Economic Growth and a Low Carbon Economy―Does the Earth Suffer from an “Easter Island Syndrome”?

doi:10.4236/lce.2011.24024

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Low Carbon Economy, 2011, 2, 200-204

doi:10.4236/lce.2011.24024 Published Online December 2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/lce)

Economic Growth and a Low Carbon

Economy—Does the Earth Suffer from an “Easter

Island Syndrome”?

Andreas Oberheitmann1,2,3

1Research Center for International Environmental Policy, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; 2Rheinisch

Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschafts f o r s c h u n g , E s s e n , Germany; 3Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China.

Email: [email protected]

Received October 3rd, 2011; revised November 8th, 2011; accepted November 18th, 2011.

ABSTRACT

The history of the Eastern Islands in the Pacific with an increasing over-utilization of natural resources reminds us of

the mistakes modern societies are making and the question is obvious whether the Earth is suffering from an Eastern

Islands Syndrome, in other words whether the egoism inherent in humans long-term might have fatal consequences for

our species homo sapiens. Climate research identified two importan t phenomena, which should remind us of the Easter

Islands: feedbacks and tipping points, i.e. self-accelerating phenomena of global warming and reaching irreversible

points of climate change. Only a quick worldwide return to a low carbon economy is able to stabilize global warming

on a bearable level. Both Annex-I countries and Non-Annex-I countries have to contribute to reaching this goal taking

their historical, current and future responsibilities into account. A post Kyoto regime based on cumulative per-capita

CO2-emission rights and an international emission trading could provide for incentives to achieve a low carbon econ-

omy, especially for newly industrialized countries.

Keywords: Climate Change, Feedbacks, Tipping Points, Per Capita Cumulative Emission Rights, Emission Trading

1. Introduction

When the Easter Islands were settled, is unclear. Older

sources say 300 AD - 400 AD, parallel to settling the

Hawaiis, some newer sources are putting forward the

time between 700 AD - 800 AD. Since this time, a soci-

ety with ten independent tribes developed living in dif-

ferent parts of the island, but without having clear bor-

ders. In the beginning, only the coastal regions were set-

tled. Approximately by 1100 AD, the time of the adva-

nced culture of the Easter Islands with the establishment

of monumental architecture began. Among them the be st-

known are the large stone statues (Moai), standing at the

coast and looking into th e island with their big eyes. Th is

cultural bloom, however, only lasted to the mid 17th

Century, at the latest then degeneration of the society of

th e Easter Islan ds began. But in th e centuries before, there

had been social phenomena such as the over-usage of

natural resources already occurring, which should remind

us of our own history and the effects of global climate

change [1]. Does the egoism of humans, which is driving

force of economic growth, long-term become a global

calamity—does the Earth suffer from an “Easter Island

Syndrome”? The history of the Easter Islands in the Pa-

cific shows us this “tragedy of the commons” [2] in a

nutshell.

Section 1 of this paper describes the history of the

Easter Islands and raises the issue whether the Earth is

suffering from an Easter Islands Syndrome. Climate re-

search identified two important phenomena, which shoul d

remind us of the Easter Islands: feedbacks and tipping

points (Section 2). Section 3 provides for lessons to be

learned from the history of the Easter Islands, i.e. build-

ing a path to a low carbon economy. An international

emissions trading system is proposed based on cumula-

tive per-capita CO2-emission rights which might provide

incentives to pursue this low carbon economy path esp e-

cially in newly industrialized countries with an emission

budget below the assumed threshold. Section 4 summa-

rizes the article.

2. History of the Easter Islands and Issues to

Be Raised

Up to the end of the 13th Century, the soil of the Easter

Economic Growth and a Low Carbon Economy—Does the Earth Suffer from an “Easter Island Syndrome”? 201

Islands was used in a sustainable way, after then a radical

deforestation began with increasing soil erosion. The

growth of population and increasing settling in the inte-

rior island without access to the sea as an important

source of food and as a consequence with a growing ag-

ricultural production were seen as the important factors

for the deforestation.

