Global Warming

The dramatic change in West Antarctic Ice could produce a significant rise in global sea levels; Antarctic Ice sheet is melting rapidly, as much as 36 cubic miles of ice a year. Sea levels rise, warming temperatures, uncertain effect on forest and agricultural systems and increased variability and volatility in weather patterns are expected to have a significant impact. Going oil and gas prices up, reliance on coal is increasing, especially in China, India and the United States, meaning the global emissions of carbon dioxide will rise      and there is little hope of averting the worst effects on climate change. The Kyoto Protocol, ratified by over 166 countries, but not by the former Bush-U.S. Administration, entered into force in February 2005 and was due to end in 2012. The U.S., mayor developing countries and big poleuters like Brazil, China and India became fully engaged in signing up to a post-2012 agreement, centered on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change/UNFCCC, having G8 leaders agreed to consider and adopt the goal of achieving at least a 50% reduction of global emission by 2050. President Obama has committed himself to play a constructive role in the international U.N. negotiations "Global Green New Deal" for the post-Kyoto treaty and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by 80% - below 1990 levels - by 2050, proposing Government spending of $150 Billion over the next 10 years in clean energy infrastructure, creating as many as 5 Million jobs, asking for action of developing countries like China and India to do their part. Obama's Administration announced a historic first U.S. wide regulation proposing tough standards to limit the release of greenhouse gases by cars and trucks raising also fuel efficiency standards by 2016, approving the House a climate bill, formally known as "American Clean Energy and Security Act", establishing first national limits on greenhouse gas emissions. EU leaders agreed on a deal to cut by 20% greenhouse gas emissions on 1990 levels within the European Union by 2020, which would rise to 30% if other developed countries match the European target, dropping EU greenhouse gas emissions 6% in 2008 as global economic crisis slowed industrial activity, setting Japan as target to cut greenhouse gas emissions 25% from 1990 levels by 2020. 68 nations approved tentatively to keep temperature increases to no more than 2 degrees celsius confirming a far-reaching proposal to reduce greenhouse gases by 2050 of industrialized nations by 80% and worldwide by 50%. Russia, one of the world's greatest emitting countries, agreed with the EU to cooperate on climate change, raising its greenhouse gas emissions reduction target from 15% to 20%/25% by 2020 from 1990 levels, while President Obama offered to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, setting an emission target of 28% by 2020 within the Federal Government. China proposed to cut its carbon intensity - carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product/GDP by 40% to 45% by 2020 compared with levels in 2005 and India confirmed its intention to cut the carbon emitted relative to the growth of its economy - its carbon intensity - by 24% by 2020. The U.N. climate conference 2010 in Cancun ended with a compromise build on the progress of the previous Copenhagen summit, reaching still no consensus on a post-Kyoto agreement, allowing global temperatures to rise not more than 2%, cutting drastically greenhouse gas emissions, proposing to set up with the help of the World Bank a Green Fund to raise an annual $100 Billion aid to assist poor countries to adopt to climate change. Delegates of the 2011 U.N. summit on climate change in Durban reached a last minute compromise pact including top emitters China, India and U.S., setting course to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade, extending the Kyoto Protocol and to agree on a new binding international climate deal until 2015 to enter into force in 2020, abandoning Canada the Kyoto Protocol, announcing Japan and Russia they will not be signing the treaty renewal in 2012. The 2012 U.N. conference on climate change extended the Kyoto Protocol until 2020, agreeing 37 industrialized nations to continue to cut their greenhouse gas emissions within the Kyoto II regulation, the sole legally binding climate plan for combating global warming, pulling out Russia, Japan and Canada, while the U.S. never ratified the pact.
Too late to change global climate change, the damage is already done , climate change is happening much faster than expected and life will become remarkably different in an energy starved, food-destabilized world.