“IT seems to have gone virtually unnoticed, but the world leaders at the weekend’s G8 summit look as if they have taken the biggest step in years in tackling climate change. And it’s quite apart from anything to do with carbon dioxide.
“The summit’s final communiqué, the Camp David Declaration, supports; comprehensive actions’ to reduce “short-lived climate pollutants”. These substances – including black carbon (soot), methane, ground-level ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons – are responsible for about half of global warming…
“More important still, the measures would save some 2.4 million lives a year, mainly by cutting the inhalation of soot, chiefly emitted by vehicle diesel engines and by the inefficient wood and dung burning cook stoves used by most of the world’s poorest people – and increase grain harvests, at present hit by pollution, by 52 million tons a year. While the international climate negotiations drag on, these pollutants can be reduced through existing national laws and regulations, using technologies that are already available…
Read more here: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geoffreylean/100159272/g8-leaders-open-up-vital-new-front-in-the-battle-to-control-global-warming/
G8: Leaders open up vital new front in the battle to control global warming by Geoffrey Lean @ The Telegraph, May 22, 2012
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.