“There is a tendency to think that disasters might happen in Bangladesh, but they would not happen in New Orleans or New York. But they have happened in New Orleans and New York. We see that however advanced we think we are in terms of development, we are still very dependent on the environment,” said Hoskins.
Greenpeace's Davis said leaders need to recognize the costs of inaction, and also the benefits of promoting alternative ways to produce energy, that do not contribute to global warming - methods like solar, wind and geothermal power generation.
“It would take a decade, maybe longer, to be able to shift the situation. But it would not take so long to be able to get to a place where we began to deploy those technologies on an enormous scale," she said. "Then, once we have started, actually the huge benefits associated with rolling out large-scale renewable energy will be such that this will be a snowball effect.”
But experts do not expect much from the upcoming U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. The most they are hoping for is a renewed commitment to reach agreement in 2015 about environmental standards that would take effect five years later.
The experts say an agreement with universal standards, transparency and incentives to use new technologies could at least begin to reverse the effects of global warming. But they worry about whether the political will exists, and how many more people will have to suffer from climate disasters before the process even starts.
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25