Carbon dioxide became recently the victim of political correctness. Taking into account the row between Warsaw and Brussels about CO2 emission limits, I am beginning to wonder where the ocean of involved hypocrisy ends.
I started to feel uneasy, when I saw The Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. Later the movie won the Academy Award, and subsequently Al Gore received... the Nobel Peace Prize. I had serious reservations concerning the laureates chosen by Norwegian Nobel Committee, and award for the piece of cinematography.
The assumption that CO2 is a form of pollution is somewhat flawed for me. It is not a toxic gas, but a permanent component of the atmosphere. Carbon content in the air oscillated largely over the long periods of time - the last increase over recent 50 years is correlated with a global warming, that's for sure, but over the recent millennium it is difficult to find a stable relation. Decades of growth preceded years of slump. Yes, we should talk about CO2 caps and taxation to restrict the emission - but we need to discuss that in terms of economy and sustainable growth. We can not allow a bunch of radicals to threaten the socio-economic growth by killing industries, like coal gasification for one example. That is commendable that EC is working on a solution to tax carbon emission induced by automotive industry as long as its aim is to boost innovative technologies, and not to harm customers and therefore also car makers.
Polish CO2 emission in 1989 - the beginning of economic transition - amounts to some 500 MMT. Nine years later it was 330 MMT, and in 2006 - 210 MMT. And still, the Greens attacked the government that the direction is not proper, because in 2005 the total amount of CO2 discharged to the atmosphere was 4 MMT lower... That is ridiculous. The Economist issued on March 15 published interesting data showing that in years 1996-2005 environmental taxes as a share of total tax receipts in Poland increased by 1.52 percentage point, far more than in Germany, Holland or Denmark. The same indicator for UK, USA, Canada Spain and France showed even a negative rate. Why then it is Central Europe blamed for not complying to environmental targets? Is it a sheer hypocrisy or something else?
Posted at polarwombat.wordpress.com on March 30, 2008.
I started to feel uneasy, when I saw The Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. Later the movie won the Academy Award, and subsequently Al Gore received... the Nobel Peace Prize. I had serious reservations concerning the laureates chosen by Norwegian Nobel Committee, and award for the piece of cinematography.
The assumption that CO2 is a form of pollution is somewhat flawed for me. It is not a toxic gas, but a permanent component of the atmosphere. Carbon content in the air oscillated largely over the long periods of time - the last increase over recent 50 years is correlated with a global warming, that's for sure, but over the recent millennium it is difficult to find a stable relation. Decades of growth preceded years of slump. Yes, we should talk about CO2 caps and taxation to restrict the emission - but we need to discuss that in terms of economy and sustainable growth. We can not allow a bunch of radicals to threaten the socio-economic growth by killing industries, like coal gasification for one example. That is commendable that EC is working on a solution to tax carbon emission induced by automotive industry as long as its aim is to boost innovative technologies, and not to harm customers and therefore also car makers.
Polish CO2 emission in 1989 - the beginning of economic transition - amounts to some 500 MMT. Nine years later it was 330 MMT, and in 2006 - 210 MMT. And still, the Greens attacked the government that the direction is not proper, because in 2005 the total amount of CO2 discharged to the atmosphere was 4 MMT lower... That is ridiculous. The Economist issued on March 15 published interesting data showing that in years 1996-2005 environmental taxes as a share of total tax receipts in Poland increased by 1.52 percentage point, far more than in Germany, Holland or Denmark. The same indicator for UK, USA, Canada Spain and France showed even a negative rate. Why then it is Central Europe blamed for not complying to environmental targets? Is it a sheer hypocrisy or something else?
Posted at polarwombat.wordpress.com on March 30, 2008.
