Despite a global recession, carbon dioxide emissions rose by 1.94 percent in 2008 to 31.5 billion tons, the 10th straight year of significant increases, according to the German renewable energy institute, IWR.
The institute calculated the increase using official government figures, noting that CO2 emissions have risen by 40 percent since 1990 — the year against which emissions reductions were to be measured for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse gases.
“Kyoto is not working out,” said IWR Managing Director Norbert Allnoch, who called on countries with high CO2 emissions to agree to proportionately high investments in renewable energy.
Meanwhile, Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N.’s Climate Change Secretariat, said that “time is running out” to lay the groundwork for a successful meeting in Copenhagen this December to draft a successor treaty to Kyoto. Speaking to delegates in Bonn who have gathered to forge a draft text for the Copenhagen summit, de Boer said the Bonn conclave has an “enormous amount of work to do” to pare down a draft text that has burgeoned from 50 to 200 pages.
Appearing courtesy of Yale Environment 360.
[photo credit: freefotouk]
1 comment
Of course the Kyoto Protocol doesn’t work. It only asked developed nations to cut their own emissions. China, India, Brazil and their fellow fast developing nations didn’t have to do anything and thus could keep on polluting and deforesting.
This situation was right in the 1990s when the Kyoto Protocol discussions begun. Now, the situation has evolved and the above-mentioned countries are developing fast and polluting even faster.
In 2007, 2/3 of the CO2 increase came from China. I guess it was still the same in 2008. Yet, the situation is moving.
As I noted on my blog last week, China is getting ready for Copenhagen and asks Western countries to move and cut our own emissions by 40 percent by 2020L. As I noted here in a comment – and on my blog – I believe it can be done.
Doing so would enable us to reach an agreement in Copenhagen in December, save us billions euros / dollars in energy expenditure – cf. your brilliant post on efficiency – create million of jobs that won’t be located elsewhere, and give Humanity a chance to avoid big problems. Not really a dark perspective…
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