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Higher Logic · 12-12-2005, 12:31 AM

U.S. Won't Join In Binding Climate Talks
Juliet Eilperin |Washington Post | 11 December 2005

Despite the Bush administration's adamant resistance, nearly every industrialized nation agreed early Saturday to engage in talks aimed at producing a new set of binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions that would take effect beginning in 2012.

In a separate accord, a broader coalition of nearly 200 nations—including the United States—agreed to a much more modest "open and nonbinding" dialogue that would not lead to any "new commitments" to reduce carbon dioxide emissions associated with climate change.

The outcome of Saturday's negotiations—which nearly collapsed at the eleventh hour after Russia and the United States raised separate objections—underscored the promise and limits of international talks aimed at confronting one of the world's most far-reaching problems. The results also showed that foreign negotiators have concluded they must press ahead without the Bush administration's assent on the assumption that a burgeoning grass-roots movement will eventually bring the United States back to the negotiating table.

HL: Don't count it while Bush is in office. He laughs in the face of science. He's probably part of that 44% of Americans that believe Jesus will come back in their lifetime. Why would he care. And kudos to the other nations who went ahead without America.

Margaret Beckett, Britain's environment secretary, warned reporters in the past week that such negotiations often offer "first false euphoria, followed by false despair." But on Saturday she said the two pacts prove policymakers have finally summoned the political will to combat global warming.

"The reason why collectively the world community succeeded here is because the debate itself is changing on the costs and benefits of climate change," Beckett said. "There is growing recognition of the costs of not taking action and of the opportunities that come with taking action itself."

But other parties to the agreements, which came at the end of a two-week conference sponsored by the United Nations, question whether they will have much impact, and prominent scientists such as James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warn that nations may need to make deeper emissions cuts in the coming decade if they hope to avoid even more damaging warming. In a speech Dec. 6 in San Francisco, Hansen said, "Action must be prompt" to avoid a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that "will make it impractical to keep further global warming" within sustainable limits.

The earth has warmed by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century. Most scientists agree that carbon dioxide and other gases that accumulate in the atmosphere as byproducts of fossil fuel burned by automobile engines, power plants and industry accounted for part of the temperature increase. The warming has melted glaciers, heated oceans and shrunk the Arctic ice cap.

Jennifer Morgan, who directs the global climate program for the advocacy group World Wildlife Fund, said after the binding agreement was completed: "In the end it will only be as strong as what the governments have agreed to commit to. We've only set up a process here."

One hundred fifty-seven countries, including every major developed nation except the United States and Australia, have agreed under the Kyoto Protocol to cut their 1990 greenhouse gas levels by an average of 5 percent over the next seven years. Now the question is whether the new round of talks—minus U.S. participation—will produce more ambitious emission reductions after 2012, when Kyoto expires.

"We need much deeper cuts beyond 2012," said Peter Carl, the European Union Commission's director general for the environment. Carl said that although it may be difficult to obtain such commitments, he is optimistic because he had been "deeply impressed by the atmosphere during this conference."

The United States, which produces one-quarter of the world's greenhouse gases, objects to mandatory limits on the grounds that they could damage the nation's economy and because developing nations, such as China and India, which are burning increasing amounts of fossil fuel, have not embraced binding emissions cuts. Under Saturday's nonbinding agreement, however, China and India pledged to pursue voluntary emissions reductions.

China and India contend that their populations emit far smaller amounts of greenhouse gas per capita than people in the United States.

European delegates said they became convinced over the course of the conference that they could move ahead on climate change because so many Americans—including state and local officials, senators, students and even former president Bill Clinton—journeyed to Montreal to urge negotiators to embark on a new round of binding talks.

"Just because the Bush administration doesn't want this doesn't mean the rest of the world doesn't see this as the right thing to do. What is apparent here is the U.S. is very split on this," Danish negotiator Eva Jensen said. She said Clinton's speech Friday extolling the economic and social benefits of cutting greenhouse gases "gives the world the idea that even though the U.S. at the moment isn't being very constructive in the negotiations, this might change over time."

HL: Just because the Bush administration thinks the war in Iraq is a good thing, doesn't mean the rest of the world agrees

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, whose city won a major global environmental award last week for cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 5 percent in the past three years, said state and local officials are "basically leaving the administration in the dust. The next administration will have little choice but to finally work in collaboration with the rest of the international community."

