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Hoping for Failure at Copenhagen

James Hansen has spent the last 20 years trying to educate politicians about the causes of climate change and to persuade them to act. Now, he says, he hopes Copenhagen ends in failure.

Hansen's surprising comments come in the UK's Guardian, which calls him the world's pre-eminent climate scientist. Hansen, head of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, told the daily: "I would rather it (a deal) not happen if people accept that as being the right track because it's a disaster track....The whole approach is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to reassess the situation. If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing then [people] will spend years trying to determine exactly what that means."

Hansen is especially critical of carbon market schemes, in which permits to pollute are bought and sold, despite many governments seeing them as an efficient way of reducing emissions: "This is analogous to the indulgences that the Catholic church sold in the Middle Ages. The bishops collected lots of money and the sinners got redemption. Both parties liked that arrangement despite its absurdity. That is exactly what's happening," he says. "We've got the developed countries who want to continue more or less business as usual and then these developing countries who want money and that is what they can get through offsets (sold through the carbon markets)."

... well, a "mandatory" reduction for "all" nations ...
... without the possibility of purchasing indulgences ...
... would certainly be more effective ...
... at the other side of the story ...
... the carbon scheme is better than doing nothing at all ...
... at least it introduces a "cost" of doing business as usual ...

... as long as is not an excuse to "invent" a carbon tax for the people ...
... and leave the polluters go untouched ...
... however in a country where banks of mobster thieves get trillions in rescue ...
... it is difficult to believe so ...
... consequentially he is probably right ...
... "strict reduction" and "no indulgences" ...
... and "immediate compliance" for government and industry ...
... seems more appropriate ...