单选题
Are G8 Climate Targets Realistic?
The commitment by G8 nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. Nothing else than a top -to -bottom refit can do the job.
Virtually all electricity generation will have to come from renewables, nuclear power or so - called" clean" coal—if that technology can be made to work on a commercial scale.
The amount of electricity generated in Western countries will have to rise significantly— doubling or even trebling—as transport and the heating systems for homes and businesses switch away- fromfossilfuels.
Alongside a re - fuelling revolution would go a frugality revolution, as societies put an end to energy wastage.
But so far, leaders have not talked collectively of how start this revolution.
And that is what makes some suspicious that the big targets are more about dressing windows than about re - writing the world's energy rulebook.
Another generator of suspicion is that the target is dim in the future—a time when. as the UK's climate and energy secretary Ed Miliband admits, none of the leaders setting the target are likely to be in office and able to be held accountable.
Do governments set targets on, say, the number of people in higher education 41 year in advance?
Generally speaking, they do not.
The EU and Japan have set 2020 targets domestically, and legislation going through the US Congress should lead to a commitment from Washington too.
Many EU nations are in reality struggling to meet even their far more modest Kyoto Protocol commitments.
Funding headache
So now, G8 leaders will try to persuade some major developing countries to have global emissions by 2050.
Governments such as China's that are concerned about climate impacts may find the figure desirable.
But they are unlikely to be impressed with what they see as fine words from the West unmatched by real short- term commitments.
Unmatched, too, by money. So if the West wants the developing world to go through its own energy revolution, it is going to have to fund a lot of it. This time developing country governments are likely to want to see the money itself rather than some amorphous pledge.