What nonsense for the U.N. Secretary-General to say the "science is clear" about global warming. It may be clear to him and those who wrote the IPCC summary, but it is far from clear among many notable climate scientists, and scores of others. And saying "time is short" and we must act now, is also ridiculous. Why the scare tactics? People aren't buying the hype.
Peter
UN Chief: Global Warming Demands Action
UN's Ban Says Science Clear but Political Will Lacking in Confronting Global Warming
The Associated Press
By CHARLES J. HANLEY AP Special Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS Sep 18, 2007 (AP)
The science is clear and the time short, but the political will is lacking to confront global warming, the U.N. secretary-general said Tuesday.
Ban Ki-moon said he hoped next Monday's "climate summit" here will help galvanize leaders to take action "before it is too late."
Asked at a news conference about President Bush's planned separate meeting to discuss global-warming measures among a handful of countries later next week, the U.N. chief said Bush assured him it would be coordinated with the established U.N. process of negotiating climate treaty commitments among all nations.
The Bush administration rejects treaty obligations, such as the Kyoto Protocol, to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Bush favors voluntary reductions instead.
"All the measures and initiatives should fit into the (U.N.) process," Ban told reporters.
He said about 80 heads of state and government, including Bush, would attend Monday's all-day climate discussion. It is not designed as a negotiation, but rather to produce some political momentum for negotiations to take place in December in Bali, Indonesia, at the annual U.N. climate treaty conference.
In a series of major reports this year, a U.N.-sponsored scientific network said unabated global warming, potentially raising average temperatures by several degrees Fahrenheit, would produce a far different planet by 2100 from rising seas, drought and other factors. The scientists said animal and plant life was already being disrupted.
"The science has made it quite clear, and we have been feeling the impacts of global warming already clearly," Ban said. "We have resources. We have technology. The only (thing) lacking is political will. Before it is too late, we must take action."
The Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 annex to a 1992 U.N. climate treaty, requires 35 industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by, on average, 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Talks at Bali are intended to initiate negotiations on a similar regime of mandatory cutbacks for after 2012.
Bush has rejected Kyoto and has signaled no new readiness to accept such mandates. The meeting he has called for Sept. 27-28 in Washington, involving major industrial nations and a few developing countries, including China and India, is expected to focus on "goals," not obligations, for reducing climate-altering emissions.
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Saturday, April 28, 2007
A Glacial Pace On Warming- The Pressure is Building
This is an editorial from the NY Times. Various factions are stepping up the pressure on the Bush Administration and the EPA to take action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I say test the concept in California first. If people don't mind paying ever more for fuel and electricity, then go for it. My guess is people will not be happy. They will be paying more and not seeing any positive effects.
This is going to be an interesting battle of wills and it will not end any time soon. Let your voices be heard.
Peter
Editorial
A Glacial Pace on Warming
('The walls continue to close in on the Bush administration, with the scientists’ warnings, the Supreme Court decision, the escalating pressure from the states and the general public.');
Published: April 28, 2007
Weeks after the Supreme Court’s momentous ruling that the federal government could and probably should regulate greenhouse gases, pressure for decisive action continues to build.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has warned that he will sue the Environmental Protection Agency unless it gives him the power to regulate automobile emissions.
A New York Times/CBS News Poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans now want immediate steps to deal with global warming. And a leaked draft of the next report from the world’s leading scientists says that the window for action is shrinking — that what governments do over the next 20 to 30 years will determine whether the world can avoid the worst consequences of climate change.
Even so, Washington continues to move as slowly as a melting glacier. This week, Stephen Johnson, the E.P.A. administrator, told a Senate committee that he was still mulling the ramifications of the court’s decision, and he would not say when or even whether he would regulate carbon dioxide. He promised to solicit public comments on Mr. Schwarzenegger’s request but, again, would not say when or whether he would grant that request. Under the law, California can set its own emissions standards — which other states can then adopt — but it needs a federal waiver before putting them into effect.
“I don’t hear in your voice a sense of urgency,” Senator Barbara Boxer, the committee chairwoman, told Mr. Johnson. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, was less charitable. “You astonish me,” he said, a criticism clearly intended for the entire administration.
Nobody is asking Mr. Johnson to design a comprehensive national program for regulating greenhouse gases, an enormous undertaking that is plainly Congress’s responsibility. Ms. Boxer and others are simply asking the administrator to exercise the authority the court gave him.
That would mean promptly approving California’s proposal to reduce greenhouse gases from vehicles by 30 percent by the 2016 model year. That proposal is the centerpiece of a broader state effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all sources by 25 percent by 2020.
California requested a waiver in 2005, but the E.P.A. — hiding behind the now-demolished claim that it lacked the authority to regulate greenhouse gases — has been sitting on it. Eleven other states have adopted the standards and will put them into effect as soon as California gets the green light.
Mr. Johnson’s stalling is a symptom of a larger problem, the administration’s reluctance to take seriously the science of global warming, which in turn explains its reluctance to take meaningful action. Yet the walls continue to close in, with the scientists’ warnings, the Supreme Court decision, the escalating pressure from the states and the general public. If President Bush will not lead, Congress must.
This is going to be an interesting battle of wills and it will not end any time soon. Let your voices be heard.
Peter
Editorial
A Glacial Pace on Warming
('The walls continue to close in on the Bush administration, with the scientists’ warnings, the Supreme Court decision, the escalating pressure from the states and the general public.');
Published: April 28, 2007
Weeks after the Supreme Court’s momentous ruling that the federal government could and probably should regulate greenhouse gases, pressure for decisive action continues to build.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has warned that he will sue the Environmental Protection Agency unless it gives him the power to regulate automobile emissions.
A New York Times/CBS News Poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans now want immediate steps to deal with global warming. And a leaked draft of the next report from the world’s leading scientists says that the window for action is shrinking — that what governments do over the next 20 to 30 years will determine whether the world can avoid the worst consequences of climate change.
Even so, Washington continues to move as slowly as a melting glacier. This week, Stephen Johnson, the E.P.A. administrator, told a Senate committee that he was still mulling the ramifications of the court’s decision, and he would not say when or even whether he would regulate carbon dioxide. He promised to solicit public comments on Mr. Schwarzenegger’s request but, again, would not say when or whether he would grant that request. Under the law, California can set its own emissions standards — which other states can then adopt — but it needs a federal waiver before putting them into effect.
“I don’t hear in your voice a sense of urgency,” Senator Barbara Boxer, the committee chairwoman, told Mr. Johnson. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, was less charitable. “You astonish me,” he said, a criticism clearly intended for the entire administration.
Nobody is asking Mr. Johnson to design a comprehensive national program for regulating greenhouse gases, an enormous undertaking that is plainly Congress’s responsibility. Ms. Boxer and others are simply asking the administrator to exercise the authority the court gave him.
That would mean promptly approving California’s proposal to reduce greenhouse gases from vehicles by 30 percent by the 2016 model year. That proposal is the centerpiece of a broader state effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all sources by 25 percent by 2020.
California requested a waiver in 2005, but the E.P.A. — hiding behind the now-demolished claim that it lacked the authority to regulate greenhouse gases — has been sitting on it. Eleven other states have adopted the standards and will put them into effect as soon as California gets the green light.
Mr. Johnson’s stalling is a symptom of a larger problem, the administration’s reluctance to take seriously the science of global warming, which in turn explains its reluctance to take meaningful action. Yet the walls continue to close in, with the scientists’ warnings, the Supreme Court decision, the escalating pressure from the states and the general public. If President Bush will not lead, Congress must.
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