This phenomenon, however, occurs world-wide. At the

beginning of the industrial revolution, about 1750, world

population was be tween 630 and 960 million [3 ]. In 2009,

it was already 6.8 bn [4]. By 2050, world population is

expected to reach 9 bn. The transformation of the land

surface is probably the first considerable (although re-

gional) influence, which humans had on the global cli-

mate. 1750 only about 8 - 9 Mill·km2 or 6% - 7% of the

world land surface were agriculturally used, especially in

Europe, India and China. In the year 1990, it already was

46 - 51 Mill·km2 or 35% - 39% of the land surface of the

Earth. About 11 Mill·km2 forest were cut. Today, defor-

estation is responsible for about a fifth of growth of net

global anthropogenous CO2-emissions [5].

After 1425 AD, intensive agriculture with innovative

measures (such as wall protected cultivated areas, stone

mulch) was utilized on the Easter Islands: on the one

hand because of the rising ground erosion, on the other

hand due to the population growth as way out this Mal-

thusian trap [6]. The intensive agriculture maintained

until the first half of the 17th Century, when the tribal

society collapsed.

The intensification of the agriculture with increasing

capital-intensive means of production such as fertilizers,

pesticides and machines, yielding an accordingly grow-

ing agricultural output per used land is also to be ob-

served world-w id e. Sin ce the ear ly 18 th Cen tur y, so w ing,

reaping and threshing machines were invented and used

first in England, which permitted to manage substantially

larger agricultural fields. Justu s Liebig’s invention of the

chemical fertilizer in 1840 and the increasing employ-

ment of these fertilizers on today world-wide 45 mill tons

per year lead to a substantial increase of agricu ltural pro-

ductivity [7]. Around 1900, one farmer could produce

food for 4 other persons, 1950 one farmer nourished 10

persons, in 2004 alr eady 143. Fossil energy consumption

and the utilization of fertilizers on nitrogen basis and the

related CO2- and N2O-Emissionen contribute to climate

change. The contribution of the agriculture makes about

12.5 billion tons of CO2-equivalents per year or 28% of

the approximately 45 billion tons of CO2-equivalents

world-wide. With 2.1 billion tons of CO2-equivalents, the

excessive use of fertilizers has thereby a considerable

portion [5].

From archeo-biological investigations of waste of the

settlements of the Easter Islands it is recognizable that

the number and variety of sea-birds as source of food

rapidly decreased after 1650 AD. On the basis of fossil

discoveries back to 520 million years ago, also on a

global scale, there is a long-term negative relation be-

tween global mean temperature and biodiversity. In times

of higher temperatures the variety of types was smaller

both in the sea and at the country then in times of lower

temperatures. However, it is still unclear wheth er this is a

causal relation.

Starting from the mid 17th Century, the monumental

construction on the Easter Islands stopped. Starting from

the end of the 17th, at the latest starting in the first half

the 18th Century, the cult platforms were systematically

destroyed by the people themselves and statues were

thrown over. Finally, it came to a complete decline of the

traditional cultu re.

Disputed is still, where the roots of this cultural de-

cline are to be searched. Today, the majority of the re-

searchers assume the problems were caused by the Is-

landers themselves. Some speaks for the fact that the

substantial predatory exploitation of the inhabitants of

their own natural resources on the island led to the dis-

turbance of the ecological equilibrium and at the end to

the decline of the society [1]. The question is what the

history of the Easter Islands can teach us? Is the egoism

of humans and their desire for more and more on a

long-term basis fatal? Is the Earth on the edge of similar

radical ecological changes due to the unrestrained con-

sumption of fossil sources of energy and other resources?

3. Climate Change Phenomena and the

Easter Island Syndome: Feedbacks

and Tipping Points

The egoism and the desire for more is inherent in humans.

