Industrialized Nations Planning 15 - 21% GHG Cuts By 2020 - Scientists Say 25-40% Needed - Reuters

[hatrack]

ONN, Germany (Reuters) - Industrialized nations excluding the United States are planning cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of between 15 and 21 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 under a new U.N. climate pact, official data showed on Tuesday. The numbers, issued to delegates at August 10-14 U.N. climate talks in Bonn, fall short of cuts of between 25 and 40 percent outlined by a U.N. panel of scientists to avert the worst of global warming such as heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels.

"Emissions ... are expected to be between 15 and 21 percent below 1990 levels by 2020," the U.N. Climate Secretariat said of the figures, compiled from widely differing plans by nations including Russia, Japan, Canada and European Union members.

Overall emissions by the 39 industrialized nations, based on the existing plans, would fall to the equivalent of between 10.71 and 9.86 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2020 from 12.53 billion metric tons in 1990.

The data excludes the United States, the top greenhouse gas emitter after China, which is outside the current Kyoto Protocol obliging all other industrialized nations to cut emissions by an average of at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. The 2020 numbers include a promise by New Zealand on Monday to cut emissions by 10-20 percent. Environmentalists criticized that goal for hinging on conditions such as agreement at U.N. talks in Copenhagen in December on a strong new climate deal.

EDIT

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE57926O20090811?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

[phantom power]

1. Ten years.

even a 15% GHG displacement in 10 years represents a colossal amount of activity. Building a hell of a lot of stuff.

I don't see any evidence of that kind of activity ramping up.

:shrug:

[Lorien]

2. A top issue, yet even on DU it gets almost no attention. nt