Heading in the right direction
From the BBC – EU outlines new carbon permits
Obviously it is easy to dismiss this as flawed/a day late and a dollar short/etc. etc. but I don’t think there is much point in being too cynical. The EU is one of the only significant global political players showing leadership in this area. At first glance it seems to me that they are trying to strike a balance between streching political and public support as far as possible without having it break. Public support for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is growing quickly but is still fragile. Perhaps I’m being naive but I don’t see this as the end game for 2008-2012 but rather a starting point. The pendulum is swinging, however slowly, in the right direction.
Meanwhile, although it’s not elegant, the US post mid-terms might finally be moving in the right direction:
WHEN the subject is global warming, America is usually cast as the villain. Although it produces a quarter of the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet, it refuses to regulate them. When many other countries agreed on an international treaty to do so—the Kyoto Protocol—America failed to ratify it. But not all American officialdom is happy with the federal government’s stance. A dozen states disagree so fiercely they are suing to force it to impose rules on emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. The Supreme Court was due to hear arguments in the case on Wednesday November 29th. The outcome will not be known for several months, but the political wind seems to be shifting in favour of firmer action to counter climate change.
…Even if these attempts at regulation fail, they are a good indication of many state governments’ determination to tackle climate change. California, as usual, is in the vanguard. Its legislature has passed another law that will first cap and then gradually reduce industrial emissions of greenhouse gases. Seven eastern states have formed something called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which will treat emissions from power plants in the same way. Almost 400 mayors around the country have signed a non-binding agreement to reduce their cities’ emissions in keeping with the Kyoto Protocol. Many members of the incoming Congress, and several of the leading presidential contenders for 2008, are much keener on emissions caps than Mr Bush. Change, so to speak, is in the air.
And we need to support ideas like this:
The International Institute for Environment and Development, a British think-tank, has estimated that logging, and the subsequent use of the land cleared each year, in eight forested countries, would bring in $5 billion over a 30-year period. That translates into a benefit of $3.50 for every tonne of carbon dioxide released. So far rich countries have paid an average of $7 per tonne to reduce emissions in the developing world, under the Kyoto protocol. At that rate they could pay deforesters twice as much to leave trees alone as the latter get now for cutting them down.
