Rich Nations Fail To Set 2020 Goals

[RestoreGore]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/31/3534/

Published on Friday, August 31, 2007 by Reuters
Rich Nations Shy Away from Stiff 2020 Goals
by Alister Doyle

VIENNA - Industrial nations were shying away from fixing stiff 2020 guidelines for greenhouse gases cuts at U.N. talks on Friday in what environmentalists said would be a vote for “dangerous” climate change.

A draft text at the U.N. talks dropped a demand that developed nations should be “guided” by a need for steep cuts in greenhouse gases of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 in working out a long-term fight against global warming.

“There are a limited number of problems still with the text,” said Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat. He predicted a compromise by the end of the August 27-31 talks among 1,000 delegates with “something for everyone”.

The European Union and many developing nations such as China and India want industrial states to use the stringent 25-40 percent range to guide future talks to force a shift away from fossil fuels, blamed by U.N. reports for stoking global warming.

But Russia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland objected to setting the stringent range in negotiations about extending the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol, the main plan for fighting global warming that runs to 2012, delegates said.

“The lower the stabilization level (of greenhouse gases) achieved, the lower the consequent damages,” the draft said. It mentions the option of 25-40 percent cuts but drops a previous reference to them as an indicative guide for future work.

“This is voting for the apocalypse,” said Stephanie Tunmore of environmental group Greenpeace. “The 25-40 percent range is needed to help avert dangerous climate change” such as more powerful storms, rising seas and melting glaciers, she said.

snip

“I think there is a building momentum, I don’t think we have enough of it yet,” he told a news conference. “There is a changing mood. there are important countries who say that the time for talk has come for an end.”

Cuts of 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 are the stiffest scenario by the U.N.’s climate panel in a May 2007 report seen as limiting global warming to 2.0 to 2.4 Celsius (3.6 to 4.3 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

The EU, which has said it will unilaterally cut emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and by 30 percent if other nations follow suit, and environmentalists say that any gain in temperatures above 2 Celsius will bring dangerous changes.

© Reuters 2007.
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Building momentum.... this crisis has been building for over THIRTY years and we are just beginning globally to build momentum? We're screwed if these games keep up. I mean, we can't have anybody NOT getting rich off of this in lieu of actually really giving a damn about the people and other species it is affecting now can we? Some days I really am totally fed up with the BS regarding people treating this crisis as if it is something we have time to just "build momentum" over the next thirty years. If we take thirty more years to build momentum WE WON'T HAVE A LIVEABLE PLANET. We need an evasive and comprehensive treaty by 2009. Unfortunately, it is going to take human beings putting it together.

[nam78_two]

1. K&R.nt

[RestoreGore]

2. Climate Change To Hit Poor The Hardest

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/jan-june07/ipcc_04-06.html

But will the poor have any say in the solutions?

[nam78_two]

4. kick.nt

[NYVet]

3. Weren't we told 25 years ago

that we were going to be in an ice planet in 20 years?

I'm sorry, but I just don't see us killing the planet.




And why should all countries not be held to the same standard when it comes to emissions?

[RestoreGore]

5. Why do you think I posted this?

WE (collectively) AREN'T DOING ENOUGH. And if you don't see it, you aren't looking hard enough.

[NNadir]

6. Well some of us are routinely opposing the largest climate change free options there are.

The world uses 470 exajoules of energy.

The largest climate change gas free forms of energy are, in this order, referring to primary energy, nuclear, 29 exajoules, hydro, 10 exajoules, and combined renewables (wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah), less than 5 exajoules primary.

As pure electricity nuclear and hydro produce 10 exajoules, (wind solar, geothermal, tidal, blah, blah, blah, blah) less than two.

The rich nations will do nothing but talk and then not about themselves - because they couldn't care less - but about nations like China and India that have not agreed to be poor so rich people can drive and fly around going to rock concerts where they pretend to care about climate change.

And let's be clear, any real solution will need to be reality based. It won't come from cute posture and cute talk about 2050. We don't need more people like the pathetic hydro hypercar mystic Amory Lovins, who started trying to destroy nuclear energy in 1976 and then moved himself 3 kilometers above sea level to live in a McMansion.

I get so sick of empty rhetoric. I so despise it, especially holy self congratulatory rhetoric.

[nam78_two]

7. Actually there is a huge difference

The New Scientist illustrated the difference between the two cases:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11643

Climate myths: They predicted global cooling in the 1970s
16 May 2007

Indeed they did. At least, a handful of scientific papers discussed the possibility of a new ice age at some point in the future, leading to some pretty sensational media coverage (see Histories: The ice age that never was).

One of the sources of this idea may have been a 1971 paper by Stephen Schneider, then a climate researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, US. Schneider's paper suggested that the cooling effect of dirty air could outweigh the warming effect of carbon dioxide, potentially leading to an ice age if aerosol pollution quadrupled.

This scenario was seen as plausible by many other scientists, as at the time the planet had been cooling (see Global temperatures fell between 1940 and 1980). Furthermore, it had also become clear that the interglacial period we are in was lasting an unusually long time (see Record ice core gives fair forecast).

However, Schneider soon realized he had overestimated the cooling effect of aerosol pollution and underestimated the effect of CO2, meaning warming was more likely than cooling in the long run. In his review of a 1977 book called The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age, Schneider stated: "We just don't know...at this stage whether we are in for warming or cooling – or when." A 1975 report (pdf format) by the US National Academy of Sciences merely called for more research.

The calls for action to prevent further human-induced global warming, by contrast, are based on an enormous body of research by thousands of scientists over more than a century that has been subjected to intense – and sometimes ferocious – scrutiny. According to the latest IPCC report, it is more than 90% certain that the world is already warming as a result of human activity.

There is very little debate within the scientific community at this point (beyond differences on nuances and solutions). Most of the so-called controversy is created and fostered by the non-scientific media.

As for why wealthier countries are being called to contribute
"disproportionately", it is simple. We are contributing significantly more to emissions at this point in time, regardless of what India and China are going to do in the future and the onus is on us to lead the way.

[nam78_two]

8. kick.nt