Climate talks failure better than a flawed agreement, says NASA's Hansen
03 Dec 2009
A failure of the forthcoming climate talks at Copenhagen bodes well for the planet than a flawed agreement, James Hansen, a leading US scientist and supporter of action against global warming, has said.
Hansen, who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, expects any agreement that could emerge from the negotiations to be deeply flawed. It would be better for future generations if they were to start afresh, he said.
"I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right track because it's a disaster track," Hansen told the Guardian newspaper.
"The whole approach is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to reassess the situation. If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing then will spend years trying to determine exactly what that means," he added.
Emerging nations like India and China have already rejected the core proposals, such as halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, in the Danish text.
An equal reduction in emission levels would put developing countries in a disadvantageous position vis a vis the rich countries as the burden of action will shift to them and hinder their economic growth.
He opposed the carbon market scheme as also President Barack Obama's proposal of a tax on energy use, saying that there cannot be any compromises in compromises in emission cuts.