In particular, if it has still little. One can feel that clearly

here in China. The development of the economy at the

expense of nature is at the agenda, all the more, the

smaller the individual contribution for the negative total

effect is. But on the other side, the hypothesis of the En-

vironmental Kuznets Curve [8,9] may apply, that starting

from a certain per capita income the utilization of the

environment decreases again. The question is, whether

the climate can bear per-capita greenhouse gas emissions

converging to a certain level worldwide. It is very likely,

that the answer is “no”. Nowadays, “the limits to growth ”

actually have to be defined from an ecological view

rather than as from the perspective of resource availabil-

ity.

Climate research identified two important phenomena,

which should remind us of the Easter Islands: feedbacks

and tipping points [5].

Some effects of the global warming produ ce add itional

global warming, they work as feedbacks to the global

Economic Growth and a Low Carbon Economy—Does the Earth Suffer from an “Easter Island Syndrome”?

202

climatic system. Some feedbacks are negative, i.e. warming

effect induce cooling effects. Others are positive, so that

global warming is accelerated. e.g., for the 1960’s, the

mean temperature in Siberia increased by around 3˚C,

which leads to a deicing of the perma-frost soils since

approximately ten years. Very large quantities of meth-

ane, which are bound below the perma-frosted ground as

gas hydrates, now escapes into the atmosphere. Since

methane is a greenhouse gas 21-times stronger than car-

bon dioxide, global warming is accelerated and even

more perma-frost thaws off. On a long-term basis, some-

thing similar is true for a warming up of the oceans and

the danger of a slow, uncontrollable and over centuries

continuing methane release due to heated up deeper ocean

layers. Even more important, however, is the short-term

decrease of the sea ice, which covers up to 15 percent of

the world’s oceans. The oceans have a smaller reflecting

ability (albedo) of sunlight than the ice surfaces, because

they ar e darker. The oceans thu s absorb a major ity of the

arriving sunlight, while the sea ice reflects up to 90% of

the irradiated solar power in the universe. If the surface

of the sea ice decreases, more solar power will be ab-

sorbed and the Earth warms up even more strongly.

Among other things, due to the decrease of the sea ice

and snow, the annual average temperature of the Arctic

increased nearly twice as fast as in the remaining world.

According to different projections, the Arctic will warm

up around further 4˚C to 7˚C in the next 100 years [5].

If climate change continues, so-called tipping-points can

be reached, at which the climate abruptly and irreversibly

reacts. When these points will exactly be reached, is still

uncertain. The tipping point for an ice-free Arctic in the

summer, however, could already be very close. Global

warming in connection with cutting rain forest could also

lead to a tipping point, where the ecological system rain

forest drains and completely breaks down finally. This

would have substantial effects for the global climate,

since less and less carbon dioxide can be absorbed and

escapes into the atmosphere. Other tipping points exist

approximately with the acidification of the oceans or to

begin of the monsoon in India [10].

4. Lessons to Be Learned from the History of

the Easter Islands: Building a Path to a

Low Carbon Economy

The question, which arises last, is: what can we learn

from the history of the Easter Islands? The most impor-

tant device would be that we may not make the same

mistakes on a global scale, which the inhabitants of the

Easter Islands had made before us. Otherwise, possibly

history repeats itself in a fatal way. Hardin described this

tragedy by a pasture shared by local herders [2], called a

commons. The herders are assumed to wish t o max imize

their yield, and so will increase their herd size whenever

possible. The utility of each additional animal has two

components, a positive and a negative. Tragically, the

division of these costs and benefits is unequal: the indi-

vidual herder gains all of the advantage, but the disad-

vantage of the incremental degradation of the pasture is

shared among all herders using the pasture. Consequently,

for an individual herder the rational cour se of action is to

continue to add additional animals to his herd. However,

since all herders reach the same rational conclusion,

overgrazing with immediate losses occurs, and degrada-

tion of the pasture may be its long-term fate.

As for the utili zation of fossil fu els and related costs of

climate change it is quite similar. The single economic

entity gets the full utility from using fossil fuels, e.g. by

driving a new fossil fuelled car, but the costs of climate

change are shared globally. This effect is the stronger the

smaller the individual contribution to climate change and

the larger the perceived absorption capacity of the at-

mosphere and thus the smaller the probability and costs

of climate change are perceived by the economic entity.

