preventing global warming is in all coutries' interests.?

Question

why then is international agreement on substantial cuts in carbon dioxide emissions so hard to achieve?

Answer 1

> " preventing global warming is in all coutries' interests. "

Well, first of all, in the short term, it's not equally of interest to all countries. In Russia, for example, I think the folks living in Siberia might welcome a few extra degrees. But, yes, in the long run, I think there's no UNBIASED disagreement.

> " why then is international agreement on substantial cuts in carbon dioxide emissions so hard to achieve?"

Actually, international agreement HAS been achieved among the developed nations -178 out of 180 have signed on to Kyoto; the only 2 holdouts are the US and Australia. But, finally, here in the US, the good news is that the oil companies have recently begun giving up their resistance and Pres Bush followed suit in his State of the Union Address last week. We've embarrassed our federal government by having a grass roots movement supporting Kyoto: as of today, 168 Mayors, both democrats and republicans have pledged to meet or exceed Kyoto limits (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec05/kyoto_8-08.html ). I predict the US will fall into line this year, especially once the full 2007 IPCC report is released.

If your "substantial cuts" means going beyond Kyoto, then it's about cost. It's been leaked from the new IPCC report that just bringing emissions back to 1990 levels are expected to cost as much as 5% of the global gross domestic product (http://www.thebusinessonline.com/Document.aspx?id=83497085-CFCF-4763-AF81-687746BE6F0A ). It's all about cost - they don't want it to cost more than it would to do nothing and repair the damage. There's a time value of money consideration and worry among countries that they will have to do more than their rightful share. Apparently China was exempted from the 1990 target because it was so undeveloped in 1990 and Bush has used this as an excuse to walk out on the original Kyoto conference because this would leave the US in a position where it was unable to compete with China in the world market.

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To those that want to deny, minimize or rationalize the GW issue:

From a book published by Harvard University Press: "In 2001 a panel representing virtually all the world's governments and climate scientists announced that they had reached a consensus: the world was warming at a rate without precedent during at least the last ten millennia, and that warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases from human activity." (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WEADIS.html ). So, for the most part, scientists have been in agreement about this for the last 6 years.

Continuing research by mainstream science supports those conclusions. According to the US EPA, the US Climate Change Science Program CCSP) released a report in May 2006, "which addresses some of the long-standing difficulties in understanding changes in atmospheric temperatures and the basic causes of these changes." (http://epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc.html#ref ). When I look at the CCSP report, it says, "Our best scientific understanding is that:
• Increases in well-mixed greenhouse gases (which are primarily due to fossil fuel burning) result in largescale warming of the Earth’s surface and troposphere, and cooling of the stratosphere." (http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-chap5.pdf ). I encourage everyone to have a look at the full summary of the report for themselves and decide for yourself. It's easy reading.

NASA says, "the general consensus among scientists is that global warming is real and its overall effects are detrimental" (http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/ftp_docs/Global_Warming.pdf , page 6 )

In fact, it is so detremental that the Attorney General of California has filed suit against the 6 auto manufacturers and 5 utilities here in CA. (http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/cms06/06-082_0a.pdf?PHPSESSID=bcafe4e63eecea93153f25e6fe5bc9ba , http://ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/release.php?id=709&year=2004&month=7&PHPSESSID=5fa0700eb86a845983a94e26ab86a46e ) for ignoring the IPCC statements, stating in the lawsuit, "Defendants knew or should have known, and know or should know, that their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases contribute to global warming and to the resulting injuries and threatened injuries to California, its citizens and residents, environment, and economy."

There really is little controversy in the scientific community on this issue. There's a small handful of vocal people, many of whom have strong ties to the oil industry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Global_warming_skeptics ) who are keeping the debate alive. When people mention this or that group of scientists that represent the dissenting minority position, I would be curious what percentage that group constitutes.

Answer 2

Because in spite of the propaganda Al Gore is saying, there is not a consensus as to the causes. These conferences that you hear, what they do is only invite scientists who agree with them. Have you ever heard of the solar scientists who stated that NASA has found there is Global warming on the planet Mars? No human activity there. They claim global warming is is explicable by increased solar activity that began about 100 years ago, and which will end in 2020.

