US Criticised on 2C Climate ‘Flexibility’ Call
The EU and small island states have criticised the US for saying the target of keeping global warming below 2C should be removed from climate talks.
At the 2010 UN climate convention meeting, governments agreed to take “urgent action” to meet the target.
But last week the chief US climate negotiator Todd Stern said insisting on the target would lead to “deadlock”.
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“Suddenly abandoning our agreement to keep global warming below 2C is to give up the fight against climate change before it even begins,” said Tony de Brum, Minister in Assistance for the Marshall Islands.“‘Flexibility’ on our 2C limit would set the world on a path to irreversible, runaway climate change.
“For many low-lying island states, including my own, that is not a solution - it is a death sentence,” he told BBC News.
Deep down, I’m sure Todd Stern knows this…but as he explains, he’s up against the formidable forces of denier derp:
Mr Stern’s speech at Dartmouth College last Thursday was barely reported, but clearly expounded the Obama administration’s thinking on climate change issues both international and domestic.
Lamenting the decline in media coverage in the US, he suggested that many regarded it as an issue too hot for them to touch.
“Climate change has long been a partisan issue, but when you see a parade of conservative candidates publicly recanting the apostasy of having acknowledged that global warming is real, you know you’ve entered Wonderland,” he said.
“This is not healthy. We can talk past each other, close our ears, put our heads in the sand, or join the local chapter of the Flat Earth Society, but here’s the thing - the atmosphere doesn’t care.
“Its temperature will continue its implacable rise, with all the consequences that entails, unless we act to stop it.”