"Emission Impossible"
A 45 Minute Documentary
October 1999
Reporter: Ian Henschke
Producer: Janine Cohen
02.53 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: Tickell:The majority of the world's scientists are now agreed, except for a very few people, but the majority agree, that we are having incalculable effects on climate.
03.12 But while most scientists agree on the effects of global warming, the United States - the superpower of all polluters - is still stopping any international action.
03.22 Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman Rohrabacher: It's not worth it, and it's not gonna work and on top of it, global warming doesn't exist, so why try?
03.30 If we don't try, leading climatologists say we could experience rising sea levels and even more catastrophic weather events.
03.44 Yvo de Boer, Netherlands Environment Ministry: Boer: Geography classes in secondary school will become much more simple because many nations will no longer be there and will disappear under the sea.
03.57 Rajendra Shende, United Nations Environment Program: Shende: If you remain passive today, the cost of that remaining passive is very high in the future, and why not take action today?
04.08 Title: Emission Impossible
04.35 It's Sunday morning in Greenville, North Caroline and this congregation is celebrating their survival and mourning their losses in a flood that has claimed more than 50 lives and caused billions of dollars of damage. It has been classified as a one in 500 year weather event, and it is yet another example of the extreme weather the world has been witnessing in recent times. The deluge hit North Carolina with such force that the main river in Greenville rose 10 metres above its normal height, and even though it has dropped just as quickly, thousands have been left homeless. The army has been called in to clean up and to keep order, and the local high school has become a shelter for hundreds of homeless families.
05.50 Merle Glenn, American Red Cross: These people have seen a flood that they have not had any records of anything like this as they can go to 500 years, so this was an event that they were totally unprepared for and totally unexpected. The hurricanes usually pass east of them along the coastal areas of the United States and the flooding and damage has kind of been confined there. It is one of the largest operations that they have had in the United States as far as bringing in assistance and workers.
06.21 North Carolina Flood Victim Victim: I have heard it said that we can have more compassion when we maybe see earthquakes and floods and such like on television. Now we can really identify with other people, homeless people. It is terrible, and me, I'm a Christian and I believe it is just the beginning of sorrows such as it was spoken of in the Bible.
07.00 Most of the population around Greenville are the descendants of slaves - slaves who gained their freedom at the end of the Civil War and were given pioneers in establishing the first African American towns. They have seen plenty of troubles in the past and today they are wondering why God has wrought such devastation on them.
07.21 Bishop Randy B. Royal: Royal: Praise God, we mourn this morning. As we celebrate we mourn as well. All of those who will be burying their dead - as soon as graves are dry enough so that they can bury their dead - we want to remember them, we really want to remember them.
07.42 But the suffering sent from heaven may have an earthly origin, the work of human and not divine hands, and maybe now we are reaping what we have sown in the earth's atmosphere over the past 200 years.
08.00 Ross Gelbspan, Author of 'The Heat Is On': Gelbspan: The hurricanes will become stronger as ocean surface waters warm up. The waters of the Atlantic are at near record levels of warmth right now. This hurricane, Floyd was the size of Texas when you looked at it from aerial photographs. It was extraordinarily large, and because of this increase in humidity in the atmosphere it has dumped these very, very intense rains in North Carolina. So these events we are seeing are precisely consistent with what the scientists have told us we are going to see. The only difference is we are seeing them earlier than they originally projected.
08.37 This is the Cray T3E 900 at the Hadley Centre in England. It is the most powerful climate modelling supercomputer in the world. It divides the earth into millions of 50 square kilometre units and then analyses climate data from each one, from the top of the stratosphere to the bottom of the oceans. For the past 10 years it has been building a weather forecast for the 21st century. It uses the past as a guide and then predicts future weather patterns. These computer models show how life on earth could change if we don't change. Its latest prediction is that by 2050 tropical rainforests will turn to desert. The increasing heat along the equatorial regions is already making some rainforests so dry then can simply be cleared by burning.
09.45 Dr Tim Johns, Hadley Centre Climatologist: When we look at the results from this vegetation model for the 2050s, we see a rather dramatic change so that a large area of Amazonia is changed from the dark green rainforest into virtually desert, the grey area, and this obviously has a severe implication for the sustainability of the forest in that region.
10.05 In other words the rainforests of the Amazon, the lungs of the earth, are predicted to choke and die in less than 50 years. It appears it won't be chainsaws and bulldozers that will kill off the largest forest in the world, it will be the slow warming of little more than one degree per decade, and a simultaneous drop in rainfall of half a metre that will see this vital ecosystem perish.
10.41 Dr Tim Johns, Hadley Centre Climatologist: Well the temperature change in the Amazon in this particular model is predicted to be something like seven degrees at 2050, so that is a very large change compared to -Q: Seven degrees Celsius?A: Seven degrees Celsius, yes. This is a large change compared with the global average, and that does illustrate the point that the global average hides a lot of regional variation and some regions will warm a lot more than others.
11.05 All plant life will be affected by these rapid changes in climate. The rainforests which soak up more than a fifth of the world's carbon will become one of the greatest sources of carbon dioxide pollution when they die and decay. And the early warning signs are already here - even pine forests in Canada are starting to die as the snow line moves further north.
11.31 Sir John Houghton, United Nations Panel on Climate Change: Houghton: Their forests are suffering already because of the increase in temperature and forests don't like to have that sort of change, and it is the rate of change that is important. We are talking a rate of change which is going to be faster than has occurred for perhaps 10,000 years at least, and that rapid rate of change many ecosystems cannot cope with, particularly trees. And of course humans find it very difficult to cope with too.
11.58 Change the atmosphere and you change life on earth. The only reason we have a planet to live on at all is because of our unique atmosphere. Without its ability to trap the sun's heat, the earth would be a frozen wasteland. Our atmosphere is a thin blanket of greenhouse gases, the most important of which is carbon dioxide. But put too much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and it is like adding an extra blanket - it will block the escaping heat and the earth will heat up. After 200 years of burning fossil fuels, coupled with cutting down forests, we have done just that. The temperature is going up, carbon dioxide levels are set to double, and studies of air trapped in ancient ice cores show they are already the highest they've been for 400,000 years. If nothing is done the earth could heat up by almost four degrees by the end of the 21st century.
13.12 Eileen Claussen, Pew Center on Global Climate Change: Will it affect sea level rise and precipitation? Of course it will. Will there be more warm temperature extremes? Of course it will. And will there be more rainfall associated with hurricanes? Yes, I think that's pretty clear as well. And will there be problems with water supply? Yeah, I think there'll be more drought in some places and more precipitation in other places, so just a lot of disruption.
13.38 Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, world population has increased from one billion to more than six billion, and it's set to go to nine billion by 2050. Each person on average is responsible for pumping more than one tonne of carbon into the atmosphere each year, and the rate is increasing.
14.00 Sir John Houghton, United Nations Panel on Climate Change: If we do nothing, we will have to prepare for a sea level rise of half a metre, maybe more, by the end of the next century.
14.17 And the sea levels are rising. In early 1999 two small unpopulated islands disappeared beneath the Pacific Ocean and it was barely noticed, but once you realise that a billion people live on or near the coast, then rising seas take on a new meaning. The low-lying regions of eastern India and Bangladesh, already affected by rising sea levels and horrendous storms, may literally go under water.
14.51 Professor Pat Michaels (talking to a student): A lot of the stuff that you hear presented in the media and things like that are only about half the story, which shouldn't surprise you.
15.00 Pat Michaels is one of the most prominent global warming sceptics. He is Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and he has published numerous articles attacking the dire predictions of scientists like Sir John Houghton. Pat Michaels' view is that global warming might even be a good thing and if there are any problems we'll simply come up with solutions.
