The Financial Times has a realistic and sobering article on the state on international climate negotiations:Christiana Figueres startled delegates when she addressed the United Nations climate conference in Bonn last week: “I do not believe we will ever have a final agreement on climate change, certainly not in my lifetime,” the Costa Rican diplomat told them.The New York Times has a similarly realistic perspective on prospects for US domestic action:“If we ever have a final, conclusive, all-answering agreement, then we will have solved this problem. I don’t think that’s on the cards.” Addressing the issue successfully would “require the sustained effort of those who will be here for the next 20, 30, 40 years”.
Her words count, and not only because of her 15-year involvement in tackling global warming. Next month, Ms Figueres takes over from the Netherlands’ Yvo de Boer as executive secretary of the UN’s climate change secretariat, based in the former west German capital.
As Bonn’s low, heavy skies pelted delegates with rain, much of the rest of the talk during the long sessions was of technical matters such as the measurement of greenhouse gases. But in quiet conversations in the corridors, in cafes over hurried coffees or while scurrying between thunderstorms, the deeper question some officials were asking was whether there was indeed any point in continuing with this type of negotiation, which had failed for 20 years. Could the UN climate talks be reformed – or were they just too broken to fix?
Images of gushing oil and dying pelicans in the Gulf of Mexico have stirred anger and agony in Washington. But are they enough to prod the Senate to act on long-delayed clean energy and climate change legislation?The fact that the international process is going nowhere fast and the US is not going to cap emissions is not news to anyone who has been paying attention. What is news is that the FT and the NYT have adopted perspectives on the issue of climate policy that might enable alternative conceptions of climate policy to find a place in the broader discussion.
Energy, maybe. Climate, probably not. There is growing sentiment for a measure that penalizes BP, imposes higher costs and tougher regulations on offshore drillers and takes some steps toward reducing overall energy and petroleum consumption.But despite the outrage over the spill, there appears to be limited appetite in the Senate for a broad-based effort to cap greenhouse gas emissions across the board.
8 comments:
Roger
Why do you think Realpolitik in Washington is so different from London ? Britain is committed to an 80% Co2 reduction by 2050. As you say, it has nothing to do with public opinion.
Roger,
You might want to be careful is your use of the term Realpolitik!
As Wikipedias says, "the term realpolitik is often used pejoratively to imply politics that are coercive, amoral, or Machiavellian" and of course that's not what you mean here!
I've got no problem with the point you are making here though.
eric144,
No, they have not really made commitment, they have made a vision statement about CO2 emissions in 2050. Where's the plan? Has anyone looked at feasibility, much less practicability?
DeWitt
I really don't think the British government does vision statements.
Government pledges to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050
The government today committed the UK to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% by the middle of the century in a bid to tackle climate change.
In a move that was widely welcomed by environmental campaigners, Ed Miliband, the new energy and climate change secretary, said that the current 60% target would be replaced by the higher goal in the climate change bill.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/16/greenpolitics-edmiliband
Reality strikes home. It took its time, but none less welcome.
So what does "saving the planet" now mean in the context of this new reality?
It may mean actually very little!
DeWitt said... 3
"Where's the plan? Has anyone looked at feasibility"
All the existing fossil fuel generating capacity in the Europe will need to be replaced between now and 2050 with something.
The plan will be to replace it with whatever is politically possible. Even 5 years ago the word 'Nuclear' was unspeakable in many parts of Europe.
The French Nuclear firm EDF is in negotiations to build a number of nuclear plants in the UK and Italy. Whether they actually ever get built is mostly a political matter.
This says it all:
¨...international climate negotiations:¨
Where, Roger, is there any public opinion on negotiations? With whom do we negotiate? Which party to the negotiations represents stakeholders with something to concede?
There was noone to negotiate with the extreme event labelled Katrina, weather predicted for decades. Engineers and politicians spent billions on not building dikes, while a city partied.
Words can carry meanings. In this case, we non-scientist readers and inquirers find greater clarity re science-advocates who jumped the gun:
policy>>>´concensus´ science>>>public opinion.
Harrywr2,
"Whether they actually ever get built is mostly a political matter."
My point exactly. A 'commitment' to reduce CO2 emissions is meaningless unless you also have a legally binding commitment to actually do something to accomplish the goal, like build nuclear power plants. So far it's all pie in the sky or jam tomorrow.
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