But several negotiators said they had to do a better job of enlisting the United States' aid in cutting the use of fossil fuels. Corrado Clini, director general of the Italian Ministry of Environment and Territory, said that even if the European Union meets its Kyoto targets in 2012, global emissions would be reduced by less than 2 percent.

"I don't think, without a partnership between the European Union and the United States, we will be able to address climate change," Clini said. "It is like a marriage. The real risk is we are aging before the marriage, and when we marry, it will be too late to be effective."

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) was even more skeptical of Saturday's pact, saying it would lead only to "a dead end economically."

"Two weeks of costly deliberation only resulted in an agreement to deliberate some more, so Montreal was essentially a meeting about the next meeting," Inhofe said in a statement. "The Kyoto Protocol . . . is a complete failure."

As tenuous as Saturday's agreements may appear, they almost did not happen at all. The U.S. delegation, which did not return calls or e-mails Saturday, balked until late Friday night at the prospect of engaging in even nonbinding climate change talks. And Russia almost derailed the pact on future negotiations about mandatory emissions cuts when it proposed language that would have established a specific way for countries to count voluntary emission cuts as part of the binding agreement.

In the end, negotiators agreed on language that showed how far apart the two camps remain. Climate policy expert Myron Ebell at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute called the decision to move forward with a binding agreement "a futile exercise." Environmentalist Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, called Montreal "the tipping point. This is when the world got serious about dealing with this issue."

HL: I would like to add that I don't support the idea of global warming fully, part of me believes that it's a natural occurance that has been cycling on and off since the planet formed

Murdock · 12-12-2005, 12:52 AM

Kudos to the Bush Administration.. there's no reason to be involved in these talks..

killer12382 · 12-13-2005, 12:16 AM

Bunch of left wing tree hugging nuts.
Rush Limbaugh said "A tree is only worth something AFTER its cut down".

BC.Buddy · 12-15-2005, 06:01 AM

Quote:

HL: I would like to add that I don't support the idea of global warming fully, part of me believes that it's a natural occurance that has been cycling on and off since the planet formed

It's common knowledge that, yes, the Earth has seen many climate cycles since it's 'birth'. So, it's entirely possible that this is merely a natural turning point in the pendulum swing.

However, the Earth has never seen a species pump out as much greenhouse gases in the entirety of its lifetime. And since it would be safe to assume that greenhouse gases probably at least affect global warming, we should probably cut back, at least.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murdock

Kudos to the Bush Administration.. there's no reason to be involved in these talks..

Yeah, let him give as many kickbacks to his friends as he can while in office, then let the next President deal with it!

Quote:

Originally Posted by killer

Bunch of left wing tree hugging nuts.
Rush Limbaugh said "A tree is only worth something AFTER its cut down".

Good one.

Money equals worth, but worth does not equal money. Trees are useful for more than just there physical wood.

Our society is not geared to understand that simple logic though.

Cassius · 12-15-2005, 12:50 PM

Quote:

HL: I would like to add that I don't support the idea of global warming fully, part of me believes that it's a natural occurance that has been cycling on and off since the planet formed

The Earth goes through natural climatic cycles, yes. But the temperature of the ocean raising over a degree GLOBALLY in the last century? Do you really think that is natural?

When humans aren't around, "changes" to the world environment are measured in millennia, not centuries and certainly not years.

killer12382 · 12-15-2005, 02:59 PM

When you're the big dog in the yard, you really don't have to listen to the little dogs.

Niteshift · 12-15-2005, 11:25 PM

I'm glad he's standing his ground. Kyoto was an unfair compact and I was happy to see us get away from it. This one is no better.

Higher Logic · 12-15-2005, 11:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BC.Buddy

However, the Earth has never seen a species pump out as much greenhouse gases in the entirety of its lifetime.

It's really not as much as you think. Read these selected snippets from the following source.

Quote:

Global warming started long before the "Industrial Revolution" and the invention of the internal combustion engine. Global warming began 18,000 years ago as the earth started warming its way out of the Pleistocene Ice Age—a time when much of North America, Europe, and Asia lay buried beneath great sheets of glacial ice.