15.22 Professor Pat Michaels, Climatologist, University of Virginia We have a society that's preconditioned to believe that weather and climate, and weather and climate change are all bad. And the reality is that there is no law, no holy writ that says that's true.
15.36 Sir John Houghton, United Nations Panel on Climate Change: Well I'm afraid Pat Michaels just hasn't read the literature, hasn't looked at all the studies which have been made, the very careful studies which have been made, about the effects of global warming on humanity and on the world as a whole.
15.49 Sir John Houghton, a former director of the Hadley Centre, today jointly heads the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He is one of the world's leading scientists on global warming. Rising sea levels are one of his major concerns.
16.05 Sir John Houghton, United Nations Panel on Climate Change: Many people of course, in many countries and many cities will be able to buy their way out of it, but at a cost, by putting up better sea defences, but if you live in Bangladesh, or if you live in South China, if you live in the Nile Delta of Egypt, if you live on islands in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, then much of your land will disappear. Tens of millions live in that land and they will become refugees.
16.26 Professor Pat Michaels, Climatologist, University of Virginia: These things can be adapted to. If we want to make a statement that the folks in Bangladesh are incapable of adapting to the slow changes over the course of a hundred years when other societies clearly adapted and flourished, in fact made money on adapting to their environment, we're saying, we're making a cultural judgement that I am not prepared to make here in the academy.
16.57 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: I think the Europeans are taking it all more seriously because they have got a better grip on the science. In a way the United States is an island continent. Sometimes one thinks they're on a kind of asteroid unconnected with anybody else.
17.09 The European attitude is very different. The science is accepted and regulations have been drawn up to cut emissions. Not surprising perhaps when you consider that rising sea levels are already a threat to the biggest city in Europe.
17.23 Queen Elizabeth the Second: It is a great tribute to the wisdom of Parliament that London has now been made free from the threat of flooding.
17.33 London has built barriers at the mouth of the Thames to cope with increased flooding, but it is the anticipated flood of refugees that is causing most concern.
17.42 Yvo de Boer, Netherlands Environment Ministry: The most significant consequences that we will be faced with are indirect consequences in the sense of climate change - refugees swarming out across the world. I mean basically we already have the capacity in many parts of Europe and the wealth in many parts of Europe to deal with the short term consequences of climate change. For example, in our own programs in the Netherlands we are already raising our dykes by 50 centimetres, by half a metre, taking into account the sea level rise that is going to take place. We can afford to construct that kind of protection for ourselves, but the consequences, I think, in many of the poorer nations in the world, nations that basically I think, cynically, we don't really care about, are going to be catastrophic.
18.29 Margaret Thatcher, Former Prime Minister of Britain: Britain is prepared to set itself a very demanding target.
18.34 It was her concern over climate change that prompted British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, better known for her cuts on government spending, to invest around 300 million US dollars in the late 1980s to set up the Hadley Centre for climate prediction. Today it leads the world in the study of global warming.
18.55 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: Now Margaret Thatcher was the only scientist in her Government. She took, and takes, great pride in that.
19.03 Sir Crispin Tickell, a former United Nations ambassador and climate change adviser to the British Government for the past 15 years, was impressed by Margaret Thatcher's grasp of the global warming problem.
19.15 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: Now I know that doesn't endear her to many of the dinosaur Right in the United States, but she is a lady of convictions and this is one of her most profound convictions - that the climate change issue is one of the most serious we face. And since then every scientific inquiry of a broad-based kind bringing together the world's scientists, has concurred with her.
19.38 It is remarkable that the woman who was a friend of the American Right always found funds for United Nations ozone and atmospheric protection programs.
19.49 Margaret Thatcher, Former British Prime Minister (at United Nations environmental protection conference): Title: October 1989 One and a half million, it will go up to three million.Q: One and a quarter?A: Well, you had better put it up to one and a half so that it can go up to three, hadn't you?
20.02 10 years later and another ozone and climate change conference is under way. This time it's in Washington, but while the US now agrees on ozone protection, cutting back on carbon emissions is now the sticking point.
20.19 Yvo de Boer, Netherlands Environment Ministry (at Washington conference): And in the Kyoto negotiations now we're getting into an interesting next phase where people are saying - and this is industrialised countries, 'We will not meet our commitments unless you take on commitments'.
20.34 Yvo de Boer from the Dutch Environmental Ministry is obviously losing patience with the lack of progress because he knows what sort of a world it will be if we do nothing.
20.44 Yvo de Boer, Netherlands Environment Ministry: I think it will be an awful world. I think it will be a world where we have much more food shortage than we have at the moment. I think it will be world where we have much more drought than we have at the moment. I think it will be a world where we have much more disease in new places than we have at the moment. I think we will have countries, maybe even like the United States, where the whole structure of their economy will be totally disrupted. I think geography classes at secondary school will become much more simple because many nations will no longer be there and have disappeared under the sea.
21.19 Although the developed world accounts for the bulk of carbon emissions, it's the developing world with populations in the tropics that will suffer the worst consequences of global warming, but at the Washington conference the developing world delegates were outnumbered more than 10 to one, and they are growing increasingly concerned about the delay caused by ongoing scientific debate while their countries are literally going under.
21.46 Rajendra Shende, United Nations Environment Program: It has been predicted in the impact scenario that they will vanish, they will just vanish. So it is a question of survival of those countries and I think at this time there is such a worldwide assessment, panels have been thinking and predicting such kind of impacts, I think the sceptics are doing more harm to this process.
22.18 The world was led to believe that decisive action had been taken two years ago at the United Nations climate conference in Kyoto. Using 1990 levels as a baseline, the developed nations agreed to an overall cut of 5% in greenhouse gas emissions. They agreed to reach their targets by around 2010.
22.41 Al Gore, United States Vice President: The United States remains firmly committed to a strong, binding target that will reduce our own emissions by nearly 30% from what they would otherwise be.
22.52 Kyoto was a political compromise. While members of the European Union were pushing for cuts of up to 20%, Australia, one of the world's highest polluters per person, refused to sign until it was given an 8% increase in its emissions.
23.10 John Howard, Prime Minister: Title: December 1997 We put our case to the leaders of the world and finally in Kyoto, skilfully lead by Robert Hill, that we have achieved a really first class outcome.
23.21 It was also scientific compromise because the science says we will only fix the greenhouse problem with at least a 60% cut in emissions, but Kyoto was always considered a first step.
23.38 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: I believe myself that the kind of reductions which the world is talking about in the Kyoto Protocol are not nearly enough, but that's to miss the point. The point is that the Kyoto Protocol is an effort to try and restrain the industrialised countries who have made this mess to give the example in beginning to clear it up.
23.58 When Vice President Al Gore announced the Clinton Administration's backing for the Kyoto Protocol and signed up for a 7% reduction, the world thought the United States was on side.
24.13 Bill Clinton, United States President: There was no fight on global warming with me. I made a commitment and we are going to keep it. And we are going to do it in a way that's good for business - it is going to create a lot of jobs.
24.24 African American Business Woman (in TV commercial): I worked hard to build my business, but now a proposed United Nations climate treaty could put me out of business by raising the cost of natural gas, electricity and gasoline by 25 to 50%.
24.34 It was TV commercials like these, paid for by anti Kyoto lobbyists, that helped convince US politicians that Vice President Al Gore had signed a treaty that was bad for America.
24.48 Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman: Well one person does not have the ability to commit anyone to a treaty.
24.53 Dana Rohrabacher calls global warming liberal claptrap. A speech writer for Ronald Reagan for seven years and now a Republican Congressman for California, he chaired a House science subcommittee that voted to cut funds to climate change monitoring and renewable energy research.
