Scientists eye climate change masterplan
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Perilous Times*
Monday April 30, 8:13 PM
*Scientists eye climate change masterplan*
The world's leading climate change experts gathered in Bangkok on Monday
to thrash out a masterplan on limiting the worst impacts of global
warming, but amid deep divisions over how to go about it.
At least 400 scientists and experts from about 120 countries are
attending the week-long third session of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), the UN's leading authority on global warming.
Two reports issued earlier this year by the panel warned that the Earth
was already warming and predicted severe consequences including drought,
flooding, violent storms and increased hunger and disease.
The third report, expected to be released at the end of the meeting here
Friday, aims to lay out ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and
prevent a climate catastrophe without seriously hurting the global economy.
"The time to act is now," Chartree Chueyprasit, one of Thailand's top
environment officials, told the opening of the meeting.
"Global warming is increasingly becoming a hot agenda that requires
harmonised cooperation from all nations."
But achieving that harmony between so many diverse nations and agreeing
on exactly what action to take is expected to be the subject of fierce
debate, with some delegates predicting that the meeting will be hijacked
by politics.
"It's very difficult at these negotiations to try to find that level of
compromise and to try to find sustainable solutions that are equitable,"
said Peter Lukey, of South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs.
"This is a highly politicised event ... it's highly frustrating."
The European Union -- which has pledged to reduce its carbon dioxide
emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 -- may face off with
the United States and China, the world's biggest carbon polluters.
"I hope this gathering can produce balanced views, not just the views of
the developed countries," Chinese delegate Sun Guoshun told AFP.
Against this backdrop, the divisions over climate change were also
expected to dominate a Washington summit of US and European leaders at
the White House on Monday.
Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, played down tensions between the
major players and said they were hopeful of hammering out their
differences and reaching a conclusion by Friday.
"I think the nature of the subject is such that there will be a lot of
intensive debate but I'm sure we will be able to resolve any outstanding
issues without any major disruption in the proceedings," he told reporters.
"Ultimately it's a balanced assessment of the science which prevails."
An early draft of the panel's 24-page summary, seen by AFP, says that
world leaders have little time to waste, but that the tools for reducing
greenhouse gas emissions -- at a modest cost -- already exist.
Renewable energy, nuclear power, bio-fuels and reforestation are all in
the mix, but a spokesman for the UN Environment Programme said the draft
report was likely to be "completely rewritten" by the end of the week.
Sticking points at the Bangkok meeting could include taxes and caps on
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and any references to the Kyoto Protocol,
which the United States abandoned after President George W. Bush took
office.
Any mention of nuclear energy in the final report would incur the wrath
of many environmental groups.
One of the key issues set to be hotly debated is a so-called carbon
price -- finding a way to make consumers and businesses pay for the
pollution they create.
The findings of the report, which stops short of making recommendations,
will be used by governments and international organisations to map out
their own plans for preventing worst-case climate scenarios.
The report will also play a key role in Kyoto negotiations, which will
take place in December on the Indonesian island of Bali.
"The IPCC doesn't have any muscle, it has grey matter," Pachauri said.
"The muscle will have to come from somewhere else."