14 DAY TRIAL // According to BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin, the upcoming G8 meeting, to reunite the leaders of the most developed countries in the world plus Russia, will most likely set new standards for carbon emissions to be respected by the whole world. Plans are to reduce greenhouse gas outputs by more than 80 percent by 2050, in a bid to keep the planet from warming more than 2 degrees. It is generally agreed on that a larger level of global warming could have devastating consequences on the environment, both on ice caps and on biodiversity.
Despite the fact that the political will is there, it may be that the short-term goals, which are arguably the most important, will actually be scaled back, or at least not implemented for a period of time. Representatives from the United States at the conference said under the protection of anonymity that it was highly unlikely the US would be able to ramp up clean energies in the country, in spite of president Obama's will to do so. “American officials have privately told BBC News they just can't cut emissions as fast as they know is required,” Harrabin said.
The news come as the United Kingdom's ex-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is urging rich and developed nations to invest heavily in clean technologies at this point, when global warming can still be stopped dead in its tracks. Additionally, he stated, funding must be granted for developing nations, if they are to curb deforestation and overexploitation of the soil. Recently, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged the creation of a multi-billion pound fund, to be accessed by developing countries, and replenished by already-developed ones.
“We have an American administration committed to tackling climate change. We have a Chinese administration that's no longer saying you guys have created the problem – you solve it, but has immersed itself in this challenge,” Tony Blair said recently. He also underlined the fact that we currently possess all the technology we might need to avert global warming, but that profits and political will were all that was missing from this equation. “This is now at the stage where it's been taken out of the hands of campaigners and into the hands of the people who are going to have to get the job done,” he added for the same news outlet.
The most important cornerstone in the fight against climate change and global warming is coming fast. The UN summit that will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, this December will be the culmination of nearly 12 years of negotiations and fights, which have existed since the Kyoto Protocol was signed back in 1997. Since that time, it has become more than obvious that global warming is not the fantasy of some scientists with too much free time on their minds, but a harsh reality, that we will have to deal with sooner rather than later.