Posted on 10/03/2007 6:42:11 AM PDT by presidio9
The US – the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter - is getting ready to fight global warming and cut its CO2 emissions, says former US president Bill Clinton.
"I believe the United States, after the next presidential election, will move to the forefront of the global environment movement. I think we will set a ceiling on carbon emissions and…set up a [carbon] trading system," Mr Clinton said while speaking at a business conference on the Faroe Islands this week.
"No politician anywhere in the western world will be defeated for taking a forward looking position on climate change," he said, adding that "we just have to keep pushing."
Mr Clinton gave the example of EU members Sweden and the UK which are on their way to passing their Kyoto targets – an international UN commitment made in 1997 for the industrialised world to cut their CO2 emissions eight percent below 1990-levels by 2012 – and of Denmark which has managed to score significant economic growth without using more energy.
"They made a commitment to a clean energy future…Every country is going to have to follow this path," said the US politician whose wife is a Democrat candidate for America's presidential elections in 2008.
The 27 EU member states committed themselves earlier this year to cutting their CO2 emissions by 30 percent by 2020 if the rest of the world's major emitters would sign up to such an agreement as well - or by 20 percent if such a global deal fails.
The European Commission will on December 5 come forward with a plan on how the bloc should achieve these goals.
Meanwhile, the global warming discussion is picking up speed in the US although Washington has avoided making any international commitments on fighting greenhouse gas emissions, known to be a major contributor to global warming.
Work with the UN, says Brussels The EU is eager to get the US to agree on a new international climate deal, arguing that this is the key to getting other big CO2 emitters on board like Australia, China and India.
"Our efforts to combat climate change will only be successful if the international community is ready to engage in a comprehensive and ambitious global cooperation," EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas told MEPs in Brussels on Monday (1 October).
He added that the need to act together to fight climate change "is now fully acknowledged by the US administration and the US domestic debate on climate change is steadily growing."
"However," the commissioner said, "it is only in the UN context that international negotiations can take place." He added that creating other agreements would undermine a UN deal and that targets must be mandatory with compliance measures for them to be taken seriously.
Current US president George Bush rejected mandatory limits on CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions last week, saying that voluntary measures and new environmental technologies were central to fighting global warming.
A UN climate conference in Bali in December will be the first real test of how committed the international community is to the fight against climate change.
What is she going to do? Attack the sun?
.....and then he finished up in the sink.
I read a letter the other day that some nincompoop wrote that said she hoped the harvest of Christmas tress would stop. Her reason was that this is the main source of oxygen we have.
All she has to do is stand in front of it...........;^)
Maybe I could interest S(l)ick Willie in a little spor...er, business proposition.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
- H. L. Mencken
Buy AlGore brand carbon credits.
“What is she going to do? Attack the sun?”
No come on think...she’s going to move Earth’s orbit a little farther away.
China overtakes U.S. in greenhouse gas emissions
Bloomberg News
Published: June 20, 2007
LONDON: China overtook the United States in 2006 as the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas blamed for the bulk of global warming, a policy group that advises the Dutch government said.
China produced 6,200 million tons of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and making cement last year, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said Tuesday on its Web site. That pushed it past the United States, which produced 5,800 million tons of the gas, the agency said.
The United Nations blames greenhouse gases for causing global warming, increasing the risk of rising sea levels, droughts and floods. At present, neither China nor the United States are subject to targets under the only international treaty requiring emissions cuts, the Kyoto Protocol, whose provisions expire in 2012. European leaders hope to jump-start negotiations for a successor agreement this year.
Rapid industrialization in China has long prompted predictions that it would overtake the United States as the world’s biggest emitter. Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency’s chief economist, said in April that China would become the biggest emitter this year or next, an advance on the IEA’s previous forecast of 2009. Ma Kai, chairman of the top economic planning body in China, the National Development and Reform Commission, said this month that China would “definitely” overtake the United States, though he did not say when that might be.
The Dutch figures do not include emissions from flaring gas during oil and gas production, from underground coal fires, or from deforestation. The agency used fossil fuel consumption data from BP’s “Review of Energy 2007” and cement production data from the U.S. Geological Survey to produce its emissions estimates.
What a bunch of f***ing morons. I’m really starting to hate these people.
Hiding science and data is not science, it’s a scam. Of course, BJ and friends are used to lies being the norm. If they lie about Limbaugh, what else will they lie about?
Maybe we should revisit the DDT hoax, or how about investigating the latest on the ozone hole and CFCs that recently fell to real science? Why not, the public has aright to know
No, tax the snot out of us!
China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter.
they will want to redeploy when the climate fights back and it rains
bwhahahahahah
I don’t know if they’re worthy of hate. Pity perhaps, at their astonishing display of unbridled stupidity, self-delusion and ignorance.
Did he say that? I looked for it but didn't see it in the article. Anyway, the corrected GISS data now shows that 7 of the 11 hottest years occurred before 1955.
And most FReepers still insist that the NWO is an “Urban Legend”.
I was a kid of 13 (1960) when I got my first 8 inch Dobsonian Reflector Telescope for Christmas. I remember looking at Mars and being amazed at the size of its North and South Polar Ice Caps....they were so huge that they covered almost a third of the planets surface.
Today I have a much larger scope and when I look at Mars...the polar ice caps are gone.
Oh my God! 5,800 million tons of CO2! The horror! The horror! 5,800 million tons is SO MUCH!
But wait...
We’re talking about 5,800,000,000 tons emitted into an atomosphere with a mass of 5,000,000,000,000,000 tons, of which only 0.038% is CO2. Do the math! (Oh, I forgot, we don’t teach that any more).
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