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Sep 22, 2009 05:01 PM | 16
President Obama gave his first major speech on climate change today at the United Nations, part of a special session convened by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The reason for the session? Lack of speed in international negotiations to address climate change.
You can see the president's speech here:
In addition to reaffirming the U.S. commitment to addressing climate change, the president listed some recent accomplishments: new efficiency standards for all vehicles, billions of dollars for renewable energy development, and the nation's first mandatory greenhouse gas reporting system. He even noted a plan to work with the world's other largest economies, known as the G20, to "phase out fossil-fuel subsidies so that we can better address our climate challenge."
What the president couldn't point to was actual legislation to restrain greenhouse gas pollution. That's because the existing climate bill is stalled in the U.S. Senate and may languish until after an international deadline to agree to a new global treaty to combat climate change, due in Copenhagen this December.
"What we are seeking, after all, is not simply an agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. We seek an agreement that will allow all nations to grow and raise living standards without endangering the planet," Obama said. "If we are flexible and pragmatic, if we can resolve to work tirelessly in common effort, then we will achieve our common purpose: a world that is safer, cleaner, and healthier than the one we found; and a future that is worthy of our children."
Mere moments later, China's president Hu Jintao promised to curb carbon intensity—a measure of greenhouse gas pollution per economic unit produced and a favorite climate metric of the Bush administration—by a "notable margin" from 2005 levels by 2020. And the country has set ambitious growth targets for energy from renewable resources, such as wind, solar and hydropower. At the same time, China will not commit to binding targets for reducing its growing greenhouse gas pollution levels—a stance known as "common but differentiated responsibilities" for developed and developing nations (and notably backed by India and other heavyweights of the developing world).
In other words, the leaders of the world's two largest emitters continued to make vague promises that, so far, have not been backed by significant actions. U.S. emissions may have come down by nearly 9 percent since 2007 but that is largely thanks to the Great Recession and only in part due "to steps that promote greater efficiency and greater use of renewable energy" as Obama put it.
After all, as the president of the Maldives noted in his speech, which was sandwiched between those from leaders of the two leading greenhouse gas polluters, he gets asked every year or two to explain the threat posed by rising sea levels thanks to climate change that his island country faces. And every time business as usual continues: "We know deep down, you aren't really listening." Can we hear him now?
Tags:
alternative energy,
greenhouse gas emissions,
climate change,
united nations,
obama,
global warming,
greenhouse gas,
pollution,
renewable energy
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16 Comments
Add CommentPerhaps if there is one point to insist upon, it is the need to reduce family size in poor countries to take the pressure off diminishing ressources. Some will argue that this is socialism. But it is not social marxism. It is the continuation of enlightened politics largely developed in the nineteenth century by Whigs, based on the need for prosperity being by definition the only remedy for poverty and squalor. The environment is all-encompassing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObama ran on the promise of change, but all I see is business as usual. Cash for clunkers and bail out money for the US auto makers is nothing but a big fat reward to companies that have been socially irresponsible by churning out inefficient combustion engines for decades. Tesla Motors has an all electric car but that didn't even qualify for the clunkers program because each car is made to order. Why is there no mandate that ALL auto manufacturers make ONLY all electric cars within five years. If it's a law, they'll do it. If not, they'll never do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumans could easily render this planet uninhabitable within two generations if they do not curb their out-of-control population growth, and stop using fossil fuels. Addressing these two issues in a definitive manner could make all the difference to our great-grand children.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTen years ago no one predicted that we would see a decade of declining temperatures. NOW they want us to believe that they know what they are talking about!! Truth is they can,t predict the weather next week, next month, next year, or any time you choose into the future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObama's climate plans at this point seem to amount to little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are a little as ten years away from a climate tipping point with permafrost methane emissions and ocean acidification forming the leading edge of a very steep slope.
