Rich Nation 2020 Greenhouse Cuts
The U.N. Climate Panel says that rich nations should cut by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avert the worst of droughts, heatwaves, flood and rising seas. A U.N. agreement from 2007 demands that developed nations make comparable efforts to fight warming. But analysts say the world faces huge arguments about what is a "comparable effort" in cutting emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, in the run-up to a meeting in Copenhagen in December to agree a new treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. Yet some say the costs of cuts may not be as high as feared. "Within certain limits, the measures will pay for themselves," said Markus Amman of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna. Policies such as more building insulation could save money by cutting energy use.
Among national goals, U.S. President Barack Obama wants to return U.S. emissions to 1990 levels by 2020—a cut of 14.3 percent from 2007. China and the United States are top emitters. The European Union, which has done more to cut emissions than the United States since 1990, plans to cut by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. That works out as a 14.2 percent reduction from 2005, according to the EU Commission. The European Commission said last month that four factors should be taken into account to ensure comparable effort—GDP per capita, emissions per euro of economic output, population trends since 1990 and past efforts in combating warming.
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