A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

354 development dialogue september 2006 – carbon trading43 See Ecoequity, ‘Cutting through the Smokeon Trading’, http://ecoequity.typepad.com/ecoequity/2005/12/cutting_through.html#comments.See also Nina Eliasoph, ‘“Everyday Racism” in aCulture of Political Avoidance: Civil Society, Speechand Taboo’, Social Problems 46, 4, November 1999,pp. 479–502.44 Noam Chomsky interviewed by David Barsamian inImperial Ambitions. <strong>Conversation</strong>s on the Post-9/11World, Metropolitan Books, New York, 2005, p. 39.45 Jeffrey S. Dukes, ‘Burning Buried Sunshine: HumanConsumption of Ancient Solar Energy’, ClimaticChange 61, 2003, pp. 31–44.46 Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow, ‘StabilizationWedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next50 Years with Current Technologies’, Science, 13August 2004, 968–72; Robert Socolow et al., ‘Solvingthe Climate Problem: Technologies Available to CurbCO 2 Emissions’, Environment 46, 10, 2004, pp. 8–19.See also Mae Wan Ho et al., op. cit. supra note 2.47 Lovins, op. cit. supra note 2.48 Lipow, op. cit. supra note 10.49 Friends of the Earth, ‘Bright Future: Friends of theEarth’s Electricity Sector Model for 2030’, London,March 2006, p. 3.50 Roger Levett, ‘Infrastructure: Prevention isBetter than Palliation’, presentation to the TCPACommission on England’s Future, 18 March 2005,http://www.tcpa.org.uk/reg_futures/roger_levettenglands_future.pdf.Starting from the assumptionthat a 60 per cent emissions cut is necessary by2050, the Tyndall Centre’s Decarbonising the UK:Energy for a Climate-Conscious Future also exploresvarious ‘technically and economically viable’ lowcarbonscenarios, stressing, as do many otheranalysts, that lower energy consumption means moreresilience, more security and less need for wastefullarge infrastructure (http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/media/news/tyndall_decarbonising_the_uk.pdf). Britain’sRoyal Commission found that elementary energyefficiency measures such as high quality insulationof new buildings could cut energy use in the servicesector by 18 per cent within a few years, and thatproper insulation, good design and using combinedheat and power plants to provide local hot water andelectricity could together slash energy use in homesby between 25 and 34 per cent in a few years (www.rcep.org.uk). The Institute for Science in Society(Mae Wan Ho et al., op. cit. supra note 2) meanwhilestresses the benefits in reduced food miles and fossilfuel use from a more self-reliant, organic agriculture– which must be promoted for other reasons as well.51 Lipow, op. cit. supra note 10.52 ‘Super-adobe’ is a refinement on rammed-earthconstruction in which wet soil under pressure(mixed with a little cement) is pumped into bags thatare coiled together and bound with barbed wire.The technique is low-impact and results in sturdy,earthquake-proof buildings. See California Instituteof Earth Art and Architecture, CalEarth Forum, July2005, http://www.calearth.org/.53 China reported large reductions in emissionsin the late 1990s, attributed partly to technicalimprovements in boiler technology. But recentanalysis suggests that these ‘reductions’ may bemainly due to bureaucratic changes in who was doingthe reporting. Pre-1996 emissions figures may havebeen inflated by coal mine officials eager to showthey had met production targets, which were laterdiscontinued. See Knight, op. cit. supra note 29; FredPearce, ‘Kyoto Promises are Nothing but Hot Air’,New Scientist 2557, 22 June 2006, p. 10.54 See http://www.atelierten.com/ourwork/profiles/0513-federation-square.pdf.55 See The Climate Group, Carbon Down, Profits Up,London, 2005, http://www.theclimategroup.org/assets/CDPU_2005_v2.pdf.56 Lovins et al., op. cit. supra note 2, pp. 6, 170–72.57 Levett, op. cit. supra note 50.58 Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts, University ofCalifornia Press, 2002.59 Arthur MacEwen, Neoliberalism or Democracy?Economic Strategy, Markets and Alternatives for the21st Century, Zed Books, London, 1999.60 Levett, op. cit. supra note 50. For a different perspective,see David M. Driesen, ‘Is Emissions Trading an EconomicIncentive Program? Replacing the Command andControl/Economic Incentive Dichotomy’, Washingtonand Lee Law Review 55, 289, 1998.61 Ivan Illich, Energy and Equity, Marion Boyers, London,1974.62 M. E. Levine and J. L. Forrence, ‘RegulatoryCapture, Public Interest, and the Public Agenda:Toward a Synthesis’, Journal of Law, Economicsand Organization 6, 1990, pp. 167–198; Ralph Nader,Cutting Corporate Welfare, Seven Stories Press,New York, 2001; Dexter Whitfield, Public Services orCorporate Welfare: Rethinking the Nation State in theGlobal Economy, Pluto Press, London, 2001.63 World Bank, ‘Clean Energy and Development:Towards an Investment Framework’, World Bank,Washington, 2006, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEVCOMMINT/Documentation/20890696/DC2006-0002(E)-CleanEnergy.pdf, p. 91. For acritique see Peter Bosshard, ‘Business as Usualwill not Achieve Climate and Development Goals’,International Rivers Network, Berkeley, April 2006: