Greenhouse gas emissions grew in the first decade of the 21st century
at a rate almost double that of the previous 30 years, despite the 2008
economic downturn, a leaked portion of the UN's International Panel on
Climate Change's latest research reveals.
"Global GHG [greenhouse
gas] emissions have risen more rapidly between 2000 and 2010," says the
leaked portion of the the draft report obtained by the Guardian, adding, "Current GHG emissions trends are at the high end of projected levels for the last decade."
According to the report, the drastic upswing in emissions is largely due to an increased reliance on coal-fired power plants.
As Suzanne Goldenberg at the Guardian reports,
there are over 1,000 new plants under construction around the world,
with most arising in China and India. As the IPCC research highlights,
those plants are largely supplying power for factories making goods for
the U.S. and Europe.
Countries such as Germany, Britain and France have also significantly increased coal burning.
The latest draft says emissions grew 2.2% per year between 2000 and
2010, compared to 1.3% per year over the previous three decades.
And between 2010 and 2011 emissions grew 3%.
This noted increase in emissions coincides with a recent report
released by the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which
said 13 of the 14 warmest years on record occurred in the 21st century.
That report said the extreme weather systems wreaking havoc across
the world would have been "virtually impossible" without man-made
climate change, caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
The IPCC's leaked draft comes as the third part of the the panel's
extensive climate change assessment, which has been released in portions
over the past year.
The scientists are in Berlin this week finalizing the research and will release a "Summary for Policymakers" of the "Working Group III contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)" in a press conference in Berlin on Sunday.
"This third part was supposed to be focused on solutions," writes
Goldenberg. "Instead, the report made increasingly clear the large and
growing gap in the scale of the threat and the readiness of those
solutions."
What little solutions are offered in the report were criticized
earlier this week by a British environmental organization, which also
recently reviewed the draft. The group said many of the climate fixes
suggested by the IPCC, such as bioenergy and carbon capture, are
"largely untested" and "very risky" and could "exacerbate" climate
change, agricultural problems, water scarcity, soil erosion and energy
challenges, "rather than improving them."
from here
Let's face it - there is neither interest nor resolve in the capitalist system to do anything at all about this threatened disaster. Profit is the sole motivation. All the talking shops have fallen far short of what is required. The only hope for a solution will come from a fundamental change of approach globally which SOYMB calls world socialism.
JS
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