25.11 Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman: Thank goodness that this is a democracy and that we haven't given up all of our powers to some multinational or global organisation like the United Nations, because the American people have good sense. They're not going to commit themselves to a treaty like happened in Kyoto which will in the end be a massive shift of wealth away from the western democracies over to countries like China and other developing countries which are run by dictators and crooks, by and large. And the American people aren't gonna lower our standard of living for that - especially when it has no, when the, when it is over some issue like global warming, which is not scientifically proven and could well be just a bunch of baloney.
25.52 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: The US with Australia and Canada are the biggest polluters in this planet at the moment, and they have got cause to have a very large guilty conscience, and that comes out in aggressive, incoherent statements about how wicked the rest of the world is in wanting them to do something, and how the American way of life as George Bush once assured the US electorate before Rio, the American way of life is not in question, it's going to go on forever and we like it that way.
26.18 Al Gore, United States Vice President: We have a real commitment, not a rhetorical commitment, not words designed to suggest action that are then followed up by inaction.
26.38 But all Al Gore has got has been inaction on global warming. For a United Nations treaty to become law it needs a two thirds majority in the Senate, and Al Gore has been hamstrung by a hostile Senate. He has also had to deal with the fossil fuel lobby that has run a powerful campaign across America.
27.00 Fossil Fuel Lobby TV Advertisement:“132 of 166 countries are exempt.”
27.04 The campaign was so strong the Senate signalled its anti Kyoto stance when it passed a resolution that it wouldn't ratify any law on climate change that didn't have the same binding emissions for the developing nations.
27.18 Fossil Fuel Lobby TV Advertisement:“It's not global and it won't work.”
27.23 And now Al Gore is in the midst of a crucial presidential campaign and he appears to have gone very quiet on climate change.
27.31 Ross Gelbspan, Author of 'The Heat Is On': He did all his homework. He really learned this information about climate change personally - it's not stuff he just took from his aides - and now that he has become Vice President and that he has presidential aspirations I really think that his ambition has overtaken his conviction, his sense of conviction.
27.52 Ross Gelbspan is author of the book 'The Heat Is On', an analysis of the politics of climate crisis in America, and how the fossil fuel lobby is playing a crucial part in policy making.
28.06 Ross Gelbspan, Author of 'The Heat Is On': If Gore would embrace this issue he would gain far more votes than he would lose by doing it, and he is a great disappointment to people who were looking toward him for leadership.
28.17 Eileen Claussen, Pew Center on Global Climate Change: I left government in mid-1997. I did my best while I was there and hopefully I will be able to do more now that I am outside.
28.25 Eileen Claussen was a key environmental adviser to the Clinton/Gore Administration for five years before she left to head the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. She is not optimistic that the Kyoto treaty will ever be ratified in the United States, or that targets will be met internationally.
28.45 Eileen Claussen, Pew Center on Global Climate Change: I think it is very unlikely that Kyoto will even deliver on the first set of targets that were negotiated in 1997, which as you know are a 5% global reduction from 1990 levels - which most scientists will tell you is not enough anyway - but the odds of it delivering on that are very small.
29.07 Rajendra Shende, United Nations Environment Program: Science cannot be complete. There may be some uncertainties left, but uncertainties cannot be an excuse for inaction, because if you remain passive today, the cost of that remaining passive is very high in the future, and why not take action today?
29.26 Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman: This idea that humankind, we're putting out this minuscule amount of the gases that actually supposedly cause global warming. Almost all, 95% to 97% of them are being put out by mother nature themselves - in volcanoes and in cow farts and beetles and termites put out all of these carbons and the decaying wood in the Amazon jungles - these things are put out by mother nature. Mankind, even with all of this industrialisation, puts out about maybe 5% of it. And for us to cut that, even 1% of the 5%, will cause us a decrease in our standard of living. It's not worth it, and it's not gonna work. And on top of it, global warming doesn't exist, so why try?
30.28 But the fact is every year there are more than three billion tonnes of extra carbon left in the air that the natural system cannot absorb. The science says man, not nature, is overloading the system. Almost two thirds of world emissions come from electricity generation and transport and the United States with its long-term love affair with conspicuous consumption and burning up every form of energy, is the world's biggest polluter.
31.08 When you come to America it is pretty easy to see how they have earned the title as the world's number one energy consumers. They produce more carbon dioxide emissions than any other country on earth - with just 4% of the world's population, America produces more than 20% of the world's emissions. Now to put that into perspective, that is five tonnes of carbon per person per year.
31.31 American Woman: They want their big fancy limousines and cars to drive in. Well, it's just the American way.
31.39 The American way also means the freedom to drive massive mobile motor homes that get seven miles to the gallon, or around two kilometres to the litre.
31.49 American Man: I run all over the United States. I burn up a lot of it, but I'm only one of hundreds and thousands. People aren't going to quit because they ask them to. I mean, I spent a lot of money on this and we enjoy driving all over the United States and we are going to continue to do it until they stop us.
32.08 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: At the moment a pint of petrol costs less than a pint of bottled water in the United States, and that is a grotesque situation.
32.18 The American way of life has been built on cheap energy. The fossil fuels lobbyists in Washington want to keep it that way. They say ratifying Kyoto will put an end to the American dream.
32.31 William O'Keefe, American Petroleum Institute: First of all, there is no conceivable way that the Kyoto Protocol will be ratified by the United States Senate - that has been made very clear.Q: Answer this question honestly - does the American Petroleum Institute donate money to both the Democrats and the Republican parties?A: We don't have a PAC [Political Action Committee] and we don't donate money to political parties or to candidates.Q: So no money at all?A: No, we don't.Q: Would members of your organisation do it though?A: Of course, that's every American's right to take their money and contribute to political candidates and political parties.Q: But some of the oil companies are the biggest companies in America - wouldn't they be also the biggest donors?A: Well, I don't have a list of who makes the biggest donations to the political parties. You can research that. I doubt that you would find that the oil companies are at the top of the list.
33.32 But figures from the Washington Center for Responsive Politics show that the oil and gas sector was the fifth biggest industry donor in the last American elections, giving more than nine million dollars.
33.45 Dr Bernard Bulkin, BP Amoco: Q: Oil Companies and other fossil fuel industries donate millions of dollars to the Republicans and to the Democrats. Why do they do this?A: Access. The reason for political donations any place in the world, I think, don't buy votes. What they buy is access to be able to put your point of view.
34.07 The two giant European oil companies, BP and Shell, in contrast to the Americans, have made strong commitments to invest in renewable energy and cut their greenhouse gas emissions and both companies have also cut all ties with the anti Kyoto lobby group backed by the American Petroleum Institute.
34.30 Dr Bernard Bulkin, BP Amoco: Every company has to come to their own view. We have taken a position which we think is right for the planet, right for our company, because what this is really about is saving the company, not saving the world.
34.42 Professor Pat Michaels (in 'The Greening of Planet Earth'): A doubling of the CO2 content of the atmosphere will produce a tremendous greening of planet earth.
34.50 The video series, 'The Greening of Planet Earth' and 'The Greening of Planet Earth Continues', produced by US lobby Western Fuels Association, has been widely circulated in Washington. It puts the view that a carbon-saturated atmosphere won't kill the planet, it will help it grow better.
35.10 Professor Pat Michaels (in 'The Greening of Planet Earth Continues'): The evidence that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is going to cause a disaster is somewhere between slim and none. However the evidence that it is doing a good thing by lengthening the growing season and making plants grow better is somewhere between large and overwhelming.
35.27 The programs feature a number of scientists including Professor Pat Michaels who was recommended to 'Four Corners' as a leading climatologist both by the American Petroleum Institute and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. These videos and Professor Michaels' evidence have both been influential in forming US policy on global warming.
35.52 Professor Pat Michaels, Climatologist, University of Virginia: Q: So you're saying global warming could be good for us?A: Oh, yes of course, and that's anathema. It is anathema in the public mores to consider the notion that something human beings might do to the atmosphere as a result of their economic activity could be good. Yes, it very well could be.
