Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
substantial investment in clean, renewable technologies are urgently needed to
tackle climate change. However, the globalisation of economic life and consumer
culture, with China and other developing countries manufacturing low-priced goods
for export to the West (as previously mentioned, developed nations have essentially
'
much of their atmospheric pollution), and the great expense of
designing and disseminating environmentally-sound technologies, makes negotia-
tions to radically reduce emissions of greenhouse gases complex. Huge disparities
in average carbon dioxide emissions per person between developed and developing
countries
outsourced
'
over 19 tons in the United States, around 5 tons in China, and less than
2 tons in India
—
also means that a fair and equitable agreement to combat climate
change will be dif
—
cult to reach.
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The matter is further complicated by the need to
regulate the activities of large multinational corporations (some more powerful than
small nation states). But the cost of failure, as the former World Bank economist
Nicholas Stern has warned, could be catastrophic. As well as the human suffering
caused by the increased incidence of severe
res, droughts and food
shortages, if global warming is left unchecked it could shrink the world
oods, forest
s economy
by up to 20 %. The impacts of climate change, though, will not be evenly dis-
tributed. The poorest people and countries, Stern stressed, will suffer most and
earliest.
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To date, however, progress towards a binding global pact to cut greenhouse gas
emissions has been slow. States and societies still prioritise economic growth over
protecting the environment. A mechanism for discussion, the Framework Con-
vention on Climate Change, was put in place following the 1992 United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development
'
—
better known as the Earth Summit
—
held in Rio de Janeiro. But the resulting Kyoto Protocol, signed in Japan in 1997,
which committed participating nations to a collective 5.2 % reduction in carbon
dioxide emissions (against 1990 levels) by 2012, was
awed and ineffective, with
no tough penalties for non-compliance. Nonetheless, the United States withdrew
from the process in 2002, worried about damage to its economy. More than half of
the countries that signed are unlikely to meet their modest reduction targets.
Although both China and India were involved, they did not have to curtail their
emissions. In 2013, the
fth IPCC assessment report
—
prepared by 259 researchers
from 39 countries around the world
reported with 95 % certainty that human
activities since the Industrial Revolution were responsible for climate change. If
current
—
negotiations do not produce a more robust international
agreement to considerably reduce greenhouse gases, serious global warming may
become irreversible.
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'
Beyond Kyoto
'
67
Mosley (
2010
), Penna (
2010
) and UN-HABITAT (
2008
).
68
Stern (
2007
).
69
Weart (
2003
), Giddens (
2009
) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (
2013
).
