Legislation known as the Waxman-Markey Bill has passed through Congress and will now go before the Senate. A good rule of thumb says that the simpler and shorter a bill is, the more impact it has. Weighing in with 1200 pages the fossil fuel lobbyists and entrenched interests have done in the US what they did to the CPRS- It’s so watered down that if it were a medicine, it might well be classified as homeopathic. It's still a matter of too little, and hopefully not, but perhaps too late.
Scientists, via the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have said that by 2020 developed countries must make 25-40% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions compared with 1990 levels. This is to give a better than even chance of limiting the ultimate rise in global temperature to under 2C, a level seen as representing dangerous climate change.
Here's what the main players have pledged so far by 2020, compared with 1990 levels:
EU 20-30%
US 0%
Japan 8%
Russia 10-15%
Australia 3-24%
Canada 3%
China, India and other developing nations will be asked at the Copenhagen negotiations to commit to reducing their emissions compared with "business as usual", but none has yet made a specific pledge.