36.11 In the years leading up to Kyoto, Professor Michaels edited a magazine called 'The World Climate Review.' It attacked United Nations policy and global warming theory. The magazine was also funded by the Western Fuels Association, the same body that funded the video series 'The Greening of Planet Earth' and its 1998 sequel, 'The Greening of Planet Earth Continues.'
36.37 Professor Pat Michaels, Climatologist, University of Virginia: Q: Have you received any money from the coal lobby in America?A: Coal lobby? Yeah, right. If you take a look at my vitae, which is a public document, you will see that for university research that ended about '94, '95 or something like that, but does it matter? Q: You testified under oath in 1995 that you received about $165,000 over a five year period?A: That sounds about right. I should tell you, that is a very small amount of research money.Q: Don't you think there’s a problem that you’re receiving some money from those sort of sources. A: Unfortunately the way the world works is we have multiple sources of support. Hopefully, I think, they should be broad and I think industry should fund more research and not less.
37.25 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: There is nothing that hurts the fossil fuel industries more, or indeed the car manufacturers more, than the thought that they might actually have to do something about greenhouse warming. And so you get the curious combination that happens very often in the United States of vested interests making a loud noise in Washington, rubbishing the science and generally trying to persuade the United States that it is quite different from the rest of humanity and it can observe quite different rules and regulations.
37.50 It is this combination of lobbyists, some sceptical scientists and politicians that Ross Gelbspan believes will stop any international action on climate change.
38.08 Ross Gelbspan, Author of 'The Heat Is On': In the US, the fossil fuel lobby has spent millions and millions and millions of dollars on disinformation campaigns because they know in today's world, unless the US takes action, the rest of the world really can't do too much.
38.30 But while the US and Europe are fighting over Kyoto, there are some developing countries that are showing the rest of the world what can be done. There is no debate over climate change in the Central American Republic of Costa Rica. This is San Jose the capital, and citizens here are already paying a 5% carbon tax which is being used to plant trees and protect forests. And when it comes to renewable energy, Costa Rica is a world leader.
39.11 85% of the world's energy comes from burning fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas - but the Costa Ricans look to their natural environment for the answer, and 85% of their energy comes from hydroelectric projects.
39.24 Franz Tattenbach, FUNDECOR, Costa Rica: In reality there are more concrete projects of emission reductions taking place now in Central America probably than in many industrialised nations. And as you know, there's kind of an irony that we that were not part of the problem, we are getting hit very badly by climate-related events in the last couple of years, and we are the ones doing most about it.
39.50 Costa Rica, although it is a developing nation, has the highest proportion of protected forest of any country in the world, and now it has turned to trees as a way of making money in the battle to beat global warming. Because trees turn carbon dioxide into wood when they photosynthesise, and it is possible to calculate the carbon they store and sell the 'offset' or 'credit' on the international market, a tonne of carbon offsets stored in Costa Rican trees sells for 10 US dollars. This new carbon trade was an outcome from Kyoto, a way to help nations meet their emission targets. If polluters can't meet their emissions targets, they can pay tree planters to soak up the difference and store their problem.
40.46 Franz Tattenbach, FUNDECOR, Costa Rica: The incentives have worked. We have seen a total reversal in the losses of forest in the past 10 years or five years in Costa Rica due to this program. Farmers are responding not only to payments but to the anticipation of incentives of this nature. They're anticipating that the forest might be worth more than just the wood.
41.16 Franz Tattenbach heads a nongovernment organisation called FUNDECOR. He set up the world's first carbon offset deal worth two million dollars with a Norwegian consortium in 1997. Today he has a group from the German Development Bank and the World Bank looking at how his country is capitalising on Kyoto. Farmers are now being paid to plant trees, and paid not to cut down forest on their land.
41.50 Franz Tattenbach, FUNDECOR, Costa Rica: It is a surprise now how in Costa Rica a farmer, any simple farmer, could tell you about carbon offsets and why they might be producing some sort of global good that might be interested to be purchased by some Norwegian company or the Norwegian Government. And that's quite fascinating, the level of understanding of this global issue that some Costa Rican farmers get now.
42.18 Cost Rica still harvests timber and runs sustainable forestry programs, and although it means in many cases there's les money for the people, conservation of forests is still seen as a priority.
42.33 Carlos Gonzales, Timber Worker: In my opinion they just haven't realised that we are all going to destroy ourselves. If nature disappears, this will just become a hell, right?
42.48 While Coast Rica has been leading the developing world in carbon trading, other nations have been quick to seize the opportunity. One of these countries is Australia, which will need to plant millions of trees just to get close to its Kyoto commitment. Australia is still clearing hundreds of thousands of hectares of land each year, far more than is being planted, and so schemes to gain carbon credits through tree planting are now being pushed at all levels of government and private industry. One of the first major deals in Australia was by BP. It wants to be the greenest oil company in the world and it is planting up to 60,000 hectares of trees in Western Australia, just to cover the million tonnes of carbon dioxide it emits each year from its refinery outside Perth.
43.45 Dr Bernard Bulkin, BP Amoco: Certain things are clear. The carbon dioxide concentration is going up. It appears that global temperatures are going up and that there are other effects happening, so taking a precautionary approach to me makes complete sense.
44.00 The trade in carbon credits will make it a lot easier for many polluters to meet their countries' targets, but experts say this trade is an easy way out. Although it may provide breathing space, ultimately the pollution has to stop and companies have to switch to renewable energy.
44.18 Sir John Houghton, United Nations Panel on Climate Change: The whole problem with carbon trading is it can be used as a cop out by some countries who find they can suddenly manage to fill in their books in ways that are too easy and don't really do what we would need to do in the end, which is make sure that on a global, long-term basis we actually reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that gets into the atmosphere.
44.42 Franz Tattenbach, FUNDECOR, Costa Rica: Actually, for the atmosphere, it is totally irrelevant if the emission reduction happens in the US or in Australia or it happens in Costa Rica. I mean, a tonne of carbon emissions that has been reduced there or here, it is the same for climate change. You can plant a tree, its wood is 25% carbon, that carbon is there. It can not have come from anywhere except a CO2 that was in the atmosphere.
45.09 Ross Gelbspan, Author of 'The Heat Is On': I think it is very good for Costa Rica and I think Costa Rica's government is very conscientious about the Costa Rican ecosystems. I think when you look at it form the point of view of the buyers, it is a very cheap way for them to buy their way out of making real energy emission reductions. I think it is basically dodging what the real responsibilities are to the rest of the planet and to future generations.
45.31 Bishop Randy B. Royal: Amen. Whatever God's message was through this storm, whatever it was, he has our attention on this morning.
45.44 God certainly has the attention of the people of flood ravaged North Carolina, and while they can't replace lives, they can rebuild homes. And the rest of the world is now faced with a choice: If we are convinced that global warming is man made and not heaven sent, then we have to take heed of the warning signs - the disappearing forests, the dying coral reefs and the extreme weather. And if we decide to act, we should remember the words of the scientists and not the politicians who tell us that just to start solving the problem we have to cut our emissions not by 5%, but by at least 50% - and at present they are still rising.
46.55 Ross Gelbspan, Author of 'The Heat Is On': What is our obligation to the future? What matters after we pack it in? Who cares what happens after that? I don't know the answer to that. For some reason to me there is big difference between an individual death - I'm gonna die - and a collective death of our civilisation, which has been building on itself for five to 6,000 years. To me there is a big difference between the two - the first is the normal order of things, the second is a horrendous tragedy. I don't have a good answer for why we should care about what happens to future generations, about what happens to all the animals and plants, about what happens to this planet after we are dead, I just know that I think people who don't care about it are missing something inside.
