Posted on 02/07/2006 7:50:32 AM PST by presidio9
The world has seven years to take vital decisions and implement measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions or it could be too late, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday.
Blair said the battle against global warming would only be won if the United States, India and China were part of a framework that included targets and that succeeded the 1992 Kyoto Protocol climate pact.
"If we don't get the right agreement internationally for the period after which the Kyoto protocol will expire -- that's in 2012 -- if we don't do that then I think we are in serious trouble," he told a parliamentary committee.
Asked if the world had seven years to implement measures on climate change before the problem reached "tipping point," Blair answered: "Yes."
The European Union, Japan and much of the rest of the industrialized world are imposing mandatory cuts on emissions of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels under Kyoto.
U.S. President George W. Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, arguing it would hurt the American economy and that developing countries were exempted. He favors asking U.S. companies to join a voluntary emission reduction program.
Blair said targets were key to any successor to Kyoto.
"This can only be done if you have a framework that, in the end, has targets within it. If you don't get to that point, the danger is you never have the right incentives for the private sector to invest heavily in green technology," he said.
Environment ministers in Montreal in December agreed on a road map to extend Kyoto and to hold talks to include the United States and developing countries in a future framework.
Blair said there were the "beginnings" of an international consensus and that Bush's comment in his State of the Union speech last week that America was "addicted to oil" was a sign of a change of mood but he urged Bush to move further.
"I think there are real signs of change," he said. "I think if you could find a way of ensuring the right incentives were given without America feeling there was some desire to inhibit its economic growth, then I think we can find a way through."
Blair also said he thought it was unrealistic to hope for an international agreement on restricting aviation travel to curb pollution and he dismissed the idea of Britain unilaterally or bilaterally slapping a tax on commercial flights.
"I can't see myself that you are going to be able, artificially through mechanisms based on the consumer, to interfere with aviation travel. I can't see that you would get an international agreement for that and I'd worry about a special levy in the UK," he said.
Does this mean the seven year tribulation has started
lions and tigers and bears ... oh, my
Doomed!!!!!!
Have these guys ever heard of the Little Ice Age?
Geesh.
Sometimes global warming is helpful. Such as if it hadn't been for the last global warming period, there would still be a glacier from Minnesota to New Orleans.
What a load of crap...
British moonbats are still moonbats. They just talk funny.
Tony, you're a great leader in the WOT but you're not a climate expert. I would quiet down about this subject or you're going to end up looking stupid.
Tony B. needs to jump on down the page to the Mini Ice Age thread.
No sweat, in about 10 years things will start to cool down.
As doomed can be!
Coming Next: Scientist predicts 'mini Ice Age'
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1573488/posts
A Russian astronomer has predicted that Earth will experience a "mini Ice Age" in the middle of this century, caused by low solar activity.
Khabibullo Abdusamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomic Observatory in St. Petersburg said Monday that temperatures will begin falling six or seven years from now, when global warming caused by increased solar activity in the 20th century reaches its peak, RIA Novosti reported.
The coldest period will occur 15 to 20 years after a major solar output decline between 2035 and 2045, Abdusamatov said.
Dramatic changes in the earth's surface temperatures are an ordinary phenomenon, not an anomaly, he said, and result from variations in the sun's energy output and ultraviolet radiation.
The Northern Hemisphere's most recent cool-down period occurred between 1645 and 1705. The resulting period, known as the Little Ice Age, left canals in the Netherlands frozen solid and forced people in Greenland to abandon their houses to glaciers, the scientist said.
Why is it that politicians can forcast the weather 50 years in advance, but the National Weather Service can't seem to do so 7 days in advance?
In 1994 Ted Danson said the world had only 12 years left to save itself.
Better figure out how to control those volcanos! They emit most of the nasty gases.
China will NEVER cooperate. So what is the point?
Now, isn't that convenient. We cripple the US economy and in 7 years, when it would happen naturally anyhow, the greenie socialists get to say see, it was because of us that the human race still exists.
What, they think we're that stupid ?
Actually, we are on a cycle that probably will lead to cooling within 10 years or so. Yes, global warming is real....but not even remotely close to as bad as the alarmists tell you.
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