... y China también se apunta ...

Parece que el anuncio de cambio de actitud de Estados Unidos con respecto al Cambio Climático está teniendo un efecto cascada. Hoy a sido China quien ha presentado su primer plan de control de sus emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero. Aquí podeis leer la notícia en castellano en el periódico El País y aquí en inglés en la agencia de notícias BBC News.

Aunque el presidente chino, Hu Jintao, no ha explicado cómo van a realizar estos controles (ni parece dispuesto a renunciar al exponencial crecimiento de la economía de su país para reducir las emisiones de CO₂), parece que todos los países más contaminantes van tomando conciencia que ya es hora de empezar a actuar en serio para evitar las desastrosas (y cada vez más claras) consecuencias del actual Cambio Climático.

Parece que, poco a poco, se va imponiendo en sentido común entre la clase política mundial ...

Australia se compromete con el Cambio Climático

Leo en BBC News que, después del anuncio que hizo George Bush hace un par de días, Australia también ha dado un giro a su política ambiental sobre el Cambio Climático.

El Primer ministro australiano John Howard ha anunciado que va a poner en marcha el mercado de emisiones en su país, como medida para luchar contra las exponenciales emisiones de dióxido de carbono, principal motor del actual calentamiento de la Tierra.

Este anuncio es importante porque, actualmente, Australia emite el 1% del total anual de CO₂ procedente de la quema de combustibles fósiles y es el país con más emisiones por persona de metano (otro gas de efecto invernadero por excelencia ya que por la quema de 1 molécula de este gas se generan 2 moléculas de CO₂).

A pesar que Australia firmó el Protocolo de Kyoto en 1997, sus emisiones de dióxido de carbono han ido aumentando hasta la fecha, sin que las autoridades pusieran ningún tipo de limitaciones. Aquí podeis ver la evolución de estas emisiones para el perido 1990 - 2000 según el gobierno australiano, y aquí la misma evolución para el periodo 1990 - 2004 según Secretaría de la Convención sobre el Cambio Climático de Naciones Unidas y teniendo y sin tenerlos en cuenta los intercambios de CO₂ con las masas forestales y los cambios históricos de uso del suelo (LULUFC según las siglas inglesas).

Aquí teneis la buena notícia:

Australia PM pledges climate plan
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has announced a shift in policy on climate change, promising to set up a carbon trading scheme to cut pollution. Mr Howard said he would set a target next year for limiting greenhouse gas emissions and also pledged to put in place a carbon trading scheme by 2012.

Australia is one of the worst polluters per head of population in the world.

Despite his new plans, Mr Howard has warned that setting a cap on carbon emissions would hurt the economy.

His announcement comes ahead of a national election later this year, in which Mr Howard will be seeking his fifth consecutive win. The opposition Labor party, which has a strong lead in the opinion polls, has portrayed the government as dithering and backward-looking on global warming, reports the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney.

Labor has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2050. Mr Howard does not plan to reveal his targets until next year, once the economic costs of carbon trading have been fully studied.

"Implementing an emissions trading scheme and setting a long-term goal for reducing emissions will be the most momentous economic decision Australia will take in the next decade," Mr Howard told an annual meeting of his Liberal Party.

"If we get this wrong it will do enormous damage to the economy, to jobs and to the economic well-being of ordinary Australians, especially low-income households."

'Better scheme'
Australia and the US are the only major industrialised nations not to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr Howard promised that Australia's carbon trading scheme would be better than those in place in Europe.

Australia has recently seen record drought conditions, which have harmed economic growth and caused widespread despair among the farming community.

Residents have been ordered to cut back on consumption and farm production has plummeted. Some experts believe that these parched conditions are the result of the world's hunger for fossil fuels, while others though see it as part of a natural cycle.

Whatever the arguments, many Australians want their leaders to be far more proactive when it comes to the environment, our correspondent says.

Esas voces contrarias ...

Con el titular El director de la NASA dice que ignora si el calentamiento global es un problema, el periódico El País da voz a los científicos escépticos del Cambio Climático (en su momento ya hablé sobre ellos). No es que niegue el actual incremento de la temperatura media de la Tierra, que es un hecho objetivamente comprovable y científicamente contrastable, si no lo que no se acaba de creer es que sea de orígen antrópico y que sea tan malo como otros científicos (agrupados alrededor del IPCC) pretenden hacer creer.

