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Chen Lin

What to Watch for in Copenhagen | Foreign Policy - 0 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...hat_to_watch_for_in_copenhagen

climate change warming Copenhagen international cooperation

shared by Chen Lin on 09 Dec 09 - No Cached
  • Obama recently pledged that the United States would reduce emissions about 17 percent by 2020 as compared with 2005 levels (though the Wall Street Journal is reporting that he might soon announce steeper cuts for 2050); his current pledge reflects numbers in bills now under review by Congress. The president probably can't offer much more without risking that any final treaty would later be rejected by Congress, similar to what happened when the U.S. Senate failed to ratify the Kyoto climate treaty in 1997.
  • Rather than absolute carbon cuts, some developing countries, including China and India, have declared goals of reducing the "carbon intensity" of their economies. In other words, they will use less carbon per unit of GDP growth, but as their overall economies grow, so too will carbon emissions, at least for the short term. China has pledged to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 40 to 45 percent. India has a target of 20 to 25 percent. The targets have been applauded by some as a step forward and pilloried by others as far too low.
  • The upshot: Nothing will happen unless there's money behind it, and for some countries, the financial pledge may be as politically difficult as the carbon-reduction pledge. (Sen. John Kerry has proposed that the United States pony up $2.5 billion to $3 billion, roughly equivalent to the annual budget of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.) With many industrialized countries stuck in recessions and struggling with high unemployment, short-term generosity will be difficult.
  • Chen Lin on 09 Dec 09
     
    Why Copenhagen and other international agreements won't work.
Chen Lin

The U.N. Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen 101 - 0 views

www.americanprogress.org/...print.html

climate change warming Copenhagen united states economy

shared by Chen Lin on 09 Dec 09 - No Cached
  • The Obama administration established new federal greenhouse gas pollution limits. An October executive order requires federal government agencies to set greenhouse gas emission reduction targets that must be met by 2020. All of these actions, along with additional steps forward, will help enhance American economic competitiveness. And on December 7, Environmental Protection Agency Adminstrator Lisa Jackson announced the "endangerment finding" under the Clean Air Act. This enables EPA to finalize limits on global warming pollution from motor vehicles and large industrial sources. President Obama would prefer that Congress, rather than EPA, establish these pollution limits, but the endangerment finding means that EPA will act if Congress fails to do so.
  • China announced a carbon reduction target. The Obama administration’s hard work with China and India is starting to pay off. China announced on Thanksgiving Day a target of reducing carbon pollution per unit of gross domestic product by 40 to 45 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. This is the first time China has committed to specific carbon reductions. The November joint statement by Presidents Obama and Hu Jintao on the creation of a greenhouse gas inventory between the U.S. EPA and China will make it possible to measure and verify these reductions.
  • India announced a carbon reduction target. India announced on December 2, soon after the U.S.-India summit in Washington, that it intends to offer a target for decreasing its carbon intensity 24 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. This is the first time India has proposed its own specific carbon reduction target, which adds to its already established commitment to set the largest solar power generation target in the world.
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  • Current and planned policies would already yield 65 percent of needed reductions. Project Catalyst and the Center for American Progress modeled the pollution reductions from policies implemented and proposed by the 16 nations of the Major Economies Forum and the 27 countries of the European Union. The best-case scenario shows that these policies provide 65 percent of the immediate reductions science recommends by 2020. This would help the world limit total atmospheric concentration to 450 parts per million of carbon equivalent. This is the stabilization pathway that the Nobel Prize-winning International Panel on Climate Change estimates is necessary to limit temperature increase to 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
  • An international agreement would restart the global economy. A binding international agreement would spark more public and private outlays for clean-energy technologies to capitalize on emerging clean-energy investment opportunities abroad and at home. A report to be released at Copenhagen by the Center for American Progress as part of the nine-party Global Climate Network estimates that part of the current and proposed clean-energy proposals in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Nigeria, South Africa, India, China, Australia, and Brazil would produce a total of 19.7 million jobs.
  • Chen Lin on 09 Dec 09
     
    Various cards regarding climate change. Lots of good uniqueness and solvency evidence.
Chen Lin

Copenhagen, EPA, and climate change: Obama's false move | csmonitor.com - 0 views

www.csmonitor.com/...p08s01-comv.htm

EPA Copenhagen warming Obama administration Carbon emissions

shared by Chen Lin on 08 Dec 09 - Cached
  • The agency is also on weak legal ground in interpreting a four-decade-old law that was never intended to deal with global warming. And its efforts might be hung up in courts for years, providing yet another excuse for Congress not to act. (Both businesses and some eco-activists are expected to challenge the EPA move.)
  • Letting the agency take the initiative also makes the effort against global warming vulnerable to a new president reversing its action in future years.
  • In 1976, the EPA tried to avoid regulating diverse sources for lead emissions, focusing on major ones. But in a lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council, it lost in court. It should not try such a move again.
  • Chen Lin on 08 Dec 09
     
    Obama's choice to allow the EPA to regulate carbon emissions will probably be annulled by court challenges or future presidents.
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