On climate change, North Korea, Tibet, India, Cyprus, Egypt, tax avoidance, Europe
Apr 13th 2013
On climate change, North Korea, Tibet, India, Cyprus, Egypt, tax avoidance, Europe
Apr 13th 2013
SIR – Your change of tone on climate change is welcome (“Apocalypse perhaps a little later”, March 30th). You now have common ground with people who have long been dismissed as sceptics (actually something for any scientist to be proud of) or vilified as deniers. No one with a claim to be taken seriously has ever denied that our climate is constantly changing and that there has been a period of irregular warming since the late 19th century.
Related topics
China
Turkey
Egypt
Nature and the environment
Earth science
Increased levels of carbon dioxide, largely from fossil fuels, certainly play a part in this. What has never been clear is the extent of that influence. What has become more and more obvious is that current climate-change policy is an expensive waste of time, merely exporting emissions to developing countries and hastening the decline of the European economy.
Now is the time to invest in the development of economic green energy, rather than continue to shower taxpayers’ money on technologies that can never provide an affordable and secure power supply.
Martin Livermore
Scientific Alliance
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
SIR – The reduced warming of the past decade is brief and can be understood in terms of natural fluctuations from the El Niño phenomenon, the effects of volcanoes, the solar cycle and the uptake of heat from the oceans, which continues, in contrast to your statement. There are and will always be fluctuations in global temperature, but the underlying trend is robust, man-made and consistent with a climate sensitivity of around 3°C.
The IPCC’s range on sensitivity is supported by, but not merely based on, models. It is deeply rooted in physics. Quantum physics and thermodynamics, the same physical laws that underlie the functioning of our computers and power plants, yield a baseline climate sensitivity of about 3°C. This is based on the facts that carbon dioxide, water vapour and methane absorb infra-red; a warmer atmosphere holds more water; and ice and snow melt under warming. Any deviation from this baseline needs a reason. As long as we do not find modern physics to be fundamentally wrong, we will have to plan for a climate sensitivity of 3°C.
Since CO2 emissions are consistently at the upper end of the IPCC’s scenarios, both our solid understanding of climate change on a global level and our lack of understanding of hurricanes and other climatic extremes demand more, not less, caution.
Professor Anders Levermann
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Potsdam, Germany
SIR – It is hard to conclude from your article (“A sensitive matter”, March 30th) that the science is settled. Given the variety of temperature predictions you quoted, a more logical conclusion is that the science is up in the air (in more ways than one).
It is not just the “science that points to a sensitivity lower than models have previously predicted” that is “tentative”. The whole field is fraught with unproven theories and sparse data. In an industrial context it would have the status of a pilot study, which is no basis for public policy.
Paul Binns
Edinburgh
SIR – Your article brought to mind Mark Twain’s adage: “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
Anthony Powell
Hamilton, Canada
North Korea’s family affair
SIR – I read your apt analysis of North Korea with great concern (“Korean roulette”, April 6th). Many South Koreans feel that Kim Jong Un is naive and influenced by his aunt and uncle, who are bent on destroying Seoul. Pyongyang is at a loss about how to tackle the North’s severe economic problems. By whipping up the patriotism of its people against imagined enemies, the despotic regime hopes to distract them from their suffering. However, all parties should remain calm.
Jinn Moon-tze
Seoul
China and Tibet
* SIR – Regarding the self-immolations of Tibetans (“The limits of despair”, March 9th), our hearts go out to the families and we sincerely hope that similar incidents never happen again. But ever since the first self-immolation, the Dalai Lama has never uttered a single word to stop similar incidents from happening. Recently, the Dalai clique put forward “A Guidance to Self-immolation” on the internet, instigating Tibetans inside or outside of China to “implement self-immolation in accordance with the plan and procedure”.
After each and every incident of self-immolation, the Dalai clique is instantly able to provide the media with video footages, photos and detailed information.
At the end of 2012, the police bureaus in Sichuan, Qinhai and Guansu provinces uncovered a handful of cases involving incited or forced self-immolations. Ample facts prove that these incidents were masterminded behind the scenes.
Over the past 60 years since the peaceful liberation of Tibet, and especially since 1978, the central government has implemented policy measures to boost the economy, improve living standards, protect the traditional culture and safeguard the freedom of religion in Tibet. Its economy and society have undergone huge improvements. The population jumped from 1.2m in 1959 to 3m at the end of 2011, 91% of whom are ethnic Tibetans. Today there are 1,700 religious sites of all kinds.
The central government has always supported the study of Tibetan language. A teaching system using both Tibetan and mandarin with Tibetan as the principal language has already been put into practice in all areas. Tibetan has become the first ever ethnic language with international coding standard and can thus be processed by the computer system.
