Postponing emissions cuts carries steep price-tag.
Dateline: Tuesday, June 28, 2011
by Stephen Leahy for InterPress Service
BONN, Jun 20, 2011 (IPS) — If we’re lucky, by the time a tough but fair international treaty to meet the climate change challenge is finalised, it will be largely unnecessary. The snail’s pace of negotiations certainly gives countries plenty of time to understand the financial, social and environmental advantages of kicking their dangerous addiction to fossil fuels.
That may be a cynical optimist’s hope, but the European Union is already moving in that direction.
No developed country is close to the 40-percent cut that the science says is needed by 2020 to stay below a two degrees C increase.
Stephen Leahy, International Environmental Journalist 