Global Warming and CO2 Emissions Blog

French President Jacques Chirac (pictured) issued a stark warning to his G8 partners, saying "humanity is dancing on a volcano" and urging them to live up to commitments to combat global warming. The Group of Eight (aka G8) represents the planets largest industrialized countries.

While his analogy may prove obscure, at best, his proactive stance represents the global conflict that is occurring around CO2 emissions, which pitting pro-corporate governments like Bush administration against "pro-humanity" advocates.

The G8 recently held discussions that involved extensive discussions on "energy security", which seemingly is defined as 'open, transparent, efficient and competitive markets'. This is political speak for making the energy companies more efficient to lower costs, rather than weaning populations off of higher polluting sources of energy.

"We cannot discuss energy security while standing still on climate change," Chirac told the leaders of Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and Russia at their summit in Saint Petersburg.

"I regret that the United States is not taking part. But all the others must stick to their commitments." President Bush rejected the draft Kyoto treaty in 2001 on grounds that its binding commitments on reducing carbon dioxide emissions would be too costly for the US economy.

Chirac's remarks were seen as targeting Canada, where the new conservative government has shown itself to be skeptical toward the Kyoto Protocol.

Kyoto signatories have committed themselves to limiting their earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. The leaders issued a statement affirming their willingness "to work to reduce greenhouse gas and deal effectively with the challenge of climate change."

If only willingness were enough. Perhaps, the G8 leaders should be referred to as "G8 Willingnessers". That may be more apros pos.

Labels: carbon dioxide emissions, environmental activism, global warming