C
Captain Compassion
Guest
Climate change goal 'unreachable'
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst, Bali
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7135836.stm
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).
Professors Sir David King and John Schellnhuber say the world is more
than 50% likely to experience dangerous levels of climate change.
They believe politicians have been too slow to cut emissions.
Current science suggests that above 2C, billions of people will face
water shortages, the world's food supplies could be threatened and
widespread extinction could be triggered.
Neither scientist believes that the world would achieve the goal of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of stabilising
emissions by around 2015.
Lack of optimism
Prof King said he believed there was a 20% chance of temperature rise
exceeding 3.7C - an increase that could seriously damage the global
economy.
"Ask yourself the question," he said, "if you got in an aeroplane and
the pilot said you've got an 80% chance of landing this plane safely,
I doubt if you'd get in the plane."
We may within 50 years need to take all, or almost all, the carbon
out of the way we live
Prof James Marburger, the US chief scientist, previously told the BBC
that carbon emissions should be cut immediately - but that it was
impossible to be sure what a dangerous level of climate change might
be.
The scientists' warning comes as politicians begin to arrive in
Indonesia for the latest climate talks - and as a Mori poll suggests
that two-thirds of people in the UK do not trust world leaders will
solve climate change.
The history of climate negotiations do not inspire optimism.
World leaders first pledged to avoid dangerous climate change at the
Rio Earth Summit in 1992 when they signed the non-binding UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change. Emissions continued to rise.
Then came the legally-binding Kyoto protocol. But the USA and
Australia pulled out, which undermined the effort to reduce emissions,
and corroded the will of other governments.
Japan - a signatory to Kyoto - should have cut by 6% but it has
increased emissions by 7%.
Italy (+7.4%) and Spain (+59.8%) are missing their targets by a mile.
In the UK, carbon emissions have recently been going up despite all
the government's green rhetoric.
And meanwhile the big developing nations which signed the Kyoto Treaty
but were not obliged to cut emissions under it have been doing their
catching up.
Still a long way behind rich nations in terms of pollution per person
but posing now a mighty threat.
It all means that since the world committed to avoid dangerous climate
change, emissions globally are up around 22%, the highest levels of
CO2 since dinosaurs roamed a sweltering earth.
Ambitious target
In his interview with the BBC, Prof King warns that we will have to
spend more on adaptation as well as on cutting emissions.
He says it will not be cheap - and that is not a message you hear
often from his political masters.
He also said it took until 2005 before the UK cabinet really
understood the implications of climate change for all departments (an
implicit criticism of Gordon brown and the Treasury).
Prof King said he believed the UK now had the most comprehensive plan
for tackling climate change of any major economy.
He also said he was optimistic that politicians globally would now
take much more urgent action to tackle emissions.
Prof Schellnhuber agreed - and said Germany would unveil a plan to cut
emissions 40% by 2020, a more ambitious target than the UK.
Prof King said there was much more chance of action on climate as
President Bush was approaching the end of his term of office.
He said the US government climate strategist James Connaughton had
positively obstructed progress on tackling climate change.
The two men have an adversarial history - Prof King was described by
Republican politicians as a scare-monger, and he believes it was Mr
Connaughton who banned him from private talks at Camp David between Mr
Bush and Tony Blair on climate.
Missing feedback
But as the world's politicians begin to face up to the need to cut
emissions, they may face unpleasant surprises.
Buried in the latest IPCC document is a little-noticed sentence
admitting that our projections for emission reductions might be
underestimated due to missing carbon cycle feedbacks.
That means the earth may already be turning against us - as our
emissions heat the world, the Arctic sea ice melts, the dark water
absorbs more water and causes further melting. And so on in many
different ways.
That means we may within 50 years need to take all, or almost all, the
carbon out of the way we live. That would need an extraordinary
technological and social revolution.
Of course the mainstream science may be wrong. There is still huge
uncertainty in climate modelling.
In a recent survey of climate scientists conducted by a leading
sceptical scientist, Dr Roger Pielke Sen, 18% of those who responded
said the IPCC had exaggerated.
But 65% said the IPCC had got it right. And 17% said the prognosis was
even worse.
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.
--
If you disagree with the theories and dogmas of Marxism or Scientific Socialism
then you are a tool of Capitalist interests. If you disagree with the theories
or dogmas of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming then you are a tool of
Capitalistic interests. Notice a pattern here? -- Captain Compassion
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius
"...the whole world, including the United States, including all that
we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark
Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights
of perverted science." -- Sir Winston Churchill
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst, Bali
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7135836.stm
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).