Periods of Earth warming and cooling occur in cycles. This is well understood, as is the fact that small-scale cycles of about 40 years exist within larger-scale cycles of 400 years, which in turn exist inside still larger scale cycles of 20,000 years, and so on.

Climate change is controlled primarily by cyclical eccentricities in Earth's rotation and orbit, as well as variations in the sun's energy output.

HL: Increased energy output, e.g. solar radiation, due to the "clean-air" technology being used...see article below.

"Greenhouse gases" in Earth's atmosphere also influence Earth's temperature, but in a much smaller way. Human additions to total greenhouse gases play a still smaller role, contributing about 0.2% - 0.3% to Earth's greenhouse effect.

The idea that man-made pollution is responsible for global warming is not supported by historical fact. The period known as the Holocene Maximum is a good example—so-named because it was the hottest period in human history. The interesting thing is this period occurred approximately 7500 to 4000 years B.P. (before present)—long before human's invented industrial pollution.

CO2 in our atmosphere has been increasing steadily for the last 18,000 years—long before humans invented smokestacks.

Here's another interesting article that talks about the concept of global dimming.

Quote:

Our planet's air has cleared up in the past decade or two, allowing more sunshine to reach the ground, say two studies in Science this week.

Reductions in industrial emissions in many countries, along with the use of particulate filters for car exhausts and smoke stacks, seem to have reduced the amount of dirt in the atmosphere and made the sky more transparent.

That sounds like very good news. But the researchers say that more solar energy arriving on the ground will also make the surface warmer, and this may add to the problems of global warming. More sunlight will also have knock-on effects on cloud cover, winds, rainfall and air temperature that are difficult to predict.

The results suggest that a downward trend in the amount of sunlight reaching the surface, which has been observed since measurements began in the late 1950s, is now over.

The researchers argue that this trend, commonly called 'global dimming', reversed more than a decade ago, probably following the collapse of communist economies and the consequent decrease in industrial pollutants.

The widespread brightening has remained unnoticed until now simply because there wasn't enough data for a statistically significant analysis, says Martin Wild, an atmospheric scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and an author on one of the reports.

Wild and his team looked at data on surface sunshine levels from hundreds of devices around the planet. They found that since the 1980s there has been a transition from decreasing to increasing solar radiation nearly everywhere, except in heavily polluted areas such as India and at scattered sites in Australia, Africa, and South America.

A second study, led by Rachel Pinker from the University of Maryland, College Park, found a similar trend by looking at satellite data, although their research suggests the extent of the brightening is smaller. Unlike ground stations, satellites can sample the whole planet, including the oceans. However, satellite data are difficult to calibrate, and so are considered less accurate than measurements from the ground.

Surprisingly, Wild's study shows a brightening trend in China, despite the fact that there is a booming, fossil-fuel-intensive industry in that country. Wild says he can only speculate that the use of clean-air technologies in China might be more widespread and efficient than has been thought.

In contrast, India's vast brown clouds of smog, which result from wildfires and the use of fossil fuels, have reduced the sunlight reaching the ground.

Researchers will now focus on working out the long-term effects of clearer air. One thing they do know is that black particulate matter in the air has been contributing a cooling effect to the ground. "It is clear that the greenhouse effect has been partly masked in the past by air pollution," says Andreas Macke, a meteorologist at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany.

Uncertainties remain part of the game because scientists have only a limited ability to track cloud cover and particulates, says Macke. Increased cooperation in programmes such as the NASA-led International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project should help to close the gaps in our knowledge of how dirty air affects climate, he says.

Just some food for thought

And until then, global warming is simply a theory, not fact.

killer12382 · 12-16-2005, 04:19 AM

As long as I get to drive my big 15 mpg SUV and grill out on the weekends then I'll be happy. GW is fighting a war so I can have access to cheap fuel...God bless him. I'm going to name my next baby GW after that great American Hero.

BC.Buddy · 12-18-2005, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HL

Just some food for thought And until then, global warming is simply a theory, not fact.

Entirely true. But how many countries are there on the planet? Of course let's only consider the developed, industrialized countries in my question. So, the U.S. puts out 25% of the **** we all pump into the atmosphere; does that seem like a little more than their fair share?

Especially when it's something the rest of the world seems to accept.

