressure from French President Jacques Chirac and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan – and announce that Russia was not going to ratify the controversial Kyoto global climate change treaty anytime soon. He also demonstrated that his nation permits more robust debate on this topic than does the European Union or New York Times.

A decision will be made only after his government thoroughly studies the issue, Putin emphasized. “And, of course, it will take into account the national interests of the Russian Federation.”

Global warming alarmists tried to put their best spin on the news, saying they expect Russia to ratify “within a year.” But chief economic adviser Andrei Illarionov dumped Siberian ice water on that notion.

President Putin “never said that,” he stressed. “What decision will be taken remains to be seen. The Russian economy is not going to stop at the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that we have today or that we shall have in 2012.  That’s why costs will have to be balanced against any possible gains. The United States and Australia have calculated that they cannot bear the economic consequences of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. If they aren’t rich enough to deal with those consequences,” how can Russia?

Putin and his advisors said the scientific evidence does not support catastrophic climate change theories. They also noted that “grain harvests would increase further,” if temperatures do rise a couple degrees, and said it’s “not very clear” whether theKyoto protocol “would improve the climate, stabilize it or make it worse.” The treaty’s economic impacts could be severe, however.

In fact, satellite and weather balloon records demonstrate that Earth’s atmosphere has not warmed over the past two decades, according to University of Alabama scientists John Christy and Roy Spencer.

Using fossils to reconstruct global temperatures, Jan Veizer and Nir Shariv concluded that 66% of temperature variability over the past half-billion years can be explained by cosmic ray changes as the Earth moves out of the Milky Way’s spiral galaxy.

Another likely factor is variations in the sun’s energy output. Scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have documented a strong correlation between solar energy and earth temperatures over the last 1000 years and concluded that earlier periods of warming occurred long before the Industrial Revolution and slight warming of 1900-1940.

Primitive computer models – the only “evidence” alarmists can cite to support their theory – repeatedly disagree with each other, cannot account for the fact that the lower atmosphere has not warmed, and can’t forecast accurately even a year in advance.

Even if the Kyoto treaty were adopted and all nations complied with it, says the National Center for Atmospheric Research, theoretical global warming would decline by only 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050. Actually stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions would require 19 Kyotos.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration, Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates and others have calculated that just one Kyoto treaty would force drastic cutbacks in U.S. energy use, send energy bills skyrocketing, cost our economy up to $400 billion a year, and destroy tens of thousands of American jobs. The Fraser Institute of Vancouver says the climate treaty would cost every Canadian taxpayer $4,700 a year for the next 5 years.

Russia had sought guarantees that the European Union would compensate it – under a complicated “emissions trading” scheme – for agreeing to limit the nation’s growth. None have been proffered, perhaps because economically stagnant Europecannot afford the hefty price tag Russia will likely demand for giving up plans to double its gross domestic product by 2010.

All this raises the question: Why would any country want to shackle its economy to a bureaucracy whose goal is to regulate energy production and consumption, in the name of warding off a distant specter of climate change? This question isparticularly relevant to countries like Russia, which seek economic growth and technological development, after having freed themselves from decades of totalitarian mismanagement.

But it is also relevant to the United States which, like Russia, must compete with China, India, Brazil and other emerging powerhouses that do NOT have to comply with Kyoto.

What’s really going on here has nothing to do with the illusory problem of global warming, or the illusory solution of a Kyototreaty. “This is about international relations,” EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstroem has said. “This is about economy, about trying to create a level playing field for big businesses throughout the world.” Kyoto, added French President Jacques Chirac, is “the first component of authentic global governance.”

In other words, this is about resentment that the United States enjoys a competitive advantage because it does not impose punitive taxes that drive up energy prices for families and businesses. It is also about putting a massive EU and UN bureaucracy in control of our future.

That ought to send chills down anyone’s spine.