The United Nations is huddling in Poznan, Poland, this week to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, but the real news is that part of the global "consensus" on climate change seems to be unraveling. To wit, the myth of "green jobs."
In Brussels last week, some 11,000 metal workers clogged the EU quarter to protest global-warming policies. They worry that their industry could be harmed and their jobs forced overseas; some of them carried coffins as props. Most of the marching workers were from Germany, where auto makers are also still fuming over new emissions standards. Audi and BMW and other carbon-using industries have argued both for shallower emissions cuts and a longer phase-in period.
Meanwhile, Poland is threatening to veto a new EU climate-change accord unless restrictions on its coal use are eased. And Italy's government complains that new green policies could cost its industry up to €20 billion a year over the next decade. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared at Poznan by video, asserting that green measures "will also revive our economies."
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