Word: carbonations
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...Mainstream scientists have been warning for years that by burning oil, coal and other fossil fuels, humans have created a blanket of carbon gases that traps heat in our atmosphere and warms the planet. The last two years were the hottest in recorded history, and recent wild weather patterns suggest that this global warming will bring with it an ever expanding plague of economic and human catastrophes...
...they're seeing is actually a giant fig leaf. Make-or-break talks in The Hague on the Kyoto climate change treaty appeared doomed for failure, Tuesday, after the European Union rejected a U.S. proposal to factor in its forests as a means of cutting its output of the carbon gases that create global warming...
...Kyoto Protocol, endorsed by the Clinton administration, requires that by 2012, the industrialized nations will have cut their carbon gas emissions to 5 percent below their 1990 levels - the U.S., which accounts for at least one quarter of "greenhouse gas" emissions despite comprising only 4 percent of the world population, is slated for a 7 percent cut from 1990 levels. Reducing emissions, of course, is a painful process for industrialized nations, because it requires cutting back on coal-burning power stations and on the consumption of gasoline and other oil-based fuels. To understand the magnitude of that pain...
...greatest cuts, and against that background U.S. negotiators are trying to find ways of easing the load required by the treaty. Although it has been agreed that countries such as the U.S. will be able to buy polluting "rights" from countries that produce less than their limit of carbon gases to cover inevitable shortfalls in achieving U.S. targets - in other words, pay other countries to increase their own cuts - that could still prove to be a costly solution. So U.S. negotiators are demanding that the treaty recognize the ability of forests to function as "carbon sinks," soaking up carbon gases...
...single-handedly produced 36 percent of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions in 1990. Washington wants exchangeable "credits" for countries that make progress in cutting emissions, which can then be purchased by the U.S. and other big polluters. It also wants credit for planting forests designed to soak up carbon gases, and to avoid the treaty's prescribing financial penalties for non-compliance. The Europeans are lukewarm on the first two, and ice-cool on the third. Then again, being the world's biggest polluter gives Washington significant leverage over the final form of the treaty. Which may mean that...