"Post Kyoto Talks Start in Tough Climate"

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Vesko
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"Post Kyoto Talks Start in Tough Climate"

Post: # 3792Post Vesko »

"Post Kyoto Talks Start in Tough Climate", http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7385

Summarily, experts and politicians are bickering like people do about everything.

One of the saner voices (the emphasis in bold is mine):
Meanwhile, though the US's Watson talked of action "over many generations", David Warrilow from the UK’s department of the environment said time was tight to stave off dangerous and irreversible climate change. Climate systems would not wait for political processes.

To stand a good chance of preventing mass extinctions, droughts, runaway melting of icecaps and the Gulf Stream turning off, we have to keep temperature rise below 2°C from pre-industrial times, he said.

To do that probably requires limiting total cumulative manmade emissions of carbon dioxide between the years 1900 and 2100 to 900 billion tonnes. The world has so far emitted around 300 billion tonnes, he said. But on current trends, 700 billion tonnes will be emitted by 2030 and 2400 billion tonnes by 2100.
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InfoSource
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Post: # 3793Post InfoSource »

I think the current Kyoto treaty is going to do very little since countries like the US and China aren't apart of it, but the post Kyoto treaty after 2012 can do a lot to combat climate change

Hopefully by 2010 we will have hydrogen-fuelled cars in the market worldwide in developed countries as well as developing countries at reasonably prices

There was another good article on the website on whether climate change was real or a myth

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns? ... 524861.400

Hopefully that article will convince any sceptics that we are contributing to the Earth warming up and we should do something about it
jamen
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did He change his mind????

Post: # 4883Post jamen »

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton defended Kyoto protocol!!!!... But I think it is too late, I mean He could do it when he was president and the things will be better, now he is only a voice like us , but he is welcome...

read what he said:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/ ... 1208.shtml

Moderator note: The web link (hyperlink) above was originally
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051209/sc ... N5bmNhdA-- but it is broken as of January 31, 2006. Note that some of the quotes in the next post are taken from the article corresponding to the original link.
Edited by VeskoP on 2006-01-31.
I am sorry for my English is not my native tongue
Vesko
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Post: # 4889Post Vesko »

Jamen, thank you very much! The article is great. Clinton just rose a lot in my eyes. He has stated that:
  • * "There's no longer any serious doubt that climate change is real, accelerating, and caused by human activities"

    * the Earth is "literally a biological miracle ... it's crazy for us to play games with our children's future"

    * the US "is the worst offender"

    * "the switch to cleaner energy would create millions of jobs for the American economy"
The article ends with "Negotiations were going to the wire on Friday [December 9, 2005] on how to further greenhouse gas cuts beyond Kyoto's present commitment, which runs out in 2012."
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jamen
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Tony Blair, He still is prime minister... then do something

Post: # 5053Post jamen »

Here is the link , but we need more than words...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060130/ap_ ... NlYwM3NTM-
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Post: # 5092Post InfoSource »

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/31/ ... index.html

President Bush in his state of the Union address made a point about America being addicted to Mideast oil, and how they need to lesser their dependency on it through technology
America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world."
"So tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative -- a 22-percent increase in clean-energy research at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas," he said.

"To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants; revolutionary solar and wind technologies; and clean, safe nuclear energy," he said.

"We must also change how we power our automobiles," he said, calling for increased research "in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen."
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who served as energy secretary under President Clinton, criticized the proposed 22 percent increase as inadequate.

"You need a massive, Apollo-like program to reduce our energy dependence," he told CNN.
Couldn't agree more there, if the US government spent as much time, money, and effort as they did to land a man on the moon, for developing and producing alternative energy sources, then the reduction in pollution by 70% that Thao talked about in TP needed to avoid a worldwide catastrophe could happen a lot quicker
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Robanan
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Post: # 5146Post Robanan »

Thanks, Iran, for the reminder

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has done more to ensure that the green revolution moves forward than a dozen presidential speeches or a score of low-carbon targets.