In fact, the costs of climate change are increasing, maybe

even per capita with a growing world population, as

greenhouse gases are continuously piling up in the at-

mosphere. But the marginal climate change costs still do

not outweigh the marginal utility from contributing to

climate change. This may be only the case, if one or

more of the tipping points mentioned above are reached

and climate change costs increase tremendously, literally

from one year to the other. But th en, it may be too late.

The problem with the long-lasting and cumulating

greenhouse gases is that we (more or less) only can make

climate change not worse. So, what to do? Technically, it

is relatively clear. The establishment of a low carbon

economy almost entirely using renewable energies should

be the goal of all societies. This would enable the world

to achieve an almost CO2-neutral economy for the future.

Other greenhouse gases such as methane, laughing gas or

fluorocarbon connections, however, are there by not yet

from the atmosphere. They have to be abandoned as well,

but a large step would be done achieving it with CO2.

The opportunity to rewind histor y is only with “n egativ e”

emissions, i.e. a carbon capture and storage (CCS) of

emissions from bio-fuels. The biomass “filled into the

tank” represents carbon taken out of the atmosphere. If

there are no emissions to the atmosphere during combus-

tion as they are captured and stored, the net-emissions

are negative. However, this approach is still very cost-

intensive.

Under the current (a) energy price and (b) climate cost

conditions, the “Easter Island Synd rome” is still virulent.

The political task is to internalize the external effects of

climate change into the energy price calculus of the eco-

Economic Growth and a Low Carbon Economy—Does the Earth Suffer from an “Easter Island Syndrome”? 203

nomic entities and to make the expected climate costs

more transparent or visible on an individual level. The

instruments to do that on the national level are well-

known (taxes, subsidies, Coase-solutions etc.) or the

government simply imposes regulatory command and

control measures. The expected climate costs can be

made more transparent through the publication of re-

search results, e.g. in the IPCC framework. However, the

problem still is that the government can only change the

framework conditions, but not the people.

Even, if that worked on a national scale, there is the

international dimension of the problem. As for climate

change mitigation, it is extremely important to have a

global approach, since under the current energy price

conditions, the incentives are too large to deviate from a

CO2-neutral path regionally and to keep on using coal,

oil or gas to maintain or develop a competitive advantage

over low-carbon economies. This is the expression of the

“Easter Island Syndrome” on the international level.

Here, the international climate negotiations have to

achieve a global consensus on binding greenhouse gas

emission reduction targets in the post-Kyoto phase. A

2˚C global temperature increase above pre-industrial

levels is internationally accepted as having only minor

implications for the economies and the environment. In

2007, the Environment Council of the European Union

has confirmed this as the EU’s indicativ e target [11]. For

achieving the 2˚C target with a probability of more than

60%, greenhouse gas concen trations n eed to be stab ilized

at 450 - 400 ppm CO2-equivalent by 2100, if the 90%

uncertainty range for climate sensitivity is believ ed to be

1.5˚C to 4.5˚C [12].

On the average of 2008-2012, the Kyoto Protocol is

pledging a 5.2% reduction of greenhouse gases against

1990, but much more far reaching obligations have to be

taken. To achieve the 2˚C target, by 2050, worldwide

CO2-emissions have to be reduced by about 50%, by the

Annex-I countries on the average b y 80%.

One question among many is, how to distribute the

CO2-emission targets among the single countries. Cur-

rently, different post-Kyoto approaches are discussed,

including “per capita convergence in emission endow-

ments”, “soft landing in emission growth”, “global pref-

erence score approach”, “historical contribution to cli-

mate change or ‘Brazilian proposal’”, “ability to pay”, or

the “multi-stage approach”. The main weakness of all

these approaches is that at the same time

They do not take into the fact into consideration, that

on the one side, the developed countries are responsible

for the current CO2-concentration in the atmosphere, on

the other side developing countries such as China and

India are to a large extent responsible for the current ad-

ditional CO2-emissions which now start to accumulate in

the atmosphere (which is partly done in the “Brazilian

proposal”), and do not provide for a fair distribution of

emission rights like in “per capita convergence in emis-

sion endowments”.

