Obama's Secret Climate Pact

[kpete]

Obama's Secret Climate Pact

by Richard Wolffe

It's no coincidence that one day after the White House announced new emissions targets, China followed suit with its own target. The Daily Beast's Richard Wolffe on the behind-the-scenes negotiations during Obama's Asia trip that could help break the climate stalemate in Copenhagen.

...........

"Obama is at the point where he feels on the verge of a breakthrough, based on the kind of talks that don’t get covered by reporters obsessing about state dinners."

Beyond the photo ops and press statements, Obama was pushing President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the kind of climate deals that eluded him at the G8 summit in Italy in the summer – and have eluded international negotiators for the last decade. China and India have played central roles in blocking past agreements, alongside the US, in a seemingly intractable dispute between fast-developing economies and the older, wealthier polluters.

Now Obama is at the point where he feels on the verge of a breakthrough, based on the kind of talks that don’t get covered by reporters obsessing about state dinners. “He had extensive conversations with President Hu specifically on climate and conversations with the prime minister of India,” said one senior White House aide. “So he has been building momentum for a political agreement to be brokered at Copenhagen.”

more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-26/obamas-secret-climate-pact/

[harlfxstc]

1. If it is so secret - why are we reading about it?

17% reduction below 2005 levels in 2020? Who the heck is going to be around to check this statement in 11 years?

[berni_mccoy]

5. If China is 17% below 2005 levels, that would mean cutting their emissions by more than 1/2

of what they are now.

See: http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:USA&q=co2+emission#met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:USA:CHN

[harlfxstc]

7. And you believe China's statement exactly why? NT

[Cha]

10. Because it was done under the radar over there but

now we are learning about it.

[phasma ex machina]

15. +1 That's always my first question whenever M$M uses mass media to disclose a supposed secret. nt

[rosesaylavee]

2. Very interesting...

I wonder what they arranged? Hopefully it's something more than substantive than what's been talked about so far.

[Prometheuspan]

3. 17 percent reduction A JOKE

we need to target 100 percent and settle for 90 if thats what it takes, 17 percent is so too little too late we might as well not bother.

we are probably only 5 or 10 ppm from he next tipping point. If we go over, life on earth as we know it ends.

The reason for this is that there are many systems which have captured co2 which will release it, several of which are know to have as much as ten times as much co2 as is currently in the atmosphere.

we melt all that ice, free up all of those bubbling fizz lakes...
and etc...

and they will release far more co2 than humans can.

[berni_mccoy]

4. No, it's not. Take a look at this graph. China has increased more than double since 2005

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:USA&q=co2+emission#met=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:USA:CHN

[Kolesar]

6. Oh, good catch. Rewind to 2005, then subtract 17%

And that's all in eleven years.
I could not get the google link to load.

[harlfxstc]

11. 5 or 10 ppm from the end of life on earth as we know it?

A little over the top wouldn't you say. Seriously, there are a lot of reasons not to panic, one of them being global cooling and heating have occurred pretty much regularly over the history of this planet.

After all; what caused glaciers if it wasn't global cooling? what melted those glaciers if it wasn't global warming?

[tex-wyo-dem]

12. No, not relly that much over the top...

You're correct that the earth has gone through many cycles of warming and cooling over its history, but what's missing from your little factoid is the fact that the rate of the current warming cycle over the past few decades is unprecidented, save massive, sudden volcanic activity or an astroid or comet hitting the earth.

Whwnever sudden change in the global clamte conditions has occurred in the past, mass extinctions would follow. Although it is not well publicized in this country, the world is now in the middle of one of the largest mass extinction episodes the earth has experienced, much of it directly attributal to global climate change. What affect this will ultimately have on humans ability to grow food, stave off disese, etc. Is largely unknown, but probably not pretty.

[harlfxstc]

13. Rate of current warming? Say what?

YOu write: "but what's missing from your little factoid is the fact that the rate of the current warming cycle over the past few decades is unprecidented"

What warming? Oh you mean those graphs....

Seriously, give it a few hundred more years to see if there is a trend line. What is it about people and their mortality that makes them absolutely convinced that something is going to happen DURING THEIR LIVES that give meaning to their 50 or 75 years here when in fact, life goes on.

[TheMadMonk]

14. Because when you "force" a system against natural trends...

...the results are often not pretty.

The evidence present in the climate record, combined with what we know about the Milankovitch (and associated) Cycles, all strongly suggest we should be heading into a period of increasing glaciation.

We have to go back several tens of millions of years to find conditions similar to those of today.

When comparing the currently evolving conditions to past climate models, we are finding that those conditions match or exceed the most pessimistic predictions of those models. BTW even the more optimistic predictions are telling us we're in for a world of hurt. The pessimistic ones tell us it might well be more fun to be buggered with a pineapple.

Firstly there's the inevitable rise in sealevel, which if the "pessemistic results" trend continues will be at least one metre and might well be five to ten times that amount in absolute worst case scenarios.

We will be seeing a lot of diseases carried by insects such as ticks and mosquitoes moving a lot further north and south of the equator.

Desertification of a good many of our food growing regions is already happening as rains fail, and glacial meltwaters dwindle. Improved farming practices and drawing down water tables (thus incuring a future water debt) has helped to mitigate this, but eventually the water will just not be there to continue irrigation.

Imagine if you will Ethiopia written large across the entire Indian sub-continent.

[me b zola]

8. K&R

[Cha]

9. Yeah, there was more to the China trip than

student town halls and tea.