Image: Nature magazine
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
From Nature magazine
The tropical air was charged with hope and despair as the world’s leaders descended on Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations’ Earth summit in May 1992. Countries were buoyed by a string of successful environmental treaties in the 1970s and 1980s, capped by a landmark deal to save the ozone layer in 1987. Yet the Earth summit in Rio, which drew 178 nations and around 100 heads of state, was also rife with frustration and distrust. Diplomats had spent the previous two years drafting a pair of treaties intended to safeguard Earth’s biodiversity and climate, but the talks had recently faltered as rich and poor countries split over who should pay for protecting the planet.
In the end, the leaders decided that they could not go home empty handed. They signed off on both the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change, making broad pledges to solve some of the most complex problems facing humanity. Countries also agreed to a laundry list of goals spelled out in a document known as Agenda 21, which eventually spawned the Convention to Combat Desertification. Although the agreements lacked teeth, they created formal international processes that engaged almost the entire world and eventually led to more targeted accords (see ‘Global awakening’).
At the end of the summit, Richard Benedick, who had negotiated the ozone accord for the United States, told The New York Times that “the history books will refer back to this day as a landmark in a process that will save the planet from deterioration”. But he and others warned that progress would not come quickly.
The pace turned out to be far slower than anticipated, however. Although nations have made some marginal advances, the three conventions have failed to achieve even a fraction of the promises that world leaders trumpeted two decades ago. Dismal grades dominate Nature’s report cards on the Rio treaties, although the assessment also highlights some progress and offers pointers for the future. As diplomats and leaders prepare to converge on Rio this month for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, they will be looking back to consider how to do better.
Climate of inaction
The climate numbers are downright discouraging. The world pumped 22.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 1990, the baseline year under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. By 2010 that amount had increased roughly 45% to 33 billion tonnes. Carbon dioxide emissions skyrocketed by more than 5% in 2010 alone, marking the fastest growth in more than two decades as the global economy recovered from its slump. And despite constant deliberations under the convention, the overall growth rate of global emissions hasn’t changed much since 1970 (see ‘Report card: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’).
“Plausibly we are a little better off than if we didn’t have all of this diplomacy,” says David Victor, director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California, San Diego. “But the evidence is hard to find.”
Ratified by 194 countries plus the European Commission, the treaty sought to stabilize emissions at a level that would “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. Although there were no specific targets, wealthy countries agreed to take the lead and help poor countries with monetary and technological aid. In 1997, negotiators followed up with the Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in 2005 and committed industrialized countries to reduce their collective emissions of all greenhouse gases by 5.2% (compared with 1990) by 2012.
See what we're tweeting about
15 Comments
Add CommentSince most of the developed nations are swimming in debt, spending money that is not available does not seem to be the political thing to do. Whatever any nation or individual opts to do toward lowering green house effects much be done on the basis of being cost effective. Spending money and then seeing no appreciable effect is not going to be very productive. If we put money away for our futures, we will likely see the result of that years into the future. Spending money on the desired actions of the Rio +20 may make people feel good, but if they don't see any results, it may be hard to keep this effort going. We certainly should be doing everything within reason to minimize pollution, but spending excessive money with no appreciable effect at least in America will not be very popular. Except for dictatorships, the citizens of the countries that are going to have to make the sacrifices are the ones that will vote to implement the laws to accomplish this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNone of my tax dollars to tinpot dictators.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese get togethers are controlled by those pushing political agenda and ideology...not concern for the environmnet.
Sorry, I'm not going to feel guilty for having one child, clean drinking water and treated waste water. I have a couple of packages of unopened condoms and used shovels I'd be glad to donate to 'wherever'....but zero money.
This was about the start of the warming crap, on this website earlier they talk about tipping point (more crap). For all you that believe in global warming stuff and that tipping point crap (story and earlier blog on this website) go to this site:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120617170307.htm explain why the antarctica is warmer 20,000 yrs. ago, and what happened to that tipping point of no return then?