According to an Aug 19 steve-kirsch article in huffpo we need to add-a-gigawatt-a-day of capacity starting today if we are to have any chance of averting a civilization destroying climate catastrophe. He lends his voice to the fury of who have studied the issue seeing us wasting time and treasure on too little too late technologies like wind, solar. biomass, carbon sequestration, conservation and silly tax schemes like cap and trade.
We can stop this and save money if we increase our green electric capacity sixfold with two thousand new gigawatts of baseload 24/7 green power. That's two nuclear plants taking up a couple of acres, 3000 giant windmills in farms occupying 10000 sq miles of land, or 100 sq miles of desert destroyed with solar panels every week for 10 years.
Mass produced nuclear power is by far the least expensive green energy available, at less than $1000 a kilowatt. As we replace natural gas/oil generation, we can use electric heat and heat pumps to replace the gas/oil furnace, and a massive nationwide natural gas vehicle conversion (Utah is the example at $1 a gal) to replace oil.
Nuclear waste will be reused as reprocessed fuel in Gen 3.5 nukes, or as fuel in generation four nukes like Sandia's new product. The tiny bit of Gen 4 nuclear waste is no more dangerous than the original uranium.
The nuclear payback would be only a few years paid for by the end of oil imports and the export of America's domestic oil production. An enormous job boosting nuclear domestic and export market would be created.
America's example would be copied around the world ending global warming in less than ten years.
Politicians will never look past the next election, no matter what they promise. The next election approaches, actions tend more towards attracting the greatest number of votes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBig Business will never look past the next quarterly/yearly report, and do everything to preserve their profits in the short term (for the shareholders, of course).
Shareholders will never agree (on the whole) to anything that may lessen their investment returns.
The greater proportion of the populace, i.e. the lowest common denominator, will never give up their 'right' to continual consumption of products ('oh, my mobile phone's out-of-date'). They'd prefer to read a gossip magazine and watch shows about what a celebrity is doing wrong &/or poorly than become educated on the things that matter.
The greater population will refuse to take any responsibility, will do nothing and insist that it's all up to Government.
Government will place 'restrictions' on Big Business, if only to be seen to be doing something.
Big Business will fight government ('It's anti-competitive').
The shareholders will whinge about loss of returns.
Big Business will compensate, raising prices and decreasing quality.
The population will whinge about increasing prices and decreasing quality, but still buy from those manufacturers anyway (after all, it's the name that's important, not the quality), while refusing to minimise consumption.
Ergo, nothing will change. Then everyone will whinge and they'll all point their fingers at each other (especially at the government) and shift blame instead of acknowledging their own responsibility and failure to act.
The green/nuclear power options will never bear fruit in time, or is currently suffering NIMBY syndrome (Not In My Back Yard).
Pebble-bed reactors (the safest) would be the way to go, but still NIMBY.
I work in an office where I will hear people discuss global warming, pollution and that sort of things; but the same people leave every night without turning their computer monitor off. If they really cared, they think about it a little longer. Same goes for the TV left in 'standby' over night.
Although I am guilty of wasting energy and contributing to climate change, I acknowledge that I do, and make the attempts to minimise my impact where I can. E.g. much of my electronics are on master switches, turned off at night so they don't consume 'standby power'.
This is what's important. We all know that many of the things we need to do are impractical, but we could minimise our impact on the plane.
The president of the Maldives is only half right. Many of us are not listening - the rest of us are confronted with a dearth of adequate solutions. A world in which the only solutions to climate change have to be imposed in a top-down fashion is not a world that's going to avert klimakatastrophe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou folks are ignoring the 800-lb gorilla in this argument. In today's New York Times Andrew Revkin posits that global warming political objectives are being increasingly resisted for the simple reason since 1998 the over-hyped warming of the planet has stalled out or even slight cooling has taken place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn fact, the Revkin article suggests that this situation is only going to get worse because it is likely that the next several years are going to be abnormally cold as well. The Grey Lady would not be the New York Times if she didn't try to give cosmopolitan progressives some cover, so Revkin dutifully revs up a convoluted ocean currents story to explain away recent cooling.
