Czech President continues to question the climate change ‘consensus’ – but what exactly is in it for the conspirators?

Vaclav Klaus, the Czech President, took the opportunity of the IPCC’s meeting in Valencia today to highlight his view that West European heads of state – particularly Angela Merkel – have an uncritical preoccupation with climate change. He believes that their concern is driven by an ulterior motive, but is not entirely clear about what it is.

A neo-Marxist analysis that has been around for some time provides the clearest ‘ulterior motive’. It argues that environmentalism is an imperialist tool for preventing the global periphery (the poor countries) from industrialising and thereby maintaining structures of production and consumption that favour the global core (the rich countries). Klaus does not think this. As a liberal economist he would agree with Merkel that development in one part of the world benefits everyone.

He sees climate change as propaganda used by Western politicians to distract voters from pressing current issues. “These ‘escapists’ who do not have ideas rich in content with which to fill the present, hatch plans and visions for fifty to a hundred years to come … and don’t have to worry about immediate problems”, he said. “First, politicians have put climate protection on the agenda for self-interest and journalists then jumped aboard as freeloaders kicking up a storm with a headline-making issue”.

Does this add up? Klaus’ suggestion that politicians should not dogmatically listen to some scientists and ignore others is sensible, but is it really plausible that our political leaders might present a biased view on climate change because it distracts us from more important issues, whatever they may be?