Se le acusa de desviar fondos destinados a programas del Cambio Climático a otros programas, como si eso fuera un delito. Todo el mundo sabe que los fondos económicos para cualquier cosa son, por definición, limitados. Por tanto, cualquier director tiene que decidir donde invertir estos fondos limitados. Y estas decisiones se basan en su saber, criterio y, posiblemente, en un asesoramiento de algún comité de expertos. Otra cosa es que los científicos implicados en el recorte presupuestario estén de acuerdo ...

Además, lo que me molesta profundamente de la notícia no es el escepticismo del director de la NASA (al contrario, me gusta porque obliga a buscar nuevas pruebas y más sólidas a favor del Cambio Global de orígen antrópico) si no el intento de confrontación que pretende dar el periodista. La ciencia no es monolítica (¡sólo faltaría!) y ésta avanza gracias a voces discordantes y escépticas como la expresada por este científico.

¿Porqué se empeñarán los periodistas en buscar constantemente la confrontación cuando muchas veces sólo hay sana dialéctica?

Aquí teneis la notícia:

AFP - Washington - 01/06/2007

El director de la agencia espacial estadounidense, NASA, Michael Griffin, afirmó ayer que no está convencido de que el calentamiento climático sea un problema contra el que sea necesario combatir.

"No tengo ninguna duda de que hay una tendencia al calentamiento del clima planetario, pero no estoy seguro de que sea correcto decir que se trata de un problema contra el cual debamos luchar", ha declarado en una entrevista en la radio pública de Estados Unidos, NPR.

El administrador de la NASA, criticado por el Congreso (de mayoría demócrata) por haber reducido varios programas destinados a vigilar el cambio climático, ha tachado asimismo de "arrogantes" a aquéllos que afirman que el clima actual de la Tierra es el mejor que podemos tener y que quieren decidir por los demás.

James Hansen, el principal climatólogo de la NASA, entrevistado a continuación en la NPR, se ha reconocido "sorprendido" por las afirmaciones de su jefe, que muestran, según ha dicho, "una gran ignorancia sobre la situación actual".

Griffin "parece no ser consciente de que 170 países, incluido Estados Unidos, se han puesto de acuerdo en el reconocimiento de que el cambio climático es un problema serio con enormes repercusiones y que un gran número de personas sufrirán por ello si no se hace algo", ha añadido James Hansen. Además, ha revelado que las afirmaciones de Griffin, que también es un científico de alto nivel, sirven para comprender por qué el presupuesto de la NASA destinado a las ciencias de la Tierra se ha recortado tanto.

Los Planes a largo plazo de George W. Bush sobre el Cambio Climático

Parece que George W. Bush por fín ha entrado en razón. El periódico The New York Times publica a toda página el discurso que dió el presidente de Estados Unidos ayer jueves en la Agencia Internacional para el Desarrollo (United States Agency for International Development), donde propuso una serie de planes a largo plazo para combatir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero.

Evidentemente, esta buena notícia tiene su lado oscuro. Bush no aún no está dispuesto a aceptar el Protocolo de Kyoto porque ni China ni India (los dos países, junto a Estados Unidos, más contaminantes del planeta y principales emisores de gases de efecto invernadero a la atmosfera) tampoco lo han ratificado. Vamos a ver lo que tarda en ratificar dicho Protocolo ... ¡espero que sea antes del 2012! (Para ese año el Protocolo vence ...).

De momento, Naciones Unidas ya ha dado la bienvenida a este giro en la política ambiental de Bush.

Lo que no está claro de este giro es si es que realmente se ha convencido que el actual incremento de la temperatura media de la Tierra es debido a los gases de efecto invernadero de orígen humano, como multitud de rigurosos estudios científicos ya han puesto de manifiesto, o si solo es un giro "virtual" que le permita lavar su tan maltrecha imagen ahora que afronta la recta final de su mandato ... ¡el tiempo lo dirá!

Aquí os dejo la notícia:

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG Published: June 1, 2007
WASHINGTON, May 31 — President Bush, fending off international accusations that he was ignoring climate change, proposed for the first time on Thursday to set “a long-term global goal” for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and he called on other high-polluting nations to join the United States in negotiations aimed at reaching an agreement by the end of next year.

If carried through, such an agreement would be the first in which the United States, the world’s biggest source of the emissions that scientists say are warming the planet, has committed itself to a specific target for cutting them.

It would be a major shift for Mr. Bush, who has resisted such absolute goals in part for economic reasons. The president has also steadfastly rejected the so-called Kyoto Protocol, which limits greenhouse gas emissions, on the grounds that two other major polluters — China and India — are not bound by the accord in the same way as the United States would be if it joined. The proposal, delivered in a speech at the United States Agency for International Development here, reflects the difficulties the Bush administration is facing in grappling with climate change as the scientific consensus has continued to build in favor of action to control the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.