47.56 Ends
c Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation 1999
A 45 Minute Documentary
October 1999
Reporter: Ian Henschke
Producer: Janine Cohen
02.53 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: Tickell:The majority of the world's scientists are now agreed, except for a very few people, but the majority agree, that we are having incalculable effects on climate.
03.12 But while most scientists agree on the effects of global warming, the United States - the superpower of all polluters - is still stopping any international action.
03.22 Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman Rohrabacher: It's not worth it, and it's not gonna work and on top of it, global warming doesn't exist, so why try?
03.30 If we don't try, leading climatologists say we could experience rising sea levels and even more catastrophic weather events.
03.44 Yvo de Boer, Netherlands Environment Ministry: Boer: Geography classes in secondary school will become much more simple because many nations will no longer be there and will disappear under the sea.
03.57 Rajendra Shende, United Nations Environment Program: Shende: If you remain passive today, the cost of that remaining passive is very high in the future, and why not take action today?
04.08 Title: Emission Impossible
04.35 It's Sunday morning in Greenville, North Caroline and this congregation is celebrating their survival and mourning their losses in a flood that has claimed more than 50 lives and caused billions of dollars of damage. It has been classified as a one in 500 year weather event, and it is yet another example of the extreme weather the world has been witnessing in recent times. The deluge hit North Carolina with such force that the main river in Greenville rose 10 metres above its normal height, and even though it has dropped just as quickly, thousands have been left homeless. The army has been called in to clean up and to keep order, and the local high school has become a shelter for hundreds of homeless families.
05.50 Merle Glenn, American Red Cross: These people have seen a flood that they have not had any records of anything like this as they can go to 500 years, so this was an event that they were totally unprepared for and totally unexpected. The hurricanes usually pass east of them along the coastal areas of the United States and the flooding and damage has kind of been confined there. It is one of the largest operations that they have had in the United States as far as bringing in assistance and workers.
06.21 North Carolina Flood Victim Victim: I have heard it said that we can have more compassion when we maybe see earthquakes and floods and such like on television. Now we can really identify with other people, homeless people. It is terrible, and me, I'm a Christian and I believe it is just the beginning of sorrows such as it was spoken of in the Bible.
07.00 Most of the population around Greenville are the descendants of slaves - slaves who gained their freedom at the end of the Civil War and were given pioneers in establishing the first African American towns. They have seen plenty of troubles in the past and today they are wondering why God has wrought such devastation on them.
07.21 Bishop Randy B. Royal: Royal: Praise God, we mourn this morning. As we celebrate we mourn as well. All of those who will be burying their dead - as soon as graves are dry enough so that they can bury their dead - we want to remember them, we really want to remember them.
07.42 But the suffering sent from heaven may have an earthly origin, the work of human and not divine hands, and maybe now we are reaping what we have sown in the earth's atmosphere over the past 200 years.
08.00 Ross Gelbspan, Author of 'The Heat Is On': Gelbspan: The hurricanes will become stronger as ocean surface waters warm up. The waters of the Atlantic are at near record levels of warmth right now. This hurricane, Floyd was the size of Texas when you looked at it from aerial photographs. It was extraordinarily large, and because of this increase in humidity in the atmosphere it has dumped these very, very intense rains in North Carolina. So these events we are seeing are precisely consistent with what the scientists have told us we are going to see. The only difference is we are seeing them earlier than they originally projected.
08.37 This is the Cray T3E 900 at the Hadley Centre in England. It is the most powerful climate modelling supercomputer in the world. It divides the earth into millions of 50 square kilometre units and then analyses climate data from each one, from the top of the stratosphere to the bottom of the oceans. For the past 10 years it has been building a weather forecast for the 21st century. It uses the past as a guide and then predicts future weather patterns. These computer models show how life on earth could change if we don't change. Its latest prediction is that by 2050 tropical rainforests will turn to desert. The increasing heat along the equatorial regions is already making some rainforests so dry then can simply be cleared by burning.
09.45 Dr Tim Johns, Hadley Centre Climatologist: When we look at the results from this vegetation model for the 2050s, we see a rather dramatic change so that a large area of Amazonia is changed from the dark green rainforest into virtually desert, the grey area, and this obviously has a severe implication for the sustainability of the forest in that region.
10.05 In other words the rainforests of the Amazon, the lungs of the earth, are predicted to choke and die in less than 50 years. It appears it won't be chainsaws and bulldozers that will kill off the largest forest in the world, it will be the slow warming of little more than one degree per decade, and a simultaneous drop in rainfall of half a metre that will see this vital ecosystem perish.
10.41 Dr Tim Johns, Hadley Centre Climatologist: Well the temperature change in the Amazon in this particular model is predicted to be something like seven degrees at 2050, so that is a very large change compared to -Q: Seven degrees Celsius?A: Seven degrees Celsius, yes. This is a large change compared with the global average, and that does illustrate the point that the global average hides a lot of regional variation and some regions will warm a lot more than others.
11.05 All plant life will be affected by these rapid changes in climate. The rainforests which soak up more than a fifth of the world's carbon will become one of the greatest sources of carbon dioxide pollution when they die and decay. And the early warning signs are already here - even pine forests in Canada are starting to die as the snow line moves further north.
11.31 Sir John Houghton, United Nations Panel on Climate Change: Houghton: Their forests are suffering already because of the increase in temperature and forests don't like to have that sort of change, and it is the rate of change that is important. We are talking a rate of change which is going to be faster than has occurred for perhaps 10,000 years at least, and that rapid rate of change many ecosystems cannot cope with, particularly trees. And of course humans find it very difficult to cope with too.
11.58 Change the atmosphere and you change life on earth. The only reason we have a planet to live on at all is because of our unique atmosphere. Without its ability to trap the sun's heat, the earth would be a frozen wasteland. Our atmosphere is a thin blanket of greenhouse gases, the most important of which is carbon dioxide. But put too much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and it is like adding an extra blanket - it will block the escaping heat and the earth will heat up. After 200 years of burning fossil fuels, coupled with cutting down forests, we have done just that. The temperature is going up, carbon dioxide levels are set to double, and studies of air trapped in ancient ice cores show they are already the highest they've been for 400,000 years. If nothing is done the earth could heat up by almost four degrees by the end of the 21st century.
13.12 Eileen Claussen, Pew Center on Global Climate Change: Will it affect sea level rise and precipitation? Of course it will. Will there be more warm temperature extremes? Of course it will. And will there be more rainfall associated with hurricanes? Yes, I think that's pretty clear as well. And will there be problems with water supply? Yeah, I think there'll be more drought in some places and more precipitation in other places, so just a lot of disruption.
13.38 Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, world population has increased from one billion to more than six billion, and it's set to go to nine billion by 2050. Each person on average is responsible for pumping more than one tonne of carbon into the atmosphere each year, and the rate is increasing.
14.00 Sir John Houghton, United Nations Panel on Climate Change: If we do nothing, we will have to prepare for a sea level rise of half a metre, maybe more, by the end of the next century.
14.17 And the sea levels are rising. In early 1999 two small unpopulated islands disappeared beneath the Pacific Ocean and it was barely noticed, but once you realise that a billion people live on or near the coast, then rising seas take on a new meaning. The low-lying regions of eastern India and Bangladesh, already affected by rising sea levels and horrendous storms, may literally go under water.
14.51 Professor Pat Michaels (talking to a student): A lot of the stuff that you hear presented in the media and things like that are only about half the story, which shouldn't surprise you.
15.00 Pat Michaels is one of the most prominent global warming sceptics. He is Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and he has published numerous articles attacking the dire predictions of scientists like Sir John Houghton. Pat Michaels' view is that global warming might even be a good thing and if there are any problems we'll simply come up with solutions.
15.22 Professor Pat Michaels, Climatologist, University of Virginia We have a society that's preconditioned to believe that weather and climate, and weather and climate change are all bad. And the reality is that there is no law, no holy writ that says that's true.
