The Environment?

Ett mirakel krävs i Köpenhamn Brännpunkt SvD: "Klimatförändringen kan inte lösas isolerat utan måste ses som en del av en större kris, i form av överutnyttjandet av många viktiga ekosystem. Klimatavtalet måste följas av ett avtal om hållbar utveckling. Ett sådant avtal förutsätter helt andra spelregler för ekonomin och världshandeln än dagens."

Continuing my read-up on climate change. Johan Rockström, Director of Stockholm Environmental Institute, and Anders Wijkman, Tällberg Foundation, seemingly want the world to be governed in another fashion. The Economist with its Special Report on Climate Change delivers a calm and nice appraisal of the situation. Yes, climate change can technically be taken care of and yes, it is affordable. The question is how, apparently.

However, it is interesting to note that energy companies like BP and Shell lowers their investments in renewables currently. Is this because there is large amounts of money invested in 2010 and 2011 as stimulus money and they want to see what's happening with these tax funds? Or is it because profits are nowhere in sight, for a while? Solar electricity cost ten times as much as coal electricity.

It is questionable if climate change will make the world centralize government. It seems more likely that a fight on preeminence in green technology is going to ensue. At least the Chinese seems to think like that. Hu Jintao will run China like a green technology company, the engineer he is, and try to win market shares. He currently, alone in the world, sits on a pile of money and invests galore. In my ignorance I can't help wondering why BP and Shell don't take him up on this?