The Oil Drum

107 comments on Friday open thread

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teemu on January 20, 2006 - 11:20am

Those countries not have experienced economic collapse, but at least Italy and Germany have much worse economic situation now than in 1994. Also lot of Europe has switched to russian gas during last ten years.

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plasticgolem on January 20, 2006 - 11:37am

Additionally, a lot of energy intensive manufacturing has been shut down in the last 10-12 years and has been replaced by service jobs (or unemployment). For example there is virtually no more auto industry in UK. Even beyond that, in the case of Germany one has to see that in 1994 some ex-Communist industries were still running in the Eastern part. Germany has seen huge CO2 and consumption reductions just by switching off ex-Communist industry in the 1990s.
(saying that the situation is much worse in Germany than 1994 however is an exaggeration - the main problem is that it just never gets better)
So, among economic stagnation, moving traditionally energy intensive manufacturing to China, switching off Commie factories, and moving to Russian gas, this reduction is not any kind of policy achievement.
Also it should be remembered that several of these factors also make it quite easy for certain European nations to fulfill Kyoto requirements, without taking any 'courageous and daring' measures.