December 11, 2007

help for Al

Al Gore emailed me today to ask for help. Of course he probably emailed hundreds of thousands of us, but hey, he needs our help.

Gore is bringing a petition to the big UN Climate conference which is taking place in Bali. He is asking for "a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions. This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010 – two years sooner than presently contemplated. The pace of our response must be accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the crisis itself."

What we can all do is sign his petition. He is going to bring all the signatures on stage with him to show our resolve that we want this positive change from our elected leaders. Signing the petition is fast, free and painless.

Are you disappointed or enraged (or ashamed?) that the US never signed the Kyoto protocol? This is a way to show world leaders that people of the world want these changes to be made. (At least I do).

Oh, and by the way, I saw that Australia's new Prime Minister has ratified the Kyoto Protocol on his first day in office. This leaves the United States as the only industrialized country not to ratify the protocol (which required 36 industrialized countries to cut greenhouse gases by 2008-12).

The conference in Bali is intended to lay the groundwork for a new treaty which will extend the Kyoto Protocols, which are expiring in 2012. Let's make sure the US participates this time!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We really should ratify Kyoto, just to make the statement. However, I learned in a science class the other day that even if all these countries followed Kyoto, carbon emissions would increase by 95%. That is instead of 100%, but it still doesn't seem like enough.