Failures of the UN Climate Conference will be solved by science
'The problem of climate change will be solved by engineers and scientists, not bureaucrats.'
By Zafrir Rinat Tags: Israel news Israel environmentThe main objective for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen that ended yesterday was to update the convention on the subject; that document had been signed by most of the world's countries. The convention is the binding legal tool as far as international law is concerned.
This update was meant to include a string of commitments to reduce greenhouse gases according to the principle of shared but differing responsibilities - this distributes the burden in a manner that makes rich countries responsible for most of the reduction and funding in poorer countries.
In the event, a group of countries, led by the United States, came up in Copenhagen with a path that runs parallel to that of the United Nations. They did it by drawing up a document that purports to be an action plan. But the degree to which it binds its cosignatories remains unclear.
Their program aims to make sure that the Earth's average temperature does not rise by more than two degrees Celsius by 2050. The means would be to meet individual emission-reduction levels, predetermined by each of the program's member states.
This is to be pursued in parallel with massive funding for poorer countries. There is also a vague reference to creating a mechanism to make sure the required actions are undertaken.
This agreement represents progress because for the first time a varied group of countries is willing to commit to set reduction levels. Another crucial but underappreciated achievement is the funding pledge for anti-deforestation.
But the paper that came out of the Copenhagen conference is just a paper, which could lose all meaning with the first disagreement on implementation. The goals are not satisfactory, to say the least, and the paper does not enjoy very broad international support.
Maybe the time has come to seriously consider greater investment in programs that do not require UN discussions that cannot be agreed on by everyone. Such programs need to be based on financial and technological incentives to significantly reduce emission levels of greenhouse gases.
"The problem of climate change will be solved by engineers and scientists, not bureaucrats," the New York Times' Thomas Friedman recently said about this approach in an interview with Israeli magazine Odisea.
"The problem [can be solved] by inventors and innovators, not regulators. We need to encourage green solutions," he added. "Out of a thousand promising solutions, two will be the Google and the Microsoft of cleantech." But UN discussions introduce a human element. For example, when UN climate change secretary Yvo de Boer was asked yesterday where Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard had gone, he said: "She's exhausted."
Why Facebook Connect?
Comment on Haaretz.com articles with your Facebook login, and share your thoughts on your own wall.
- Latest
- Most Viewed
- Most Rated
- Open all
Science advances rapidly and future generations will be richer too. Right now, in the middle of the mother of all recessions, it is WRONG to throw hundreds of billions of dollars on African corrupt potentates. It makes no more sense for us to sacrifice our well-being for the next generations than it would to expect 18th century peasants to go without gruel so we can buy more computers. Enough with relying on politicians to bankrupt all of us, except themselves! Give the money to science!
The Copenhagen agreement is a long-term disaster that will resonate until we adopt a new economic model for the world ? but probably too late. Indeed, it is the political leaders and their masters, the great industrial powers, who will not change the status quo due to their self interest and basically national greed. Not until we have political and industrial leaders who understand clearly that our economic model is what is wrong the world will continue towards a level where economic livelihoods and sustainable outcomes become irreversible. Indeed, it will be their mutual destruction also that will come to pass. Then the human race will be in the years of global wars to survive and the acquisition of 'scarce' natural minerals and resources for their nations? personal self-preservation. Then the penny might drop but where it will be far too late by then to reverse events. The Copenhagen agreement should have brought about a total reduction in temperatures over the long-term and where the financial costs were found over the years to come in order that a balance in the inequalities between developed and developing nations were solved. The costs for not doing so will inevitably be far, far greater. WE have lost a golden chance to stop the critical decline in the human experience but where our political leaders and industrialists are blind presently to what is really upon the horizon for humankind in this very century. The defining century to whether humans as a species will live on or die. Dr David Hill World Innovation Foundation Charity Bern, Switzerland
Your e-mail pseudonym is as pretentious as your school teacher criticism of this article's author and Thomas Friedman. "Friedman needs not to be quoted" is quite reminiscent of the East Anglia Climate Research Institute e-mail exchanges suggesting not to quote those who challenge the "settled science" and to cut them off the peer review process. Friedman is getting plain boring and has unfortunately signed up completely to the climate hoax. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean he "needs not to be quoted". How come those calling themselves "progressive" are so intolerant?
You quote Thomas Friedman of "The New York Times" as stating that "[t]he problem of climate change will be solved by engineers and scientists, not bureaucrats..." I doubt that that will be Friedman's last self-sufficient comment. It most certainly isn't his first personal contribution to global warming. He is by no means a careful thinker. The idea that capitalism depends solely on Schumpeterian innovators unhampered by any central authority was playfully concocted by Lewis Carroll. In point of fact, capitalism requires a regulatory framework--a host of bureaucratic signals, if you will--wherein investment decisions can be made with less uncertainty than under a mythical laissez-faire market. Your newspaper could easily find talented commentators in Israel, Europe, Australia or the United States who would make it patently clear that Thomas Friedman need not be quoted.
Instead of Friedman read this: http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/12/17/the-emperor%E2%80%99s-new-carbon-credits/