James Hansen - G8 Pledge "Worse Than Worthless"; "A Death Sentence For Uncountable Species" - AFP

[hatrack]

One of the world's most respected climate scientists on Tuesday slammed the G8 summit's goal of halving global warming emissions by 2050 as "worse than worthless."

Leaders of the world's richest nations, meeting in Japan, "are taking actions that guarantee that we deliver to our children climate catastrophes that are out of our control," US expert James Hansen said in an e-mail to AFP.

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"A statement of any goal for percent reduction is worthless. Indeed, it is worse than that: it is a pretence that they understand the problem and plan to take needed actions," said Hansen. The only way to avoid climate catastrophe, argued Hansen, was to halt the emissions of coal, the most abundant and highly polluting of all fossil fuels.

He reiterated a call for a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants and for existing ones to be fitted with technology to capture the CO2 and store it deep underground. "Otherwise we are sending a death sentence to uncountable species and are leaving our children with an ungodly mess," he said.

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http://www.terradaily.com/2007/080708143120.2b47rk0x.html

[emmadoggy]

1. Dang. Too late to Rec, but I'll give it a kick. nt