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Germany Slams Bush's "Neanderthal" Climate Speech    •

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    Stern Admits Report "Badly Underestimated" Climate Change Risks
    By James Murray
    BusinessGreen

    Thursday 17 April 2008

Climate change expert calls for toughening of emission reduction targets.

    Nicholas Stern has implied that UK and European efforts to cut carbon emissions could prove well short of what is required after admitting yesterday that he "badly underestimated the degree of damages and risks of climate change " in his ground-breaking 2006 report.

    The Stern Review has been widely employed as the basis of much of the UK government's climate change policy, with ministers repeatedly citing its conclusion that it would be more cost effective to cut emissions now than attempt to adapt to rising temperatures.

    The report argued that emissions would need to be cut to at least 25 per cent below current levels if a dangerous temperature rise of over two degrees is to be avoided - a scenario the report argued would trigger an economic crisis on the scale of the Great Depression. Such a reduction would require a cut in emissions from developed economies in the region of 60 per cent, a target the government subsequently adopted as part of its climate change bill.

    But speaking in an interview with Reuters yesterday, Lord Stern admitted the report underestimated the scale and pace of climate change and urged politicians to step up action to curb emissions.

    He said that the latest climate science showed that not only were emissions rising faster than thought, the ability of the earth to absorb carbon dioxide in so-called carbon sinks was deteriorating faster than expected.

    "Emissions are growing much faster than we'd thought, the absorptive capacity of the planet is less than we'd thought, the risks of greenhouse gases are potentially bigger than more cautious estimates, and the speed of climate change seems to be faster," he said.

    Stern added that to minimise the risks of dangerous climate change, the original target for global emissions would have to be doubled to a 50 per cent cut by 2050. He said that such a target would require the US to cut its emissions by up to 90 per cent by then.

    Friends of the Earth welcomed Lord Stern's new stance, which is expected to increase pressure on the government to set a more demanding emissions reduction target as part of the climate change bill.

    "Lord Stern is rightly calling for a massive step-up in the effort to tackle climate change," said Friends of the Earth executive director Tony Juniper. " The UK government urgently needs to ramp up investment in energy efficiency and renewables and strengthen the Climate Change Bill to include 80 per cent cuts in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050."

    Prime minister Gordon Brown has said that the new climate change committee will undertake a review of the current 60 per cent target and recommend whether or not it should be changed.

    Lord Stern's comments came a day after a the results of a new computer model from a Finnish UK team of oceanographers predicted sea levels could climb by between 0.8m and 1.5m by the end of the century.

    The research from the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory suggests that estimates from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that sea levels will rise by between 28cm and 43cm are far too conservative.

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    Germany Slams Bush's "Neanderthal" Climate Speech
    Agence France-Presse

    Thursday 17 April 2008

    Germany Thursday slammed US President George Bush's blueprint on climate change as "Neanderthal" and accused him of backtracking on earlier pledges to fight global warming.

    "The president gave a disappointing speech that fails to take account of the global challenges," German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a written statement titled "Bush's Neanderthal speech."

    "His words mark a retreat from Bali, they are even behind what was undertaken in Heiligendamm," he added referring to the aims set at the UN summit on the Indonesian island and the last G8 summit in Germany. "His speech showed not leadership but losership. We are glad that there are also other voices in the United States," Gabriel added.

    Bush outlined his vision on combating climate change on the eve of a two-day Major Emitters Meeting (MEM), a gathering of major carbon polluting countries, in Paris. Gabriel said it risked undermining this process.

    The Bali Roadmap set down by the 190-country UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) aims at agreeing on a pact for deepening cuts in greenhouse gases blamed for disrupting Earth's climate system. The deal would be completed by the end of 2009 and take effect from the end of 2012, when current pledges under the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol expire.

    Bush pulled out of the Kyoto process in 2001, saying it was too costly for the oil-dependent US economy and its format was unfair because it failed to bind emerging economies to reduction targets.

    On Wednesday, he called for the growth in US greenhouse gas emissions to be stopped by 2025. But he was short on specifics on how to achieve these targets and mentioned no legal curbs for forcing industry to meet this goal. He also spelled out his objections to any post-2012 UNFCCC deal that failed to embrace fast-growing populous nations.

    The European Union has voiced disappointment over Bush's statements while South Africa branded it a retreat by the planet's No. 1 polluter and a slap to poor countries least to blame for today's warming crisis.

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