Perspectives on climate change policy [Perspective sur le changement climatique]
Résumé
The past decade achieved significant progress in how humanity understand and cope with global climate change. It is increasingly known that the central hypothesis for the next century is that global average temperature will increase by about 2°C in 2100, with carbon dioxyde concentration raising over 550 PPM. A catastrophic change of pattern in climate dynamics remains possible, which may be a risk more serious than gradual and anticipated warming it's more and more understood that burning the world reserves of oil, gas and coal is technically very feasible, but environmentally very catastrophic. International negociations are led within the framework of the Climate Convention. Initially, they followed the model of the ozone layer treaty negotiations. But climate change is a much wider issue, comparable in scope to law of the sea or to free-trade negotiations, with the additional complexity of scientific ignorance and intergenerational aspects. Negotiation must be expected to go on for several decades. Industrialized countries agreed in Kyoto, in 1997, to reduce the level of their greenhouse gases emissions as soon as 2008-2012, about 5% below their 1990 level. This objective is ambitious considering the inertia of energy systems, since the current global trend is more like a 1% annual growth but this is not enought to insure a stable long-term rentability for industrial investments in less emitting technologies. (c) 2000 Editions scientifiques et médicales elsevier SAS. Tous droits réservés.