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Angela Merkel: China, India, Brazil must cut CO2 emissions
German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a federal budget debate in the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament in Berlin, November 23, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Thomas Peter
BERLIN |
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday large emitters of greenhouse gases among rapidly-growing economies such as China, India and Brazil must agree to cut their emissions.
Merkel said in parliament: "Worldwide CO2 emissions this year were higher than ever. We are in an extremely difficult situation where the Kyoto Protocol expires, we have not got far and an extension of the protocol will unfortunately not happen in Durban.
Negotiators from almost 200 countries meet from November 28 in South Africa for a U.N. climate summit, where only modest steps are expected toward cutting greenhouse gas emissions despite warnings from scientists that extreme weather will likely increase as the planet warms.
The Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. plan obliging some 40 industrialised nations to cut emissions, expires next year. Rich nations are reluctant to target major emission cuts beyond 2012 without commitments from big developing economies to curb theirs. The latter want to see deeper cuts from wealthy nations.
The World Meteorological Organization said on Monday the three main greenhouse gases blamed for global warming reached record levels in 2010.
Major developing economies such as China, India and Brazil were not ready to enter into binding international agreements on reducing emissions, Merkel said.
"That means that we are unfortunately becoming a world where the increasingly important economies are not appropriately contributing to a sustainable environment," she said.
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The largest man-made component of atmospheric CO2 is still the US followed by Europe. See graph below (which doesn’t combine European countries but if it did it would approach the United States.)
http://timeforchange.org/cumulative-co2-emissions-by-country
And this doesn’t even take into account PER CAPITA historical emissions… which would make our responsibility even more pathetic.
And these higher per capita emissions persist to this day with Europeans and Americans emitting far more than BIC countries.
So much for democracy, and Abe Lincoln, and how everyone is created equal, huh?
And finally to make it supremely pathetic… a large portion of CO2 production by BIC countries is for export for OUR consumption. So we are effectively benefiting from the product and passing the blame.
The REAL measure of CO2 responsibility is CONSUMPTION and focusing on this that will be the equitable way of addressing this issue, with the US and Europe being by far the largest consumers.
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/greendex/
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