Kyoto

A lot of hubbub lately about the Kyoto treaty. A treaty which doesn't include China, India and the US, that's stated goal is to reduce global temperature by a completely negligible amount yet will cripple many countries' economies. This from Bjorn Lomborg author of The Skeptical Environmentalist:

To be sure, global warming is real, and it is caused by CO2. The trouble is that today's best climate models show that immediate action will do little good. The Kyoto Protocol will cut CO2 emissions from industrialized countries by 30 percent below what it would have been in 2010, and by 50 percent in 2050. Yet, even if everyone (including the United States) lived up to the protocol's rules, and stuck to them throughoutthe century, the change would be almost immeasurable-postponing warming for just six years in 2100.

Likewise, the economic models tell us that the cost would be substantial-at least $150 billion a year. In comparison, the United Nations estimates that half that amount could permanently solve all of the world's major problems: it could ensure clean drinking water, sanitation, basic health care and education for every single person in the world, now.

It seems that the economics of the situation would be that economic growth and focusing on other problems will allow us to be able to tackle global warming or climate change from a much stronger position in the future. The free market will produce the results we're looking for. From Cafe Hayek

One legitimate reason for refusing to endorse massive, worldwide government-led efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is that any such effort will inevitably be politicized. Even if the possibility exists for such regulation to make the world a better place, this possibility is remote compared to the likelihood that grandstanding politicians, special-interest groups, arrogant environmentalists who are intolerant of commercial values, and well-meaning but misinformed voters will combine to generate policies that do more harm than good.

More fundamentally, the relevant question – as always – is ‘compared to what?’The polar ice caps might well be melting, the earth’s temperature might well be rising, and human industry and commerce might well be the culprit.But this ‘culprit’ is also humankind’s great savior. It keeps us from the fates suffered by the vast majority of our ancestors: famine, plague, filth, drudgery, and ignorance. If global warming is a consequence of capitalism, I agree that it’s likely one that should be registered as a cost (although not everyone agrees that global warming is undesirable).

But if the only way to prevent or slow global warming is through political action, it is neither absurd nor irresponsible to argue that the best course of action is to ignore the problem.

Having the government involved trying to determine the best solution is certainly not the solution, therefore neither is Kyoto.