UN climate chief: US carbon cuts could spark 'revolution'

[CHIMO]

The head of the UN body charged with leading the fight against climate change has conceded that Barack Obama will face a "revolution" if he commits the US to the deep carbon cuts that scientists and campaigners say are needed.

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said domestic political constraints made it impossible for the US president to announce ambitious short-term climate targets similar to those set by Europe. And he questioned the value of a new global climate deal without such a US pledge.

His words come as scientists at the Copenhagen conference said that modest IPCC estimates of likely sea level rise this century need to be increased. Extra melting in Greenland could drive sea levels to more than a metre higher than today by 2100, they said.

Pachauri told the Guardian the US needed to do more in the short term. But he questioned whether there would be sufficient domestic movement for the US to agree stricter targets in December. He said it was "hard to say" if a new deal would be meaningful without such a step.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/11/us-carbon-cuts

I guess we are all leemings.

[defendandprotect]

1. Personnally, I think when the public begins to understand how they've been betrayed. . . .

by caitalism in pollution of the planet and the extreme consequences of that pollution

in the loss of the planet, there will be revolution!!!

[B Whale]

2. I think if Obama

does get these necessary cuts it will spark a revolution across the world in the debate. China etc will no longer be able to point to the US and say they are doing nothing and huge pressure will fall on countries across the globe to follow suit.

It has always been essential for America, the only superpower and world's biggest polluter, to lead or at least stick to climate change targets. Without it, europe's and the rest of the world's efforts are futile.