That will mean that the turning point comes way earlier in the Stern model than in others, although it still looks to be sometime after mid-century.

Neither Kyoto nor the Framework Convention on Climate Change proposes that developing countries emissions are capped at first. The key to lowering the emissions in China and India is to make sure they are getting the best emission lowering technology as they install the machines for further industrialisation. Their emissions can be capped further along the industrialisation process.

(And of course, that’s leaving aside the question of how much any foregone consumption—e.g. long car commutes—represents a genuine sacrifice.)

The limits on countries should be per capita, and equal for all countries except with adjustments for the size and climate of the country (so large countries get an extra factor multiplied in, small ones less – for transportation costs, and hot/cold countries get bonuses to the output rate).

Of course no one would suggest such a plan, because it would put the onus on all the industrialised nations to halve or less their output of GHGs, and allow the developing nations to double or more their current output.

The current US position is just as ridiculous of course – that any nation not fully industrialised should somehow do so while fixing emissions such that the can miraculously turn into a fully modernised economy but with only 10-20% of the emissions output of the US, which naturally has to do (comparatively) almost nothing apart from fit some lower wattage lightbulbs etc to comply with the freeze on GHG output.

So, if China doesn’t comply with our standards, we invade? That actually makes perfect sense. Just as the U.S., which famously has spent trillions on WMD, invaded a country that had none on the pretext that they might have spent some money on those WMD, so, too, we could form a coalition of the smokestacks, pump our defense budget up to that second trillion, and invade, hmm, not China, too strong – Kazakhistan. A country of smog terrorists. I hate the smogheads!

That’ll work for the peckerwoods. What other constituency counts?

Oh, I love my country.

Take a look at the current administration, it’s obvious and not so obvious strategies;it defense expenditures, both on budget and supplemental;its programs for weird items like missile shields and new submarines and space initiatives;its geographical areas of interest and activity.

Hell, I am not genocidal;I am trying to prevent genocide by a nation that almost defines itself by the practice.

http://plumer.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_plumer_archive.html#116231088774264918

“…indeed, Detroit (and the Europeans and Japanese to a lesser extent) was happy to use decades-old designs and processes.

“Even though cleaner alternatives existed in the United States, relatively dirty automotive technologies were transferred to China,” she writes. One result is the smog that is choking Chinese cities; another is the invisible but growing cloud of greenhouse gases, which come from tailpipes but even more from the coal-fired utilities springing up across China. In retrospect, historians are likely to conclude that the biggest environmental failure of the Bush administration was not that it did nothing to reduce the use of fossil fuels in America, but that it did nothing to help or pressure China to transform its own economy at a time when such intervention might have been decisive.”

Stabilising CO2 concentration at 450ppm will reduce the probability of surpassing the threshold of danger to about below 40%. This would require peaking emissions at 10GtC/yr by 2010, declining to 6 GtC/yr by 2050 and 4GtC/yr by 2100. We currently emit 8GtC/yr of CO2 into the atmosphere, rising 1.5GtC/yr per decade.

To succeed, the UK must convince the US, China and India to join the club

Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M has co-authored an excellent book “The Science and Politics of Climate Change” – he argues that global treaties will not come about in the short term. The best bet is to have a coalition of the willing (i.e. most of EU and Japan) implementing stringent emission reducing strategies, whilst there is also a bilateral agreement between the US and China, with most investment happening in China to reduce initial capital costs.

To make sure that the ‘coalition of the willing’ are not unfairly disadvantaged, border emission taxes are proposed on imports.

Eventually more countries could join the coalition until a global system is established.

Which species will survive?

It would seem that two types of species have the best chances, the most quickly adaptable and the those least subject to climate change.

Look on the bright side, its not an economic tragedy, its the largest science experiment ever.

The real question is: how long before they wheel out Fred Kaplan? “That isn’t an estimate – it’s a dartboard.”

I am not sure what Maria means when she notes 20 years, but is it definitely note the expected date for net-benefits. I am guessing she means when there will be clear negative economic effects from climate change on economic growth.

No plausible abatement policy and certainly not the one recommended by the Stern report will have any impact on climate conditions in 20 years. Therefore it is impossible that in twenty years we will be experiencing a net-benefit from reduced climate change (i.e. due to past investments) in relation to the investments we are making then (i.e. if we are still following the Stern investment plan).

Wow, it’s getting vicious and genocidal already. Why does discussion of this issue always become so negative so quickly?