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EU Warns Climate Loopholes Could Lead to CO2 Rise
BRUSSELS - Loopholes in the United Nations climate treaties could actually amount to an increase in global climate-warming emissions over the next decade, and must be closed, a draft European Union report shows. European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard will announce her strategy on Tuesday for advancing international climate talks after the conclusion of a weak deal in Copenhagen in December.
A bushfire burns out of control in the Kiewa Valley in Victoria state, Australia. (AFP/File/Torsten Blackwood) An EU report to back that announcement estimates rich countries' current pledges for carbon dioxide cuts will add up to a reduction of between 13.2 percent and 17.8 percent over the next decade.
The difference comes from the fact that some rich countries have pledged a range of possible cuts.
That would fall far short of the 25-40 percent cut recommended by U.N. scientists to keep temperature rises to within 2 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial temperatures.
Two key loopholes could make the situation even worse, warns the leaked report: the use of spare carbon emissions permits left after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and loose rules on emissions from agriculture and deforestation.
If the spare emissions permits are not eradicated, they could reduce the depth of real-world emissions cuts by rich nations by 6.8 percentage points, warns the report, seen by Reuters on Monday.
In the worst case, that could mean rich countries cut emissions to only 6.4 percent below 1990 levels over the next decade.
Loose rules for emissions from forestry and agriculture could erode 9 percentage points from emissions cuts.
"This would mean that for the lower end of the pledges, we would in fact allow for an increase in developed country emissions of 2.6 percent above 1990 levels," warns the report. "For the higher end of the pledges, we would only see a 2 percent reduction in relation to 1990."
(Reporting by Pete Harrison)
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Show AllWith all the news regarding the Climate gate episode, with the exposure of the scientists' unprofessional behavior, the IPCC quoting unreasonable predictions, taken not from scholarly journal articles, but from politically oriented environmental sources; with all the books carefully outlining the true scientific state of climate warming knowledge, how can Common Dreams stoop so low as to publish more of this hopeless drivel? How crass to put a picture of a brush fire in the article, saying with its equivalent of a thousand words that our failure to act will lead to more events of that nature. How brainwashed must anyone be to even believe such rot? Our current state of knowledge allows us to make weather predictions for a few days. Predictions of climate in a hundred years are the wet dreams of idiots. We do know that the climate will either change or stay the same and that CO2, if a driver of climate change at all, is like the movement of a spider web affecting the wind.
Actually it is easier to make predictions about climate a hundred years from now than to make weather predictions for a few days. Climate is about averages over a long period of time. Weather is about a specific temperature, cloud cover, etc. at a specific place at a specific moment. Temperature can vary all day, but there is only one temperature that is the century's average temperature for a given area.
No surprise here. I think we know this. Thanks to the Climate Commissioner and all for telling us, well meant I'm sure . . . but what would be bigger and better news would be to make changes where we are that help mitigate CO2 rise . . . downsizing and helping grow downsized communities.
Instead of looking out the window at the approaching storm, going outside and battening down a few loose things.
www. radicalrelocalization.com
"Captain, there is an iceberg dead ahead. I suggest All Reverse, Full left rudder...or, maybe 6.3% reverse and 11% rudder...
PERILS OF GLOBAL WARMING NEGLECT
Jerrymat has been brainwashed by the misinformation campaigns, disputing the concerns of global warming and our contributions to it, by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and other disciples of the energy cartel typifies their destructive wars against our planet.
They attack the credibility of the dedicated international scientific community--who have concluded that global warming concerns are as close to certain as science can be. They exaggerate some inaccuracies from the reams of data developed by community, reminiscent of the earlier e-mail thefts to undermine progress at Copenhagen, to bolster their allegations,
They dismiss positive indicators such as unprecedented melting of the glaciers, Arctic ice, and Northwest Passage Their assertions that the recent unseasonable snow storms disprove warming, when they actually support it, underscores the fallacies of their claims.
Even if warming were no issue, its mitigation measures would be necessary to curtail other crucial environmental problems such as poisoning of our air, waters, and lands; as well as our dangerous dependance on foreign oil-- all of which will worsen if we continue to abuse our planet.
If those who impede mitigation of carbon pollution had to suffer as much from it as the billions who live on marginal means, the world outlook would change.