Saturday, November 5, 2011

Reasons for Pessimism in Future Climate Talks

BBC News - Climate summit set for rows on flying, cash and history:

An interesting article (with charts) illustrating the stark issues with climate talk. To begin with, it's being noted more frequently that CO2 in the atmosphere is a cumulative problem, and much of the existing carbon was put there by rich nations. So some other nations will negotiate with a starting point of reductions in those rich nations being unsatisfactory - they say we rich countries should become carbon sinks.

... technical analysis for a group of developing countries says Western nations have a duty to absorb CO2 over the coming decades.
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Clouding all issues remains the Kyoto accord. Japan seems to have firmly entered the camp declaring Kyoto a dead issue, joining Russia and Canada (signatories).  Can there be doubt this is due to their desire to increase emissions through increased use of coal and gas in electricity generation, as plans for nuclear expansions were scuttled by Fukushima?
"Japan is particularly concerned about losing economic competitiveness given that its main economic rivals are not covered by any internationally binding targets.


"The world's number one emitter (China) has no obligations under Kyoto, the number two emitter (US) is not a party and the number three emitter (India) has no obligations,"

'via Blog this'

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