15.36 Sir John Houghton, United Nations Panel on Climate Change: Well I'm afraid Pat Michaels just hasn't read the literature, hasn't looked at all the studies which have been made, the very careful studies which have been made, about the effects of global warming on humanity and on the world as a whole.
15.49 Sir John Houghton, a former director of the Hadley Centre, today jointly heads the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He is one of the world's leading scientists on global warming. Rising sea levels are one of his major concerns.
16.05 Sir John Houghton, United Nations Panel on Climate Change: Many people of course, in many countries and many cities will be able to buy their way out of it, but at a cost, by putting up better sea defences, but if you live in Bangladesh, or if you live in South China, if you live in the Nile Delta of Egypt, if you live on islands in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, then much of your land will disappear. Tens of millions live in that land and they will become refugees.
16.26 Professor Pat Michaels, Climatologist, University of Virginia: These things can be adapted to. If we want to make a statement that the folks in Bangladesh are incapable of adapting to the slow changes over the course of a hundred years when other societies clearly adapted and flourished, in fact made money on adapting to their environment, we're saying, we're making a cultural judgement that I am not prepared to make here in the academy.
16.57 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: I think the Europeans are taking it all more seriously because they have got a better grip on the science. In a way the United States is an island continent. Sometimes one thinks they're on a kind of asteroid unconnected with anybody else.
17.09 The European attitude is very different. The science is accepted and regulations have been drawn up to cut emissions. Not surprising perhaps when you consider that rising sea levels are already a threat to the biggest city in Europe.
17.23 Queen Elizabeth the Second: It is a great tribute to the wisdom of Parliament that London has now been made free from the threat of flooding.
17.33 London has built barriers at the mouth of the Thames to cope with increased flooding, but it is the anticipated flood of refugees that is causing most concern.
17.42 Yvo de Boer, Netherlands Environment Ministry: The most significant consequences that we will be faced with are indirect consequences in the sense of climate change - refugees swarming out across the world. I mean basically we already have the capacity in many parts of Europe and the wealth in many parts of Europe to deal with the short term consequences of climate change. For example, in our own programs in the Netherlands we are already raising our dykes by 50 centimetres, by half a metre, taking into account the sea level rise that is going to take place. We can afford to construct that kind of protection for ourselves, but the consequences, I think, in many of the poorer nations in the world, nations that basically I think, cynically, we don't really care about, are going to be catastrophic.
18.29 Margaret Thatcher, Former Prime Minister of Britain: Britain is prepared to set itself a very demanding target.
18.34 It was her concern over climate change that prompted British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, better known for her cuts on government spending, to invest around 300 million US dollars in the late 1980s to set up the Hadley Centre for climate prediction. Today it leads the world in the study of global warming.
18.55 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: Now Margaret Thatcher was the only scientist in her Government. She took, and takes, great pride in that.
19.03 Sir Crispin Tickell, a former United Nations ambassador and climate change adviser to the British Government for the past 15 years, was impressed by Margaret Thatcher's grasp of the global warming problem.
19.15 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: Now I know that doesn't endear her to many of the dinosaur Right in the United States, but she is a lady of convictions and this is one of her most profound convictions - that the climate change issue is one of the most serious we face. And since then every scientific inquiry of a broad-based kind bringing together the world's scientists, has concurred with her.
19.38 It is remarkable that the woman who was a friend of the American Right always found funds for United Nations ozone and atmospheric protection programs.
19.49 Margaret Thatcher, Former British Prime Minister (at United Nations environmental protection conference): Title: October 1989 One and a half million, it will go up to three million.Q: One and a quarter?A: Well, you had better put it up to one and a half so that it can go up to three, hadn't you?
20.02 10 years later and another ozone and climate change conference is under way. This time it's in Washington, but while the US now agrees on ozone protection, cutting back on carbon emissions is now the sticking point.
20.19 Yvo de Boer, Netherlands Environment Ministry (at Washington conference): And in the Kyoto negotiations now we're getting into an interesting next phase where people are saying - and this is industrialised countries, 'We will not meet our commitments unless you take on commitments'.
20.34 Yvo de Boer from the Dutch Environmental Ministry is obviously losing patience with the lack of progress because he knows what sort of a world it will be if we do nothing.
20.44 Yvo de Boer, Netherlands Environment Ministry: I think it will be an awful world. I think it will be a world where we have much more food shortage than we have at the moment. I think it will be world where we have much more drought than we have at the moment. I think it will be a world where we have much more disease in new places than we have at the moment. I think we will have countries, maybe even like the United States, where the whole structure of their economy will be totally disrupted. I think geography classes at secondary school will become much more simple because many nations will no longer be there and have disappeared under the sea.
21.19 Although the developed world accounts for the bulk of carbon emissions, it's the developing world with populations in the tropics that will suffer the worst consequences of global warming, but at the Washington conference the developing world delegates were outnumbered more than 10 to one, and they are growing increasingly concerned about the delay caused by ongoing scientific debate while their countries are literally going under.
21.46 Rajendra Shende, United Nations Environment Program: It has been predicted in the impact scenario that they will vanish, they will just vanish. So it is a question of survival of those countries and I think at this time there is such a worldwide assessment, panels have been thinking and predicting such kind of impacts, I think the sceptics are doing more harm to this process.
22.18 The world was led to believe that decisive action had been taken two years ago at the United Nations climate conference in Kyoto. Using 1990 levels as a baseline, the developed nations agreed to an overall cut of 5% in greenhouse gas emissions. They agreed to reach their targets by around 2010.
22.41 Al Gore, United States Vice President: The United States remains firmly committed to a strong, binding target that will reduce our own emissions by nearly 30% from what they would otherwise be.
22.52 Kyoto was a political compromise. While members of the European Union were pushing for cuts of up to 20%, Australia, one of the world's highest polluters per person, refused to sign until it was given an 8% increase in its emissions.
23.10 John Howard, Prime Minister: Title: December 1997 We put our case to the leaders of the world and finally in Kyoto, skilfully lead by Robert Hill, that we have achieved a really first class outcome.
23.21 It was also scientific compromise because the science says we will only fix the greenhouse problem with at least a 60% cut in emissions, but Kyoto was always considered a first step.
23.38 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: I believe myself that the kind of reductions which the world is talking about in the Kyoto Protocol are not nearly enough, but that's to miss the point. The point is that the Kyoto Protocol is an effort to try and restrain the industrialised countries who have made this mess to give the example in beginning to clear it up.
23.58 When Vice President Al Gore announced the Clinton Administration's backing for the Kyoto Protocol and signed up for a 7% reduction, the world thought the United States was on side.
24.13 Bill Clinton, United States President: There was no fight on global warming with me. I made a commitment and we are going to keep it. And we are going to do it in a way that's good for business - it is going to create a lot of jobs.
24.24 African American Business Woman (in TV commercial): I worked hard to build my business, but now a proposed United Nations climate treaty could put me out of business by raising the cost of natural gas, electricity and gasoline by 25 to 50%.
24.34 It was TV commercials like these, paid for by anti Kyoto lobbyists, that helped convince US politicians that Vice President Al Gore had signed a treaty that was bad for America.
24.48 Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman: Well one person does not have the ability to commit anyone to a treaty.
24.53 Dana Rohrabacher calls global warming liberal claptrap. A speech writer for Ronald Reagan for seven years and now a Republican Congressman for California, he chaired a House science subcommittee that voted to cut funds to climate change monitoring and renewable energy research.
