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Last talks before Cancun climate summit held in China this week
photo by Bill Benson (kilroy238 on Flickr CC)
This week the final UN climate talks leading up to the summit in Cancun Mexico will be held in Tianjin, China, a large manufacturing city of over 12 million people.
In the aftermath of a failed climate summit in Copenhagen last December, hope for any binding treaty between nations is slim. Kyoto part 2 seems like a politically impossible pipedream. Good news for the fossil fuel industry, bad news for most everyone else. If we believe the scientists, that is.
From a Reuters article:
Scientists say the world is on track for temperatures to rise well beyond 2 degrees Celsius, risking greater weather extremes like this year’s floods in Pakistan and drought in Russia.
The head of the IPCC is not exactly fanning the flames of hope.
From a BBC News report:
Let me be clear – there is no magic bullet, no one climate agreement that will solve everything right now. To expect that is naive. However, I am certain the world can do this step by step, but only if we keep on walking firmly in the right direction, including at Cancun.
– Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
Yet activists soldier on….
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Graham, please see my latest comment on your article “US vs. China and low expectations characterize climate talks” which relaters to this article and your comment.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Hello Pete. Of course no one has to believe the scientists. You can choose to believe whomever you like. Studies have shown that we tend to believe people we already like (as if they needed a study to prove that) besides those who say what we want to hear. What’s dismaying is in the face of it all, who is more credible: a radio talk show host, an ideologue or an expert in his or her field?
And who has a bigger gravy train: the fossil fuel industry or universities and state agencies? Ask Former National Academy of Sciences president Dr. Frederick Seitz, who went on to make a heck of a lot more money for the tobacco companies and privately funded think tanks which are “skeptical” of mainstream climate science.
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The details and opinions of experts are not always the same and this is a healthy symptom of interdisciplinary and individual scientific perspectives. Besides, it’s about risk and unpredictability, not certainty or “settled science”. I admit I don’t know climate science so I leave it to the experts, who are not perfect, don’t claim to be perfect, but are in my opinion far more qualified and without the blatant political agendas I see in most of the skeptic camp.
http://www.greenfudge.org/2009/11/20/think-locally-act-globally-–-more-on-the-psychology-of-climate-change/
Graham, I see a glimmer of hope from your “If we believe the scientists, that is.”. After the revelations of Climategate and all of the subsequent IPCC-gates it’s good to see a staunch supporter of The (significant human-made global climate change) Hypothesis at last recognising that this is questionable!
I predict that the UN’s COP16 caper in Cancun will be as much a as was its COP15 fiasco in Copenhagen. It’s the gravy train that is heading for a catastrophe, not the global climates.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Best regards, Pete Ridley.