The UK has arguably shown more concern over climate change, at a governmental level, than any other nation in the world. Their actions to date haven't necessarily mirrored their rhetoric, but even the words alone have helped encourage a deeper examination of the topic. Like ambient advertising, hearing Tony Blair express his concerns for the planet's future is affecting our subconscious - whether he decides to take his holidays at home or not.

The UK's Environment Secretary, David Miliband, has announced a Draft Climate Change Bill (30kb PDF summary here) proposing legally binding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, which, if it makes its way through public and parliamentary scrutiny and debate, will make the UK the first nation in the world to create a climate charter that subsequent governments must adhere to, or face penalties (the penalties currently unclear...).

Watch David Miliband introduce the bill:

After public contributions have been filtered and tacked onto the framework, the bill should be presented to parliament by autumn, with the goal of implementation by spring 2008.

What are likely to be the major points of contention? The first and most obvious will be the targets themselves. Industries will likely protest that they're too strict, and many in the public arena will shout "too lax". Overshadowing that debatable topic, however, will likely be the mass transfer of funds from the UK to developing nations.

Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM)

The cuts proposed in the Draft Climate Change Bill will be impossible to meet without radical changes to industry and social infrastructures - that is, if targets are attempted wholly through internal adjustments alone. David Miliband is a strong supporter of Kyoto's CDM schemes. For the benefit of those not familiar, these Clean Development Mechanisms enable countries that are struggling to keep within their emission reduction quotas to meet them, in an around about way, by paying other nations to do it for them. An industry in Birmingham, England, for example, has done its best to reduce but can't tighten the belt any further without closing up shop - so makes good on its responsibility by funding the use of green technologies, or methods, in an industry in China, or India, or Africa, etc.

The idea is a logical one for a few reasons:

1) Climate change is a global dilemma. No matter where CO2, Methane and their buddies are released, we all feel the heat.

2) Implementing green technologies and methods in developing nations is far cheaper. A ton of CO2 may cost a third, or a fifth, or a tenth of the price to offset in India compared to the UK.

3) Currently, developing nations are racing down the same painful industrialised pathway we've already travelled - except they're doing so at an accelerated rate. The industrial revolution has taken a few hundred years for us - but countries like China and India, in particular, are going to skip the whole gradual development process and get it done in a week, as it were. Presently, their pollution is spilling over much faster than their antiquated infrastructures can handle, and the world is standing horrified at the prospect of their quadrupling current levels of pollution over the next few decades. The CDM mechanism works to head these guys off at the pass, and escort them straight to the global destination of sustainability, without passing go.

Without investment, developing nations will head northwards first... 

Anyone that has observed the last few decades of globalised economics will recognise that resources and labour from the South have been systematically utilised by the North. We have increased our wealth at their expense, so, theoretically, returning that wealth to the South in the form of clean technology investment is arguably a fair trade, particularly when you consider their nations are already suffering the strongest consequences of our historical polluting.

As logical as it all sounds, it's not quite so simple (it never is!). This mass transfer of funds (annual estimates are in the multi billions of dollars) has inherent complications associated with it. Monies will not be gifted outright, of course. Donors, and the public, will expect 1) independent verification that the money sent thousands of miles away to villages and cities they've never heard of, let alone seen, is serving the purpose intended (not an easy task to accurately validate), and 2) financial return on investment... Donor industries in the North can effectively control industry in the South - potentially making such investment more self-serving than may initially be apparent.

However, this would not be dead money, handed over with no prospect of any financial return. If UK businesses were for example financing low-carbon power generation in China, those businesses would expect a share of the profits and dividends generated by the power generation.

We’re talking about compelled philanthropy that would in fact yield future financial gains, quite apart from its impact on the environment. - BBC

So, the question that has yet to be answered is could said investment remove the rights of the nations in the South? Will the money sent South simply bounce back to Northern bank accounts - with the South worse for wear because of it? Will those funds sponsor technologies not welcome in the North, but that, for some, still 'slide' under a pale green banner - like Nuclear? Will it be poured into 'carbon sinks' (monoculture forests) that have proven to be disastrous to indigenous peoples already, and that can have dubious offsetting merit (i.e. can be destroyed by natural or manmade fires, or that are planted after first clearing carbon absorbing grasses already in place, etc.)? Also, if new industries are created in developing countries via CDM funding, there is the risk that we're actually increasing CO2 output, by speeding their transition, unless strict carbon-neutral standards are adhered to. Will we convert thatched roofs into solar-panel plated iron versions - covering industries that those nations may never have begun in the first place?

An unintended beneficiary?

This whole shift of financial interests sets up an unusual worldwide precedent, where the present globalised economy may become even more integrated and, ultimately, even more centralised. Considering that this trend to merge and monopolise is widely regarded as the leading cause of our present predicament - we must ask the question posed in the title. And, with so many hands in other people's pockets - might resentment result in increased political instability?

We can be sure that many in the UK will resent their governments legislating what they may perceive as a 'lolly scramble' in the South - particularly when some of these countries (Asian nations in particular) are already booming and threatening to overpower western economies. And, of course, those that are still under the spell of their Channel 4 will particularly abhor this prospect, regarding it as an expensive knee-jerk reaction to an imaginary concern.

The world needs to eschew its energy intensive lifestyle. That's a given. And, there are significant changes that can be made within developed society, if only we have that determination. The fact remains, however, that whether we support CDM projects or not, it is critical that we recognise they have both the potential to help, or, they may simply relax any fragile resolve we've accrued to make those changes, and may speed the already rapid advance of globalisation - under a bright green banner of peace and philanthropy.

Having said all that, if the UK's targets focussed on internals as much as well monitored externals, then we may see some benefits yet. A sentence I'm particulary fond of:

Greater energy efficiency, with more consumers becoming "producers" of their own energy at home - BBC

Further Reading:

• CDM - Opportunity or Loophole?
• Clean Development or Development Jeopardy? (Doc file)
• CDM Mechanism - Issues for Adivasi Peoples in India (374kb PDF)
• Kyoto's (not so) Clean Development Mechanism
• South Africa: Capital's Dangerous Gimmick
• Tree plantations and climate change: Avoiding responsibility in Ecuador