Finland Sets New, Ambitious Goal For Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions
It’s the latest European nation, after Denmark, to do so, adding its momentum to efforts in the E.U. parliament, China, and here in the United States.
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A wind turbine and a lighthouse in Reposaari, Finland.
CREDIT: Shutterstock
Last week, Finland became the latest European country to set itself a new and newly ambitious goal for cutting its greenhouse gas emissions.
The Climate Change Act legally commits the country to reducing its emissions 80 percent below their 1990 levels by 2050, and enters into legal force in 2015. It sets up a monitoring system and a two-track framework for establishing both medium-term and long-term plans to tackle Finland’s GHG emissions. The long-term plan will deal with the efforts to meet the 2050 target — mainly through the European Union’s cap-and-trade system, of which Finland is a member — and would have to be approved by parliament at least once every ten years. The medium-term plan will address emission reductions in areas that lie outside the EU’s system — traffic, housing, and agriculture, for instance — and would need to be approved by parliament once every election term. Officials would also report to parliament on the medium-term plan every year.
Finally, the legislation also includes efforts for climate adaptation, with a plan to be approved once every decade. There would also be an expert body to help with the planning efforts.
As such, Finland’s Climate Change Act is modeled on similar legislation the United Kingdom passed back in 2008. In February of this year, Denmark also announced its own version of the legislation, legally committing the country to a 40 percent cut below 1990 levels by 2020. Given the bill’s widespread support, observers anticipate it will win final passage this week. And Denmark’s previous governments have already made a commitment, albeit not a legally binding one, to get the country onto 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.
All three countries are members of the European Union, which has currently legally committed itself to cutting its GHG emissions 20 percent below their 1990 levels by 2020. As of May, it was expected to beat that goal with room to spare.
The European Commission has already proposed that the E.U. adopt a new reduction goal of 40 percent by 2030, but that policy remains in limbo. Poland appears to be the main hold-out. Binding climate target decisions in the E.U. require unanimous votes, and Poland has vetoed new GHG reduction targets twice in the last three years. The country, which relies on coal for more than 90 percent of its energy production, is reportedly wary that the new targets will include sufficient adjustments to how much of the GHG reduction burden will fall on countries better positioned to meet them versus the nations (like Poland itself) that will face a harder time.
As such, finalizing the E.U.’s new 2030 target will probably depend on what kind of global agreement, if any, is reached by the next international climate summit in 2015.
This actually backs up the logic President Obama laid out earlier this year for the regulatory cuts to carbon emissions from American power plants recently announced by the Environmental Protection Agency.
“American influence is always stronger when we lead by example,” Obama said recently at West Point. “We cannot exempt ourselves from the rules that apply to everyone else.”
The basic international challenge of climate change is that everyone benefits from GHG reductions — but not everyone benefits the same, and not everyone emits the same amount. And some countries like the United States have benefited economically far more from their carbon emissions than others. The makes the establishment of trust and displays of goodwill essential to nailing down a cooperative effort to cut global GHG emissions.
So Finland’s new target adds to the momentum from Denmark, which adds to the momentum in the E.U. government, which all joins in with the United States’ new regulatory target, as well as intimations from China that the government there may be considering a cap on carbon emissions as well. And hopefully, everyone can egg each other on to a final international agreement in 2015.
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David Brat: Embrace Christian Capitalism, Or Hitler Will Come Back
Brat claims to be a “fairly orthodox Calvinist,” but several of his published writings expose a unsettling core theology that is centered around lifting up unregulated, free-market capitalism as a morally righteous system that churches should embrace—or else.
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CREDIT: AP
When David Brat defeated House Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) in the Republican primary of Virginia’s 7th Congressional District last night, House Republicans likely lost their only Jewish representative. In his place, they may have gained a radically pro-capitalist Christian theologian.
Christian Tea Party candidates are certainly not unusual, but a trail of writings show that Brat, an economics professor at Randolph-Macon college, has an especially radical theology to support his right-wing politics. Brat’s CV lists him as a graduate of Hope College, a Christian school in Michigan, and Princeton Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian Church U.S.A. seminary in New Jersey. He claims to be a “fairly orthodox Calvinist,” but several of his published writings expose a unsettling core theology that is centered around lifting up unregulated, free-market capitalism as a morally righteous system that churches should embrace—or else.
In a 2011 paper entitled “God and the Advanced Mammon — Can Theological Types Handle Usury and Capitalism?”, published in Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, Brat champions the moral superiority of the capitalistic system. “Capitalist markets and their expansion in China and India have provided more for the common good, more ‘social welfare,’ than any other policy in the past ten years,” he writes, adding “So, as a seminary student concerned with human welfare, I naturally wanted to learn about these free markets.”
Brat goes on to list a number of arguments for and against the practice of usury, but concludes the paper with a chilling warning about what will happen if churches fail to build a movement in support of free-market capitalism—namely, a Hitler-like figure could rise to power. He writes:
Capitalism is here to stay, and we need a church model that corresponds to that reality. Read Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s diagnosis of the weak modern Christian democratic man was spot on. Jesus was a great man. Jesus said he was the Son of God. Jesus made things happen. Jesus had faith. Jesus actually made people better. Then came the Christians. What happened? What went wrong? We appear to be a bit passive. Hitler came along, and he did not meet with unified resistance. I have the sinking feeling that it could all happen again, quite easily. The church should rise up higher than Nietzsche could see and prove him wrong. We should love our neighbor so much that we actually believe in right and wrong, and do something about it. If we all did the right thing and had the guts to spread the word, we would not need the government to backstop every action we take.
“I think the main point is that we need to synthesize Christianity and capitalism,” he adds a few lines later.
This isn’t the only time Brat has sung the praises of religiously-supported capitalism. The idea was also at the center of Brat’s 200-page PhD dissertation at American University, entitled “Human Capital, Religion, and Economic Growth.” The dissertation, which was also obtained by ThinkProgress, examines the role Pietistic Protestantism — as opposed to Catholicism — played in the rapid industrialization of Germany and Great Britain in the 19th century. Although he is more cautious than in his 2011 article, Brat ultimately argues that Protestantism — particularly Calvinism — deserves credit for creating scientific advancement, economic prosperity, and especially a decentralized government in German and Britain. According to Brat, Christianity — especially Calvinist Protestantism — inherently supports “the decentralization of power” that, to him, leads to economic prosperity.
Brat is not alone in using problematic theology to shore up a free-market economics. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., sponsors a “Values and Capitalism” website where writers frequently make claims similar to Brat’s. Brat’s CV mentions a visit to AEI in 2012, where he attended a talk about conservative economics and reportedly explored “potential roles for [Randolph-Macon College] students at AEI.”
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Veteran news ethicists and observers are criticizing CBS News and pollster Frank Luntz for failing to disclose Luntz’s financial ties to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor during an appearance on CBS This Morning today to discuss Cantor’s surprise primary defeat.
