[Vision2020] Read my lips: no emissions cuts before 2025

Ted Moffett starbliss at gmail.com
Fri Apr 18 13:33:09 PDT 2008


Read my lips: no emissions cuts before
2025<http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/04/17/read-my-lips-no-emissions-cuts-before-2025>
By
Jonathan M. Gitlin <http://arstechnica.com/authors.ars/Dr+JonboyG> |
Published: April 17, 2008 - 10:36AM CT

http://arstechnica.com/authors.ars/Dr+JonboyG

http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/04/17/read-my-lips-no-emissions-cuts-before-2025

It's been an interesting week for climate change, with significant news from
both the academic and political communities.

First up is research that was presented at a meeting of the European
Geosciences Union, which has been taking place in Vienna, Austria. A team of
researchers from the UK and Finland have been refining a computer model that
calculates sea level rises, and their data is more than a little worrying.
Their model, which accurately models the effect of temperature on sea levels
over the past 2,000 years, suggests that the IPCC's prediction of a 30 cm
rise in sea level by 2100 as more than a little optimistic—the work places
the likely figure <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7349236.stm> at
between 80 and 150 cm.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7349236.stm

This isn't the first time that research has suggested that the IPCC's ocean
level predictions might be optimistic; last year another team also predicted
much greater rises in sea level by 2100 and, at the AAAS meeting in Boston,
climate scientists could be heard saying similar things. The current study,
from scientists at the Proudman Oceanographic
Laboratory<http://www.pol.ac.uk/>in the UK, suggests that the rises in
sea level they predict will primarily
be a result of melting ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic, rather
than from thermal expansion of existing bodies of water.

http://www.pol.ac.uk/

Next, yesterday saw a speech given in the US by President Bush, where he
addressed the US' ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions. In stark contrast to
Europe, which has instituted an ambitious target for reducing emissions,
President Bush proposed allowing US pollution to continue
unabated<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89695226>for
another 17 years before leveling out.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89695226

Bush claimed that attempting to reduce emissions would wreak havoc on the US
economy. This contention has been disputed, while studies such as the Stern
Review <http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2006/10/30/5789> suggest
that the cost of inaction is likely to be an order of magnitude higher than
any mitigation attempts.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm

http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2006/10/30/5789

Perhaps most significantly, the date of 2025 comes a full decade after the
point the IPCC regards as the absolute latest we can act to avoid the
looming crisis. Needless to say, there has been broad disapproval of the
announcement, derided by many as "too little, too late." President Bush has
been a vocal opponent of a cap-and-trade scheme for carbon, despite the
effectiveness of a similar program in reducing acid rain.

Some have suggested that the President's plan is an attempt to provide
political cover for Congressional opponents of the climate change bills
currently making their way through the legislature. The Bush plan offers
these politicians a fig-leaf to hide behind, allowing them to promote the
2025 goal as an alternative to the more immediate action called for by the
existing bills. All three of the current 2008 presidential hopefuls are also
proposing more stringent greenhouse gas emission plans, so, given President
Bush's lame duck status, this proposal will likely drop off the map as of
January 20th, 2009.

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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