I don't know, just doesn't seem right for the Bush administration not to participate in this.

12-12-2005, 12:31 AM	#1
Higher Logic Web Developer Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 6,123 Grams: 5,802.33 Groans: 3 Groaned at 0 Times in 0 Posts Thanks: 2 Thanked 58 Times in 33 Posts Stock Portfolio Total Value: 0.000 Gain/Loss: 0.000%	U.S. Won't Join In Binding Climate Talks U.S. Won't Join In Binding Climate Talks Juliet Eilperin \|Washington Post \| 11 December 2005 Despite the Bush administration's adamant resistance, nearly every industrialized nation agreed early Saturday to engage in talks aimed at producing a new set of binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions that would take effect beginning in 2012. In a separate accord, a broader coalition of nearly 200 nations—including the United States—agreed to a much more modest "open and nonbinding" dialogue that would not lead to any "new commitments" to reduce carbon dioxide emissions associated with climate change. The outcome of Saturday's negotiations—which nearly collapsed at the eleventh hour after Russia and the United States raised separate objections—underscored the promise and limits of international talks aimed at confronting one of the world's most far-reaching problems. The results also showed that foreign negotiators have concluded they must press ahead without the Bush administration's assent on the assumption that a burgeoning grass-roots movement will eventually bring the United States back to the negotiating table. HL: Don't count it while Bush is in office. He laughs in the face of science. He's probably part of that 44% of Americans that believe Jesus will come back in their lifetime. Why would he care. And kudos to the other nations who went ahead without America. Margaret Beckett, Britain's environment secretary, warned reporters in the past week that such negotiations often offer "first false euphoria, followed by false despair." But on Saturday she said the two pacts prove policymakers have finally summoned the political will to combat global warming. "The reason why collectively the world community succeeded here is because the debate itself is changing on the costs and benefits of climate change," Beckett said. "There is growing recognition of the costs of not taking action and of the opportunities that come with taking action itself." But other parties to the agreements, which came at the end of a two-week conference sponsored by the United Nations, question whether they will have much impact, and prominent scientists such as James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warn that nations may need to make deeper emissions cuts in the coming decade if they hope to avoid even more damaging warming. In a speech Dec. 6 in San Francisco, Hansen said, "Action must be prompt" to avoid a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that "will make it impractical to keep further global warming" within sustainable limits. The earth has warmed by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century. Most scientists agree that carbon dioxide and other gases that accumulate in the atmosphere as byproducts of fossil fuel burned by automobile engines, power plants and industry accounted for part of the temperature increase. The warming has melted glaciers, heated oceans and shrunk the Arctic ice cap. Jennifer Morgan, who directs the global climate program for the advocacy group World Wildlife Fund, said after the binding agreement was completed: "In the end it will only be as strong as what the governments have agreed to commit to. We've only set up a process here." One hundred fifty-seven countries, including every major developed nation except the United States and Australia, have agreed under the Kyoto Protocol to cut their 1990 greenhouse gas levels by an average of 5 percent over the next seven years. Now the question is whether the new round of talks—minus U.S. participation—will produce more ambitious emission reductions after 2012, when Kyoto expires. "We need much deeper cuts beyond 2012," said Peter Carl, the European Union Commission's director general for the environment. Carl said that although it may be difficult to obtain such commitments, he is optimistic because he had been "deeply impressed by the atmosphere during this conference." The United States, which produces one-quarter of the world's greenhouse gases, objects to mandatory limits on the grounds that they could damage the nation's economy and because developing nations, such as China and India, which are burning increasing amounts of fossil fuel, have not embraced binding emissions cuts. Under Saturday's nonbinding agreement, however, China and India pledged to pursue voluntary emissions reductions. China and India contend that their populations emit far smaller amounts of greenhouse gas per capita than people in the United States. European delegates said they became convinced over the course of the conference that they could move ahead on climate change because so many Americans—including state and local officials, senators, students and even former president Bill Clinton—journeyed to Montreal to urge negotiators to embark on a new round of binding talks. "Just because the Bush administration doesn't want this doesn't mean the rest of the world doesn't see this as the right thing to do. What is apparent here is the U.S. is very split on this," Danish negotiator Eva Jensen said. She said Clinton's speech Friday extolling the economic and social benefits of cutting greenhouse gases "gives the world the idea that even though the U.S. at the moment isn't being very constructive in the negotiations, this might change over time." HL: Just because the Bush administration thinks the war in Iraq is a good thing, doesn't mean the rest of the world agrees Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, whose city won a major global environmental award last week for cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 5 percent in the past three years, said state and local officials are "basically leaving the administration in the dust. The next administration will have little choice but to finally work in collaboration with the rest of the international community." But several negotiators said they had to do a better job of enlisting the United States' aid in cutting the use of fossil fuels. Corrado Clini, director general of the Italian Ministry of Environment and Territory, said that even if the European Union meets its Kyoto targets in 2012, global emissions would be reduced by less than 2 percent. "I don't think, without a partnership between the European Union and the United States, we will be able to address climate change," Clini said. "It is like a marriage. The real risk is we are aging before the marriage, and when we marry, it will be too late to be effective." Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) was even more skeptical of Saturday's pact, saying it would lead only to "a dead end economically." "Two weeks of costly deliberation only resulted in an agreement to deliberate some more, so Montreal was essentially a meeting about the next meeting," Inhofe said in a statement. "The Kyoto Protocol . . . is a complete failure." As tenuous as Saturday's agreements may appear, they almost did not happen at all. The U.S. delegation, which did not return calls or e-mails Saturday, balked until late Friday night at the prospect of engaging in even nonbinding climate change talks. And Russia almost derailed the pact on future negotiations about mandatory emissions cuts when it proposed language that would have established a specific way for countries to count voluntary emission cuts as part of the binding agreement. In the end, negotiators agreed on language that showed how far apart the two camps remain. Climate policy expert Myron Ebell at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute called the decision to move forward with a binding agreement "a futile exercise." Environmentalist Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, called Montreal "the tipping point. This is when the world got serious about dealing with this issue." HL: I would like to add that I don't support the idea of global warming fully, part of me believes that it's a natural occurance that has been cycling on and off since the planet formed __________________ Crucial Web Hosting · Garden's Cure · Marijuana Recipes · Drug Testing Facts Dilution · Substitution · Urine Testing · Hair Testing · Drug Testing FAQ

