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Not Necessarily A Silver Lining - Global Downturn Unlikely To Substantially Cut Carbon Emissions

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hatrack Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-16-08 01:11 PM
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Not Necessarily A Silver Lining - Global Downturn Unlikely To Substantially Cut Carbon Emissions
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Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation, explains: "There's a strong lockstep between GDP and emissions ... You wouldn't get more than a 1% change in emissions unless you had something really dramatic happening, like closing a whole industry down."

Developed countries anticipate the largest falls in emmissions, according to analysts. Deutsche Bank this month predicted 2009 emissions covered by the European carbon trading scheme would drop 10% compared with 2007 levels. US emissions arealso expected to slow next year. But falls in the developed world are expected to be short-lived. Deutsche Bank's report notes European emissions are likely to rise again in 2010. And Bert Metz, a fellow at the European Climate Foundation and former IPCC co-chair has said: "The recession is not of much significance to the climate problem or how we need to deal with it: it's a small blip." .

Healthy developing world economies are also likely to offset any shrinking from developed economies, according to Abyd Karmali, Merrill Lynch's global head of carbon emissions: "I don't think we'll see a reduction in emissions ... We talk about global recession but the truth is economies in places like China and India are still growing."

Most economists and scientists do agree however that fast-changing economic data makes short-term emissions hard to predict. "The economists don't know what's going on, so why would people looking at emissions know?" says Metz. Predictions are complicated by unexpected increases in emissions. "Because of the recession, perversely, fuel prices have gone down a lot and that might cancel out some of the savings expected in that sector," says Simms.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/16/carbonemissions-climatechange
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