UN Report Stresses Urgency Of Reducing Carbon Emissions

This is the conclusion of a report delivered in Berlin on the need to accelerate efforts to reduce carbon emissions.  It is the third report on this issue in the last few months.  The warnings are clear, but we continue to drag our feet on this issue.  We are trying to grow a global economy, that is dependent upon fossil fuels, in order satisfy our short term needs.  In doing so we will leave a less habitable planet to our children and grand children.

If climate targets are to be met, the report said, annual investment in electrical power plants that use fossil fuels will need to decline by about 20 percent in the coming two decades, while investment in low-carbon energy supply will need to double from current levels.

The report warned that if greater efforts to cut emissions do not begin soon, future generations seeking to limit or reverse climate damage will have to depend on technologies that can permanently remove greenhouse gases from the air — in effect, they will be undoing the damage that will have been caused by the people of today.

But these technologies do not now exist on any appreciable scale, the report said, and there is no guarantee that they will be available in the future, much less that they will be affordable.