12-15-2005, 11:25 PM	#7
Niteshift L.E.O. in Good Standing Join Date: Dec 2000 Posts: 6,432 Grams: 2,665.57 Groans: 0 Groaned at 0 Times in 0 Posts Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post Stock Portfolio Total Value: 0.000 Gain/Loss: 0.000%	I'm glad he's standing his ground. Kyoto was an unfair compact and I was happy to see us get away from it. This one is no better. __________________ A burning desire for social justice is never a substitute for knowing what you're talking about. -Thomas Sowell Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is muzzle flash.

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12-12-2005, 12:52 AM	#2
Murdock Sr. Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 635 Grams: 3,427.02 Groans: 0 Groaned at 1 Time in 1 Post Thanks: 7 Thanked 15 Times in 10 Posts Stock Portfolio Total Value: 0.000 Gain/Loss: 0.000%	Kudos to the Bush Administration.. there's no reason to be involved in these talks..

12-13-2005, 12:16 AM	#3
killer12382 Banned Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 877 Grams: 26.55 Groans: 0 Groaned at 0 Times in 0 Posts Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Stock Portfolio Total Value: 0.000 Gain/Loss: 0.000%	Bunch of left wing tree hugging nuts. Rush Limbaugh said "A tree is only worth something AFTER its cut down".

12-15-2005, 02:59 PM	#6
killer12382 Banned Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 877 Grams: 26.55 Groans: 0 Groaned at 0 Times in 0 Posts Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Stock Portfolio Total Value: 0.000 Gain/Loss: 0.000%	When you're the big dog in the yard, you really don't have to listen to the little dogs.

12-16-2005, 04:19 AM	#9
killer12382 Banned Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 877 Grams: 26.55 Groans: 0 Groaned at 0 Times in 0 Posts Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Stock Portfolio Total Value: 0.000 Gain/Loss: 0.000%	As long as I get to drive my big 15 mpg SUV and grill out on the weekends then I'll be happy. GW is fighting a war so I can have access to cheap fuel...God bless him. I'm going to name my next baby GW after that great American Hero.

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