He Rulong
Spokesperson of the Chinese embassy
London
India’s difficult path
SIR – It is easy to look at India’s economic growth rate over the past 15 years and its enormous population and conclude that the country should be expanding its military and diplomatic ranks to lift it to the status of a global power (“Know your own strength”, March 30th). But those two facts, sadly, hide a deeper truth. Consider that India is still ranked, in a Thomson Reuters Foundation poll, as among the world’s worst places to be a woman (below even Saudi Arabia); second to last in the 2010 PISA tests on education quality; 94th in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (well behind China); and 184th out of 185 countries in the World Bank’s rating of ease of enforcing contracts.
By endorsing a military and diplomatic build-up before India has crawled its way out of the bottom of virtually every global ranking you give the Indian government exactly what it craves: attention focused on the country’s expanding might, rather than on problems that are more likely to make India a failed state than a global power.
Kurt Inderbitzin
Hyderabad
SIR – The biggest obstacle is corruption. We are fast becoming a kleptocracy. Dynastic politics and crony capitalism are helping India achieve a landmark which it can ill afford: most corrupt nation in the world
Balakrishna Adiga
Bangalore
SIR – Perhaps becoming a great power these days calls for an alignment of specific interests rather than aligning with outdated power blocs. For example, India could gain much by co-operating with China in multilateral talks on agricultural subsidies against an obstinate West beholden to farm lobbies.
Aaron Soans
Mumbai
SIR – “Can India become a great power?” (March 30th). No.
Leonard Wojtecki
Geneva, Illinois
A chance for Cyprus and Turkey
* SIR – As a former ambassador of Cyprus I am at a loss whether to feel flattered or upset by the amount of attention you devoted to the problems of my country in your March 30th issue (“This septic isle”, March 30th).
The economic and fiscal problems are very serious and grave errors have been committed, as you rightly point out. But despite the severity of the medicine applied by the Eurogroup, including an unprecedented haircut on bank deposits, Cyprus will survive and prosper within the euro zone, relying on the resilience and enterprise of its people, as was proved after the disaster of the 1974 Turkish invasion. The substantial hydrocarbons in the Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone will in due course provide additional means for economic recovery and progress for all Cypriots.
As for the search for an agreed, honourable and workable settlement of the Cyprus problem, a new chapter can be expected under the leadership of the newly elected president, Nicos Anastasiades, provided—and this is a big question—that some statesmanship be demonstrated by the Turkish leaders (analogous to that of President Gorbachev which made possible German reunification in 1990).
As a New York Times editorial put it some years ago “when it comes to Cyprus it is Turkey’s turn to give”. Turkey is legally bound, under the 2005 Ankara Protocol with the European Union, to recognise the Republic of Cyprus and to open its ports and airspace to Cypriot ships and aircraft. A Cyprus settlement would not only facilitate Turkey’s accession to the EU. It would also open the way for friendship in the region in terms of tourism, finance and trade and also energy and water projects on the basis, not of domination and “Pax Ottomana”, but of neighbourly co-operation.
Turkey has not conceded an inch on substance towards a Cyprus settlement. Here is a challenge to get out of the stalemate and into a win-win situation for all parties concerned.
Andrew Jacovides
Former ambassador of Cyprus to the United States
New York
Egypt's economy
* SIR – Regarding Egypt’s economy, you identified the problem but dodged the solution (“It’s the politics, stupid”, March 30th). Subsidies are a sideshow compared to the key economic issues of FDI, domestic investment, tourism, exports, reserves and above all, unemployment. Egypt’s problems require a comprehensive solution. Tinkering with subsidies will deliver some government revenue but it will also aggravate the people, increase costs, undermine competitiveness and, very likely, escalate unemployment.
Professor M.S.S. el-Namaki
Dean, school of management
Victoria University
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Avoidance and evasion
SIR – Tax “avoidance” was always an historically salutary term to distinguish illegal tax evasion from the tax planning associated with proper legal behaviour (“Haven sent”, March 30th). The best quote on the subject remains the opinion of Judge Learned Hand in the case of Helvering v Gregory before America’s court of appeals in 1934: “Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.”
Todd Landau
Summit, New Jersey
Europe’s north-south divide
SIR – Charlemagne advises northern Europe to ease its hectoring of the south to obey the euro-zone’s rules (March 30th). I am reminded, despite the different context, of Lord Byron’s wonderfully sardonic observation:
What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
Is much more common where the climate’s sultry.
Happy the nations of the moral north!
