Climate progress is essential
Published Wednesday November 4th, 2009
The buzz around the December UN climate summit in Copenhagen is increasing. Some of you may be wondering what it's all about. Why is this one meeting so important? And does it really matter if it succeeds or fails?
The answer is that it matters a lot, especially if we want to tackle global warming rather than just talking and arguing about it.
Global warming is a global problem requiring global solutions. The atmosphere doesn't stay within federal or provincial boundaries. It is a global commons. Greenhouse gases emitted in Canadian provinces mix with those from every other part of the world and affect everyone. A molecule of carbon is a molecule of carbon. It has the same impact on the environment whether it came from a smokestack in Toronto or a taxi's tailpipe in Kuala Lumpur.
Every nation must do its part. And each country needs reassurance that others are also acting. We need a global agreement that is legally binding with rules clearly outlined.
The science of climate change is evolving rapidly. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's last report is now two years old, and the research in that report is more than four years old. Recent scientific information shows that the impacts of climate change are happening much more quickly than expected. The polar ice cap is melting at an astonishing rate. Ocean levels are rising more rapidly than predicted. And weather-related disasters are mounting.
Leading scientific institutions such as the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.K. Royal Society, and the Royal Society of Canada have declared that current scientific information points to a need for immediate action.
We have no time to waste. Copenhagen is our moment. In fact, two years ago the world agreed that the Copenhagen summit would be the deadline for forging the next global agreement to strengthen and build on the Kyoto Protocol.
Kyoto was always considered to be the first step by industrialized countries, whose fossil-fuel-powered growth created the problem. Establishing the legal framework was an important part of that first step, as were very modest emission reductions. But Copenhagen has to be more than just another small step. Science suggests the issue is urgent, so this step needs to be much bigger if we want our actions to keep pace with increasing climatic changes.
Industrialized countries need to accept binding commitments to reduce their global warming pollution much more dramatically in the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol, after 2012. But we also need to craft a companion treaty to Kyoto, one that lays out the kinds of actions that major developing countries, like India and Indonesia, will take to curb their emissions.
A recent study commissioned by Global Humanitarian Forum president and former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan indicates that 50 of the world's poorest countries collectively produce less than one per cent of the global greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. Yet, these very same countries have been disproportionately affected by climate change. Thus, an essential part of any fair climate agreement must include support from industrialized countries to poorer nations -- support in the form of financing and clean technologies so that poorer nations can wean themselves off fossil fuels and better adapt to the impacts of climate change.
This principle -- that rich countries like ours have filled up the atmosphere with pollution in the course of our development, and that it's now our responsibility to assist less-developed countries to follow a clean path to prosperity -- is one that goes back to 1992. It was enshrined in the Rio Convention and reiterated in Kyoto, and again two years ago in Bali. But we have yet to meet that promise, and it is time we did.
It is now up to our global leaders -- presidents and prime ministers, ministers of finance and environment -- to be visionary, to look beyond shorter-term political timelines and imagine a future world of security and prosperity, where our homes and workplaces are fed by clean energy. And it is up to global citizens to ensure that they do.
Visionary leadership requires active and engaged citizens to keep the politicians' feet to the fire. Your efforts have never been needed more to help make this happen.
* David Suzuki is a well-known Canadian scientist and environmentalist. Dr. Faisal Moola is the Director of Science at the David Suzuki Foundation. Their column appears regularly in the Times & Transcript. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org
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The Copenhagen Summit is something to be very wary of. It will result in the legal beginnings of a one world, global government. You think you pay high taxes now?? If this cap-and-trade, carbon tax treaty is signed, you ain't seen nothing yet!!
In the history of humanity, roughly 11 000 years, the CO2 levels have always been on avg 200 to 300 ppm, and they are now close to 390 ppm. In the last 15-20 years, we are seeing storms that are much harsher, we are seeing species of animals going extinct (60 000 in the last 50 years), the caps are melting, which has started to affect the ocean currents, and I could go on and on.
All I am saying is I wish and would hope this is just a myth, but around the planet, there are horrific signs that it is here. You are worried about taxes, well Double D, I am worried about another species going extinct...OURS!
Global warming has not been determined to be a myth at all. On the terminology issue, "climate change" is preferred by scientists because it is inclusive of all climate phenomena, not just temperature change. Global warming is therefore a sub-set of climate change.
Feel free to post some links supporting your assertion that global warming is a myth. If you go with the Oregon petition or Christopher Monckton, I'll take that as an indication that you have not only cherry-picked, but also not researched.
This is an interesting article about a blind experiment on the data:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091026/ap_on_bi_ge/us_sci_global_cooling
By simply blaming the whole thing on natural cycles we absolve ourselves of all responsibility and are free to continue with our lifestyles. It's a tempting position to take, I admit.
So, Double D, you seem to be out of step with many deniers in this regard. Which group do you suggest I believe--those like you who say there's no GW, or those who admit there is GW, but not AGW? It difficult to keep the denial straight.
Double D. is it the Jews tricking everyone with the climate change issue as well (just like you said for the H1N1 issue)?
For at least the last 5 years, global temperatures have been falling, according to tracking performed by Roy Spencer, a climatologist who worked for NASA. We've seen some of the coldest winters (and summers) in years, including rare severe snowstorms in Britain, and it even snowed in Las Vegas! And you still believe we are warming?
We've been told by climate "experts" that we were going to have more & more horrific hurricanes, yet since 2005 we've had 1 major hurricane in North America.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11655-climate-myths-higher-co2-levels-will-boost-plant-growth-and-food-production.html
Double D, did you read the article that I posted earlier? In it, a statistician states that certain faulty techniques, like starting with the two hottest years (1998 or 2005) produce misleading an inaccurate results. The 10 year rolling average is one of the things they look at. Picking a particular range, like the last 5 or the last 10 years is blatant cherry picking. But if it makes you feel happy, continue ignoring your logical errors.
http://algorelied.com/
The planet has been cooling and warming since the beginning of time. How can you explain the planet emerging from 6 or 7 Ice Ages without any SUV's, or dirty factory smoke stacks? Ocean activity and the SUN have more effect on climate than we do.
Monckton is critical of the theory of anthropogenic causes for climate change and the stated scope of it, which he regards as a controversy catalyzed by "the need of the international left for a new flag to rally round" following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He has expressed doubt about the reality of global warming in a number of newspaper articles and papers. He has been described in some quarters as a "former science adviser to British prime minister Thatcher and a world-renowned scholar." However, his credentials as a commentator on climate change have been questioned by some commentators. James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore note in their book Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming that Monckton has "no training whatsoever in science", and criticize his asserted credentials as "unfounded self-promotion." The Daily Telegraph has described him as "a former economic adviser".
Feel free to pick on Al Gore, too. Simply discrediting a politician (and his movie) who happens to be a spokesperson for the science does not alter the facts of the science one bit. I kind of wish he hadn't put himself out there as an avatar to be torn down, only to have ignorant people equate his tearing down with the tearing down of legitimate climate science.
With regard to saying that CO2 is not a pollutant, that again is a sound bite, emotional argument. Vitamin A is considered vital for our health and survival, but too much of it will result in toxic levels that become a serious threat to our health. So is it vital to us or a poison? See how the statement becomes a red herring?
Why does CO2 need to be an efficient green house gas? Inefficient methods can also produce results--it just might take longer to see the hole we've dug for ourselves.