Reduction of emissions per capita: face the truth
12/12/2009
Why on earth, USA is putting such a mess in the negotiation process? Why did they still not ratify the Kyoto Protocol? <!--more-->You might think, mm… because the Bush administration and media have been brainwashed by oil business lobbies? True, but there is something more.
In order to keep a safe climate we need to stabilize the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere bellow 350 ppm. This implies we need to emit at least less than 1000 Gt of CO2 during the 2000 – 2050 period. Since we’ve been emitting around 330 Gt until now, we have a 670 Gt budget to emit during the 2010 – 2050 period.
Now, how do we spend that budget, and who has the right to emit what? Today, the USA per capita emissions are around 20t CO2 / year, while the per capita emissions of Burkina Faso are less than 0,5 t CO2 /year. Thus the average emissions of an American are enormously higher than a Burkinabe. During a side event of COP15, the GermanWatch Institute gave an instructive presentation of what the pass way of annual average emission per capita could look like for different countries. The following graph shows an equal per capita distribution of the remaining 670 Gt budget for the 2010-2050 period: the USA face a drastic reduction of their emissions.
<a href="http://www.greenon2009.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/percapitaGHG.jpg"><img src="http://www.greenon2009.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/percapitaGHG.jpg" alt="Equal per capita distribution of the remaining 670 Gt budget, 2010-2050" title="Equal per capita distribution of the remaining 670 Gt budget, 2010-2050" width="664" height="416" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-641" /></a>
Source: Thomas Spencer, Germanwatch, « climate science 2009 » presentation
Increase the number of farmers, reduce meat consumption, eat local seasonal products, reinforce local economy, develop delocalized renewable energy production and adapt energy consumption to the production capacity : all this implies a fundamental transformation of rich country societies, and a transformation of the American society in particular. Remember the H.W. Bush famous quote “the american way of life is not negotiable”… well hopefully, with Obama, now it is, because otherwise we’ll be getting into troubles!
Benoît
Why on earth, USA is putting such a mess in the negotiation process? Why did they still not ratify the Kyoto Protocol? <!--more-->You might think, mm… because the Bush administration and media have been brainwashed by oil business lobbies? True, but there is something more.
In order to keep a safe climate we need to stabilize the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere bellow 350 ppm. This implies we need to emit at least less than 1000 Gt of CO2 during the 2000 – 2050 period. Since we’ve been emitting around 330 Gt until now, we have a 670 Gt budget to emit during the 2010 – 2050 period.
Now, how do we spend that budget, and who has the right to emit what? Today, the USA per capita emissions are around 20t CO2 / year, while the per capita emissions of Burkina Faso are less than 0,5 t CO2 /year. Thus the average emissions of an American are enormously higher than a Burkinabe. During a side event of COP15, the GermanWatch Institute gave an instructive presentation of what the pass way of annual average emission per capita could look like for different countries. The following graph shows an equal per capita distribution of the remaining 670 Gt budget for the 2010-2050 period: the USA face a drastic reduction of their emissions.
<a href="http://www.greenon2009.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/percapitaGHG.jpg"><img src="http://www.greenon2009.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/percapitaGHG.jpg" alt="Equal per capita distribution of the remaining 670 Gt budget, 2010-2050" title="Equal per capita distribution of the remaining 670 Gt budget, 2010-2050" width="664" height="416" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-641" /></a>
Source: Thomas Spencer, Germanwatch, « climate science 2009 » presentation
Increase the number of farmers, reduce meat consumption, eat local seasonal products, reinforce local economy, develop delocalized renewable energy production and adapt energy consumption to the production capacity : all this implies a fundamental transformation of rich country societies, and a transformation of the American society in particular. Remember the H.W. Bush famous quote “the american way of life is not negotiable”… well hopefully, with Obama, now it is, because otherwise we’ll be getting into troubles!
Benoît