The United States, with 4 per cent of the earth’s population, emits 25 per cent of the total global greenhouse gases.
In the recently-concluded 14-day intense climate negotiations in the South African port city of Durban, one can discover a sense of win-win smugness. Apart from the minor irritants like Canada walking out of the Kyoto Protocol, the major emitters were spared the expediency of urgent action and managed to reach to a state of consensual status-quo. An Australian senator has derided the UN summit in Durban as a victory for political spin trying to “disguise what is a case of climate failure.” Another predicted that it will be a “do-nothing decade for global action.”
Leave a Reply