“In recent years, science has deepened our understanding of climate change and opened new possibilities for confronting it,” Mr. Bush said, previewing the climate change package he is to present when he meets the leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations in Germany next week. “The United States takes this issue seriously.”

The speech was greeted with intense skepticism by environmental advocates and some European officials.

Some critics accused Mr. Bush of trying to hijack continuing environmental talks like those under the Kyoto treaty by substituting his own program, which even if successful would not bear fruit until he is about to leave office in 2009.

And, they said, the president delivered no clear statement on what steps the United States would take to limit emissions over the next 10 to 20 years, while he was working on long-term goals for the next 50 years and beyond.

Even those goals, said James L. Connaughton, the president’s top environmental adviser, are “aspirational.” They would not be binding unless individual nations chose to bind themselves.

“There is no more time for longwinded talks about unenforceable long-term goals,” said David Doniger, climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group in Washington. “We need to get a serious commitment to cut emissions now and in the G-8.”

The speech on Thursday was the latest in a series of shifts on climate change by Mr. Bush. In July 2005, he offered his first explicit acknowledgment that humans were contributing to the problem of global warming. This year, for the first time, he mentioned climate change in his State of the Union address.
In one sense, the change in tack has been forced on Mr. Bush by scientific advances in the understanding of how greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming. But it is also an example of the kind of policy adjustment that is becoming increasingly common in the second half of his second term. Another example is the announcement this week of economic sanctions to prod Sudan on Darfur.

The White House seems determined to alter the president’s image on climate change before he leaves office in January 2009. The issue is a high priority for two of Mr. Bush’s closest European allies — Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany — and with Democrats now controlling Congress, the president also faces domestic pressure to act.
Mr. Bush promised to convene a series of meetings, beginning in the fall, with 10 to 15 countries that produce the most greenhouse gas emissions, including China and India. Each country would establish midterm national targets for reducing emissions over the next 10 to 20 years, while working together to set a longer-term goal.

The talks also would bring together industry leaders, Mr. Bush said, so that the countries could work with them to pool their knowledge and promote investment in energy-efficient technologies, including solar and wind energy, clean coal and nuclear power. But each country would be free to set its own goals, and there would be no binding international framework for enforcement.
“The United States is taking the lead, and that’s the message I’m going to take to the G-8,” Mr. Bush said.

But how well that message will be received remains to be seen. Germany, backed by Britain and now Japan, has already proposed cutting global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050. Mrs. Merkel, who holds the presidency of the European Union and will be the host of the Group of 8 meeting in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm, has been pressing the group to adopt the plan, but the United States has rejected it.

Speaking to reporters in Berlin, Mrs. Merkel called Mr. Bush’s speech “common ground on which to act,” echoing a recent comment she made while visiting him in Washington. “What is positive,” she said, “is that we can see from the speech that the president made earlier today that nobody can ignore the question of climate change.”

But beneath the faint praise there was caution. The second phase of the Kyoto Protocol talks is set to take place in Bali at the end of this year, and Mr. Bush’s alternative forum risks being seen as an attempt to circumvent or even derail those talks.

Mr. Connaughton said the White House envisioned its negotiations taking place in parallel with those talks.

Involving all the parties to the existing Kyoto Protocol and an underlying 1992 climate treaty that the United States is bound by, the Bali negotiations are aimed at deciding what to do next about a problem that international scientific advisers acknowledge will take decades to bring under control and will require intensive policy responses running far beyond Kyoto’s timetables, which expire in 2012.

One German official, speaking privately, said the Europeans would resist any plan that would throw the Bali talks off course. “The holistic global approach to climate change is very important to us,” he said. Environmental advocates have been pressing for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions for more than a decade. In 1992, when Mr. Bush’s father was president, the United States signed the first climate change treaty, the Framework Convention on Climate Change, which committed the world to avoiding dangerous human interference with the climate system but did not mandate any specific steps. The Kyoto Protocol was drafted five years later.

Two independent experts — William K. Reilly, who represented the first President Bush in the 1992 negotiations, and David G. Victor, a Stanford University law professor whose writings helped provide the underpinnings for Thursday’s speech — said that Mr. Bush’s plan had merit. But they said it would not gain much ground unless the United States adopted limits on domestic emissions, something the president has been loath to do.

“If you take all of this at face value, and you imagine that they go off and actually do it, then it could be a radically different way of organizing the global effort to control these emissions,” Professor Victor said. But he said it would be “very difficult for this to be taken as seriously as it should be taken in the rest of the world without some kind of a clear game plan domestically in the U.S.”