Another report on climate change by a well-intentioned global body (this time the UN Development Program), another insightful (and depressing) comment by Martin Wolf of the FT. I would be in severe infringement of copyright law if I reproduced everything from the article in the url below that I think is important and interesting, so I will leave it to those of you who are interested to read further. The statistics Wolf cites on the complete failure of the Kyoto Treaty are particularly worrying. Needless to say, the overall outlook is bleak:
"In short, if they are to tolerate radical change in energy use, people must first be frightened and then they must be offered a good way out. The truth, moreover, is that this will happen only if the US also takes the lead. No country will deliver radical cuts if the US does not do so, too. No leaps forward in science and technology will occur if the US is not prepared to commit its resources to those ends. The US can no longer wait for a lead from others. Either it takes the lead now or the cause, in all probability, will be lost. Our children and grandchildren will then find out whether it was a real wolf or not."
Have a good weekend.
Dave
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
(c) Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther
Why the climate change wolf is so hard to kill off.
By MARTIN WOLF
1242 words
5 December 2007
Financial Times
Asia Ed1
Page 13
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto120420071412536621
