Climate Deal: Less Than Meets the Eye
EmailThere may have been a bit of grandstanding going on in Germany–the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, touts a "very successful" agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions…but the U.S. quietly passes on word that it hasn’t promised anything. "No one can escape this political declaration. It is an enormous step forward," Merkel said at a news briefing. She’s talking about cutting emissions 50 percent by 2050. More HERE. But Karen Travers, who’s there for us, sends along one paragraph of the agreement: "49. We are therefore committed to taking strong and early action to tackle climate change in order to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Taking into account the scientific knowledge as represented in the recent IPCC reports, global greenhouse gas emissions must stop rising, followed by substantial global emission reductions. In setting a global goal for emissions reductions in the process we have agreed today involving all major emitters, we will consider seriously the decisions made by the European Union, Canada and Japan which include at least a halving of global emissions by 2050. We commit to achieving these goals and invite the major emerging economies to join us in this endeavour." There’s a lot of verbiage there, but the one thing to note is the phrase in boldface. Karen says the source who passed this on pointed to them as key–the U.S. didn’t give anything away. Whether that’s wise or risky, I’ll leave to you.
Space Station Flies Over Eastern U.S. at Night 
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Ned, are you really sure you want to leave it to us? We’re the ones that voted the current administration into power. Perhaps you should form an independent panel to study the matter.
Posted by: Andy | June 7, 2007, 7:14 pm 7:14 pm
Notice the other environmental news of the day was that EPA says you can now pollute small streams and ponds because they lack jurisdiction. They took the Supreme Court’s decision and made a mad dash to show they are loyal Bushies.
You can bet Bush didn’t commit to anything to help the environment or our troops.
Posted by: brian | June 7, 2007, 8:58 pm 8:58 pm
The current administration certainly didn’t give anything away in this agreement, just by making another lukewarm promise to “study the issue” and offering more lip service as to how it can continue its delays in taking any meaningful action on climate change. I fear that, while other governments are making sincere efforts in reducing greenhouse gas, our country will be doing what it does best–procrastinating.
Posted by: chuck | June 8, 2007, 8:34 am 8:34 am
Chuck, I wonder if it’s really procrastination, or a studied effort in not offending any business that would have to bear any financial responsibility for cleaning up their act.
Posted by: Andy | June 8, 2007, 10:05 am 10:05 am
Andy, my guess would be that it’s partly procrastination, partly a “what’s good for business is automatically good for America” attitude, and partly the aversion that our government officials have of taking a well-reasoned position and making difficult choices. I think that most legislators would much rather enact laws about symbolic acts (like flag burning) and attempt to legislate morality than consider major issues (like climate change) where they would actually have to take responsibility for their actions!
Posted by: chuck | June 8, 2007, 2:13 pm 2:13 pm
The old way to bring about national change was for states and cities to develop a solution and have the national leaders embrace it. Much of this type of change was funded by grant requests from the cities and states.
I think the national leaders will be moved to action by the news organizations finding and reporting on efforts that are successful at the industry, city and state levels. It is a hard thing to go against proven success. This will provide the building blocks for national change from many sources.
We have seen this type of changes in the past coming from areas such as California with the automobile.
Posted by: Horatio | June 9, 2007, 2:36 pm 2:36 pm
I just read a disturbing report about the Great Lakes levels of water hitting record lows in the Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070612/METRO/706120396&imw=Y
Is this part of the drought parts of our country are seeing or a larger ongoing trend in the world’s climate change? The Great Lakes are vital to Michigan and other Northern States economies, climate and way of life. This report is startling and should be a wake up call to those who live in the Great Lakes Region.
Posted by: Kerri | June 12, 2007, 2:24 pm 2:24 pm