In mid-December, Germany's Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety -- Barbara Hendricks -- published an opinion piece at CNN in which she makes some dubious claims: "Between 1990 and 2012, for example, greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions in the EU fell by 18%, while the overall economy grew by around 45%. The reality is that greater prosperity doesn't have to mean more greenhouse gas emissions, poorer environmental protection or higher resource consumption. In fact, in the future, the opposite will surely prove to be true: Only those economies that take the Earth's planetary boundaries seriously will be able to achieve sustained success." What Minister Hendricks fails to adequately discuss is the time profile for the EU's GHG emission reductions and corresponding economic growth since 1990. If she had, the flaws in her argument for dramatic reductions in GHG emissions would have been exposed. Yes, GHG emissions in...(Read Full Post)