I'm not going to lie to you and say that I've followed these meetings with particular interest. There's nothing binding about what the G8 leaders decide. So, they've come up with a commitment, of sorts, to cut GHG by 50% by 2050. They don't tell you what the baseline is though. How seriously am I supposed to take this?
The President of the US, the leading economy in the world, is said to have come a long way since he broke his 2000 campaign pledge to enter the US into the international treaty on global warming known as the Kyoto Protocol. Well, he's about as lame a duck as you can be. (Except that he can still roil world markets with saber-rattling at Iran. And they're rattling back. There's a surprise.) Everybody in the US who is at all knowledgeable about climate change is perfectly aware that nothing that happens in the waning months of the present administration is really going to advance either a national movement to cap-and-trade or the outlines of an international agreement to be finalized in Copenhagen in December of 2009. That's all for the next President, be he named Obama or McCain, to do. The present administration is in fact fighting a serious rearguard action, complete with helping to block the extension of the production tax credits for renewable energy past their Jan. 1, 2009 expiration.
If you're really interested, though, you can see any number of the zillion news stories on the G8 climate change pronunciamentos. If you really want to get into some of the nitty gritty, such as it is, I highly recommend Andrew Revkin's annotated analysis of the announcement from Japan. Revkin's comprehensive reportage for the "NY Times" and superb blog, Dot Earth, show that he's not only brilliant and deeply steeped in his subject, but he's danged hard working too.
Meanwhile, Dick Cheney was said to have censored the input of a high-ranking US scientist on the health effects of climate change. (Another zillion stories.)
Captain Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
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