Greenwire (password required) reports that a committee of the House of Representatives yesterday assessed the EU’s failed Emissions Trading Scheme.

There’s so much nonsense coming out of Kyotophile cheerleaders that I feel compelled to either fisk the entirety — which is too space-intensive for this forum — or leave it at the following in response to this particular paragraph:

“Questioned by Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) about the 16 percent increase in energy costs in the United Kingdom, Duggan responded that only about a third of the price could be attributed to the new carbon market. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) later asked if a 6 percent price increase for energy was worth it to avert sweeping changes to the Earth’s climate.”

Implicit in Inslee’s (presumably) rhetorical inquiry is that the three-year ETS test period, or even to be generous the ETS in its full blown glory once Kyoto formally kicks in 2008-2012, would “avert sweeping changes to the Earth’s climate.” Were I prone to accepting the alarmists’ desire for a speech-code on these matters, I would rush to argue how such ignorance ought to disqualify Rep. Inslee from ever speaking to the issue again, or at least until he got a note from an adult proving that he passed some remedial course such as reading a UK newspaper (or Planet Gore).

Costs are in fact increasing in Europe as a result of their ETS, as are brownouts and threats of much more of the same. Capital investment is indeed fleeing, including to the US. Yet no, the ETS is not impacting the climate, or even reducing emissions, let alone offering salvation that this revival movement promises.

In fact, no one says that the 34-nation Kyoto Protocol, which is of course a larger enterprise than the ETS, would have even a detectable impact on the climate let alone “avert sweeping changes” to it, even if Europe stopped increasing its emissions (faster than the US btw) “offest” by buying “credits” or indulgences, even if all parties who agreed to do so did so and it worked as advertised instead of as designed — which as I have noted in this space previously, is to fail. In fact, quite the opposite.

Maybe the Kyotophiles were right when they screamed for six years that these hearings are a waste of time. You will notice, however, the reluctance to put their careers where their mouths are and pay heed to the follow up cry, that “we must act now!” Maybe they aren’t as ignorant of the facts as they let on. Maybe.