Copenhagen - A Wasted Opportunity

[Aurora]

The Ecologist - 19/12/09

The UN has failed to reach a unanimous deal on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preventing dangerous climate change at the talks in Copenhagen

The COP15 climate change summit in Copenhagen has closed with an accord put forward by the US, which said the UN would work towards limiting the rise in global temperatures to below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

It gave no commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions or timetable for achieving a legally binding agreement.

The accord was accepted by a small number of countries including China, India and Brazil but has not yet received unanimous support.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) admitted the talks had not delivered the breakthrough many had hoped for.

Article continues ...

Looks like they've all missed the last call at the Last Chance Saloon.

[biffvernon]

A few weeks ago James Hansen said the best outcome would be failure. It would be bad if the politicians agreed a legally binding deal that led us to runaway global warming. (Which seems to be what so many were aiming for.)

Now that the world 'leaders' have 'failed' it's up to us to find a way of getting CO2 back down to 350. And we need early supply-side decline to help us.

It's truely remarkable that there has been almost no mention of peak oil in all the COP15 coverage.

[2 As and a B]

Never have the words of the Transition movement rung truer:

What we are convinced of is this:

• if we wait for the governments, it'll be too little, too late
• if we act as individuals, it'll be too little
• but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.

http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/TransitionInitiative

[biffvernon]

Spot on. This is us lot this morning:



Our global warming campaign seemed to have worked, at least for a few hours on our corner of the market square.