LONDON, 9 December — Later this week, government ministers will descend on Poznan, Poland, for the UN’s COP-14 climate meeting. A new report by Prof. Julian Morris, released by a coalition of 50 global civil society groups, presents a stark warning to those ministers contemplating a global cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

Prof. Morris said: ‘A cap on emissions of carbon would do little to protect humanity against the threat of climate change but would drastically increase the threat of global economic catastrophe.’

He continued: ‘For Ministers in Poznan to agree to cap carbon emissions in the near term would be economic lunacy. It would divert resources into “low carbon” technologies and away from more productive uses – thereby slowing economic growth and harming the ability of the poor to address the real problems they face every day, such as diseases, water scarcity and inadequate nutrition.’

Prof. Morris points out that only a few European governments are now pushing strongly for a new global cap and they are doing so because their own policies are causing economic pain. ‘Some European ministers are trying to foist their own flawed climate policies on the rest of the world – in order to spread the pain. For the sakes of humanity, this EU siren song should be ignored,’ he concluded.

This year, the UN’s “World Food Day” focuses on the pressing need for the world to adapt to climate change. But even before “climate change” became a political concern, the poor have been unable to deal with “climate” such as drought, storms and flooding – as a result of counterproductive government policies.

Governments around the world are the main barrier to plentiful food and effective adaptation to the climate. Government programmes in the name of climate change have already had terrible results – more than US$ 11 billion worth of subsidies were used to turn food crops into biofuels last year. This contributed substantially to the rise in food prices that helped push 75 million more people below the hunger threshold.

While there may be a case for government to provide flood defences and other collective goods, most adaptation will occur at a much more local scale and as such is best left to individuals.

In a recent report, World-renowned agricultural economists Professors Douglas Southgate and Brent Songhen point out that farmers will likely adapt to global warming by switching crops, and adopting new technologies and farming methods – just as they have done for centuries.*

With regard to the relationship between agriculture and climate change, the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change (with 49 member organisations in 37 countries) makes the following recommendations:

• Eliminate subsidies to agricultural production; such subsidies lead to overuse of inputs and increase the cost of future output by depleting soils.
• Remove subsidies to water use (where water is owned by government entities, this would entail transferring ownership to private parties); currently such subsidies lead to overuse of both water and land.

Remove barriers to trade in agricultural inputs (such as fertilizer) and outputs (such as crops); such barriers raise the cost of food and prevent farmers from using the most cost effective technologies.

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*”Weathering Global Warming in Agriculture and Forestry: It can be done with free markets” By Douglas Southgate and Brent Sohngen in the Civil Society Report on Climate Change, http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_24.pdf

World Food Day will be celebrated on October 16, 2008. The theme of this year’s WFD is “World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy.” See http://www.fao.org/getinvolved/worldfoodday/en/.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – April 03, 2008

Delegates from some 160 nations are in Bangkok to discuss a post-2012 climate treaty “ but any plans to force poor polluters like India and China to cut back on emissions will increase poverty and deaths, according to the 45-member Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change.

The EU has threatened to impose taxes on imports from countries that have not agreed to mandatory emissions cuts and Yvo de Boer, the UN official running the talks, has evoked the spectre of food miles at the meeting.

“This is just another protectionist racket that will do little to reduce carbon emissions. What it will do is push food prices even higher, make poor countries even poorer and undermine their capacity to import cleaner and better technologies from the West”, said Coalition member Nonoy Oplas of the Filipino think-tank Minimal Government Thinkers.

Bullying poor countries to stop industrial development or to use only renewable technologies misses the point:

“Right now, what kills millions of poor people is poverty, not climate change: dirty water, malaria, malnutrition, air pollution in cities, indoor smoke from wood and dung – and these hideous afflictions can only be solved by economic growth,” Oplas continued.

“Only with more entrepreneurship and less government intervention – not massive climate aid projects – will the world’s poorest people be able to protect themselves from both the ills of today, and the threats of tomorrow,” he concluded.

