International climate talks in Bonn last weekend were trying to salvage December’s failed Copenhagen summit.

But some rich countries are imposing their own carbon limits anyway, and threatening to curb imports from poor countries that are not. We believe this will cripple the rich economies and harm the poor countries without doing much about emissions.

A number of governments want such green protection, including taxes on carbon-intensive imports, or all imports, from countries that do not cut emissions, especially the main targets, China and India.

US climate legislation before the Senate calls these policies “a border measure”.

But these ideas threaten international trade, growth and recovery. Industries in rich countries face punitive and expensive measures against climate change. Many fear they will be unable to compete with countries that do not have such emissions restrictions, and fear manufacturing and jobs will move away to them.

The EU wants to cut emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, while proposed US legislation aims for 80 per cent by 2050. Other large emitters of greenhouse gases, such as India and China, are more worried about sustaining growth and tackling poverty.

Carbon restrictions on trade will do little to reduce emissions. Taxing carbon-intensive imports from China, for example, would have negligible impact because the majority of its emissions-laden exports go to other developing countries.

Carbon barriers to trade make even less sense considering the nature of global production. “The extensive foot-printing of so many products with components across so many international boundaries makes this exercise nigh on impossible,” Australia’s Department of Climate Change stated in 2008.

Rich countries import about a third of their CO2 emissions (meaning the amount of CO2 released in making the imported goods), often from developing countries. The production of a single good often involves trading components between many countries. Complex supply chains have brought cheaper and better goods and high-paying jobs to rich countries, and infrastructure, new jobs and higher incomes to developing countries.

More than a quarter of all global trade in manufacturing is in intermediate components, not finished goods. The value of component trade rose from $US404 billion in 2002 to $US1258bn in 2004. Rich countries cannot restrict imports without damaging their own production and growth. They would just protect their inefficient companies that are vulnerable to competition at the expense of globally competitive companies.

A few months ago, the EU extended tariffs on shoe imports from East Asia at the request of its domestic shoe producers. Yet such tariffs harm EU shoe companies that have invested heavily in manufacturing in Asia: they provide EU consumers with cheap shoes and support high-value jobs in Europe in marketing, innovation and design.

Barriers to trade for the sake of climate control would have the same effect, and would push up prices everywhere.

US President Barack Obama warned during the global recession last year: “We have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out there.” Yet the US joined Australia, the EU and Japan in rejecting demands at Copenhagen by India, China and other developing countries that rich nations “not resort to any form of unilateral measures against goods and services imported from developing countries on grounds of protection and stabilisation of climate”.

Caroline Boin and Alec van Gelder are project directors at the International Policy Network, a development think tank based in London

“It requires a major leap of imagination to believe that free condoms will cool down the climate,” said Caroline Boin, a policy analyst at International Policy Network, a London-based think tank.

She also questioned earlier efforts by the agency to control the world’s population.

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1501ap_climate_population_growth.html

Blame famine on trade restrictions – not on climate change or lack of foreign aid, says Julian Morris in an opinion article in Friday’s Wall Street Journal Europe.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574474731971741364.html

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/.

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)