Contraction and Convergence Sceptics

"C&C has a clear moral basis. But it addresses none of the fundamental issues I discuss in my book 'An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming'." In a letter responding to an enquiry from GCI.
Lord Lawson of Blaby

"The UN policy known as Contraction and Convergence"
Science and Public Policy Institute [SPPI]

The process of imposing “Low Carbon” energy on industrial nations is a major component of the UN policy known as Contraction and Convergence and it is happening now.

The UNFCCC said to the record at COP-9 "C&C is inevitably required for stabilization of concentrations," i.e. for UNFCCC-compliance

Unlike many who campaign endlessly for bits and pieces of climate-policy, 'sceptics' may not like C&C, but they have had the wit to realize C&C is the formation that they have to beat.

Denis Ambler of SPPI goes on to say: -

"It is described by its initiator as “An International Conceptual Framework for Preventing Dangerous Climate Change” and has been adopted and subscribed to by the UN and member countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, (UNFCC).

The narrative says that there is a finite global budget for carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere, a total amount beyond which the world will heat uncontrollably and human kind will be visited by dreadful climate disasters, including, but not limited to, stronger hurricanes, rising sea levels, droughts, floods and plagues.

“Climate justice” demands that everyone on the planet has an equal right to emit the same amount of CO2. Greedy western nations have, since the industrial revolution, used up their share of this allowable CO2 amount and must now pay reparation to the undeveloped nations who have not industrialised.

Developed nations must “Contract” their economies by cutting fossil fuel usage to levels reported in 1990 (the Kyoto Protocol) and then transfer knowledge, technology and finance to developing nations, to bring them up to the new lowered expectations of the developed nations, described as “Convergence.”

“If I thought that global warming was a crisis I’m not sure that I would agree that Aubrey has worked out about how to solve it or the path down which we ought to go. But he’s serious about it and has a legitimate and well thought out programme that is not about, “how do we gain more political power for ourselves, how do we create a command and control economy for the energy sector that we’re in charge of?”

He isn’t interested in being in charge of anybody. He is interested in solving a problem and that again makes him unusual because a lot of the environmental groups are really into political power because they know better and they ought to be telling people how to live their lives.

Aubrey respects people and he respects individual human beings and he’s not about telling them how to live their lives. I think that makes him very special and I really enjoy seeing him and reading what he’s putting out and looking at his whole programme.”
Myron Ebell
Competitive Enterprise Institute
COP-15 Copenhagen, 2009

A new climate treaty would at least pay lip service to the obligations of developing nations, although it could probably not require them to reduce emissions. Instead, a new Kyoto might be shaped by the notion of “Contraction and Convergence” [C&C - Meyer, 2000] now popular in European environmental circles.
Unstoppable Global Warming
Fred Singer & Dennis Avery

Fred Singer has more recently expressed negative views about C&C on American Thinker as follows: -

"Among the worst policies being pushed with the help of Sustainable Development is a scheme called Contraction and Convergence (C&C). The idea is that every human is entitled to emit the same amount of CO2. This of course translates into every being on earth using the same amount of energy -- and, by inference, having the same income. In other words, C&C is basically a policy for a giant global income redistribution."

A reply to him saying that: -

"C&C is not about ‘global income re-distribution’ it is about ‘global emissions *pre*-distribution’ subject to the limit that achieves compliance with the objective of the UN Climate Change Convention. In other words it is a logical proposition to which there have [inevitably] been a range of ideological reactions [of which yours is one and to which you are entitled]."

met with the rather random reply, "stop digging, the world is getting cooler."

"I agree to stabilize concentrations you have to have emissions contraction and to have contraction you have to have convergence. I just don't believe humanity has the wit to organize that." A fair comment to me over supper in Pisa 2004, after Climate Conference.
Richard Lindzen
Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology,
Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, MIT

"I don't say climate change isn't happening. I just say it isn't happening as fast as people are saying it is."
Pat said this when we shared a platform at the Insitute of Economic Affairs in London, after the publication of the IPCC Second Assessment Report in 1995.

At that debate I said to him, "Pat you lost your battle in IPCC Working Group One but we won our battle in IPCC Working Group Three." This battle was against 'the economists' who's Global Cost/Benefit Analysis gave the ludicrous result that preventing the climate-problem was too expensive, even though "15 Chinese climate-deaths equalled 1 English". Working people at this conference of all stripes were scandalized by that methodology.

Afterwards he said to me, "hey you're really good at this - do you want to go on roadshow with me around the US?" It never happened and things have moved on since then, but later that year the fossil fuel industry's 'Greening the Earth Society' website carried an article saying "Good 'ol GCI for upholding the US Declaration of Independence" which says: -

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

As an Irishman, Pat would probably be acutely conscious of how and why that came to be said.
Patrick Michaels
Distinguished Senior Fellow School of Public Policy George Mason University

Aubrey Meyer's dedication is clear. So is his genius.
This is one favorably stated summary of his plans:

Meyer realized that, if humanity is to survive climate change, a very different kind of international agreement will be required. Climate change threatens humanity as a whole, and so requires a species-level response. Meyer's proposal - "contraction and convergence" (C&C) - proceeds from the recognition that all countries must act together to set a limit on global greenhouse emissions. Once this limit is agreed (the contraction bit), they must decide how the remaining emissions are to be shared. Meyer's suggested basis for this is equity. Given that we are all created equal, why should poor countries accept a smaller share of the shrinking pie? And so, after a period of transition, all countries are allocated emissions entitlements based on their populations (convergence).

In practice, both the contraction cap on emissions and the convergence date to equity would be negotiable. World governments might, say, agree to limit global carbon-dioxide concentrations to 450 parts per million - enough, it is hoped, to keep global warming below 2 C - with convergence by 2030. This would give a less developed country such as Bangladesh a large wad of unused emissions, which it could sell for cash on world markets. Countries such as Australia, meanwhile, would have to buy spare emissions credits in order to keep on using a disproportionate amount of fossil fuel. The result would be large financial flows from rich to poor, giving developing countries the resources to participate in the clean energy revolution.

In contrast, Kyoto avoids the question

Constance Cumbey
Michigan Lawyer and C&C 'opponent'