Global Warming Scam to Cost EU $100 Billion

Naturally, it's referred to now as climate change. You can also bet your last dollar that this $100 billion figure will wind up being a fraction of what actually gets spent in the long run.

And, of course, it won't matter one bit.

So when we get to the year 2020, and nothing has been accomplished for the enormous sum spent, we'll be told it wasn't enough.

EUROPEAN Union plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions could cost at least €60 billion ($99.88 billion) a year, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said today.

"Taking action is not cost free, although we think we can limit the cost of our proposals to around 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product," he said, according to remarks prepared for delivery in London.

Mr Barroso's total estimate, which will apply for the next 12 years, counts on the 27 EU nations undertaking all the commission's recommendations, in a package to be unveiled Wednesday, in an extremely cost efficient manner.

The bill for reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels - the baseline goal of EU leaders - was previously estimated to be 1.0 per cent of European GDP, or €120 billion ($199.75 billion) a year.

EU leaders agreed in March last year that this target was the best way to contain global warming to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as recommended by UN climate experts.

On the positive side, Mr Barroso said: "Our proposals should reduce Europe's reliance on imported gas and oil by around €50 billion ($83.23 billion) by 2020. These are figures with a real impact on our growth and prosperity".

He said the cost of inaction, as calculated by one of his key climate advisers, "could even approach 20 per cent of GDP.
The longer we delay, the higher the costs of adaptation and mitigation".

The commission's package aims to strengthen the EU's emissions trading system, set targets for renewable energy use and review rules on national aid for environmental purposes.

When the bloc's leaders set their goals last year, they offered to go 10 per cent better than their own target, cutting emissions by 30 per cent over the same period if others were prepared to match it, as an incentive to major polluters.

They also set a binding target for renewable energy to provide 20 per cent of Europe's needs by 2020, compared to 8.5 per cent currently, and agreed that this should be achieved by some countries doing more than others.

But less than a year later, many EU countries - not to mention industry - have criticised the package they had asked the commission to draw up to reach their goals as either being too costly or too damaging to certain sectors.

With this mystical ability to control the weather, why can't they simply snap their fingers and make it so?

Meanwhile, in other globwarm news, the Swedes will now be joining the Canadians in studying the devastating effects of bovine belching.

I kid you not.

A Swedish university has received $590,000 in research funds to measure the greenhouse gases released when cows belch.

About 20 cows will participate in the project run by the Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, about 40 miles north of Stockholm, officials said Monday.

Cattle release methane, a greenhouse gas believed to contribute to global warming, when they digest their food.