By putting the fear of God, or Allah, back into oil markets, the Iranians have made a major step toward making sure that this time around, the shift away from fossil fuels will really happen - that investment in alternatives, in substitution, in low-energy technologies and conservation techniques will really go forward and pay handsomely, that this time something serious will be done about America's "addiction to oil."

Last time none of these things happened. Last time oil prices really exploded, at the end of the '70s and in the early '80s - triggered then, as now, by events in Iran - most hopes and expensive plans for a cleaner, greener future ended in the dust.

On Nov. 20, 1985, the price of Brent Crude reached $42.50 ($95 at today's prices). This was, and remains, the highest price in history for a barrel of oil. Yet less than four weeks later the price was $10.

Energy investment plans, left in tatters, were rapidly revised. America's auto industry went back to bigger gas-guzzlers than ever, plans for wind farms and solar-heated homes were shelved, biofuels were tried and then discarded, a thousand energy-saving initiatives were declared "uneconomic" and plans for tidal power projects and new nuclear power stations were abandoned.

In the Arab oil-producing countries, investments in new oil fields were written off, government budgets slashed and promises of jobs withdrawn, creating fertile ground for a disillusioned younger generation to turn to violence - which they duly did. Gurus and oil company economists who had been confidently forecasting $90 or $120 a barrel by 1990 folded their tents and departed. Cheap oil was back.

Most of our troubles today stem from that see-saw pattern of disaster. At the time, however, there was general rejoicing that everyone could go back to getting high on oil. Dependency on Middle East oil, which policy makers had vowed to reduce, increased. American crude oil imports - which Jim Schlesinger, then the U.S. energy secretary, said were dangerously high and would lead to great grief - more than doubled.

This time around, we might be luckier. Just as world oil prices were set to cool after the huge jumps of the past 18 months, with production in 2006 predicted to exceed demand and oil stocks piling up again, along has come Ahmadinejad with his determination to defy America and the West, and his bloodcurdling threats to sabotage oil markets if his plans to go nuclear are thwarted. In the words of Iran's top nuclear official, "If these countries use their means to put Iran under pressure, Iran will use its potential in the region."

That potential should not be underestimated. Iran, the world's second-biggest oil exporter, is capable of wreaking havoc in energy markets. It is not just a question of cutting production (despite Iran's assurances to OPEC officials that it won't). If they come under real pressure, the Iranians are perfectly capable of blockading or mining the Straits of Hormuz at the entrance to the Gulf.

While Western forces and aircraft might be groping around for Iran's well-dispersed and extremely well-protected nuclear and other military facilities, the Iranians could inflict huge damage on the world economy by halting from 15 to 18 million barrels a day of world oil production.

But if it is Ahmadinejad who collects the first prize for making the green age more likely to happen, the runners-up must be Russian operators like RosUkrEnergo who have masterminded the gas threats against Ukraine and helpfully reminded a dangerously dependent Western Europe that if oil is unreliable and costly, pipeline gas is not much better, and that switching from addiction to oil to addiction to gas - as Britain, for example, is busily doing - is no escape.

In the end, of course, if the mullahs cannot check Ahmadinejad he will ruin Iran and impoverish his people. But not before he has proved to the world more vividly than ever before that continued heavy dependence on oil and gas means constant nasty surprises. No amount of diversifying among oil and gas suppliers will avert the inherent dangers in an increasingly interconnected world system.

These are the beautiful fuels, but they are the dangerous ones. It is now more obvious than ever that heavy investments in alternatives, in nuclear power and in energy-saving technologies are not only going to be environmentally highly desirable but also going to pay handsomely in terms of cost and of security of supply.

Thank you, Mr. Ahmadinejad, for a most valuable lesson.

(David Howell, a former British secretary of state for energy, is spokesman on foreign affairs for the Conservatives in the House of Lords. Carole Nakhle is an energy research fellow at the University of Surrey.)
LONDON President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has done more to ensure that the green revolution moves forward than a dozen presidential speeches or a score of low-carbon targets.


-Quote from David Howell and Carole Nakhle International Herald Tribune
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2006
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