The largest source of greenhouse gases in the coming decades will not be the US, Western Europe and Japan, but the developing economies of East Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. The coming eruption of carbon emissions from the poor world will dwarf any reductions in the North.
With our abundance of wind, solar, and geothermal energy, Nevada has been a leader in moving away from carbon emissions and embracing a clean energy economy that has created good-paying jobs in our state that can't be shipped overseas.
We know that things like energy independence, getting off oil, getting out of the Middle East, and creating jobs and economic development in the new clean energy industries of the future are much higher priorities for most voters than capping carbon emissions or taxing dirty energy sources. So why not redefine our agenda as the solution to those problems?
People in low-lying countries like Bangladesh with almost 140 million people who are managing to feed themselves, whose carbon emissions can't really be calculated (they are a rounding error in the UN's attempts to do national comparisons), and yet, most of whose people are at risk from increased flooding due to rising sea levels.
My wife and I have purchased two hybrids. We bought a 3 kw photovoltaic unit. We recycle and offset our carbon emissions on the Internet. We turn things off. But we also spend two nice salaries every year, and here's the dirty little secret - our environmental footprint is HUGE, I'm sure. We've all got to do what we can in our individual lives, but we've also got to drive the systemic changes that will make the big differences.
The black line is carbon emissions to date. The red line is the status quo - a projection of where emissions will go if no new substantial policy is passed to restrain greenhouse gas emissions.
We have 20 years [until 2026] to reduce carbon emissions or climate change will become irreversible.
The horn of dilemma of energy politics is what really drives concern about this energy in this country, at the gut level for most people, is high gas prices. And if you really want to fight global warming and try to reduce our carbon emissions, the cleanest, easiest, most rational way to do it would to make the price of gas even higher through very stiff gas prices.
The carbon emissions from tar shale and tar sands would initiate a continual unfolding of climate disasters over the course of this century. We would be miserable stewards of creation. We would rob our own children and grandchildren.
I think the Caribbean countries face rising oceans and they face increase in the severity of hurricanes. This is something that is very, very scary to all of us. The island states in the world represent - I remember this number - one-half of 1 percent of the carbon emissions in the world. And they will - some of them will disappear.
In 'Tarahumara' land, there was no crime, war or theft. There was no corruption, obesity, drug addiction, greed, wife-beating, child abuse, heart disease, high blood pressure, or carbon emissions. They didn't get diabetes, or depressed, or even old: 50-year-olds outran teenagers.
If Britain was to close down altogether overnight, then China would take up the slack of carbon emissions in two years. If America closed down, just the growth in China's emissions would replace America's emissions in 12 years.
I wish we could grow up about it, I'm sure we are contributing to global warming, and we must do all we can to reduce that, but our climate has always changed. The Romans had vineyards in Yorkshire. We're all on this bandwagon of 'Ban the 4x4 in Fulham'. Why didn't we have global warming during the Industrial Revolution? In those days you couldn't have seen across the street for all the carbon emissions and the crap coming out of the chimneys.
I am worried about climate change. In one respect, I may be more worried than other people. I am worried because I have very little confidence that we know what is causing it....One of my fears is that we could reduce carbon emissions by some drastic amount, only to discover that-oops-it turns out that climate change is being caused by something else.
The press heralded this as a major accomplishment. The rush from the press as soon as it was announced suggested a high level of coordination. Like lemmings in a staged dive off a cliff, 'historic' became the media's rallying cry. There is nothing historic about the deal. In fact, news reports from November 2012 noted that China expected, in 2012, that its carbon emissions would begin to decline after 2030 because of factory upgrades, efficiencies, etc.
President Obama flew to China a few days ago and announced a joint environmental pact with the communist regime. The United States will reduce its carbon emissions substantially over the next 11 years. China will do absolutely nothing but hope that its emissions decline after 2030.
A lot of lies and misinformation has been put about by eco nuts on the back of a report by an idiot economist [Sir Nicholas Stern]. Environmental head bangers are talking nonsense when they claim that aviation is the fastest-growing source of carbon emissions. Coal-fired and oil-fired power stations are the biggest contributor of carbon but I have yet to hear any fearless eco warriors advocating nuclear power as they drive around in their SUVs to their next protest meeting.
'Goals' and 'caps' on carbon emissions are practically worthless, if coal emissions continue, because of the exceedingly long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the air.
The United States could dramatically reduce its carbon emissions per kilowatt-hour without raising its overall energy bill.
...if we all turned down the thermostat in our house by just one degree, we would save over £650 million worth of energy and nearly nine million tonnes of carbon emissions every year. That would be the equivalent of taking three million cars off our roads...we can bring about a Green Consumer Revolution in this country to improve our lives, enrich our economy and protect our environment.
First, we must stop wasting energy. A quarter of the UK's carbon emissions come from the home. Our housing stock - the oldest in Europe - is costing us the earth... After transport, heating is the second biggest driver of energy demand in Britain. British Gas research suggests that householders who put in energy efficiency measures cut their gas consumption by 44%. Better insulated buildings will do much of the work for us.
To put it in context, the federal government was, at the beginning [of the Vancouver meeting], talking about a $15-per-tonne floor for carbon emissions. We're at $30 a tonne, so we're already double that. But our economy is growing at a faster rate - three per cent of GDP is our projected growth in British Columbia.
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