There are also scientists that are skeptical of the models used. They do not take everything into account. For instance. An increase in heat leads to an increase in water evaporation, which leads to an increase in cloud activity and a decrease in temperature and many different types of weather patterns that the computer models do not take into account.

If greenhouse gases leads to global warming, how can you account for the rise in temperatures from the 1940's till the 1970's despite the increase of green house gases? You had an increase in green house gases but a decrease in temperatures.

If the goal is to reduce the amount of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, and trees help reduce that amount, why not give credits to countries that plant trees?

China and India are the world biggest polluters of carbon monoxide. If they do not go on board, then any actions taken by other countries are useless. So many countries say they will only take action if China and India get on board.

I am not saying the skeptics are right, I am just answering your question as to why an agreement is hard to achieve.

Answer 3

A few points off the top of my head:

1 Not everyone agrees that there is global warming

If people in some countries, especially countries that are the main suspects, do not believe there is such a thing as global warming, then gettin them to agree to give up some of their current lifestyle is not easy.

2 Not all causes of global warming are equal, or are they?

Some countries contribute to global warming mainly via cows' gas, others via smoke that comes from cooking food, others via having anachronistic factories...
There is a question of perceived fairness; is the rucus I cause due to my use of my SUV the same as that caused by the poor farmer using wood to cook his food? Is it fair that I am asked to say drive less, and he is asked to cook less?

3 Do we pay for the present, the past, or the future?

The levels of carbon dioxide haven't surged all of a sudden due to our behaviour in the last 5 years. But they are the result of an accumulation over decades, centuries. Today's developed countries have developed as a result of their efforts in the past, and that included being the main culprits in terms of carbon dioxide emission in the past. Today, as they maintain their position, their levels are high. The developing nations are increasing their levels and will eventually join today's developed nations.

Where do we draw the line? Do we, like some suggest focus just on the present? Then we say that if say the US has to cut emisisons 10% from today's levels, so should India? But isn't that preventing India from reaching the standards of living the the US, preventing India of doing what the US has done, in order to keep the US ahead? Do as I say, but not as I have done?

Do we instead focus on the future? Do we make allowances of developing countries to achieve the standards of the developed countries?

4 Principal Agent issues

Our representatives at the negotiations do not necessarily represent what we want. It is true that, in most cases, they were elected by us. However, there are powerful lobbies; real cash for our representatives comes from companies, and these companies have a vested interest in keeping the status quo, keep producing carbon dioxide. Hence our representatives need not be representing what we want them to.

5 Free Ridership

Basically, if I can convince, lobby, brow beat my neighbour into cutting his emissions, then I will benefit at no cost to myself. So the more of the burden I can shift away from me and onto others, the better off I will be.

Answer 4

The reason the cuts are so hard to achieve is because most of the emmisions come from westernised countries. Therefore we are the ones who have to reduce them. Also these countries have become more and more reliant on things that cause emmisions like cars and electricity so giving them up when we take them so much for granted is also hard. It is however in our interests to do so as global warming causes us to have increasingly freak weather and will eventually flood the world! Its in the interests of human life.

Answer 5

That is simply because cutting your carbon emissions means making less money which is never a popular solution.

Answer 6

Man, I could use some global warming today. It is cold here. My hands are freezing. Bring on the CO2 and methane.

Answer 7

the only thank you to circumvent international warming is to maintain the solar's output at a continuing fee. The solar has greater to do with the temperature of the earth then all of guy. think of roughly this, scientist let us know that the earth has long undergone distinctive ice a while. no longer quickly the earth warmed sufficient to get us to the place we are actually without one little bit of man made enter. Now scientist ( seem at who money the study ) want us to have faith that guy is able to electrify the climate of the earth. The earth is going via cycles of warming and cooling and has long till now guy created pollutants. Many will say that the earth's climate is changing swifter sue to guy. How do all of us understand this? guy has only stored precise records for greater or less a hundred years so we've a small base of know-how to artwork from. pollutants is rarely a physically powerful thought so something we are able to do to maintain the earth clean is stable yet no longer the unconventional ideals noted, yet no longer lived by using, Al Gore and his followers

Answer 8

Greed pure&simple