Professor Kevin Anderson has written an open letter to the President of the European Commission about the EU’s climate policy. In the letter, Professor Anderson expresses his “serious concerns that the process for determining the EU’s 2030 decarbonisation target is being conducted in a vacuum of scientific evidence.” He also puts the view that the proposed target “fails to quantify honestly the EU’s high-level statements and international obligations on climate change.”
The letter (click on the images!) hopes to influence the forthcoming European White Paper on climate policy, and states that the already-published Green Paper contains both an “abuse of probabilities” about the (fast disappearing) ‘two degrees’ target and an unfair division of labour between developing and developed countries on carbon dioxide emissions.
It is a typically robust, clear and scientifically-grounded letter, as anyone who has encountered Professor Anderson will expect. Sadly, it will probably have little effect. Scientists can only do so much. In the absence of a relentless and growing mass movement, politicians will only do very very little. Where is that movement? Answers on a post-card to the usual address…
Update: Clicking on the links in the images below won’t get you where you want to go. These will though…
The Green Paper
the Copenhagen Accord
the Camp David Declaration
Trouble is that one of the underlying assumptions of our whole culture is that the environment is, at best, trivial and, at worst, irrelevant. So it looks like we’re going to need a few decades of massive catastrophes to change that mindset … might be too late by then, of course!
Mr Bishop, wash your mouth out with soap. You know full well that it is too late already! 😉
Reblogged this on patricktsudlow and commented:
We in the Global North are not doing enough to reduce our carbon emissions, instead pressurising the Global South, to make the cuts?
It’s easier that way. Everyone likes to blame the Chinese, not themselves…