According to Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard economist
Linda Bilmes, the Iraq War cost three trillion dollars. While much of
the money used to conduct the war was borrowed (most notably from
Chinese institutions), ultimately American taxpayers will be
responsible for many years to come for footing the bill, including the
high interest payments on the funds loaned. This is because the federal
budget, especially between the military and big business bailout costs,
far exceeded the annual and shrinking amount taken in by taxes.
Was it worth it? The answer partly depends on whether one works for
or has holdings in one of the oil companies that made out well in the
aftermath.
The final major prize in the war, southern Iraq's
giant Rumaila oil field, was finally awarded on November third with
mixed results from an American standpoint. This is because the only
successful bidders for it were BP and China National Petroleum
Corporation (CNPC) and the second organization, it can be assumed, will
primarily support Asian interests over ones favoring Western nations.
Nonetheless, plans are moving forward by the BP-CNPC consortium to
invest $US15 billion into Rumaila, the fifth biggest known single
reserve of oil in the world, to almost triple production from one
million barrels daily to 2.85m and, if successful, the field would be
the world's second biggest in existence. While BP will own a 38 percent
stake, CNPC will retain a 37 percent share and Iraq will hold 25
percent.
This being the case is probably above all vexing since the Chinese people did not have to sacrifice lots of lives and taxpayer money into the Iraq war since their focus was concentrated on strengthening the economy in their homeland all the while the USA and its NATO allies remained largely set on trying to gain control of the fossil fuels for themselves through invasion. Even so, the USA and NATO partners, despite an all-out effort to dominate the region, lost most of the reward.
"The Chinese are very aggressive here." According to Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh, "They are very eager to build up their presence in Iraq's oil industry." Furthermore, a CNPC-led consortium is one of the three bidders for West Qurna 1, another gargantuan field. A group overseen by Russia's Lukoil and another conglomerate commanded by Exxon Mobil are also in the running for this field.
In consideration of its tremendous success to date, CNPC has developed, along with another Chinese oil company, a special Iraq-focused joint enterprise, called Al-Wah -- an Arabic term meaning à ‚¬Ëœthe oasis' -- to expand the Chinese presence and work in Iraq. At the same time, the Chinese, along with not having to subsume any of the war costs, do not have to bear any guilt over the heavy human toll -- assessed by some groups to be a million and a third Iraqis killed, along with 4,680 American military personnel and additional foreign forces from other nations.
At the same time that various organizations involved with fossil fuels are competing to obtain profitably favorable arrangements for themselves and the respective countries to which they supply fuels, leading climate change scientist around the world are putting out an entirely contrary message. They are indicating that, very quickly, global fossil fuel dependence has to greatly shrink to avoid run-away climate change that would cause much of the world's surface to be inhospitable to life. In other words, an almost complete cessation of its use must occur fairly soon despite ever increased worldwide demand.
For example, John Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the main environmental scientist for the German government, told officials from Barack Obama's administration that U.S. carbon emissions must fall from its annual 20 tons per person to zero if there is going to be an even slight possibility for the climate to stabilize with a 2C increase.
As Stephen Leahy points out in "Four Degrees Of Devastation", "Eighteen months ago, no one dared imagine humanity pushing the climate beyond an additional two degrees C of heating, but rising carbon emissions and inability to agree on cuts has meant science must now consider the previously unthinkable."
He goes on to add:
A four-degree C overall increase means a world where temperatures will be two degrees warmer in some places, 12 degrees and more in others, making them uninhabitable.
It is a world with a one- to two-metre sea level rise by 2100, leaving hundreds of millions homeless. This will head to 12 metres in the coming centuries as the Greenland and Western Antarctic ice sheets melt, according to papers presented at the [UK international climate science] conference [recently held] in Oxford.
Four degrees of warming would be hotter than any time in the last 30 million years, and it could happen as soon as 2060 to 2070.[1]
As Clive Hamilton, Charles Sturt Professor of Public Ethics at the
Australian National University, points out in "Is It Too Late to
Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change?", "It is clear that limiting
warming to 2C is beyond us; the question now is whether we can limit
warming to 4C. The conclusion that, even if we act promptly and
resolutely, the world is on a path to reach 650 ppm and associated
warming of 4C is almost too frightening to accept. Yet that is the
reluctant conclusion of the world's leading climate scientists. Even
with the most optimistic set of assumptions à ‚¬" the ending of
deforestation, a halving of emissions associated with food production,
global emissions peaking in 2020 and then falling by 3 per cent a year
for a few decades à ‚¬" we have no chance of preventing emissions rising
well above a number of critical tipping points that will spark
uncontrollable climate change."[2]
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