Davos Head - World Already 10-15 Years Late In Responding On Climate - BBC

[hatrack]

One of the world's most prominent business leaders has expressed his fears over the "daunting" challenge of preventing dangerous climate change. Rick Samans, head of the Davos-based World Economic Forum, said the global effort to tackle the problem was beginning 10-15 years late. He said politicians had to act fast and set targets to cut CO2 emissions.

Mr Samans made his comments at a conference of the world's top 20 polluting nations in Mexico. "We are behind the curve, there is no doubt that we should have acted 10 or 15 years ago," he told BBC News. He added that businesses needed much more certainty about emissions targets before committing to investing billions of pounds in clean technology.

"It is very difficult to make a decision about a very expensive piece of equipment that you expect to last up to 50 years if one does not have a sense of the cost of that equipment," Mr Samans said.

He suggested that the delegates were also frustrated by the slow pace of progress, but expressed a degree of optimism that clean technology could be quickly adopted if governments sent out the right signals. "Having said that, it is not too late because human experience suggests we have underestimated the impact of technological change.

EDIT

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5407998.stm

[4dsc]

1. and 20 years late for peak oil

I guess we are going to live in interesting times..

[DIKB]

3. The old chinese proverb hits hard

both a blessing and a curse, "May you live in interesting times."

[Gregorian]

2. I do not believe that clean technology will help enough.

For two reasons. The undeveloped world is coming onboard the modern lifestyle train. And clean technology is only a fractional improvement over what exists. Actually there is another reason. There are many things that simply cannot be changed. So clean technology is confined to only a smaller fraction of energy use than it would seem at first.


And no one is going to alter their life over this. I would bet my life savings on that. But I will predict that there will be demonizing. And the focus will not be properly placed.