Top US Scientists Urge the States to act on Global Warming
Tags: Climate Change, Emissions, Global Warming
A group of 1700 leading scientists want the US government to be more active in the fight against Global Warming.
On Thursday, the scientists (6 of which are Nobel Prize winners) presented a letter detailing their professional views on the issue, and called for a reduction in US carbon emissions. It comes as the Senate prepare to debate a bill which imposes economy-wide restrictions on greenhouse emissions in order to evade "catastrophic climate change."
The scientists' long-term plans are slightly more ambitious than those highlighted by the G8 recently (50 per cent by 2050). They are calling on the government to "put our nation on to a path today to reduce emissions on the order of 80 per cent below 2000 levels by 2050." In the near-term they are suggesting that a 15 to 20 per cent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions on 2000 level by 2020 is an achievable amount.
These targets go beyond those proposed in America's climate security act by senators Joe Lieberman and John Warner. The climate act is due to be debated today.
The bill calls for cuts of up to 63 per cent on 2005 levels by 2050 in order to combat the increased risk of disease that Global Warming will bring. The increased risk of malaria and asthma epidemics due to hotter temperatures - as well as hunger, dislocation and death due to an increase in storms - are all real threats according to the scientists.
"False optimism" among national governments is a problem outlined by another group of scientists. They claim that governments should develop "stringent emissions cuts and major adaptation efforts," otherwise risk inevitably profound consequences for the planet.
The scientists claim that governments throughout the world have wasted 10 years by only talking about the issue of Global Warming instead of acting on it: "A curious optimism ... pervades the political arenas of the G8 and UN climate meetings. This is false optimism and is obscuring reality."
They now have the ability to use modeling data which details the impact of differing long-term cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Professor Martin Parry says: "For the first time we can read off what damages are avoided or not avoided for different amounts of emissions cuts."
With the backing of 1700 top scientists it seems there is a feasible possibility that emissions can be cut to meet the targets they propose, but the US government seem hesitant to make these commitments. The US administration have already shown they do not entirely believe that the world can achieve even 50 per cent emissions cuts by mid-century during the recent G8 talks in Kobe last week.
