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H03713

Headlines : Environment

Summary:

The G8 meeting on climate change has not really made any progress in terms of emissions reduction targets which is disappointing in light of the new calculations which show that the temperature increase could be as much as 10°C by 2100, but at least they haven’t taken a step backwards as many scientists and environmentalists initially feared.

The two countries with the greatest per capita Carbon Dioxide emissions – USA and Australia have not ratified the Kyoto protocol which completely undermines it; they are concerned about the effect that it will have on their economies and want to set their own voluntary emissions targets.

[Posted By PerceptualChaos]

By Fred Pearce
Republished from New Scientist

G8 meeting on climate change could have been worse

Global warming is a “serious long-term challenge” requiring “resolve and urgency”, declared the Group of Eight countries on Friday.

Notably, US president George W Bush, who alone among G8 leaders has refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change, accepted the language in the document delivered from the heads-of-state meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland.

Scientists and environmentalists concluded that the G8 communiqué on climate change “could have been worse”.

“We haven’t made any progress, but at least we haven’t gone backwards, which was what we feared,” says John Lanchbery, the head of climate change at the UK-based Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

And most agreed with French president Jacques Chirac who claimed: “We have noticed a shift in the American position.”

The communiqué adds: “While uncertainty remains in our understanding of climate change, we know enough to act now.” But it included no new commitments to act.

No new targets

Simon Retallack at the Institute for Public Policy Research in the UK says: “It is welcome that the communiqué accepts the science of climate change. However, it contains no new targets or timetables or even in-principle support for binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions. This is essential if we are to…

[end excerpt]

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Posted by PerceptualChaos
PerceptualChaos is a physics (photonics) student from the University of Auckland, Aotearoa (NZ). He is working towards eventually getting a PHD and doing R&D on renewable energy sources and technology as we approach the end of the fossil fuel era Learn...

H03713

G8 leaders agree global warming is urgent problem

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