Quietly in public, loudly in private, climate scientists everywhere are saying the same thing: it’s over. The years in which more than two degrees [Celsius] of global warming could have been prevented have passed, the opportunities squandered by denial and delay. On current trajectories we’ll be lucky to get away with four degrees. Mitigation (limiting greenhouse gas pollution) has failed; now we must adapt to what nature sends our way. If we can. George MonbiotThe current solutions are not working. There's not a sliver of the political will necessary to meet the challenge. The unattractiveness of the Kyoto process probably has something to do with it: high, upfront cost for an uncertain, remote, reward. A process that politicises the climate change issue, setting country against country in ways that encourage negotiators to spend all their time defending their country's short-term interests at the expense of a global solution. This, and the fact that it's underpinned by 1990s science with little role for our expanding scientific knowledge, has sealed Kyoto's fate, and possibly that of our entire planet.
Climate Stability Bonds might not be perfect - but has anyone any better idea?
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