No thread on this yet? I am suprised. Well today, or yesterday depending on your timezone Sir Nicholas Stern delieverd his report to PM Tony Blair about the economic impact of global climate changed. Now for me this is more important than the actual findings into climate changed because for too long the Americans have been too "concerned" about "economic impacts" of actually implimenting a scheme to curb carbon emissions. Well here is some news for George and Co. Either do it now when it will cost several billion or wait 10 years so it will cost 20% of the worlds wealth or £2 TRILLON. This isn't some crackpot environmentalist that people can just shrug off, this is a man with double degree in Mathmatics and Economics from Oxford and Cambridge and the former Chief Economist for the World Bank. He knows what he's talking about and people should listen. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6096084.stm
I saw that as well, of course I find it sad that a money amount is affixed to something that can impact life on Earth though.
It is sad that you can do that but unfortunaty money is all that some people in power seem to care about.
This kind of approach was pioneered in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment that the UN put together. It is important since the argument against enacting measures to prevent climate change is that doing so will hurt our economy. The MEA took things like Mangrove zones and looked at the different economic impacts of cutting them down for the wood versus keeping them. On the one hand you have the money made from the wood; on the other you have shrimp and fish beds, protection from harsh weather for the coast (nature and business both), and a couple of other things. Quatifying it lets a government see the value in protection.
Damn, I wish the US would have bagged Gore... Anyways, how many more reports/warnings have to come out for comprehensive action to be taken?
Money was the only justification used by Bushco to not sign Kyoto. So I guess it's what was needed to prove him wrong. Of Course Howard (Australia's PM) didn't use money, his only explanation to begin with was "The US hasn't signed"
Without signing it, the government can sit back and say "oh look, we didn't even sign the protocol and we're doing better at meeting its targets than most of the people who did sign it." If we DID sign, the government would then have an obligation to meet the targets, and since we're not then it'd just be an invitation for more criticism. The official justification is that we're not signing because Kyoto isn't good enough, because it doesn't include the major polluters (USA, China and India). So the argument goes, by rejecting it we're taking a stand to provide an incentive for the international community to get together and put something better in place.
The reality is that we're a capitalist world, and our global economy centres around the idea of treating the Earth as a business in liquidation. In order to get anything to happen, you've got to provide an economic incentive.
Hmmm thanks. Although I doubt their staying out of it will inspire anything better. Do you happen to know the margin by which Australia is cutting emissions more efficiently than they would were they to sign Kyoto? Maybe if each country were to adopt policies to reduce emmissions individually it could be regulated better but I do think some nations need that push.
Don't know the exact figures, although it's something I've been meaning to look into for a while. I agree that us staying out of it is pointless. We're simply too irrelevant in the greater scheme of things to be influential in the world community. I read somewhere that China's emissions increase annually by more than all of our total annual emissions put together. When our gross emissions are that small, we're not a major player.