Half Measures On Climate Action

Kim Carstensen: Nice Words Out Of The G8, But Now Comes The Hard Part

(CBS)  Kim Carstensen heads the Global Climate Initiative at WWF International

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The most exciting thing about this week's G8 meeting in l'Aquila in the hot and sunny mountains of Italy was that it managed to say something new and important.

Contrary to last year's summit in Japan, G8 leaders at this year's summit managed to produce two pieces of news on climate change: First they acknowledged the scientific view that global temperature increases should be limited to two degrees Celsius. Secondly they agreed that the developed countries should reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by 80 per cent or more by 2050. G8 leaders have never agreed on this before.

If the leaders are serious about what they agreed - and I wouldn't dream of suggesting that they are not - this sets a new, clear direction for the international efforts to combat climate change.

The reference to the science on 2 degrees limit indicates that science must be the basis for where we set our level of ambition on climate change. And the agreement to reduce emissions by 80 per cent in 2050 puts us into the right order of magnitude. WWF would like to see even higher ambitions that would further limit the disruption to our climate system, but this is an important new starting point, and it creates a common, global language on what we are aiming for.

And this was not limited to the developed countries in the G8. Thursday, the same agreement on limiting temperature increases to 2 degrees was also reached in the Major Economies Forum, meaning that developing countries such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa, are now part of this new, global language. Like all countries, they have felt the impacts of climate change and they do not want to miss the narrow window of opportunity available for limiting future damage. They agree on the ambition to limit warming to 2 degrees, and they know of course that there is no way that we can achieve it, without serious climate action on their part as well.

So all the important players agree what the game is we are playing. That's important! Why is it then that I'm only half excited?

My main concern is that the G8 leaders still haven't said much about how they will translate this long-term, principle agreement into the immediate action needed to fulfill the vision. As a group, they have not committed to anything near the level of emissions reductions needed in the short and mid-term. And they have presented very few ideas on what funding they are going to contribute to African countries and other developing countries for adaptation to climate change and for climate action and emissions reductions. What they are offering to the poorest countries in the world, is a little bit like a rich friend's postcard from a 5 star resort saying: I wish you were here.

However, in a surprise move on Thursday, President Obama presented an idea that may help resolve this issue. He got the heads of state at the Major
Economies forum to ask their Finance Minister, or Secretary of Treasury, to come up with ideas on finance for developing countries and to report back to the upcoming G20 meeting in Pittsburg in September. So now we have a process and a timeline that may help us break one of the major deadlocks in the global negotiations on climate change. All eyes will now be on Pittsburgh.

There was also some progress on technology, which is another of the key building blocks in the climate negotiations. The Major Economies Forum agreed to double public funding for research and development of green technologies. They also agreed to a series of country-led initiatives on specific technologies like solar power, smart grid, energy efficiency and advanced vehicles. By November, we will have proposals for roadmaps and action plans for these technologies, and if done well, they can become very important for a global climate agreement.

Progress is still not fast enough but the positive steps on long term vision and on finance and technology in the Major Economies Forum mean that an ambitious global climate deal in Copenhagen is still mission possible.

Did the G8 succeed on climate change?

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 Yes
 No
 Undecided

[noloyalisti]

Paul Krugman today: if the consensus of the economic experts is grim, the consensus of the climate experts is utterly terrifying. At this point, the central forecast of leading climate models ? not the worst-case scenario but the most likely outcome ? is utter catastrophe, a rise in temperatures that will totally disrupt life as we know it, if we continue along our present path. How to head off that catastrophe should be the dominant policy issue of our time.

[noloyalisti]

Climate change will be the most devastating thing to ever hot the world. The economic and societal effects of that will make our health care, economic and foreign policy debacles seem like nothing.

[andylance1]

The more Gore opens his mouth, the less likely any climate change legislation will pass in the Senate. Talking about global governance is a sure way to kill the bill. The Senate is not going to give up American sovereignty.

It was a huge mistake for the House of Representatives to attempt to do climate change before health care reform. The way Pelosi jammed the bill with enough pork to sink both bills was extremely foolish.

[sjc_1]

As the G8 leaders go there in those huge gas guzzling jet airplanes, when they could have just video conferenced and saved 10s of thousands of barrels of oil. Walk the talk leaders.

[noloyalisti]

Just what are they supposed to do? Go back to steamships across the Atlantic? They can jet around all they like as long as they do the right thing for the people and reel in the multi-national corporations that run all the G8 government for their own profit.

[ubrew12]

http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1550
Survey results:
84% of scientists polled felt AGW was human-caused. Among the general public, the figure was 49% (21% among conservative republicans, 74% among liberal democrats).

70% of scientists polled felt AGW was a VERY serious problem. Among the general public, the figure was 47%.

28% of conservative republicans say the earth is not getting warmer. Among scientists, the figure is 4%.

The denier community out there is stock full of conservative republicans, who are well financed to drive home the message that AGW doesn't exist. What drives them personally is NOT an interest in science or nature, but an interest in keeping government from interfering in business. Their ideology is SO STRONG they would rather deny climate change and potentially doom the planet than admit the government can occasionally do some good.

[jon2012-2009]

There has always been a gap between a scientific finding and its acceptance in popular thinking. Darwin's evolution has been around for 150 years but a probable majority of Americans reject it. Scientists say that the earth is several billion years old yet there are those who insist it is no more than 6,000 years.

Today we face an environemtal challenge where the luxury of ignorance and inaction carries a price of unprecedented scale. I'm not a scientist but I do understand that science is the only consistently successful methodology mankind has ever developed in its entire history to figure out information that lies beyond the evidence of our senses. To deny global warming is really to argue that the system we have that continues to propel technological advances in medicine, agriculture, communications, transportation and space is making a wrong bet.

[ubrew12]

jon2012-2009 said: "To deny global warming is really to argue that the system we have that continues to propel technological advances in medicine, agriculture, communications, transportation and space is making a wrong bet."

Well said. And my point was that many who DO deny AGW choose their faith in unrestricted capitalism over science. Well, I think there's room for both to be nourished, but if the deniers keep winning this battle we may get to a point where NEITHER is possible. And that would be a tough place to be indeed.