Ideally, all of the nations of the world should sign on. But it is wrong to assume that there would be no benefit is only some nations were to sign. First of all, why would the nations that don't sign have any competitive advantage over those that do sign? How does wasting energy and driving SUVs or even the 2 cent per kilowatt hour difference between coal and nuclear power make a nation competitive. It would seem to me that the nations that develop new energy sources would be the ones to have an advantage as easy oil becomes more scarce. There is also the idea of leading by example.
As far as the Kyoto Accord goes, the biggest flaw was not the lack of stiff penalties, but the lack of short term targets. Canada, for example, did not fail to meet its Kyoto targets because of Stephen Harper deciding to withdraw from Kyoto. Canada failed to meet its Kyoto targets because the previous Liberal government did nothing to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels when they were in office from 1992, the year of the Earth Summit, to 2006, when Stephen Harper first won a minority government.
Most European nations have reduced their emissions and became stronger as a result.
To stop global warming, someone has to act first. If we use China as an excuse to drive SUVs and to have accidents in our pants whenever the toilets back up at nuclear power plants, China will also be afraid to reduce its emissions.
There would need to be compelling evidence that human activity was dramatically impacting the climate and right now there isn't. That increase in temperatues in the 80s and 90s? Turns out that global temp patterns seem to follow a pattern that looks like a sine wave and that was a period when temperatures where naturally expected to be increasing. Also explains the flattening out and the decrease in temperatures the last few years. The impact of the minute increase in CO2 due to humans(1/10th of 1% of the total atmosphere over 50 years) might have had an impact, but not nearly as large as previously thought.
Major powers are the major polluters. Thing is oil is cheap, coal is cheaper, and both relatively abundant. We have gotten lazy after the invention of the internal combustion engine. That principle has been used for over 100 years. If we were really going for it in inventiveness, our cars should go 1000miles a gallon. Not good for oil companies as they have product to sell and a country like China or India does not drive cars much with 10 times the US population(each).
. We should have advanced from cars 50 years ago, but the oil companies have so much of it they don't know what to do with it except sell it to us. Makes them rich and us dirt poor. So they stifle any improvement to the gasoline or diesel engine.
Well China is over 25% of global emissions and growing. Scientists are calling for an 80% cut. So without China, you would need to cut emissions in the rest of the world by 107%. Good luck with that.
The economics say that we will eventually replace most fossil fuel use with cheaper alternatives. This will probably happen before there are effective international agreements. Detrimental global warming effects will eventually become obvious enough that we will have much more expensive international agreements to clean up the mess.
I do not think so, because there will always be cheaters to the system. Many of the so-called "developing" countries also think it is unfair that they cannot exploit the environment for the sake of economic development in much the same way as the "developed" world has done since the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
That is like asking if we can make progress if all the unicorns will behave. It isn't going to happen. It is a pipe dream. Some "powers" will pretend to want an agreement to put pressure on their economic rivals to burden them with harmful regulations and taxes.
I do not think so, because there will always be cheaters to the system.
Many of the so-called "developing" countries also think it is unfair that they cannot exploit the environment for the sake of economic development in much the same way as the "developed" world has done since the onset of the Industrial Revolution.
We need to quit pointing a finger at 'someone else'. When we do that, we have 3 fingers pointing right back at ourselves. Individually, we are responsible. Collectively - we're far too selfish and greedy to change.
If Man Made Climate Change was to exist. It means all life on and in earth would be DEAD. Mike
Revising for an exam and looking outwards for additional information.
The only progress we need is for the people promoting the climate change myth is for their exposure as to the real goal...i.e. shuting down America.
Keeping in mind that the US is the the most reticent,
I think that if the US does sign on, there will be considerable progress.
The real problem, even today, is that it's still fairly expensive to move away from coal and oil, however the price seems to decline some every year. We'll not, in the near future, get to parity, but it will get closer.
The only value to an international agreement is the press coverage and publicity. Agreements of all types are nearly always broken and generally failures. Changing public opinion and attitudes is the only effective change.
Quite simply NO
Yes, we only have one planet.