25.11 Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman: Thank goodness that this is a democracy and that we haven't given up all of our powers to some multinational or global organisation like the United Nations, because the American people have good sense. They're not going to commit themselves to a treaty like happened in Kyoto which will in the end be a massive shift of wealth away from the western democracies over to countries like China and other developing countries which are run by dictators and crooks, by and large. And the American people aren't gonna lower our standard of living for that - especially when it has no, when the, when it is over some issue like global warming, which is not scientifically proven and could well be just a bunch of baloney.
25.52 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: The US with Australia and Canada are the biggest polluters in this planet at the moment, and they have got cause to have a very large guilty conscience, and that comes out in aggressive, incoherent statements about how wicked the rest of the world is in wanting them to do something, and how the American way of life as George Bush once assured the US electorate before Rio, the American way of life is not in question, it's going to go on forever and we like it that way.
26.18 Al Gore, United States Vice President: We have a real commitment, not a rhetorical commitment, not words designed to suggest action that are then followed up by inaction.
26.38 But all Al Gore has got has been inaction on global warming. For a United Nations treaty to become law it needs a two thirds majority in the Senate, and Al Gore has been hamstrung by a hostile Senate. He has also had to deal with the fossil fuel lobby that has run a powerful campaign across America.
27.00 Fossil Fuel Lobby TV Advertisement:“132 of 166 countries are exempt.”
27.04 The campaign was so strong the Senate signalled its anti Kyoto stance when it passed a resolution that it wouldn't ratify any law on climate change that didn't have the same binding emissions for the developing nations.
27.18 Fossil Fuel Lobby TV Advertisement:“It's not global and it won't work.”
27.23 And now Al Gore is in the midst of a crucial presidential campaign and he appears to have gone very quiet on climate change.
27.31 Ross Gelbspan, Author of 'The Heat Is On': He did all his homework. He really learned this information about climate change personally - it's not stuff he just took from his aides - and now that he has become Vice President and that he has presidential aspirations I really think that his ambition has overtaken his conviction, his sense of conviction.
27.52 Ross Gelbspan is author of the book 'The Heat Is On', an analysis of the politics of climate crisis in America, and how the fossil fuel lobby is playing a crucial part in policy making.
28.06 Ross Gelbspan, Author of 'The Heat Is On': If Gore would embrace this issue he would gain far more votes than he would lose by doing it, and he is a great disappointment to people who were looking toward him for leadership.
28.17 Eileen Claussen, Pew Center on Global Climate Change: I left government in mid-1997. I did my best while I was there and hopefully I will be able to do more now that I am outside.
28.25 Eileen Claussen was a key environmental adviser to the Clinton/Gore Administration for five years before she left to head the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. She is not optimistic that the Kyoto treaty will ever be ratified in the United States, or that targets will be met internationally.
28.45 Eileen Claussen, Pew Center on Global Climate Change: I think it is very unlikely that Kyoto will even deliver on the first set of targets that were negotiated in 1997, which as you know are a 5% global reduction from 1990 levels - which most scientists will tell you is not enough anyway - but the odds of it delivering on that are very small.
29.07 Rajendra Shende, United Nations Environment Program: Science cannot be complete. There may be some uncertainties left, but uncertainties cannot be an excuse for inaction, because if you remain passive today, the cost of that remaining passive is very high in the future, and why not take action today?
29.26 Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman: This idea that humankind, we're putting out this minuscule amount of the gases that actually supposedly cause global warming. Almost all, 95% to 97% of them are being put out by mother nature themselves - in volcanoes and in cow farts and beetles and termites put out all of these carbons and the decaying wood in the Amazon jungles - these things are put out by mother nature. Mankind, even with all of this industrialisation, puts out about maybe 5% of it. And for us to cut that, even 1% of the 5%, will cause us a decrease in our standard of living. It's not worth it, and it's not gonna work. And on top of it, global warming doesn't exist, so why try?
30.28 But the fact is every year there are more than three billion tonnes of extra carbon left in the air that the natural system cannot absorb. The science says man, not nature, is overloading the system. Almost two thirds of world emissions come from electricity generation and transport and the United States with its long-term love affair with conspicuous consumption and burning up every form of energy, is the world's biggest polluter.
31.08 When you come to America it is pretty easy to see how they have earned the title as the world's number one energy consumers. They produce more carbon dioxide emissions than any other country on earth - with just 4% of the world's population, America produces more than 20% of the world's emissions. Now to put that into perspective, that is five tonnes of carbon per person per year.
31.31 American Woman: They want their big fancy limousines and cars to drive in. Well, it's just the American way.
31.39 The American way also means the freedom to drive massive mobile motor homes that get seven miles to the gallon, or around two kilometres to the litre.
31.49 American Man: I run all over the United States. I burn up a lot of it, but I'm only one of hundreds and thousands. People aren't going to quit because they ask them to. I mean, I spent a lot of money on this and we enjoy driving all over the United States and we are going to continue to do it until they stop us.
32.08 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: At the moment a pint of petrol costs less than a pint of bottled water in the United States, and that is a grotesque situation.
32.18 The American way of life has been built on cheap energy. The fossil fuels lobbyists in Washington want to keep it that way. They say ratifying Kyoto will put an end to the American dream.
32.31 William O'Keefe, American Petroleum Institute: First of all, there is no conceivable way that the Kyoto Protocol will be ratified by the United States Senate - that has been made very clear.Q: Answer this question honestly - does the American Petroleum Institute donate money to both the Democrats and the Republican parties?A: We don't have a PAC [Political Action Committee] and we don't donate money to political parties or to candidates.Q: So no money at all?A: No, we don't.Q: Would members of your organisation do it though?A: Of course, that's every American's right to take their money and contribute to political candidates and political parties.Q: But some of the oil companies are the biggest companies in America - wouldn't they be also the biggest donors?A: Well, I don't have a list of who makes the biggest donations to the political parties. You can research that. I doubt that you would find that the oil companies are at the top of the list.
33.32 But figures from the Washington Center for Responsive Politics show that the oil and gas sector was the fifth biggest industry donor in the last American elections, giving more than nine million dollars.
33.45 Dr Bernard Bulkin, BP Amoco: Q: Oil Companies and other fossil fuel industries donate millions of dollars to the Republicans and to the Democrats. Why do they do this?A: Access. The reason for political donations any place in the world, I think, don't buy votes. What they buy is access to be able to put your point of view.
34.07 The two giant European oil companies, BP and Shell, in contrast to the Americans, have made strong commitments to invest in renewable energy and cut their greenhouse gas emissions and both companies have also cut all ties with the anti Kyoto lobby group backed by the American Petroleum Institute.
34.30 Dr Bernard Bulkin, BP Amoco: Every company has to come to their own view. We have taken a position which we think is right for the planet, right for our company, because what this is really about is saving the company, not saving the world.
34.42 Professor Pat Michaels (in 'The Greening of Planet Earth'): A doubling of the CO2 content of the atmosphere will produce a tremendous greening of planet earth.
34.50 The video series, 'The Greening of Planet Earth' and 'The Greening of Planet Earth Continues', produced by US lobby Western Fuels Association, has been widely circulated in Washington. It puts the view that a carbon-saturated atmosphere won't kill the planet, it will help it grow better.
35.10 Professor Pat Michaels (in 'The Greening of Planet Earth Continues'): The evidence that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is going to cause a disaster is somewhere between slim and none. However the evidence that it is doing a good thing by lengthening the growing season and making plants grow better is somewhere between large and overwhelming.
35.27 The programs feature a number of scientists including Professor Pat Michaels who was recommended to 'Four Corners' as a leading climatologist both by the American Petroleum Institute and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. These videos and Professor Michaels' evidence have both been influential in forming US policy on global warming.
35.52 Professor Pat Michaels, Climatologist, University of Virginia: Q: So you're saying global warming could be good for us?A: Oh, yes of course, and that's anathema. It is anathema in the public mores to consider the notion that something human beings might do to the atmosphere as a result of their economic activity could be good. Yes, it very well could be.
