In his 2008 book, Commonwealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, Jeffery Sachs wrote:
“In the end, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted by the rest of the world, with the United States refusing to ratify it. President Clinton never sent it to the Senate for ratification (fearing immediate defeat), and President George W. Bush rejected it out of hand at the start of his administration. “
“We must now move beyond Kyoto which, in any event, expires shortly. Even to reach a new global agreement by 2012 will require diplomatic agreement by 2009-10 to give time for countries to ratify a new protocol.”
What a difference a year makes. In 2009, the U.S. has in place provisional emissions reduction targets, separate multilateral energy plans and, although slow-moving, supporting domestic legislation that was passed in the House, last June.
So what are the climate scientists saying? Speed it up.
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just released it’s “Copenhagen Diagnosis,” intended for policy-makers, stakeholders and the media. The report is a collection of the IPCC’s peer-reviewed climate studies published since 2006 and has been sent all Copenhagen negotiating teams. The data summaries on melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, rising greenhouse gas emissions and global temperatures are bleak, illustrating the need for urgent responses.
Richard Sommerville, a climatologist at the University of California, San Diego, and a past contributor to the IPCC said that in writing the report, the IPCC scientists were driven by a shared sense that world leaders still think there is plenty of time to talk things over. “At these climate meetings, once the negotiations start, you get the sense that they might as well be debating steel tariffs.”
