Monday, December 3, 2012

"Climate change is a much more wicked beast..."

Quote from a Nature piece, talking about the design problems of the Kyoto Protocol.  The piece was part of a special issue in Nature that examines the 1197 treaty and the way ahead.

More quotes from the series.

"Just a decade ago, 'adaptation' was something of a dirty word in the climate arena...As progress to reduce emissions has slowed in most countries, there has been a turn towards adaptation...For both wealthy and poor nations, the challenge is to convince people to act before it is too late (Adapting to a warmer world: not going back)."

"The main problem with the Kyoto approach is that it does not address the carbon footprint — carbon consumption. A country's (and an individual's) carbon footprint is best measured by looking at the carbon embedded in the goods and services that each consumes... Instead of taking a top-down approach that requires global agreement, climate-change policies can be constructed from the bottom up using three key building blocks: putting a tax on carbon consumption; switching from coal to gas as quickly as possible; and boosting spending on new energy technologies (Climate policy: the Kyoto approach has failed)."

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