2015
Posted on | October 1, 2009 | No Comments
It’s been nearly 12 years since the Kyoto Protocol was initially adopted for use, and over 4 years since it was enacted. Over 183 parties have ratified the Protocol. In the map below, the countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol are shown in green; the countries that have no intention of ratifying the Protocol are shown in red.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
Ok, you say. The United States’ failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol is old news, why the reminder? Well, it’s because this December in Copenhagen we may have the opportunity to (try to) make up for (some) lost time. I was made aware of this opportunity last week when I saw the movie The Age of Stupid, a film about climate change in the vein of An Inconvenient Truth. It’s a documentary-fiction-drama hybrid meant to illuminate the way we’ve squandered away our natural resources, namely oil, and it’s meant to mobilize the audience towards finding a more sustainable energy source so that we don’t tip the balance of greenhouse gas emissions past the point of no return.
Which brings up a very interesting, even alarming, observation: this “point of no return” is actually coming up very quickly, in the year 2015. The movie described 2015 as the year when most of the world’s scientists, including those who co-authored the IPCC 4th Assessment report, agree that CO2 emissions must peak if the world is to avert total climate ruin.
Let me just repeat that so we’re clear: CO2 emissions must PEAK in the year 2015 if the world is to avert total climate ruin.
So, forgive me if I take a slightly alarmist stance here, but has anyone noticed that 2009 is almost over? Which gives us just over 5 years to grind down our total CO2 emissions so that we don’t ruin the planet completely? I think it’s a pretty tall order too, considering some people in this country are still fighting a fake war in the media over whether global warming is just a conspiracy theory instead of actual fact. (Sidebar: has anyone ever stopped to think that people who continue to claim that global warming is a hoax probably don’t live within the red zone of where the coastlines will be erased when the ice caps start to melt? Do we have to airlift these people to a melting glacier on Mont Blanc to get them to see that climate change is actually happening?)
But I digress. The UN climate summit in Copenhagen this December is the world’s chance to finalize the successor to the Kyoto Protocol – in other words, it’s our chance to get it right. And since we have just over FIVE YEARS to get it right, you can bet that I’m going to be a cheerleader for the Obama Administration to change this country’s stance from a big fat red “NO” on that map up there, to a big green “GO” – as in, GO STOP OUR GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS.
Just to emphasize my point, I added a new “countdown” widget on the blog over there on the right. I’m calling it the Countdown to PEAK GHG EMISSIONS for obvious reasons (I’m giving us until the first day of Fall, 2015 to do so). I mean, seriously – FIVE years! Some people can’t even finish college in five years, and we’re supposed to solve global warming in that time? Guess I’d better get to work…
Tags: carbon > change > climate > emissions > gas > globalwarming > greenhouse > politics
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