Victor Earle
Amagansett, New York
Preferences
http://www.economist.com/news/letters/21576051-climate-change-north-korea-tibet-india-cyprus-egypt-tax-avoidance-europe
Apr 13th 2013
SIR – Your change of tone on climate change is welcome (“Apocalypse perhaps a little later”, March 30th). You now have common ground with people who have long been dismissed as sceptics (actually something for any scientist to be proud of) or vilified as deniers. No one with a claim to be taken seriously has ever denied that our climate is constantly changing and that there has been a period of irregular warming since the late 19th century.
Related topics
China
Turkey
Egypt
Nature and the environment
Earth science
Increased levels of carbon dioxide, largely from fossil fuels, certainly play a part in this. What has never been clear is the extent of that influence. What has become more and more obvious is that current climate-change policy is an expensive waste of time, merely exporting emissions to developing countries and hastening the decline of the European economy.
Now is the time to invest in the development of economic green energy, rather than continue to shower taxpayers’ money on technologies that can never provide an affordable and secure power supply.
Martin Livermore
Scientific Alliance
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
SIR – The reduced warming of the past decade is brief and can be understood in terms of natural fluctuations from the El Niño phenomenon, the effects of volcanoes, the solar cycle and the uptake of heat from the oceans, which continues, in contrast to your statement. There are and will always be fluctuations in global temperature, but the underlying trend is robust, man-made and consistent with a climate sensitivity of around 3°C.
The IPCC’s range on sensitivity is supported by, but not merely based on, models. It is deeply rooted in physics. Quantum physics and thermodynamics, the same physical laws that underlie the functioning of our computers and power plants, yield a baseline climate sensitivity of about 3°C. This is based on the facts that carbon dioxide, water vapour and methane absorb infra-red; a warmer atmosphere holds more water; and ice and snow melt under warming. Any deviation from this baseline needs a reason. As long as we do not find modern physics to be fundamentally wrong, we will have to plan for a climate sensitivity of 3°C.
Since CO2 emissions are consistently at the upper end of the IPCC’s scenarios, both our solid understanding of climate change on a global level and our lack of understanding of hurricanes and other climatic extremes demand more, not less, caution.
Professor Anders Levermann
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Potsdam, Germany
SIR – It is hard to conclude from your article (“A sensitive matter”, March 30th) that the science is settled. Given the variety of temperature predictions you quoted, a more logical conclusion is that the science is up in the air (in more ways than one).
It is not just the “science that points to a sensitivity lower than models have previously predicted” that is “tentative”. The whole field is fraught with unproven theories and sparse data. In an industrial context it would have the status of a pilot study, which is no basis for public policy.
Paul Binns
Edinburgh
SIR – Your article brought to mind Mark Twain’s adage: “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
Anthony Powell
Hamilton, Canada
North Korea’s family affair
SIR – I read your apt analysis of North Korea with great concern (“Korean roulette”, April 6th). Many South Koreans feel that Kim Jong Un is naive and influenced by his aunt and uncle, who are bent on destroying Seoul. Pyongyang is at a loss about how to tackle the North’s severe economic problems. By whipping up the patriotism of its people against imagined enemies, the despotic regime hopes to distract them from their suffering. However, all parties should remain calm.
Jinn Moon-tze
Seoul
China and Tibet
* SIR – Regarding the self-immolations of Tibetans (“The limits of despair”, March 9th), our hearts go out to the families and we sincerely hope that similar incidents never happen again. But ever since the first self-immolation, the Dalai Lama has never uttered a single word to stop similar incidents from happening. Recently, the Dalai clique put forward “A Guidance to Self-immolation” on the internet, instigating Tibetans inside or outside of China to “implement self-immolation in accordance with the plan and procedure”.
After each and every incident of self-immolation, the Dalai clique is instantly able to provide the media with video footages, photos and detailed information.
At the end of 2012, the police bureaus in Sichuan, Qinhai and Guansu provinces uncovered a handful of cases involving incited or forced self-immolations. Ample facts prove that these incidents were masterminded behind the scenes.
Over the past 60 years since the peaceful liberation of Tibet, and especially since 1978, the central government has implemented policy measures to boost the economy, improve living standards, protect the traditional culture and safeguard the freedom of religion in Tibet. Its economy and society have undergone huge improvements. The population jumped from 1.2m in 1959 to 3m at the end of 2011, 91% of whom are ethnic Tibetans. Today there are 1,700 religious sites of all kinds.
The central government has always supported the study of Tibetan language. A teaching system using both Tibetan and mandarin with Tibetan as the principal language has already been put into practice in all areas. Tibetan has become the first ever ethnic language with international coding standard and can thus be processed by the computer system.
