You're quite right, Sam. However, what the faster phaseout does do is, potentially, buy us some time in terms of when atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases would reach the point where forcings would push us past the 2C threshold that everyone acknowledges as particularly foreboding, and at which point some of the non-linear forcings may occur. Such is our lot in life where that's the extent of the good news, but perhaps in the interim technological change, peak oil and political impetus can transform climate policy before the worse potential impacts of climate change are visited on us, and perhaps more importantly, the world's most vulnerable populations. wil
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Samuel Barkin Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 7:30 AM To: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu Subject: HCFCs and Kyoto A thought on the new Montreal Protocol/HCFC agreement and climate change, following up on the several emails on GEPED on the topic yesterday. Various commentators have argued that this agreement does anywhere from twice to five times as much for climate change as does Kyoto. And this may well be the case for some periods of time in between the new baseline year and the old phase-out date of 2040. But in the long term, it strikes me that the new HCFC agreement does not do all that much for climate change. The parties to the agreement had all already agreed to a phaseout - this agreement moves the dates forward by a decade. But a decade in climatological terms isn't all that much. After 2040, this agreement makes no difference at all to climate change. Kyoto, on the other hand, was about setting new emissions levels, not changing the schedule for emissions levels already agreed to. As such, its achievements (however modest) could be expected to alter long-term behavior by setting new baselines for expectations. As such, it strikes me that comparisons of the climate-change effects of the two agreements are misplaced, in that the HCFC agreement does not have new long-term ameliorative effects on climate change. Thoughts? Sam Barkin Samuel Barkin Associate Professor of Political Science University of Florida
