Archivo categoría «Naturaleza»
Por Bjørn Lomborg, autor de The Skeptical Environmentalist y Cool It, director del Centro para el Consenso de Copenhague y profesor adjunto de la Copenhagen Business School (Project Syndicate, 13/12/11):
Muchas veces se dice que el tiempo extremo es una de las principales razones para tomar medidas firmes respecto del calentamiento global. Hoy en día, ningún huracán ni ola de calor pasa sin que un político o activista lo presente como evidencia de la necesidad de un acuerdo sobre el clima global, como el que se acaba de posponer hasta fines de la década en Durban, Sudáfrica.
Estas afirmaciones … Seguir leyendo
By Michael Jacobs, a special adviser to Gordon Brown from 2004-10, is a visiting professor on climate change at the London School of Economics (THE GUARDIAN, 11/12/11):
UN climate change conferences don’t of themselves cut greenhouse gas emissions. Negotiations about targets and texts cannot do that; only government policies that incentivise and require business investment in low carbon technologies and other emission-reducing activities can.
So the standard by which UN talks should be judged is whether or not they make such policy and investment more likely or less. And from that perspective the conference that has ended in Durban… Seguir leyendo
By Emma Marris, the author of Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World; Peter Kareiva, the chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy; Joseph Mascaro, a postdoctoral associate at the Carnegie Institution for Science and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Erle C. Ellis, an associate professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 08/12/11):
Scientists interested in drawing attention to the human transformation of planet Earth have begun calling the current geological epoch the Anthropocene — the age of man. Naming an epoch is serious … Seguir leyendo
By Rachel Marsden, a columnist, political strategist and former Fox News host. She is the author of American Bombshell: A Tale of Domestic and International Invasion (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 30/11/11):
Global leaders are meeting in Durban, South Africa, in an attempt to figure out how to continue their fight against “climate change” when the first Kyoto Protocol commitment period ends in 2012. Since I’m sitting here in the dark with the heat off, perhaps they’d grant me the temporary moral authority to offer a few suggestions for their agenda.
•Don’t waste any time fiddling with the planet’s thermostat. So the … Seguir leyendo
By Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and President of the Mary Robinson Foundation for Climate Justice., and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Laureate (Project Syndicate, 30/11/11):
Before the Copenhagen climate-change summit two years ago, the two of us sat together in Cape Town to listen to five African farmers from different countries, four of whom were women, tell us how climate change was undermining their livelihoods. Each explained how floods and drought, and the lack of regular seasons to sow and reap, were outside their normal experience. Their fears are … Seguir leyendo
By Jagdish Bhagwati, professor of Economics and Law at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations (Project Syndicate, 30/11/11):
The 17th conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, popularly known as COP-17, is taking place in Durban, South Africa, at a critical moment, as the historic 1997 Kyoto Protocol is set to expire next year. But, like the climate-change conferences in Copenhagen in 2009 and in Cancún in 2010, COP-17 can be expected to spend much and produce little.
Indeed, the extravagance of these conferences seems to grow, rather than … Seguir leyendo
By Craig Rucker, executive director of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (THE WASHINGTON TIMES, 29/11/11):
It’s that time of year again. Another holiday season and another United Nations climate conference is getting under way in some remote corner of the world.
The good news for those of us skeptical of global warming fear-mongering is that the chance of U.N. delegates now gathered in Durban, South Africa, agreeing to a revamped global warming treaty is slim. The bad news is that much remains at stake.
