European and Asian leaders pledged Monday to set new carbon dioxide emissions targets that go beyond those now set for 2012 under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.
But they set no firm targets now, bowing to Asian reluctance to do so...In a joint declaration, the 25 EU and 13 Asian leaders said they were determined to respond to climate change with international cooperation. They set no targets but each side pledged to do its best, a setback for the Europeans who had hoped for tougher action by their Asian counterparts, notably China.
Developing countries have "legitimate priority needs" to use economic growth to lift their people out of poverty, the joint statement said.
Europe and Asia promised to share low carbon "cleaner and climate-friendly" technologies, "without overlooking any relevant option, be it existing or new" — which includes nuclear power.
"We are committed to enhancing energy efficiency and scaling up new and renewable energy, adapted to local circumstances," they said. as oil and gas.
But in the longer term, the only real answers are technological breakthroughs, they agreed.
Leaders promised to push this forward, by working with international financing and development institutions to encourage investment in clean energy.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Helsinki Summit on Climate Change
The devil is always in the details, but... Asia and Europe are trying:
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3 comments:
The bottom line is the bottom line is the bottom line. Id love to do the right thing but...
China's present neglect of it's environmental health on the shoulders of rapid growth is unsustainable. Too bad, that the EU can scaresly hold itself up as an examplerary model having done all the same things to it's own air, waters and land during the past two Centuries or so. Are these new Asian industrialized economies able to accept perhaps a little lower growth rates remains to be seen? To this observer, it's doable only if they can be convinced about it's vitality to their interests, which it ofcourse is. Holier than thou preaching, however, will not do.
True about China and about the bottom line. There are some signs from China that it knows future growth is unsustainable. This wouldn't appear to be the case with its dam-building and growing consumption of fossil fuels. But there are a variety of people working on the problem, including consultants I've met in DC, Chinese grad students I have, and some government officials.
They'll simply have to do something. I think there's also hope for China because there is a fundamentally different, long-term notion of history involved in how many think of economic growth.
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