E3G

Jennifer Morgan on Living on Earth Radio

By Jennifer Morgan

GELLERMAN: But you know it’s interesting because the world hasn’t even met the commitments to cut emissions under Kyoto.

MORGAN: I think in the end we’re now just in what’s called the commitment period when countries are implementing their plans, and it is true that countries are not doing enough to reduce emissions, but I am feeling pretty confident that the European Union will meet its commitments, that Japan will meet its commitments and that pretty much all of the industrialized countries, perhaps except for Canada, will in the end meet the targets that they agreed upon in Kyoto. We’re just in the middle or kind of getting started on that. We’ll know in 2012.

GELLERMAN: But Italy’s emissions are actually up 13 percent. The United States, which is not a signature to Kyoto, had and increase of 14 percent over 1990 levels.

MORGAN: Yes. I think Italy and part of the European Union they – the way that the Kyoto Protocol works, is that countries should reduce as much as possible or meet the substantial part of their reduction targets domestically, through domestic reductions, but they are also kind of a made in the USA proposal that was brought into Kyoto allowed to invest in projects in developing countries that reduce emissions and then use those credits that they generate from those projects towards meeting their own targets. So it’s a bit of investment in developing countries. And I believe that Italy has a pretty ambitious program on that in order to make up a gap of what it hasn’t done domestically, so. And as far as the United States goes, well, that is the big question is how the new Obama administration will hopefully come in and turn around the tide of rising emissions in the United States.

GELLERMAN: Of course, Mr. Obama is not going to Poznan, nor is he sending a delegation there.

MORGAN: That’s correct. I think he has stated quite clearly that we have one president at a time, and in his video message recently that he gave to Governor Schwarzenegger’s meeting, I think he made it clear that he knows that the Poznan meeting is taking place, he’s noted that the work of the negotiators there is important for the planet, but we can expect him to engage once he’s taken office, and I think that seems like the right thing to do to me.

GELLERMAN: You spoke of hope and momentum – how much is pie in the sky? Yvo de Boer who is the head of the climate change secretariat for the United Nations has said that lower oil prices will mean less of an incentive to invest in renewables. The economies of the world are tanking. Will companies and countries want to invest in costly emission cuts?

“They cannot operate in a business as usual world any more where we just continue to pump money into old technologies, whether they be cars or infrastructure…”

MORGAN: Well I think that’s - number one, I think when you look at the state of the economy today and the types of short term, initial actions that can be taken to curb the climate crisis, you actually see quite a lot of opportunity. Because the things that we need to do to slow down global warming are things that save energy. For example, if you’re looking at the government pumping billions of dollars into the economy, then it would make a lot of sense for that money to be going into new train systems in the United States to get cars off the road and reduce dependency on oil and curb emission. Energy efficiency programs for low income housing to save money, create new jobs. Leaders really have to have all of these goals in mind. They cannot operate in a business as usual world any more where we just continue to pump money into old technologies, whether they be cars or infrastructure or anything else.