Verfolgt man die monotone Berichterstattung zum Thema Klimapolitik, so wird deutlich, dass umweltpolitische Presseerklärungen und offizielle Stellungnahmen von vielen Umweltjournalisten zu gutgläubig gefressen und dann fast unverdaut wiedergekäut werden. Das zeigt sich einmal mehr am nahezu gleichlautenden Medienecho auf den gestrigen IPCC Bericht. Allgemeine Tenor: Die Welt hat nur noch acht Jahre, die Erde zu retten
http://news.google.com/news?hl=de&ned=de&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1104359572.

UNO Sprecher versteigerten sich gestern sogar darauf, die Welt habe nur noch acht Monate: “World leaders will have to agree the shape of a “son of Kyoto” treaty before the end of the year if the most catastrophic effects of climate change are to be averted, UN officials said yesterday.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/05/wclim05.xml - Eine genaue Uhrzeit gab die UNO leider nicht an.

Langjährige Kenner der internationalen Klimadiplomatie sind freilich zu erfahren, um auf solche Parolen reinzufallen. Sie zweifeln aus gutem Grund, dass die Panik-Strategie des Weltklimarats jetzt zu einem Durchbruch bei den anstehenden Verhandlungen führen wird:

“A United Nations panel today released its most comprehensive strategy to avoid the catastrophic effects of global warming, but experts said that political and economic realities likely doom it to failure.

Despite backing by more than 100 countries, including the United States and China, the report’s call for trillions of dollars to pay for immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions make it largely symbolic, experts said.
There is little sign that the United States and China—which account for nearly half the world’s emissions—would agree to mandatory reductions, they said.

“The notion that all countries are going to sign on tomorrow is ridiculous,” said John Reilly, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-sci-warming5may05,0,4174050.story?track=mostviewed-homepage

Eine BBC Analyse des Kleingedruckten kommt zu ähnlichen Zweifeln: “You might think that by endorsing this IPCC report, the very governments which are involved in the annual UN climate change negotiations have committed themselves to some concrete action. If this is their intention, we should see signs of it emerging during the G8+5 talks in the middle of the year and at the next UN climate session in December.

Even so, they would have to agree on what scale of climate impacts they want to avoid, what level of greenhouse gas concentrations that equates to, and how soon they want to begin reversing the inexorable rise in emissions.
Perhaps a more accurate view can be deduced from changes to this report’s wording made during the week’s discussions in Bangkok, where a reference to a “global” carbon market became merely an “international” market, and a reference to the importance of “regulatory and financial incentives and international co-operation” in climate policy was removed altogether, with approval for the effectiveness of “voluntary agreements” inserted instead.
Governments have emerged with a roadmap to a cooler world. Whether they follow it, or get distracted on the way, or argue so much over which route to take that the journey never starts, is a question for another time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6623601.stm

Währendessen steigen die CO2 Emissionen selbst in grünen Hochburgen weiter kräftig an - und demonstrieren einmal mehr, dass Kyoto keineswegs so billig ist, wie jetzt wieder behauptet wird:

Efforts to curb New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions are failing, according to new figures. They show that greenhouse gas emissions increased by 2.8 per cent between 2004 and 2005, the latest figures available, placing the Government under mounting pressure to unveil policies soon for tackling the problem.

National labelled the New Zealand figures “awful” and said this country’s emissions increased faster than Australia, the United States, Japan, Canada and the European Community between 2004 and 2005. National Party environment spokesman Nick Smith said the likely bill for New Zealand’s Kyoto liabilities was mounting.

“Labour came to office in 1999 promising to reduce emissions by 20 per cent by 2010. These figures show emissions actually increased by 12 per cent from 1999 to 2005,” he said.

The Government has admitted it is unlikely to hit its Kyoto targets - a failure that was estimated in 2006 to cost taxpayers about $500 million in 2012, the deadline for making up the shortfall. But Dr Smith said yesterday the likely cost was closer to $2 billion, as emissions kept rising.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4048526a11.html