Climate Change from the start has been a political football between two unequal opponents. On one side of the spectrum are the struggling players in renewable energy segment consisting of raw and amateur talents from solar energy to bio-fuels to wind energy , over a hundred different technologies in various stages of development. On the other team are professionals from the oil & gas and the coal sector the two giants in the energy industry, who jointly contribute to over 86% of the worlds energy needs.
Despite this overwhelming dominance of the world energy markets, the fossil fuel lobby is increasingly insecure with the rise in global of demand for reduction of emission and GHG gasses. With ever increasing emissions, the pressurise to curb the use of fossil fuels is increasing every day. However the Oil , Gas and Coal segments which jointly account for 86% of the worlds energy needs are doing all that is needed to maintain their strangle hold on the energy markets, so that renewable energy initiatives remain a non-starter.
The manipulation of climate change initiatives by the fossil fuel lobby is not a phenomenon of today. The first moves were made in the sixties in the U.S. when the cap and trade move was cleverly introduced and kept at the discussion forums for many years but never accepted by the U.S. as a executable deal. In short the strategy framed by the fossil fuel lobby was to create an endless discussion mechanism for climate change but keep it away from becoming a law, in the real sense. No wonder 42 years after the cap and trade theory was conceived and promoted at a Washington Conference, the U.S. clean Energy Act 2009 is still to muddle its way through the law makers at the Congress and the senate.
The long term strategy of the fossil fuel lobby was to create a stick that could be presented as a magic wand to the environmentalists and activists to drive away climate change problems as well as a beating stick to keep the possible challengers to the energy segment, the solar and the wind power at bay. The Cap and Trade theory provided just such a magic wand.
It was during the early days of Senior Bush that the policy initiatives was laid in the U.S at the behest of the oil and coal lobby for creating such a huge monster of carbon bubble. Cap-and-trade got a big boost in 1990, when President George H.W. Bush signed amendments to the Clean Air Act. Riding piggyback on popular measures that imposed new limits on emissions of sulphur dioxide, which produces acid rain and HFC that depleted the ozone layer , the Bill introduced the provisions of emission banking and trading. A move that Economists and Energy specialists said let producers save billions of dollars and still hit their targets due to clever positioning.
Over the years this would ensure that the environmentalists were occupied in theory while the polluters got away free by paying some small and obscure penalties or not at all. The big bonus of the plan was that it incorporated the powerful Wall street Banking community too to capitalise the carbon economy so that the strangle hold on the clean energy segments was true and everlasting.
There is more recent evidence that shows how the climate change decisions are being manipulated on a day to day basis by the fossil fuel lobbies. Plaint politicians, an indifferent bureaucracy and ignorant activist groups are bought over or outsmarted by the highly professional and organised power peddlers or industry lobbies functioning in the western economies.Here are a few eyeopeners :
93 % Carbon credits given away free in British auctions as prominent heavy industries refuse to buy carbon Telegraph report http://tinyurl.com/62pyw9
EU Poised to Give Heavy Industry Free Carbon Permits http://is.gd/4ONxj // as businesses threaten to move outside Europe.
A review of the American Clean Energy and security Act 2009 brings up several questions :
• Is it not heavily weighed in favor of CCS ( Carbon Capture and Sequestration) the expensive lifeline to the coal based energy units that is called Clean Coal that as per the IEC will cost $100 per unit to build.
• Is their not an excessive emphasis on developing a carbon market and generating cap and trade funds for doubtful end consumption
• ( see GAO report)
• Is their not minimum coverage given to renewable energy, the solar , wind power and rainforest projects that could help slow down climate change.
The Power of the oil and coal lobbies are so invasive that they dominate the clean energy act 2009 and will ultimately garner 80% of revenue generation and Government subsidies. The GAO report of the U.S. Govt that gives recomendation for distribution of cap and trade funds is a clear indication of this.
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