He Rulong
Spokesperson of the Chinese embassy
London
India’s difficult path
SIR – It is easy to look at India’s economic growth rate over the past 15 years and its enormous population and conclude that the country should be expanding its military and diplomatic ranks to lift it to the status of a global power (“Know your own strength”, March 30th). But those two facts, sadly, hide a deeper truth. Consider that India is still ranked, in a Thomson Reuters Foundation poll, as among the world’s worst places to be a woman (below even Saudi Arabia); second to last in the 2010 PISA tests on education quality; 94th in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (well behind China); and 184th out of 185 countries in the World Bank’s rating of ease of enforcing contracts.
By endorsing a military and diplomatic build-up before India has crawled its way out of the bottom of virtually every global ranking you give the Indian government exactly what it craves: attention focused on the country’s expanding might, rather than on problems that are more likely to make India a failed state than a global power.
Kurt Inderbitzin
Hyderabad
SIR – The biggest obstacle is corruption. We are fast becoming a kleptocracy. Dynastic politics and crony capitalism are helping India achieve a landmark which it can ill afford: most corrupt nation in the world
Balakrishna Adiga
Bangalore
SIR – Perhaps becoming a great power these days calls for an alignment of specific interests rather than aligning with outdated power blocs. For example, India could gain much by co-operating with China in multilateral talks on agricultural subsidies against an obstinate West beholden to farm lobbies.
Aaron Soans
Mumbai
SIR – “Can India become a great power?” (March 30th). No.
Leonard Wojtecki
Geneva, Illinois
A chance for Cyprus and Turkey
* SIR – As a former ambassador of Cyprus I am at a loss whether to feel flattered or upset by the amount of attention you devoted to the problems of my country in your March 30th issue (“This septic isle”, March 30th).
The economic and fiscal problems are very serious and grave errors have been committed, as you rightly point out. But despite the severity of the medicine applied by the Eurogroup, including an unprecedented haircut on bank deposits, Cyprus will survive and prosper within the euro zone, relying on the resilience and enterprise of its people, as was proved after the disaster of the 1974 Turkish invasion. The substantial hydrocarbons in the Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone will in due course provide additional means for economic recovery and progress for all Cypriots.
As for the search for an agreed, honourable and workable settlement of the Cyprus problem, a new chapter can be expected under the leadership of the newly elected president, Nicos Anastasiades, provided—and this is a big question—that some statesmanship be demonstrated by the Turkish leaders (analogous to that of President Gorbachev which made possible German reunification in 1990).
As a New York Times editorial put it some years ago “when it comes to Cyprus it is Turkey’s turn to give”. Turkey is legally bound, under the 2005 Ankara Protocol with the European Union, to recognise the Republic of Cyprus and to open its ports and airspace to Cypriot ships and aircraft. A Cyprus settlement would not only facilitate Turkey’s accession to the EU. It would also open the way for friendship in the region in terms of tourism, finance and trade and also energy and water projects on the basis, not of domination and “Pax Ottomana”, but of neighbourly co-operation.
Turkey has not conceded an inch on substance towards a Cyprus settlement. Here is a challenge to get out of the stalemate and into a win-win situation for all parties concerned.
Andrew Jacovides
Former ambassador of Cyprus to the United States
New York
Egypt's economy
* SIR – Regarding Egypt’s economy, you identified the problem but dodged the solution (“It’s the politics, stupid”, March 30th). Subsidies are a sideshow compared to the key economic issues of FDI, domestic investment, tourism, exports, reserves and above all, unemployment. Egypt’s problems require a comprehensive solution. Tinkering with subsidies will deliver some government revenue but it will also aggravate the people, increase costs, undermine competitiveness and, very likely, escalate unemployment.
Professor M.S.S. el-Namaki
Dean, school of management
Victoria University
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Avoidance and evasion
SIR – Tax “avoidance” was always an historically salutary term to distinguish illegal tax evasion from the tax planning associated with proper legal behaviour (“Haven sent”, March 30th). The best quote on the subject remains the opinion of Judge Learned Hand in the case of Helvering v Gregory before America’s court of appeals in 1934: “Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.”
Todd Landau
Summit, New Jersey
Europe’s north-south divide
SIR – Charlemagne advises northern Europe to ease its hectoring of the south to obey the euro-zone’s rules (March 30th). I am reminded, despite the different context, of Lord Byron’s wonderfully sardonic observation:
What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
Is much more common where the climate’s sultry.
Happy the nations of the moral north!
Victor Earle
Amagansett, New York
Preferences
http://www.economist.com/news/letters/21576051-climate-change-north-korea-tibet-india-cyprus-egypt-tax-avoidance-europe