US fights to water down global warming declaration
The US is fighting to lower goals and reduce UN involvement on global warming in preparation talks for next month’s G8 summit.
Reuters said Washington was objecting to specific targets and arguing against significant UN involvement.
The US stance risks provoking a major rift with Germany, which hosts the annual summit of the G8 industrialised nations in the Baltic Sea resort of Heligendamm between June 6 and 8.
Reuters reported that Washington was objecting to pledges to limit global temperature rises by 2C this century and to reduce total world greenhouse gas emissions to 50% below their 1990 levels by 2050.
The US has also questioned whether the UN is the best forum to tackle the issue, and has rejected a section of the declaration saying that carbon trading markets are a way of developing alternative technologies.
“They have rejected any mention of targets and timetables, don’t want the UN to get more involved and refuse to endorse carbon trading because it must by definition involve targets,” Reuters quoted a “well placed” source as saying.
The only current international agreement on the issue, the Kyoto protocol - which has never been signed by the US - effectively expires in 2012, and negotiations to find a successor have so far proved extremely sluggish.
It is hoped that a strong declaration at the G8 meeting could prompt progress at a major UN-arranged summit of world environment ministers in Bali in December.
guardian
Stumble it!
May 13th, 2007 at 6:29 am
Pertinent to the model, sea level rose a similar amount in the past 100 years and none of the model’s catastrophes happened. Models are GIGO. For instance, sequester enough CO2 and you starve plant life, cut down on oxygen and CO2, and freeze the planet. We will then need to burn the furniture to keep warm which could tip over into burning the remaining oxygen while we all choke in the cold. Sound incredible? It is.
The planet has evolved mechanisms over geological time (4.5 billion years of trial and error) to protect itself. Earth’s climate varies for a lot of extraterrestrial reasons. The shortest periodicity has to do with the interplay of solar activity and cosmic radiation from the Milky Way. During quiet periods of solar activity, like now, cosmic radiation penetrates the atmosphere and creates clouds where conditions permit. Over long periods this cools the earth. Most of the time however, sun’s magnetic activity induces earth’s geomagnetic field. The geomagnetic shields are up during most of the 11 year sun spot cycle. Earth’s cooling (1940-1965) and earth’s heating (balance of the 20th century) is 95% correlated to sunspot peak frequency. Short cycles induce cooling and long cycles induce warming. This is a magnificently balanced system because the total solar irradiance varies very little. The subtlety is the correlation with sunspot peak frequency. During the Maunder Minimum there were no sunspots and the world suffered through the Little Ice Age.
CO2 has come out of the planet during 4.5 billion years of volcanic activity. Plants use CO2 to produce carbohydrates, oxygen and water vapour. Free oxygen is not produced by volcanoes. CO2 has the property of inverse solubility. Global warming from the sun forces CO2 out of the ocean in increasing quantities like warming beer. CO2 is the effect, not the cause of the warming. Moreover, the absorption wavelength for CO2 in the spectrum is filled. CO2 will not contribute any more heating. The analogy is adding a second Venetian blind to your window may not make the room any darker.
Sea level is said to be rising (ICPP) at 2 – 3 mm a year. Since the Pleistocene it has risen 125 metres (6 mm a year) and most of the coastal tribes of the earth have a Noah. The coral reefs of the oceans have kept pace because of a symbiotic relationship with algae that keep them thriving in the sunlit surface of the sea no matter how fast sea level rises. Barrier bars like the Atlantic longshore bar are dynamic features that are fed sand by Piedmont rivers and maintain themselves in the surf zone. A summer beach is wide and fine and a winter beach is coarse and steep. Common sense needs to be applied.
By the way modern coal-fired power plants produce electricity, water vapour and CO2; plant food not pollution. The US has enough coal and oil shale to support itself for 1,000 years. This AGW piece is political, not scientific, and is coming out on party lines.