36.11 In the years leading up to Kyoto, Professor Michaels edited a magazine called 'The World Climate Review.' It attacked United Nations policy and global warming theory. The magazine was also funded by the Western Fuels Association, the same body that funded the video series 'The Greening of Planet Earth' and its 1998 sequel, 'The Greening of Planet Earth Continues.'
36.37 Professor Pat Michaels, Climatologist, University of Virginia: Q: Have you received any money from the coal lobby in America?A: Coal lobby? Yeah, right. If you take a look at my vitae, which is a public document, you will see that for university research that ended about '94, '95 or something like that, but does it matter? Q: You testified under oath in 1995 that you received about $165,000 over a five year period?A: That sounds about right. I should tell you, that is a very small amount of research money.Q: Don't you think there’s a problem that you’re receiving some money from those sort of sources. A: Unfortunately the way the world works is we have multiple sources of support. Hopefully, I think, they should be broad and I think industry should fund more research and not less.
37.25 Sir Crispin Tickell, Climate Adviser, British Government: There is nothing that hurts the fossil fuel industries more, or indeed the car manufacturers more, than the thought that they might actually have to do something about greenhouse warming. And so you get the curious combination that happens very often in the United States of vested interests making a loud noise in Washington, rubbishing the science and generally trying to persuade the United States that it is quite different from the rest of humanity and it can observe quite different rules and regulations.
37.50 It is this combination of lobbyists, some sceptical scientists and politicians that Ross Gelbspan believes will stop any international action on climate change.
38.08 Ross Gelbspan, Author of 'The Heat Is On': In the US, the fossil fuel lobby has spent millions and millions and millions of dollars on disinformation campaigns because they know in today's world, unless the US takes action, the rest of the world really can't do too much.
38.30 But while the US and Europe are fighting over Kyoto, there are some developing countries that are showing the rest of the world what can be done. There is no debate over climate change in the Central American Republic of Costa Rica. This is San Jose the capital, and citizens here are already paying a 5% carbon tax which is being used to plant trees and protect forests. And when it comes to renewable energy, Costa Rica is a world leader.
39.11 85% of the world's energy comes from burning fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas - but the Costa Ricans look to their natural environment for the answer, and 85% of their energy comes from hydroelectric projects.
39.24 Franz Tattenbach, FUNDECOR, Costa Rica: In reality there are more concrete projects of emission reductions taking place now in Central America probably than in many industrialised nations. And as you know, there's kind of an irony that we that were not part of the problem, we are getting hit very badly by climate-related events in the last couple of years, and we are the ones doing most about it.
39.50 Costa Rica, although it is a developing nation, has the highest proportion of protected forest of any country in the world, and now it has turned to trees as a way of making money in the battle to beat global warming. Because trees turn carbon dioxide into wood when they photosynthesise, and it is possible to calculate the carbon they store and sell the 'offset' or 'credit' on the international market, a tonne of carbon offsets stored in Costa Rican trees sells for 10 US dollars. This new carbon trade was an outcome from Kyoto, a way to help nations meet their emission targets. If polluters can't meet their emissions targets, they can pay tree planters to soak up the difference and store their problem.
40.46 Franz Tattenbach, FUNDECOR, Costa Rica: The incentives have worked. We have seen a total reversal in the losses of forest in the past 10 years or five years in Costa Rica due to this program. Farmers are responding not only to payments but to the anticipation of incentives of this nature. They're anticipating that the forest might be worth more than just the wood.
41.16 Franz Tattenbach heads a nongovernment organisation called FUNDECOR. He set up the world's first carbon offset deal worth two million dollars with a Norwegian consortium in 1997. Today he has a group from the German Development Bank and the World Bank looking at how his country is capitalising on Kyoto. Farmers are now being paid to plant trees, and paid not to cut down forest on their land.
41.50 Franz Tattenbach, FUNDECOR, Costa Rica: It is a surprise now how in Costa Rica a farmer, any simple farmer, could tell you about carbon offsets and why they might be producing some sort of global good that might be interested to be purchased by some Norwegian company or the Norwegian Government. And that's quite fascinating, the level of understanding of this global issue that some Costa Rican farmers get now.
42.18 Cost Rica still harvests timber and runs sustainable forestry programs, and although it means in many cases there's les money for the people, conservation of forests is still seen as a priority.
42.33 Carlos Gonzales, Timber Worker: In my opinion they just haven't realised that we are all going to destroy ourselves. If nature disappears, this will just become a hell, right?
42.48 While Coast Rica has been leading the developing world in carbon trading, other nations have been quick to seize the opportunity. One of these countries is Australia, which will need to plant millions of trees just to get close to its Kyoto commitment. Australia is still clearing hundreds of thousands of hectares of land each year, far more than is being planted, and so schemes to gain carbon credits through tree planting are now being pushed at all levels of government and private industry. One of the first major deals in Australia was by BP. It wants to be the greenest oil company in the world and it is planting up to 60,000 hectares of trees in Western Australia, just to cover the million tonnes of carbon dioxide it emits each year from its refinery outside Perth.
43.45 Dr Bernard Bulkin, BP Amoco: Certain things are clear. The carbon dioxide concentration is going up. It appears that global temperatures are going up and that there are other effects happening, so taking a precautionary approach to me makes complete sense.
44.00 The trade in carbon credits will make it a lot easier for many polluters to meet their countries' targets, but experts say this trade is an easy way out. Although it may provide breathing space, ultimately the pollution has to stop and companies have to switch to renewable energy.
44.18 Sir John Houghton, United Nations Panel on Climate Change: The whole problem with carbon trading is it can be used as a cop out by some countries who find they can suddenly manage to fill in their books in ways that are too easy and don't really do what we would need to do in the end, which is make sure that on a global, long-term basis we actually reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that gets into the atmosphere.
44.42 Franz Tattenbach, FUNDECOR, Costa Rica: Actually, for the atmosphere, it is totally irrelevant if the emission reduction happens in the US or in Australia or it happens in Costa Rica. I mean, a tonne of carbon emissions that has been reduced there or here, it is the same for climate change. You can plant a tree, its wood is 25% carbon, that carbon is there. It can not have come from anywhere except a CO2 that was in the atmosphere.
45.09 Ross Gelbspan, Author of 'The Heat Is On': I think it is very good for Costa Rica and I think Costa Rica's government is very conscientious about the Costa Rican ecosystems. I think when you look at it form the point of view of the buyers, it is a very cheap way for them to buy their way out of making real energy emission reductions. I think it is basically dodging what the real responsibilities are to the rest of the planet and to future generations.
45.31 Bishop Randy B. Royal: Amen. Whatever God's message was through this storm, whatever it was, he has our attention on this morning.
45.44 God certainly has the attention of the people of flood ravaged North Carolina, and while they can't replace lives, they can rebuild homes. And the rest of the world is now faced with a choice: If we are convinced that global warming is man made and not heaven sent, then we have to take heed of the warning signs - the disappearing forests, the dying coral reefs and the extreme weather. And if we decide to act, we should remember the words of the scientists and not the politicians who tell us that just to start solving the problem we have to cut our emissions not by 5%, but by at least 50% - and at present they are still rising.
46.55 Ross Gelbspan, Author of 'The Heat Is On': What is our obligation to the future? What matters after we pack it in? Who cares what happens after that? I don't know the answer to that. For some reason to me there is big difference between an individual death - I'm gonna die - and a collective death of our civilisation, which has been building on itself for five to 6,000 years. To me there is a big difference between the two - the first is the normal order of things, the second is a horrendous tragedy. I don't have a good answer for why we should care about what happens to future generations, about what happens to all the animals and plants, about what happens to this planet after we are dead, I just know that I think people who don't care about it are missing something inside.
47.56 Ends
c Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation 1999