Reflection: Green project is expensive

“No money no talk” seems to be the unspoken theme of Copenhagen climate talk.


Green project is expensive. When the economy is not doing well, the governments of the world are not willing to sink money into any green project.

Every country is trying to push the blame to others. No country is willing to pay for the world to go green. The very least that each country can do is to cut down on emission of greenhouse gases. Yet many countries are not willing to do so, because green project is expensive.

Copenhagen climate talk is bound to fail. It is a waste of time getting the world leaders together for a climate talk. As long as the scientists are not able to come up with clean, green and cheap cars, there is no way for any country to launch green project cheaply.

Since vehicles is one of the main contributors of greenhouse gases, the only way is to produce green cars that run on renewable alternative energy sources. The no greenhouse gas emission cars must be cheap. The car owners are not willing to pay for a more expensive cars. No money no talk, because green project is expensive.

In many countries, the raw material for producing electricity is fossil fuel. If the countries want to launch green project for national energy consumption, they will have to sink money to build new power plants that run on renewable alternative energy sources. That is expensive.

I doubt developing countries have the means to do so.

Many developing countries have forests. They do not make money when the forest is a forest. They make money only when the logging companies cut down the forest and sell the woods.

There is no incentive for those countries to protect the forests or plant trees. Even simple green project such as reforestation costs money. The developing countries do not gain financially by protecting the forests in order to offset the greenhouse gases emitted by developed countries.

If the developed countries want them to launch green project, the developed countries will have to find money to fund the green project in developing countries.

Green project in developed countries is expensive. The developed countries cannot stop their residents from watching TV, using the Internet, using the heater or air-conditioner, using the washing machines, driving etc, all these activities emit greenhouse gases directly or indirectly.  They can only encourage their residents to launch personal green project, such as converting cars to run on renewable energy sources and green project for their homes.

The source of electricity in many developed countries come from fossil sources. The only way to stop greenhouse gases emission is to launch expensive green project national wide.

The only comfort for the government is that launching green project can create jobs. If every house owners buy solar panels for the rooftop, the producer of solar panels will have to hire more workers. The house owners will have to hire people to fix the solar panels.  Even if the house owners can build their own solar panel, they would have to buy the raw material.

It is best for developed countries to launch green project and cut down on greenhouse gases emission. They can set an example to the developing countries. After they have successfully reduced greenhouse gases emission, they can provide technical expertise to help the developing countries in green project.

Copenhagen climate talk fails because the discussion is not constructive. If each country focus on “what we have done, what we are going to do, what can we help you to do” approach, that is a valuable experience sharing session for all.

Unfortunately the Copenhagen climate talk focus on “what you should do”, and that leads to all the finger pointing.

Green project is expensive. In many cases, the cost of green project is not just monetary. The cost of green project is really an unknown factor.

When China decided on The Three Gorges Dam project, which is a large and expensive green project, the cost is bore by the government, the fishes and the animals. The Three Gorges Dam probably affects many fishes and animals in ways that we do not really know.

We know the benefits of The Three Gorges Dam since the purpose is to generate electricity from water. However, the actual cost of the green project may be known to us only in the far future.

There are many large rivers in the world. However, not all countries have the money and the determination to harvest electricity from water. It is hard to imagine countries in Latin America launching a large and expensive green project similar to The Three Gorges Dam. If they are able to do that, they can supply enough electricity for the whole continent. That will be a very large and costly green project after The Three Gorges Dam.

The current technology is enough for many countries to start green project on a national scale. However, going green is expensive. The rule of ‘no money no talk’ applies.