The United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia ended with a compromise deal to move forward on negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. No specific targets are included in the "roadmap" document. In reality this is a fudge which commits countries to negotiate. Under the deal it is proposed that a new treaty should be negotiated by 2009 to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The portents for a new treaty are not good. Watery promises from China and India to tackle CO2 emissions mean little. At the conference China and India emphasized their determination to pursue aggressive economic development policies. Coal will continue to play a major role in power generation in India, China and Russia and the US. Yet all the emphasis is on the US as the villain of the peace. China appears to have overtaken the U.S. as the world's largest total emitter of CO2 because of its huge population, strong economic growth and heavy dependence on coal to generate electricity. China creates 25% of the worlds CO2.
Any new treaty- without binding commitments from China , Russia, India and Japan- is practically worthless.
Such a treaty must address the destruction of the Amazonian Rain forests. The EU must alter its hypocritical stance whereby it imports beef produced on ranches carved out of the rain forests. Perhaps Al Gore will now savage Chinese environmental policy. This is unlikely to happen as Gore is more interested in embarrassing the Bush administration.
The portents for a new treaty are not good. Watery promises from China and India to tackle CO2 emissions mean little. At the conference China and India emphasized their determination to pursue aggressive economic development policies. Coal will continue to play a major role in power generation in India, China and Russia and the US. Yet all the emphasis is on the US as the villain of the peace. China appears to have overtaken the U.S. as the world's largest total emitter of CO2 because of its huge population, strong economic growth and heavy dependence on coal to generate electricity. China creates 25% of the worlds CO2.
Any new treaty- without binding commitments from China , Russia, India and Japan- is practically worthless.
Such a treaty must address the destruction of the Amazonian Rain forests. The EU must alter its hypocritical stance whereby it imports beef produced on ranches carved out of the rain forests. Perhaps Al Gore will now savage Chinese environmental policy. This is unlikely to happen as Gore is more interested in embarrassing the Bush administration.
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