Reality seems to be obstructing any meaningful deal in Bali – looks like another holiday, sorry, I mean conference, will be needed, somewhere else ‘nice.’
In public, climate scientists and European politicians are generally optimistic that rising carbon dioxide levels and temperatures can be curbed. In private, some are less sanguine; but there has been a widespread unwritten code of optimism to avoid being accused of scaremongering or creating despair. Now, science advisors to two governments with claims to leadership in global climate politics, Germany and the UK, have told BBC News it is unlikely that levels of greenhouse gases can be kept low enough to avoid a projected temperature rise of 2C (3.6F).
Meanwhile, the UK still plans a huge airport expansion, there is not the slightest hint of a deal that would see rich nations pay poor nations to capture their emissions from coal and even Democrats in the US Congress want to postpone any tough action on emissions until after 2020. That may be why the scientists’ mask of optimism is beginning to slip.
Roger Harrabin, BBC News, 10 December 2007
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has ruled out endorsing proposed short-term greenhouse gas emission targets of up to 40 per cent by 2020 but says that does not mean the Bali climate change conference will be a failure. Mr Rudd ruled out endorsing a draft proposal from conference organisers for drastic cuts to emission levels of between 25 and 40 per cent over the next 12 years for developed nations
The Age, 10 December 2007
Washington rejected stiff 2020 targets for greenhouse gas cuts by rich nations at U.N. talks in Bali on Monday as part of a “roadmap” to work out a new global pact to fight climate change by 2009. Other countries such as Japan are also opposed, fearing such stiff goals would choke economic growth.
Reuters, 10 December 2007
The head of Japan’s biggest business lobby warned Monday that another set of ‘irrational’ greenhouse gas emission targets like those in the Kyoto Protocol would weaken Japan Inc’s competitiveness. ‘If irrational regulations of total emissions are set, as it was the case under the Kyoto Protocol, we cannot avoid a weakening of our international competitiveness,’ said Fujio Mitarai, who is the head of the Japan Business Federation and also chairman of Canon Inc.
Forbes, 10 December 2007
Britain is responsible for hundreds of millions more tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions than official figures admit, according to a new report that undermines UK claims to lead the world on action against global warming. The analysis says pollution from aviation, shipping, overseas trade and tourism, which are not measured in the official figures, means that UK carbon consumption has risen significantly over the past decade, and that the government’s claims to have tackled global warming are an “illusion”.
David Adam, The Guardian, 10 December 2007
On ‘global warming’, the only thing in which Britain leads the world is in the illusion of its political rhetoric.
Philip Stott, 10 December 2007
Rio. Kyoto. Bali. [Hawaii]. That’s environmental conferences for you. They always occur in sunlit places ending in vowels, and with a consonantal component of no more than 50%. They’re never in vowel-light locations like Nitvinggen or Bblarrgh or Quivdansk, where summer lasts a few hours some time in June, and where the locals spend their long winters rummaging through their clothing of animal pelts, popping lice with gnarled, nutshell fingernails, and musing vowellessly. For, there is almost a defined UN Green Meridian, where conferences To Save The World must always be held.
Kevin Myers, Belfast Telegraph, 7 December 2007
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.