Believe it or not, a great many people in this world depend on fossil fuel resources as the cornerstone of their investments and livlihood. I am one of them. We are tired of having our wealth destroyed by hysterical fanatics whose claimed "scientific" proposition (anthropogenic global warming) was fantastically over-hyped to begin with.
Carbon dioxide is certainly a potent climate factor when it is present in concentrations hundreds or thousands of times the present level (less than 3 parts in 10,000 in the atmosphere.) But in reality at present and for the rest of this new century C02 is a trivial climate factor easily overwhelmed by more dominant inputs, many of which we do not even understand yet.
A person's investments and livelihood may be tied up in fossil fuel resources, but that does not relieve them of the responsibility to get the facts about what fossil fuels are doing to the environment. Burying ones head in the sand and pretending everything with the environment is wonderful, and that all the Ph.Ds and other scientists are stupid is the wrong thing to do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo answer the headline - Yes!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing substantive will pass the U.S. Senate. So, Obama is blowing hot air and CO2 for no reason.
We are also going through a solar cooling cycle. But somehow the glaciers are still shrinking, what's up with that?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiselizabettac123.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBoth you and eco-steve have a firm understanding of what needs to be done, but sadly nobody's listening. I believe we as a species will soon be extinct, an extinction of our own making and folly.
For almost 50 years now I have been aware that population was the problem. At uni we would discuss creating a virus to impair pregnancy. We read "The Voyage of the spaceship Beagle" also subtitled "New Ethics for Survival", the only thing that resulted was I have not contributed to the world population. As the book says the war between the Breeders/Non-breeders ended up with the non-breeders going extinct. The rest also go extinct when the petri-dish is full and no resources remain.
We are right but no one will be around to accept that we are right.
The self righteous hand-wringing that attempts to pass itself off as science is astounding. It is getting colder, not warmer. Fighting pollution is a worthy cause but fighting a life giving gas like CO2 is political in nature and scientifically ignorant. CO2 is plant food; we need it to feed the people on this planet. Without CO2 or the energy that fossil fuels provide in plant production, the planet will become severely depopulated, and quickly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor all of those who feel that de-population of the planet is the answer, I cannot believe that the eco-fascist movement has now plumbed these depths of social depravity. Or maybe I can... the eco-fascist movement is a liberal construct that believes that only they know the way to planetary salvation and that all of their kaffee klatsch inspired solutions should apply to others but not themselves.
Should have been out their making smarter babies, instead of trying to save the planet by yourself. Do you think the "dopes" were holding back?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlthough population control is important, so is its expansion, we're not going to be on this planet forever. Time to get up and go. Right now we have all of our embryos in one "egg", that's not a good survival strategy.
Michael Cook is right on. CO2 is not the villain. Moneygrubbing dealers in a new investment area, like Al Gore, are. They want to make money on your sacrifice, and to no purpose. Sensitivity to Doubling the CO2 by an outstanding scientist Nir Shaviv is about 1.3 degrees assuming that the present, or up until 2001, warming is entirely due to CO2 which it wasn't. Realistically, doubling the CO2 will only make a contribution of a fraction of a degree which will be entirely overshadowed by other contributions. There is no evidence that man is contributing to any perceiving warming, no direct evidence. Listen to the argument. The weather forecasters run their programs which never work without the human contributions to CO2 levels. Then they compare the results with actuality, where they are and will always be wrong, and it doesn't agree. So since their bad calculations don't agree with reality, there must be a human contribution to the climate. Remember there is no direct evidence that man is affecting the climate at all. These "experts" are just extrapolating a bad calculation for 100 years and predicting catastrophe. Now the judges are going to let people sue the utilities for using carbon. Say goodbye to your warm house. The utilities are going down. Remember what happened to the nuclear industry when the activists started compared them to a bomb?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPopulation is a factor in climate change. Scientific Earthling is right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople must reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases before it's too late. The Permian extinction/ Siberian Traps Event was caused (partially) by the greenhouse effect, and more than half of life was wiped out. Earth does NOT need to have a repeat of that.