by So what do our leaders do? They kick the climate change treaty can down the road nine years to 2020. And who knows besides nobody whether such a treaty will ever be consumated even then.
They are cheering tonight in the boardrooms at Exxon and BP and Shell and coal mining companies.
Rich nations 'give up' on new climate treaty until 2020
Ahead of critical talks and despite pledge for new treaty by 2012, biggest economies privately admit likelihood of long delay
By Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent guardian.co.uk,
Sunday 20 November 2011 20.54 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... intcmp=122
Critically, and despite such pledges, the PM and leaders are now likely to delay any climate agreement until 2012 .
Governments of the world's richest countries have given up on forging a new treaty on climate change to take effect this decade, with potentially disastrous consequences for the environment through global warming.
Ahead of critical talks starting next week, most of the world's leading economies now privately admit that no new global climate agreement will be reached before 2016 at the earliest, and that even if it were negotiated by then, they would stipulate it could not come into force until 2020.
The eight-year delay is the worst contemplated by world governments during 20 years of tortuous negotiations on greenhouse gas emissions, and comes despite intensifying warnings from scientists and economists about the rapidly increasing dangers of putting off prompt action.
After the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009 ended amid scenes of chaos, governments pledged to try to sign a new treaty in 2012. The date is critical, because next year marks the expiry of the current provisions of the Kyoto protocol, the only legally binding international agreement to limit emissions.
The UK, European Union, Japan, US and other rich nations are all now united in opting to put off an agreement and the United Nations also appears to accept this.
Developing countries are furious, and the delay will be fiercely debated at the next round of international climate talks beginning a week on Monday in Durban, South Africa.
The Alliance of Small Island States, which represents some of the countries most at risk from global warming, called moves to delay a new treaty "reckless and irresponsible".
Postponing an operational agreement until 2020 would be fatal to hopes of avoiding catastrophic climate change, according to scientists, economists and green campaigners.
Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA), and one of the world's foremost authorities on climate economics, told the Guardian: "If we do not have an international agreement whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door to [holding temperatures below 2C] will be closed forever."
Lord Stern, author of a landmark review of the economics of climate change, said aiming for a 2020 deadline was "pessimistic and risks introducing lethargy" to the process: "It's not fast enough – this is a collective failure, and [leaving agreement to] 2020 is taking considerable risks with the planet."
Continues ...
A world that's warmer in 2100 by four or six degrees C above what it was in 1900 will be largely unrecognizeable to us and hell to live with, far too costly to adapt our way of life to it so we can expect some new "way of life" to emerge. Odds are it won't be a pretty sight.
How many here will still be alive come the year 2050? If you're among that subset you are in for some real shit in your time, shit that may even kill you, and yours, and theirs too.
We're already having a lot of difficulties trying to adapt to a new economic reality, but that pales in comparison to what's coming climatewise. We've already seen the beginnings, and by 2050 it's going to be really underway and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. See that light ahead? Yep, that's the climate change train coming, dead-on and faster than a midnight freight. You won't miss it when it hits. It'll be the worst thing you ever imagined. It'll take your dreams and crush them like so many grapes and never look back.
