Saturday 16 October 2010

Pessimism in parliament

Last week’s meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change confirmed my current pessimism. Organised by leading development charity Practical Action on 12 October the meeting focused on the importance of adaptation in a ‘four degree future’.

Speakers from a variety of think-tanks and development organisations explained what was needed (essentially the Lifeboat scenario) and noted that the UN process is not on track to deliver it.

So far as I can see the climate change policies of the developed and some developing nations may be summarised as follows:

Mitigation
  • We will set greenhouse gas emissions targets that are not strict enough to avoid catastrophic climate change.
  • We will fail to meet those targets.
Adaptation
  • We will promise the poorest countries the money to adapt to the climate change we are causing.
  • We will set the amounts at less than is needed to adapt.
  • We will fail to provide the amounts we promise, and
  • We will call much of its loans and later demand repayment.
Mechanisms
  • We will promise to provide adaptation funds from the Carbon Trading market
  • We will cheat in allocating quotas.