Addressing Climate Change 'Humankind Cannot Afford Negotiations Until 2020'

[xchrom]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,802687,00.html


dapd

Achim Steiner, director of UNEP, calls on the EU to 'show greater conviction' in battling climate change.

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban it is becoming apparent that, instead of making decisions, the global community intends to continue negotiating new climate goals until 2020. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Achim Steiner, the head of the United Nations Environment Program, calls the delay "irresponsible."

SPIEGEL ONLINE : At the climate negotiations in Durban, the year 2020 is now being named as a new target date for a binding global climate treaty. What do you think of that?

Steiner: If humankind hopes to, at least somewhat, contain global warming, it cannot afford to spend eight years negotiating. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has made it crystal clear that global CO2 emissions must decline before 2020. And the International Energy Agency (IEA) warns that the most important decisions on the energy supply of the future will already have been made by 2020. In other words, putting everything off until 2020 would be irresponsible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How far do global emissions of greenhouse gases have to decline by 2020?

Steiner: We are now at a level of about 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, and we are on track to reaching 56 billion tons by 2020. But this has to be reduced to 44 billion tons by then if there is to be any hope that the average temperature in the atmosphere will not increase by more than the dangerous threshold of 2 degrees Celsius. To reach this goal, we have to act immediately, and not wait until 2020.

[DCKit]

1. If all the morans get raptured (as planned) next December....

I'd say we have a good chance.

[Demeter]

2. Unfortunately, They are All Playing Bankster

and don't have time or energy left over for climate change.

[xchrom]

3. +1