As CO2-concentration is cumu lated emission over time,

a post Kyoto regime should take this as a basis.

A post-Kyoto approach based on cumulated per capita

CO2-emission rights would take the above mentioned

weaknesses into account [13]. Here, the cumulated CO2-

emissions (CO2,cum) of country m are:

2,,,2,, ,2,, ,2,, ,

1750

COCOCO CO

mcumcaptcoalt moil tmgastm

t





2,, ,2,, ,2,, ,

COCO CO

bunker t mflagas t mcement t m



 (1)

The cumulated CO2-emissions per capita of country m

are:

2, ,

2, ,,,20

CO POP

mcu

mcumcapt m

,

mt (2)

In order to make sure that a growing population does

not lead to an increase of CO2-emission rights, the allo-

cated cumulated per capita CO2-emissions from 1750 are

based on the 2007 world population. A growing popula-

tion over time, should not lead to an increase of CO2-emis-

sions, but to an incentive to increase energy efficiency

(or possibly to adopt a pro-activ e population growth pol-

icy, but this has to be considered in ethical terms).

The target would be the stabilization of global warm-

ing to 2 degree Celsius or 400 - 450 ppm CO2-concentra-

tion in the atmosphere. Calculating the cumulative CO2-

emissions as a proxy for the CO2-concentration in the

atmosphere, a concentration of 400 ppm CO2 represents

about 1600 bn. t cumulated CO2-emissions (CO2,cum).

Taking the 2007 world population (6552 Mill) as the

constant reference over time, every human on Earth

would have emission rights of 246 t CO2,cumcap for the

400 ppm concentration or 354 t CO2,cumcap for the 450

ppm concentration.

The Annex-I countries, on the average had to reduce

their cumulated CO2-emissions per capita to their 1950

level instead of facing a further increase. In 2008, that

would have meant to reduce per-capita cumulated emis-

sions from 657 t CO2,cumcap by 411 t CO2,cumcap to 246 t

CO2,cumcap. China would e.g. reach the 400 ppm threshold

by between 2026 (BAU), by 2025 (HIGH) and by 2033

(LOW) depending on the GDP-growth assumption in the

model [13]. e.g ., India, Indon esia, African an d other Low

Income Countries would not reach this threshold even by

2050 and could sell emission rights to the international

market and finance the development of a low carbon

economy.

The new distribution system itself is nor able to solve

Economic Growth and a Low Carbon Economy—Does the Earth Suffer from an “Easter Island Syndrome”?

204

the problem of climate change mitigation itself or the

“Eastern Island Syndrome”, but it may help to reduce

frictions in international climate protection cooperation.

The success of such a system still heavily depends on the

quality of monitoring, reporting and verification of en-

ergy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions world-

wide and finally that the emission caps are kept on a

global scale based on a responsibility that every human

being feels for the whole. For that, however, the human

nature has to change. The question is: can we change

based on enlightened self-interest or do we have to learn

it in a hard way?

5. Summary

The history of the Eastern Islands in the Pacific with an

increasing over-utilization of natural resources reminds

us of the mistakes modern societies are making and the

question is obvious whether the egoism inherent in hu-

mans long-term might have fatal consequences for our

species homo sapiens as it was for the population of the

Easter Islands.

Climate research identified two important phenomena,

which should remind us of the Easter Islands: feedbacks

and tipping points, i.e. self-accelerating phenomena of

global warming and reaching irreversible points of cli-

mate change. Only a quick worldwide return to a low

carbon economy is able to stabilize global warming on a

bearable level. Both, Annex-I countries and Non-An-

nex-I countries have to contribute to reaching this goal

taking their historical, current and future responsibilities

into account.

A post Kyoto regime based on cumulative per-capita

CO2-emission rights and a international emission trading

could provide for incentives to achieve a low carbon

economy, especially for newly industrialized countries.

This could be a step towards tackling climate change

long term, the issue of the other greenhouse gases, how-

ever, also have to be addressed in the future.

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