Copenhagen Climate Conference: U.S. to Offer Modest Emissions Targets
November 27th, 2009 by 
Obama administration officials say they will offer provisional CO2 emissions reductions goals at the upcoming Copenhagen climate conference, although the targets are likely to be far more modest than those proposed by the European Union and other industrialized nations. U.S. officials, not wanting to show up at Copenhagen empty-handed, said the administration will propose U.S. emissions cuts roughly in line with those being considered in legislation before Congress.
Those reductions would be 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, 42 percent by 2020, and 83 percent by 2050. The EU has said it will cut emissions by 20 to 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, with steeper reductions to follow. The Obama administration has been widely criticized for not committing itself to sharp reductions in greenhouse gases, but an administration official told reporters,
“We don’t want to get out ahead or be at odds with what can be produced with legislation.”
Obama is considering traveling to the Copenhagen conference to show the U.S. commitment to fighting climate change and to lay the groundwork for signing a climate treaty in 2010.
Article appearing courtesy of Yale Environment 360
[photo credit:emmajg]
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Greenhouse Gas accounting is dependent on independently verifiable sampling rates and monitoring. Without this real data for each emission source point, fuzzy math and fuzzy data become the status quo in Carbon Credit market dynamics.
Compliance to set emission targets therefore is an illusionary concept without such data.
The tools and methods don’t matter is the data isn’t consistent enough to generate reliable figures for trade. To make the credit system work to verifiable criteria is critical.
Otherwise, no matter how outstanding the methods or tools, the data will always be questionable. This is one of the points being discussed as a problem with carbon credit market dynamics and the reliability of data.
in science, independently verifiable data is the grail. Get that, the accounting works.
Climate mitigation without solid science and real numbers is no where.