October 27, 1999

by Peter J.M. Orvetti

The UN Takes The Fifth To Bonn
Steps Toward Democracy
Humanitarian Action

The UN Takes The Fifth To Bonn

A United Nations climate change conference opened in Bonn Monday as 150 nations continue to seek ways to implement the Kyoto greenhouse gas emissions protocol, AP reports. "That means tackling such nitty-gritty issues as how to measure emissions from everything from factories to your average barnyard cow," AP writes. The Bonn conference is the fifth in a series of meetings on climate control that began in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Nations adopted binding targets for developed nations in Kyoto in 1997, agreeing to an overall reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by five percent from 1990 levels by 2012.

Patrick J. Michaels criticized the Kyoto protocol in 1998 testimony before Congress: "The Kyoto Protocol requires that the United States reduce its overall greenhouse gas emissions by a remarkable 43% for the 2008-2012 average, compared to where they would have been if we continue on the trajectory established in the last two decades. The economic costs are enormous, they are but not the subject of this hearing. What are the climate benefits? Wigley (1998) recently calculated the 'saved' warming, under the assumptions noted above, that would accrue if every nation met its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. According to him, the earth's temperature in 2050 will be 0.07°C lower as a result. My own calculations produced a similar answer. Wigley is a Senior Scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research. 0.07°C is an amount so small that it cannot be reliably measured by ground-based thermometers. If one assumes the more likely scenario that warming to the year 2100 will be approximately half of the IPCC estimate, the saved warming drops to 0.04°C over the next fifty years. This is no benefit at an enormous cost. In conclusion, the observed data on climate and recent emissions trends clearly indicate that the concept of 'dangerous' interference in the climate system is outmoded within any reasonable horizon. This makes the Kyoto Protocol a useless appendage to an irrelevant treaty. It is time to reconsider the Framework Convention."

Jerry Taylor offered a similar critique in testimony before Congress earlier this year: "If every nation meets its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, the world's most advanced climate model predicts that temperatures will be 0.07 degrees Celsius cooler than they otherwise would be under a business as usual scenario by the year 2050.23 Since the U.S. emits 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, we can infer that U.S. compliance with the Kyoto Protocol would reduce global temperatures by 0.014 degrees Celsius.24 According to the DOE and EPA, their contribution to the CCTI will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 452 million metric tons of carbon equivalent annually by 2010 (the midpoint of the Kyoto compliance period). That means that about 65 percent of the greenhouse gas emission reductions required of the United States under the Kyoto Protocol can be met through the budgetary programs we're discussing today, implying that the CCTI will reduce temperatures by .0091 degrees Celsius (16-1,000ths of a degree Fahrenheit) below where they otherwise would be by the year 2050. Such a change in temperature is too small to measure. Moreover, I defy the administration to argue that this infinitesimal reduction in temperature will affect the lives of the American people one whit."

In a Cato Policy Analysis, "The Consequences of Kyoto", Michaels again opposed the protocol: "The Kyoto agreement--if fully complied with--would likely reduce the gross domestic product of the United States by 2.3 percent per year. However, according to a climate model of the National Center for Atmospheric Research recently featured in Science, the Kyoto emission-control commitments would reduce mean planetary warming by a mere 0.19 degree Celsius over the next 50 years. If the costs of preventing additional warming were to remain constant, the Kyoto Protocol would cost a remarkable 12 percent of GDP per degree of warming prevented annually over a 50-year period. The Kyoto Protocol will have no discernible effect on global climate--in fact, it is doubtful that the current network of surface thermometers could distinguish a change on the order of .19 degree from normal year-to-year variations. The Kyoto Protocol will result in no demonstrable climate change but easily demonstrable economic damage."

Steps Toward Democracy

Chinese President Jiang Zemin, during a state visit to France, said China would move "step by step" toward democracy Sunday, AP reports. Jiang also said that China intends to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty later this month despite the decision by the United States to reject the treaty.

"The rise of democracy in South Korea and Taiwan attests to the power of the market in generating political liberalization. Both countries have moved from closed, authoritarian regimes to open-market democracies without bloody revolutions and without the threat of economic sanctions. The question is, will China follow?" asked James A. Dorn in the Cato Journal article "Trade and Human Rights: The Case of China". "China has created a new economic space by discarding central planning and allowing experimentation with new ownership forms. Since 1979 China's economy has grown at an average annual rate of more than 9 percent and has the potential to become the world's largest economy during the 21st century. Although the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has held onto its monopoly of political power, China is a more open society today than it was a decade or two ago. There are still serious violations of human rights, but a case can be made that China is creeping along in the right direction and, in time, may follow Taiwan's 'quiet revolution.'

"The critics of China's human rights record are justified in pointing out the abuses that are occurring in China. Yet, many of those critics (e.g., Rep. Nancy Pelosi [D-Calif.]) underestimate the importance of trade liberalization as a strategy for bringing about systemic change in China. They also fail to distinguish between those human rights that can be universalized and are consistent with individual freedom and those alleged rights that cannot be extended to everyone without violating fundamental rights to life, liberty, and property. Article 25 of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights states that each person 'has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services' (Ravitch and Thernstrom 1992: 204-5). If sanctions were imposed on China for failing to protect those alleged economic and social 'human rights'--rights that cannot be found in the U.S. Bill of Rights, that cannot be universalized, and that cannot be implemented in a world of scarcity--China would become less free and less prosperous. Before acting too hastily, human rights advocates need to think more clearly about the nature of human rights and how best to help China along the path toward a free society.

"The threat of using trade restrictions to advance human rights is fraught with danger. Free trade is itself a human right and rests on an individual's rights to life, liberty, and property--rights the U.S. Founding Fathers regarded as inalienable and self-evident. When the federal government closes U.S. markets to countries with governments that deny their citizens certain civil liberties, it robs those citizens of one more freedom and undermines the market dynamic that in the end is the best instrument for creating wealth and preserving freedom."

Humanitarian Action

Gov. George Ryan (R-Ill.) visited Cuba last week, bringing more than $1 million in humanitarian aid to the Communist nation. Ryan is the first U.S. governor to visit Cuba since Fidel Castro's Communist insurgency toppled the country's government in the 1959 revolution. While there, Ryan said he wants the United States to lift the 37-year economic embargo against Cuba.

According to the Cato Handbook for Congress (pdf), that must happen. "In 1970, 17 of 26 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean had authoritarian regimes. Today, only Cuba has a dictatorial regime. Although the transition to market-oriented democracies, which protect individual liberty and property rights under the rule of law, is far from complete in any of the region's countries and will be a long-term process, that transition is already leading to greater political stability and economic prosperity. Economic sanctions have not been responsible for the region-wide shift toward liberalization, however. They have, in fact, failed to bring about democratic regimes anywhere in the hemisphere, and Cuba has been no exception. Indeed, Cuba is the one country in the hemisphere against which the U.S. government has persistently and actively used a full economic embargo as its main policy tool in an attempt to compel a democratic transformation.

"The failure of sanctions against Cuba should come as no surprise since sanctions, however politically popular, are notorious for their unintended consequences-harming those they are meant to help. In Cuba, Fidel Castro is the last person to feel the pain caused by the U.S. measures. If sanctions failed to dislodge the military regime in Haiti, the poorest and most vulnerable country in the region, it is difficult to believe that they could be successful in Cuba."