by Russel Norman
The US government is leaning on the Intergovernmenal Panel on Climate Change to get them to criticise Kyoto and support voluntary agreements according to a report in the Guardian (and reproduced in the Sunday Star Times today). The US also apparently takes umbrage with the statement in the draft IPCC report: “one weakness of the [Kyoto] protocol, however, is its non-ratificiation by some significant greenhouse gas emitters”. Mmm I wonder who that statement might be aimed at? Maybe the Australian and the US governments for refusing to ratify!?
The US efforts shouldn’t affect the release of the first IPCC report on Friday, into the science. But presumably they are aiming at the third report on mitigation options to be released on May 4. (The second IPCC report on impacts is due for release on April6).
The voluntary measures that the US is referring to is presumably the AP6 agreement. An agreement that the (rather conservative) Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics estimates will result in a doubling of emissions by 2050 if implemented globally.
I hope the IPCC can hold their nerve against the US.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Sun, January 28th, 2007
Tags: environment
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Good article in the Globe and Mail about how public alarm about climate change has reached a tipping point in Canada.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070127.wclimatemain0127/BNStory/ClimateChange/home
Peter
http://www.kotare.typepad.com/thestrategist
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Why would the US be upset about the comments on Kyoto? It has always said the weakness of the protocol is the fact it is not universal and excludes major emitters and that it favoured global solutions.
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If the Canadians are sincere about global warming, they will, of course, close down the tar-sands mines immediately.
I’m holding my breath… really I am…
Imagine. They might actually do it. Then probably the Americans would invade, to force them to keep exporting the gunk…
Meanwhile… Tony Blair reckons he can get the Chinese, Indians and Americans to sign up to a post-Kyoto treaty…
… if he can do that, then I guess history will give him a pass, despite his crucial enabling role in the Iraq fiasco.
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alastair said:
> Meanwhile… Tony Blair reckons he can get the Chinese, Indians and Americans to sign up to a post-Kyoto treaty…
> … if he can do that, then I guess history will give him a pass, despite his crucial enabling role in the Iraq fiasco.
I’ve sometimes wondered if the real reason why Tony Blair supported the invasion of Iraq was to stay friends with the Bush government in the hope that he could use that to get them to do something about global warming. Of course, it doesn’t seem to be working.
Also, isn’t this article wrong in saying that China, India and Brozil haven’t signed up to the Kyoto Protocol? I thought they had, and were covered by the monitoring provisions, but just weren’t required under the protocol to make emissions cuts before 2012 because their per-capita emissions were so much lower that the OECD countries.
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