Opps: sorry wrong place for the tipping point story and blog that was the Discover mag. website.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou know, the funny thing is, when it is about spending a gazillion dollars on an even nastier weapon, or invading an innocent country and butchering over 100 000 civilians, nobody complains about tax dollars.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe planet is an unstable system at its best, and mucking it up with all sorts of gases and trash is not going to help a bit. It is not nature that demands highly productive fertility, stability and lack of disruption, it is the human economy in an overpopulated world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMark, no idea how wasting money in one area justifies wasting it in another. Unlike you, I hear people in all countries complain about military spending.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDeveloping countries find money to spend money on armies, weapons, ...Pakistan and India on nuclear weapons...they should spend those resoiurce on condoms and birth control pills....but their choice.
"None of my tax dollars to tinpot dictators."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess the republicans all think they didn't have a role in helping waste fully one third of the entire worlds supply of fossil fuel, so that leaves them off the hook for cleaning up the mess. Never mind the fact that America has only 5% of the worlds population and half the money.
Now that Americans moved all their most polluting industries to other world countries the business climate here can say' "It ain't my fault!"
CO2 SKYROCKETED 5%???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSinging Flea, you illustrate nicely what is false about your warming cause: Everyone on the warming side is to the left, and in most cases the extreme left of center. Nearly everyone on the skeptic side is at least neutral or to the right and even the extreme right of center. You make that point every time you label someone a Republican when you start your silly arguments with them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny discussion that is split so perfectly along ideological lines can't possibly be grounded in good science for that reason alone. And your attempts to demonize the right with nonsensical statements like the one above.
The U.S. WASTED 1/3 of the world's supply of oil?
Without the progress made with oil, Civilization would be well on it's way to having stripped the entire planet of wood and other natural resources by this time. Our life expectancy would still be at about 48 years. Most diseases would still be manifesting themselves in widespread plagues. famine would be much more commonplace.
We didn't waste a drop. You make your self-important declarations on a device that owes it's very existence to our reliance on fossil fuels. Your assertion comes from a place of such ignorance that it's hard to fathom. Tell me, How DO you live your pristine life utterly divorced from the dependence on EVERYTHING related to oil? And people should listen to YOU when trying to solve the world's problems?
singing flea: "I guess the republicans all think they didn't have a role in helping waste ..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's amusing how folks can't get beyond the ideological minutia of domestic political bickering and not lift their eyes and look out into the WHOLE world.
Republicans vs Democrats...blah, blah.. Nobody in China, India, indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc. gives a hoot anymore than you do about the ins and out of their domestic politics. Csn you even name the leaders running for election in India or Nigeria...let alone their political parties, agendas, etc?
The point is human relations and national and individual egos. We will go down like lemmings to the sea. If we do not strive in education and social values toward mutual responsibility on the individual, grass-roots level, then it is a sickly charade at the national level.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAct for real at the base of human relations, or our leaders will talk and take reports until the water rises above our heads. [And its no longer fresh water either...]
"If we do not strive in education and social values toward mutual responsibility on the individual, grass-roots level, then it is a sickly charade at the national level."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEngineer:
Once again I ask: Who's we? Which blue ribbon panel do "WE" annoint to decide who's social values prevail? Who's Mutual responsibility? People who say "WE need to do that" "WE need to do this" Really have no more cogent ideas about what "WE" need to do than does my 18 month old niece.
The sky is not falling. The water is not rising. The world is not experiencing any mass extinction. This is just wishful thinking foisted upon us "little peoples" buy moral busybodies who think they know what's best for us. Go away.
Oh well, we are being forced to spend our money on idiot smart meters and we'll spend the rest of it on appliances with smart meter contol chips...so the rich get to take a record breaking giant step to being even richer and the poor, poorer. Smart meters are not green, well, unless you mean the color of money.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Timbo555 - Actually the water is rising. This is well documented. It really isn't a bad thing for anyone that chooses to live well above sea level. As for those at risk, well, welcome to the natural cycles of life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this