Global warming has become the ultimate means for anyone lacking a beneficial product … Seguir leyendo
By Praful Bidwai, a political analyst, an activist and a regular columnist for the Hindu. He is the author of The Politics of Climate Change and the Global Crisis: Mortgaging Our Future (THE GUARDIAN, 28/11/11):
As crucial climate talks begin in Durban, attention is focused on the likely role of the major country groupings. The outcome of the UN climate conference will be largely decided by the interplay of forces between the Basic (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) group formed two years ago, the EU, and the umbrella group of developed countries, led by the US … Seguir leyendo
By Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate and founder of the Green Belt Movement (THE GUARDIAN, 25/11/11):
This article was written by Nobel peace prize winner Wangari Maathai in September, shortly before her death. It addresses some of the main issues she and the Green Belt Movement were intending to raise at the UN climate summit, which starts in Durban, South Africa, on Monday
In 2011 the worst drought in 60 years engulfed the east of Africa, forcing millions into a desperate struggle to survive. Poor governance intensified the consequences: a drought, not unusual for this part of … Seguir leyendo
By Heherson Alvarez, a former Philippine senator and environment secretary, and is currently Commissioner of the Philippine Climate Commission, and John Topping, Jr., President of the Washington, DC-based Climate Institute and a co-author of Sudden and Disruptive Climate Change (Project Syndicate, 23/11/11):
In 1997, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Kyoto Protocol – an agreement among signatory states to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. In 2012, however, the Clean Development Mechanism, a system of carbon credits in which each credit represents a country’s right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide (CO2), is set to … Seguir leyendo
By Leão Serva, journalist and a former editor in chief of Diário de São Paulo. This essay was translated by Benjamin Moser from the Portuguese (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 17/11/11):
In 1888, Brazil became the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery — a profound moral stain for a nation that prides itself today on being a multiracial democracy.
During the long 19th-century struggle against slavery, at a time when abolitionists in Britain were protesting the forced transfer of millions of Africans from their homelands, Brazilian leaders denounced the global abolitionist movement for interfering in the country’s internal … Seguir leyendo
By John Ashton, the Foreign Office’s special representative for climate change (THE GUARDIAN, 14/11/11):
The lesson the world is learning the hard way from the financial crisis is that there is only one boat and we are all in it. To stay afloat, we need rules tough enough to stop systemic risks becoming systemic collapses. This lesson is as true for the environment as it is for the economy.
A key battle in the campaign to build an effective system of global rules will shortly take place in Durban, where the UN climate negotiations reopen at the end of … Seguir leyendo
Por Bjørn Lomborg, autor de los libros El ecologista escéptico y En frío: la guía del ecologista escéptico para el cambio climático, jefe del Centro de Consenso de Copenhague y profesor adjunto de la Escuela de Administración de Empresas de Copenhague. Traducción: Esteban Flamini (Project Syndicate, 14/11/11):
Cuando el mes pasado el nuevo gabinete de gobierno de Dinamarca se presentó ante la reina Margarita II, el ministro de desarrollo entrante quiso dejar sentadas sus credenciales ecologistas, al llegar hasta el palacio en un diminuto vehículo eléctrico de tres ruedas. El momento fotográfico fue una demostración elocuente acerca de … Seguir leyendo
By Achim Steiner, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Program (Project Syndicate, 08/11/11):
For the elephants that are returning to southern Angola, after herds were devastated during the country’s civil wars, the battle is far from over. Old land mines, sown during the decades of conflict that ended in 2002, are threatening the lives and limbs not only of people, but also of the growing elephant populations that are crossing into Angola from northern Botswana on ancient migration routes that continue into Zambia. Mines are a particularly stark example of how humans interfere with migratory … Seguir leyendo
Por Cayetano López, director general del CIEMAT (EL PAÍS, 20/10/11):
En noviembre de 2009, la cumbre del clima celebrada en Copenhague se saldó con un sonoro fracaso. Varios de los países de entre los mayores emisores de dióxido de carbono (CO2) a la atmósfera, en particular Estados Unidos y China, cerraron la discusión evitando comprometerse a reducir las emisiones. Sustituyeron un acuerdo de reducciones cuantificables, que habría sido lo único efectivo, por una declaración en la que llamaban a no sobrepasar el nivel de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) en la atmósfera asociado a un aumento de la temperatura … Seguir leyendo