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Climate Summit Hypocrisy: U.N. Exempts World's #1 Polluter from Stricter CO2 Enforcement
The European Union and United States government-funded Global Carbon Project (GCP) released their latest Atlas that tracks annual CO2 emissions by 196 countries in cooperation with Sunday's People's Climate March and President Obama's keynote speech at the United Nations Global Climate Summit Tuesday. The GCP report warns that man-made global warming is accelerating and names China as the chief culprit. However, GCP blames consumption in Europe and the United States for high levels of CO2 emissions and supports continued UN exemptions from enforcement for China.
The GCP warns that 66% of the CO2 budget "scientifically established" to limit the man-made global warming to a maximum rise of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) established at the 1992 Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro is being expended faster than expected.
But according to former high-ranking Obama Administration official Dr. Steven Koonin, who is a computational physicist, such climate science and the implications of global warming are not "settled," and such "misguided" claims have been used to stifle debate on the matter. He adds, "We often hear that there is a 'scientific consensus' about climate change. But as far as the computer models go, there isn't a useful consensus at the level of detail relevant to assessing human influences."
The United Nations' setting of mandated CO2 levels has an interesting background. Since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit gave each of the 193 UN attendees an equal vote on the future of CO2 enforcement, the negotiating position for the large number of emerging countries was favored over the smaller number of developed nations. The emerging nation caucus used their voting majority to successfully negotiate their own CO2 exemptions as a competitive advantage. The final Earth Summit protocol set per-capita CO2 restrictions that economically hammered the EU and U.S.
Also read: China Emits More Carbon Per Capita Than U.S. and EU Combined
