By Jon Herskovitz
DURBAN Dec 12 (Reuters) – The world is forecast to
grow hotter, sea levels to rise, intense weather to wreak even
more destruction and the new deal struck by governments in
Durban to cut greenhouse gas emissions will do little to lessen
that damage.
Climate data from U.N. agencies indicates that the
accumulation of heat-trapping gases will rise to such levels
over the next eight years – before the newly agreed regime of
cuts in emissions is supposed to be in place – that the planet
is on a collision course with permanent environmental change.
Countries around the globe agreed on Sunday to forge a new
deal forcing all the biggest polluters for the first time to
limit greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. But critics said the
plan was too timid to slow global warming.
For a reduction plan to have a major impact, analysts say,
the world’s largest emitter, China, needs to be weaned from
coal-intensive power sources that are choking the planet with
carbon dioxide (CO2) and developed countries must spend heavily
to change the mix of sources from which they draw their energy.
But they see little political will to implement these costly
plans and argue that the U.N. process showed, in two weeks of
talks in the South African city of Durban, that it is bloated,
broken and largely incapable of effecting sweeping change.
“The challenge is that we begin the talks from the lowest
common denominator of every party’s aspirations,” said Jennifer
Haverkamp, director of the international climate program for
Environmental Defense Fund, a U.S. group which campaigns against
pollution.
“For this effort to be successful, countries need to be
ambitious in their commitments and to refuse to use these
negotiations as just another stalling tool,” she said.
Domestic political constraints make it unlikely that pledges
in Durban for more green projects in the developed world and
stepped up aid for developing countries will come to fruition
given problems for government funding in Europe, the United
States and Japan.
Continued…
