More Climate Change Talks
While the White House was hosting talks in Washington, Bill Clinton had world leaders and worthies of every stripe in New York talking about, among other things, climate change. The indispensable “Financial Times” has considerable coverage here on the Energy & Climate Change discussions at the Clinton Global Initiative 2007. The “FT” has ongoing coverage on climate change in another of their “In Depth” sections here.
Of particular interest might be the remarks from U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former board chairman of the Nature Conservancy, who told people at Clinton’s gathering: “There’s a huge scientific predicate that if we don’t do things today, we’re not going to be able to avoid the possibility of some very, very bad outcomes 30 or 40 years from now.”
Meanwhile, in Washington, the two-day gathering of top officials called by President Bush to address climate change produced some strong words from U.S. Secretary of State Rice. See Washington changes its tune on climate, also from the “FT.” Rice said: “It is our responsibility as global leaders to forge a new international consensus on how to solve climate change…” Rhetoric? Certainly. But the mere fact that you’ve got the Treasury and State secretaries being more outspoken than anyone within the Bush administration has ever been is a sign of some progress. (Here’s the release on the Washington meetings from the White House.)
“Aspirational goals” is the term they’ve been using for getting GHG down. (See blog post on APEC below.) Well, that doesn’t sound too stirring. I continue to believe that real action will only take place from within our federal government when we have a new president. That does not mean, as this blog has been noting for months, that real action isn’t already being taken by states, cities, foundations, companies and NGOs within this country. In fact, we are continuing to see real leadership from many of these entities. When the federal government finally gets on board, in reality, we may have an excellent chance to avert the worst of the looming climate change crisis – and create a new economic and energy paradigm for our planet.
Speaking of which, Bill McKibben, the author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, has a useful piece in the most recent “NY Review of Books” titled “Can Anyone Stop It?” It is a review of several books, including the “skeptical environmentalist” Bjørn Lomborg’s newest book: Cool It. McKibben skewers this latest offering from the radical right wing’s favorite “authority.” (See my reference to the Heartland Institute in Bits and Bobs – Autumn Edition below.) Here’s a taste of McKibben’s disdain: “But Lomborg’s actual arguments turn out to be weak, a farrago of straw men and carefully selected, shopworn data that holds up poorly in light of the most recent research, both scientific and economic.” There’s more. McKibben, as noted at this blog more than once, is an eloquent, lucid, passionate voice for sanity on this most crucial of environmental issues.
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:20 am
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. Just wanted inform you of a recently launched blog which may be of interest to you, End Poverty in South Asia (http://endpovertyinsouthasia.worldbank.org/), which addresses common issues you’re discussing and has a recent post on issue of climate change.
The blog is maintained by Shanta Devarajan, the Chief Economist of the South Asia Region at the World Bank. Its goal is to create conversation around how South Asia can end poverty in a generation. Briefly, part of the post on climate change is below:”As world leaders meet this week in New York and Washington to discuss climate change and ways to mitigate its effects, the discussion frequently turns to the large, fast-growing economies such as China and India who are, and are likely to be, among the largest emitters of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases. But despite being the world’s second most populous country and fourth largest economy, India’s CO2 emissions is still only one-fifth that of the U.S. or China. Furthermore, India is one of the lowest-intensity producers of CO2 among the large countries. India’s per-capita emissions of CO2 is about one metric ton per person, compared with 4 as the world average, 9 for the United Kingdom and 20 for the U.S.. In a group of 70 of the world’s largest emitters, India ranks in the bottom 10 (http://go.worldbank.org/0XAV4BYO60). In terms of carbon emissions per unit of GDP (measured at Purchasing Power Parity, or PPP), too, India is virtually the lowest among comparator countries (see chart). Finally, unlike in other countries, India’s carbon intensity did not rise as economic growth accelerated in the last decade.”
See the full post and share your thoughts here: http://endpovertyinsouthasia.worldbank.org/