Climate Change Staying With Kyoto Protocol

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Climate change staying with Kyoto Protocol

By Pongphon Sarnsamak

The Nation

The Kyoto Protocol - due to expire next year - legally binds industrialised nations to reduce greenhousegas emissions, and their support must continue, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti said yesterday.

"We need to extend the enforcement of the Kyoto Protocol until we have a new mechanism to reduce greenhouse gases," he said.

Suwit made his remarks in a speech to the UN Climate Change Conference Bangkok 2011 - the first formal round of climatechange negotiations this year. More than 2,500 scientists, environmental activists and lobbyists from 192 countries are attending.

"We support extension of the Kyoto Protocol because we have no confidence in rich nations signing up for a second commitment period," he said.

The second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol sets binding greenhousegas emission targets on rich nations from 2013 to 2018.

The uncertainty of industrialised nations supporting the second commitment will affect the mechanism to reduce emissions, Suwit said.

To date, only Japan and Russia are cool towards extending the Kyoto Protocol - while the Group of 77 developing countries and China have expressed strong support for its extension.

"If the Kyoto Protocol expires, industrialised nations will no longer take responsibility for reducing greenhousegas emissions," the source said.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, the world should aim to reduce greenhousegas emissions by 30 per cent since it was established in 1997.

Suwit also called for rich nations to support financial resources and technology transfer to developing nations to fight global warming - but, the source said, so far there had been no progress from developed nations in helping developing countries.

Representatives from Japan have insisted strongly that their country will not support an extension of the Kyoto Protocol. However, they said it would continue its role in tackling climate change and make all possible contributions.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said financial support and technology transfers from rich nations to developing countries were being discussed in the meeting, together with the extension of the protocol.

Noeleen Heyzer, executive secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap), said climate change was no longer a distant threat. It was a reality and a sign of what lies ahead.

Disasters related to weather and climate are occurring in the AsiaPacific with increasing frequency. The human toll is immense - more than any other region. In fact, Asia has accounted for 80 per cent of the world's deaths caused by natural disaster in the past decade.

"Action on climate change therefore cannot wait, and people are calling for action now.

We need a new sense of urgency and responsibility," she said. "It is our responsibility to not only protect our people and our economy today, but also to prepare for future economies.

We must be responsible in how we use the Earth's resources. The gifts which we take for granted are not guaranteed."

-- The Nation 2011-04-06

[givenall]

Rich or poor does not make any differences, everyone is only thinking of themself

[Thaddeus]

Disasters related to weather and climate are occurring in the AsiaPacific with increasing frequency. The human toll is immense - more than any other region. In fact, Asia has accounted for 80 per cent of the world's deaths caused by natural disaster in the past decade.

Any chance of getting a breakdown of how much of that 80% is made up from earthquakes and tsunamis that we have no control over, landslides etc that we do actually cause by raping the land and the old fave of maybe it's getting a bit warmer or maybe it isn't, which I firmly believe we have no control over either.

This is the thing that really sticks in my throat, yes we need to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, yes we need to recycle more, but we need to do it for the right bloody reasons.

Ah, but the problem is, you can't levy a tax on the right reasons.

[RickBradford]

Any chance of getting a breakdown of how much of that 80% is made up from earthquakes and tsunamis that we have no control over, landslides etc that we do actually cause by raping the land and the old fave of maybe it's getting a bit warmer or maybe it isn't, which I firmly believe we have no control over either.

Easily the biggest killers are infectious disease and famine; things like malaria, TB, and even measles routinely kill in multiple millions; next are the big earthquake/tsunamis and major cyclones, which kill a few hundred thousand at worst on an occasional basis.

Other storms and landslides usually kill in the hundreds, although the Vargas event was bigger.

So if we're talking strictly about human mortality, what is needed is more development for poor countries, not less. That means giving them cheap electricity, which at this point in time means fossil fuels.

EDIT: Here's the co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, talking about the climate change issue.

Edited April 6, 2011 by RickBradford

[hammered]

After the Japan disaster and wreckage that is now the nuclear power industry, it is quite likely we will see an increase in carbon emissions as reversion to coal or oil fired power stations occurs. The nuclear power industry had ridden the green wave as a marketing tool, but that now lies in tatters and people are going to be rioting if any government proposes setting up a nuclear power station anywhere near them, and quite rightly. However, the demand for energy just keeps rising insanely and has to be met somehow and between them the oil andnuclear industires have stylied any attepmts at safe and clean power generation leaving us facing the choic eoif increased CO2 or having your kids iradiated. Merkels government already got whacked in local elections over this issue.

[Thaddeus]

EDIT: Here's the co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, talking about the climate change issue.

Thank you Rick, very informative, more people should watch that IMO

[djlest]

i would urge people to check our Professor IAN PLIMER

another great scientific and non sensational rational thinking individual

shame we dont have more running the earth...

[Thaddeus]

i would urge people to check our Professor IAN PLIMER

another great scientific and non sensational rational thinking individual

shame we dont have more running the earth...

‘The hypothesis that human activity can create global warming is extraordinary because it is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology,’ says Plimer, and while his thesis is not new, you’re unlikely to have heard it expressed with quite such vigour, certitude or wide-ranging scientific authority. Where fellow sceptics like Bjorn Lomborg or Lord Lawson of Blaby are prepared cautiously to endorse the International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) more modest predictions, Plimer will cede no ground whatsoever. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory, he argues, is the biggest, most dangerous and ruinously expensive con trick in history.

Wise words.

What really saddens me is how so many socialist 'best for the planet' 'do goody merchants' have fallen for this oh so obvious capitalistic lie of our pimple effect on this planet being more important than it actually is.

Darwin was only right to a certain point, that point was reached a few years ago.