1 Tahrcountry Musings: Leading Climate Change Scientist Arraigns the Copenhagen Summit on climate change

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Leading Climate Change Scientist Arraigns the Copenhagen Summit on climate change

I read this good piece of writing on Copenhagen summit on climate change in Times Online. Here is a gist of what I read.

Dr James Hansen acclaimed as the grandfather of global warming has branded the Copenhagen summit on climate change next week as a farce. Dr Hansen is the director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute in New York. His was one of the first voices to raise the alarm about rising global temperatures in the early 1980s. His predictions are coming amazingly true.

Dr Hansen says the conference is seeking a counter-productive agreement to limit emissions through a “cap and trade” system. He told The Times that “They are selling indulgences there. The developed nations want to continue basically business as usual so they are expected to purchase indulgences to give some small amount of money to developing countries. They do that in the form of offsets and adaptation funds.” “The fundamental problem is that fossil fuels are the cheapest form of energy. As long as they are, they are going to be used,” he said. “It’s remarkable. They refuse to recognise and address the fundamental problem and the obvious solution.”

Dr Hansen continues “We are going to have to move beyond fossil fuels at some point. Why continue to stretch it out longer? The only way we can do that is by putting a price on carbon emissions. The business community and the public need to understand that there will be a gradually increasing price on carbon emissions. The world must be prepared to abandon coal unless its emissions are captured and embrace a new generation of nuclear power”

No comments: