G-8 to implement mid-term CO2 goals, want others to 'share' 2050 target

Wednesday 09th July, 06:10 AM JST

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12 Comments

nutsagain at 03:10 PM JST - 8th July

Halving the total within two years would be realistic. Too damn little and it'll be too bloody late.
LIBERTAS at 03:47 PM JST - 8th July

"The remarks indicate the G-8 leaders’ agreement on the basic wording in the documents, although details of the accord on climate change remain unclear." Read simply, this means that the is NO accord on climate change.I also found this sarcastic little gem: http://g8summit2008.googlepages.com/home and it appears that this "Gabfest on the Hill" has been a failure from the outset. How many trillions down the drain?
Smythe at 04:48 PM JST - 8th July

From what I can make out is they all agree upon the price of oil continually going up & in turn that also means a price in the matter of food is going up as well.

So what is different or new to them?
wilbur at 05:27 PM JST - 8th July

42 years from now ? and the j-media is hailing this as some kind of breakthrough ? typical
smithinjapan at 06:51 PM JST - 8th July

Saying, "I promise to reduce our CO2 emissions by 2050" simply means, "I don't have to do a damn thing until December 2049".

Does anyone honestly think the're going to make any changes before the absolute latest possible time? No way in hell. It should be 50% by 2020, tops, and nothing but hydrogen fueled cars by then as well. There is heaps more they could do before then, too, to limit things, but this is the usual, "Hey... we reached a consensus! THAT's progress!" crap without ever actually doing anything.

Good thing so much money was spent on the summit.
JeromeInJapan at 09:08 PM JST - 8th July

No country will do anything yet in fear of ruining their economy.

All countries need to agree and make the change now in order to aviod this.

Remember humans control the economy not the universe. We decide what is worth and what is not in economics. Just go green in everyway possible in every country and we should all be allright.

Lets just go back to the bartering system...
bandogeek at 01:11 AM JST - 9th July

I don't know whether I can believe that the oil and food prices will drop, or whether we can halve emissions in 2050. But I am happy that the leaders came to agreements on these terms, and I hope that they can do something to fix these problems.
MarieDevine at 06:13 AM JST - 9th July

I don't see how they can cut emissions 50% when it will take increased polluting energy to manufacture enough of the elusive clean technology. The present polluting ways would continue; the increase would add to that. Their way can only increase emissions, global warming and pollution.

One easy effort to immediately cut fuel demand, use and price would be to establish one day of no work. That will cut the problems by 1/7th and give time to invent clean technology when they can.
nutsagain at 07:41 AM JST - 9th July

The sad fact is; we cannot have it both ways. A clean environment and oil burning vehicles. It's a nice wish list but flies in the face of the obvious: we are killing the planet at this moment and a 50 year delay is preposterous.

We may wait but mother earth will not. Want to see what the earth may look like in a century or so? Look at the Rover's recent pictures of Mars and you'll get an idea. The technologies to replace this obsolete method of transport-engineering have been around for many, many years. In fact around for as long as they've been ignored as curiosities to be shelved and filed away as eccentric.

Google air engines as just one of a few exciting examples...
Zen_Builder at 08:02 AM JST - 9th July

IMHO, not much will happen by 2050.

Yes, we will have more alternate energy sources(solar, wind-power, etc) and maybe have more zero-emission or less polluting vehicles.

But, IMO, those alone won't do much. Ok, we power our cars by electricity, all we are doing is moving the bill from the petrol-stand to the household bill. More electric cars will require more electricity needing to be available at homes and offices. Which means our global electricity requirements will sky-rocket and I don't think we got the grids or capabilities for it.

But energy and fuels are only ONE part of our oil-dependancy, the other parts tend to be ignored and overlooked. Yet, we rely on them more to make our life nice and comfy and allow us to work than energy-source and fuels.

I am talking about the OTHER products we get from petroleum like plastics, lubricants, etc.

Electric Cars still need lubricants and plastics to keep the weight down, as do factories, etc.

Pet-Bottles, polyester, plastic wraps, etc is what I am talking about. YES, we can replace some with other materials like paper, etc. But those provide similar challenges that we are now facing with bio-fuels.

Solar panels use plastic(petroleum product).

What I am saying the focus alternate energy sources and alternate fuels is good but how much of our oil-dependancy are those really? A small amount but they are easy sells to the masses.

IMHO, the real dependancy on oil and oil-derived products is not even been addressed. And people are being misled.
Zen_Builder at 08:11 AM JST - 9th July

Part II.

Lets look at history. We had electric cars before/bout same time as petrol driven ones but the petrol driven ones won as the petrol back than was dirt-cheap as it is a by-product/waste of the oil refination process.

Petroleum based products also allowed us to move away from whale hunting as we good get similar products that did the same stuff cheaper.

Till we can find another source of similar products or a cheap alternative we will remain slaved to Oil/Petroleum.

Sad to say but I don't see us getting rid of our oil-dependancy anytime soon. Decrease maybe. Remember it has to be cheaper and easier available too, if not it will not viable.
thedeath at 12:47 PM JST - 9th July

wow, thank you to our leader, they care so much of our children future. they "set up a goal" at 50% reduction in the next ...WHAT!!? more than 40+ years?!!!

by then all of this monsters would be long gone from the earth.

ok now i know what the protesters are talking about!