BBC Summary Of 2006 Climate Policy - Lots Of Talk And Practically No Action

[hatrack]

EDIT

What of the other processes which have sprung up in the last two years with the declared intention of turning the rising tide of emissions? The Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate brings together six countries whose emissions account for roughly half the global total - Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the US - in a pact which aims to reduce emissions by assisting the private sector to create clean technologies and transfer them to developing countries.

It held its first ministerial meeting in Sydney in January. I have rarely seen a room-full of journalists as stunned as the group there were, as US energy secretary Samuel Bodman told us that private companies will solve climate change because the people in charge of them care. "I believe that the people who run the private sector, who run these companies - they too have children, they too have grandchildren, they too live and breathe in the world, and they would like things dealt with effectively; and that's what this is all about," he said. The single word "Enron" traversed a hundred brains.

According to an Australian Government report commissioned for the Sydney meeting, the Partnership does not in fact expect to cut global greenhouse gas emissions - it expects them to double over the next 50 years, even if all its projects come to fruition. There were already suspicions in the NGO community that the Partnership was really about trade, not climate. Since the Sydney meeting we have seen two major deals tied up between members which will see the US export nuclear technology to India, and Australia export uranium to China.

Let us fast forward then to Monterrey in Mexico, and the second ministerial session of the Dialogue on Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development, which brings the G8 countries together with major developing nations including Brazil, China, and India. The conclusions of this potentially very powerful group were that climate change is really serious, we need to do something, but we are not making any firm commitments now. That might have a familiar feel by now.

EDIT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6197135.stm

[brokensymmetry]

1. I just finished Lovelock's Gaia...

I concluded that nothing will be done. We'll
hit 500ppm of CO2, cause the climate to transition
to a new state - then look around in shock. Most
will claim they weren't told.

A mixture of tragedy and comedy, truly.