Professors Sir David King and John Schellnhuber say the world is more
than 50% likely to experience dangerous levels of climate change.
They believe politicians have been too slow to cut emissions.
Current science suggests that above 2C, billions of people will face
water shortages, the world's food supplies could be threatened and
widespread extinction could be triggered.
Neither scientist believes that the world would achieve the goal of
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of stabilising
emissions by around 2015.
Lack of optimism
Prof King said he believed there was a 20% chance of temperature rise
exceeding 3.7C - an increase that could seriously damage the global
economy.
"Ask yourself the question," he said, "if you got in an aeroplane and
the pilot said you've got an 80% chance of landing this plane safely,
I doubt if you'd get in the plane."
We may within 50 years need to take all, or almost all, the carbon
out of the way we live
Prof James Marburger, the US chief scientist, previously told the BBC
that carbon emissions should be cut immediately - but that it was
impossible to be sure what a dangerous level of climate change might
be.
The scientists' warning comes as politicians begin to arrive in
Indonesia for the latest climate talks - and as a Mori poll suggests
that two-thirds of people in the UK do not trust world leaders will
solve climate change.
The history of climate negotiations do not inspire optimism.
World leaders first pledged to avoid dangerous climate change at the
Rio Earth Summit in 1992 when they signed the non-binding UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change. Emissions continued to rise.
Then came the legally-binding Kyoto protocol. But the USA and
Australia pulled out, which undermined the effort to reduce emissions,
and corroded the will of other governments.
Japan - a signatory to Kyoto - should have cut by 6% but it has
increased emissions by 7%.
Italy (+7.4%) and Spain (+59.8%) are missing their targets by a mile.
In the UK, carbon emissions have recently been going up despite all
the government's green rhetoric.
And meanwhile the big developing nations which signed the Kyoto Treaty
but were not obliged to cut emissions under it have been doing their
catching up.
Still a long way behind rich nations in terms of pollution per person
but posing now a mighty threat.
It all means that since the world committed to avoid dangerous climate
change, emissions globally are up around 22%, the highest levels of
CO2 since dinosaurs roamed a sweltering earth.
Ambitious target
In his interview with the BBC, Prof King warns that we will have to
spend more on adaptation as well as on cutting emissions.
He says it will not be cheap - and that is not a message you hear
often from his political masters.
He also said it took until 2005 before the UK cabinet really
understood the implications of climate change for all departments (an
implicit criticism of Gordon brown and the Treasury).
Prof King said he believed the UK now had the most comprehensive plan
for tackling climate change of any major economy.
He also said he was optimistic that politicians globally would now
take much more urgent action to tackle emissions.
Prof Schellnhuber agreed - and said Germany would unveil a plan to cut
emissions 40% by 2020, a more ambitious target than the UK.
Prof King said there was much more chance of action on climate as
President Bush was approaching the end of his term of office.
He said the US government climate strategist James Connaughton had
positively obstructed progress on tackling climate change.
The two men have an adversarial history - Prof King was described by
Republican politicians as a scare-monger, and he believes it was Mr
Connaughton who banned him from private talks at Camp David between Mr
Bush and Tony Blair on climate.
Missing feedback
But as the world's politicians begin to face up to the need to cut
emissions, they may face unpleasant surprises.
Buried in the latest IPCC document is a little-noticed sentence
admitting that our projections for emission reductions might be
underestimated due to missing carbon cycle feedbacks.
That means the earth may already be turning against us - as our
emissions heat the world, the Arctic sea ice melts, the dark water
absorbs more water and causes further melting. And so on in many
different ways.
That means we may within 50 years need to take all, or almost all, the
carbon out of the way we live. That would need an extraordinary
technological and social revolution.
Of course the mainstream science may be wrong. There is still huge
uncertainty in climate modelling.
In a recent survey of climate scientists conducted by a leading
sceptical scientist, Dr Roger Pielke Sen, 18% of those who responded
said the IPCC had exaggerated.
But 65% said the IPCC had got it right. And 17% said the prognosis was
even worse.
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.
--
If you disagree with the theories and dogmas of Marxism or Scientific Socialism
then you are a tool of Capitalist interests. If you disagree with the theories
or dogmas of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming then you are a tool of
Capitalistic interests. Notice a pattern here? -- Captain Compassion
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius
"...the whole world, including the United States, including all that
we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark
Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights
of perverted science." -- Sir Winston Churchill
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
