The European commission has just reported that many member countries are falling drastically short of their targets in reducing carbon emissions and cutting greenhouse gases.
The European commission said that, based on current measures and policies, the emissions of the EU's original 15 members will be just 0.6% below 1990 levels by 2010. The EU-15 countries are committed under the Kyoto protocol to an 8% cut on 1990 levels by 2012. And this is far short of the target that some believe is necessary to avert global disaster – a cut of 90% in carbon emissions by 2030!
At the same time on Monday a report by Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank warned that climate change could push the global economy into the worst recession in recent history.
Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser, said this week that the Stern report showed that "if no action is taken we will be faced with the kind of downturn that has not been seen since the great depression and two world wars".
These findings come ahead of the UN conference on climate change in Nairobi early next month. Radical measures will have to be taken there and targets will have to be made binding to avert global chaos. At the moment, the 25 governments have set targets of up to 30% cuts by 2020 and 80% by 2050, but not made them binding.
Comments