Archive for Kyoto protocol
To Reuters, ” Germany will stick to a more ambitious goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 even though the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen fell short of expectations, a government adviser said on Monday. “
Details of how the country will achieve such drastic cuts still remain to be defined. But like the United Kingdom and Norway I believe Germany can do it thanks to its expertise in renewable energies and efficiency.
I would like to see France increase its climate change mitigation efforts. The Grenelle is a good move but there is still plenty to do in terms of energy efficiency and low carbon alternatives. Continue »
If like many people you don’t understand much about the Copenhagen climate conference which begins today, I have some posts that will help you understand what it’s all about.
TreeHugger explains in ten points how we could reach a successful agreement and Good also proposed a series of articles : a primer, the introduction, the issues, and the treaty.
Last but not least Grist published an article titled How to explain Copenhagen to a comedian that does the job brilliantly. With all this you are ready for next two weeks !
For the duration of the Copenhagen Climate Conference – due to prepare the future of the Kyoto Protocol – I added to the sidebar of this blog the Climate Scoreboard proposed by Climate Interactive.
To the graph the business as usual scenario would increase temperatures by 4.8°C by 2100, current proposals would bring increase in temperatures of 3.8°C while we need to limit these increases to less than 2°C. (see why there)
This means that we already did one third of what we need to do. We have less than two weeks to reach an agreement that would allow us to do the two remaining thirds. Continue »
The European Union 15 first members already achieved their Kyoto Protocol goals and will even go beyond. Meanwhile, the 27 members already cut their emissions by 13.6 percent.
These excellent results date of 2007. With the economic recession of the past months, the industrial activity have drastically decreased and thus the emissions and thus slashed even more the pollution.
This is a tremendous success that shows that cutting greenhouse gases emissions is possible with a real political will. If only this could inspire our representatives in Copenhagen in December. Continue »
Even if the United States are going forward on climate change, many analysts around the world believe the COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen next month will end up in a stalemate.
As China and India are stepping up to the climate change issue and as Europe is – albeit moderately ambitious goals – still leading, the United States seem to be stalling the process.
Could America lead once again ? I dream of a speech on cleantech like the moon shot one. A decade to get rid of oil and coal. After all, Al Gore believes it can be done. Continue »
For World Environment Day the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) started a great initiative to raise awareness on the absolute necessity of sealing a deal in Copenhagen at the end of the year.
What our elected representatives will sign then is the beginning of the Kyoto Protocol successor but also one of the most important global agreements in our common History as we have to fight together climate change.
Please add your name now to the 14,000+ people who already did so at www.sealthedeal2009.org. The UNEP wants millions of signatures, so pass around the word !
We have seen last year that CO2 emissions rose by 3.1 percent in 2007. According to the International Economic Platform for Renewable Energies (IWR) they rose in 2008 by 1.94 percent to reach no less than 31.5 billion metric tons.
The document released by this institution in interesting as it provides data by country. This is useful as it enables us to see that India is now the fourth nation in terms of CO2 emissions in front of Japan.
This clearly shows that the discussions in Copenhagen to prepare the future of the Kyoto Protocol will have to include developing nations as their emissions keep on growing fast. Continue »
According to several sources, out of the 39 countries under the Kyoto Protocol, only 16 are meeting their targets while 20 aren’t due to do so as only three years remain.
The United Nations issued an interesting presentation with a table (left) that sums up very well the situation at hand. Now everyone can see in a glance how partaking countries are scoring.
This occurs as in two weeks the discussions for the successor of the Kyoto Protocol will begin in Poland. I guess there will be heated debates… Continue »