ENDS

Nonoy Oplas, Director of Minimal Government Thinkers in The Philippines can be reached on +632 759 5090 and at

minimalgovernment |AT| gmail.com

About the CSCCC

The Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change (www.csccc.info) seeks to improve public understanding of the impacts, economics and politics of climate change in an impartial manner. It comprises 45 organizations 34 countries who are concerned about the many biased and alarmist claims about human-induced climate change, which are being used to justify calls for intervention and regulation.

The Civil Society Report on Climate Change (ISBN 1-905041-15-2, 100 pp.) published December 2007 by the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change. Available at http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_20.pdf.

Friday 29 February, London/New York: Responding to reports that the US, Russia and Japan are pressuring rapidly developing countries such as India and China to sign up to binding emissions targets, an India-based member of the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change described the plans as “eco-protectionism.”

“Globally binding limits on emissions would hold back economic development in India, China and other poor countries, thereby preventing us from solving the problems we face today. The poor are being asked to sacrifice their wellbeing today, so that the rich may enjoy a better tomorrow,” said Coalition member Barun Mitra of India’s Liberty Institute.*

Mitra criticised the push for globally binding limits on emissions, saying that they are clearly being driven by vested interests which see opportunities for short-term profit.  He explained:

“India and China – and increasingly Vietnam and other emerging countries – have become globally competitive in the production of goods as diverse as cars and computers. Some businesses in the US, Japan and Europe clearly view controls on greenhouse gases as a means of ‘levelling the playing field’ by driving up costs in poor countries.  While a very few businesses may profit, it will come at the expense of billions of people who will suffer from the negative economic effects of this scam.”

Mitra added that there is an inherent hypocrisy to the emissions limits advocated by industrialised countries: they will fall hardest upon the world’s poorest people in countries like India, which are most in need of all forms of reliable, clean energy. He said:

“The poor pay with their lives today for lack of energy, transportation, water and sanitation facilities, while ironically the rich world is preaching the virtues of austerity and reducing energy use. Over half a million Indians, largely poor women and children, die each year due to burning of inefficient fuel in their kitchens, but the rich world is promising to save lives in 50 or 100 years.”

The World Health Organisation claims that climate change is responsible for all manner of health threats – from malaria to storms– and is calling for global caps on emissions. But experts contradict these claims:

• The geographical incidence of malaria has very little to do with climate, and is more related to economic, ecological and political factors. Malaria existed in Siberia as recently as the late 19^th century and was present throughout Europe for most of history. Economic development and changing land use led to its eradication from the continent.[i]
• Deaths from climate related natural disasters have fallen dramatically since the 1920s, as a result of economic growth and technological development. With continued economic growth, the death rate is likely to continue to fall regardless of climate change.[ii]
• Overall human mortality from heatwaves caused by global warming is not likely to increase. In fact, cold weather causes far more deaths than hot weather. The effects of warmer temperatures are generally beneficial in the medium term and for most of the world[iii]

Global emissions caps would harm the poor by retarding economic growth and technological development. As the majority of the disease burden in developing countries is caused by poverty – particularly by the effects of poor sanitation and indoor air pollution – the WHO is undermining the very process that will make the biggest improvement to global health.

Neither is giving aid in return for emissions caps the solution. Studies show that aid-financed public health spending is particularly ineffectual – it is estimated that the average child death could be averted for as little as $10, but the average amount spent to achieve this in the health systems of developing countries is $50,000 to $100,000.

Philip Stevens, director of the Campaign for Fighting Diseases said:

‘If the WHO is serious about improving the health of the poor, it should stop trying to push emissions caps and focus on the real barriers to good health, such as taxes on medicines.  For example, the Indonesian government increases the manufacturer’s price of certain drugs by ten times.  Why does the WHO not advocate against these taxes on the sick, instead of promoting global poverty via carbon caps?’

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[i] “Could global warming bring mosquito-borne disease to Europe?” Prof Paul Reiter in Environment & Health (2004)

[ii] “Death and death rates due to extreme weather events,” Dr Indur Goklany in the Civil Society Report on Climate Change (2007)

[iii] “Illness and mortality from heat and cold: will global warming matter?” Prof William Keatinge in Environment & Health (2004)