Copenhagen
Risking talking too early since there is still one (long) night left, there is something that is annoying me.
Some countries are using 2005/06 or current levels as baseline instead of 1990. Namely the US, Canada and Australia - among others. It's what happens when marketing is in charge. It looks good to say that the US is going to reduce the emissions by 17%. The truth is that they are reducing 1.3% from 1990 when compared with most developed countries that are in the range 20%-30%. There's no excuse for this other than trying to look good on the picture.
Other countries that are using energy efficiency as reference (emission of carbon dioxide per unit of GDP). Namely India and China. It makes sense, don't get me wrong. It's a valid comparison. Probably even more when we are talking about developing countries that well... are developing. They have every right to use their fair share of resources. I still remember when China was being blamed for the high oil prices while in China there is 1 car for every 50 families and in Europe there are >1 cars per family.
I'm not one of those people that have really high hopes for this summit, or that believes that this is going to solve any of our problems. This is something that has to come from the bottom. Not from the top. It can help but it's not going to solve anything. The question is that at least these guys must be able to agree on the unit to use. Use all three. Use 10 different ones. What they can't do is to have some countries using apples while some others are using oranges. It's not transparent at all and it seems that they are just trying to fool us. I think that the only good example in all this is Brazil that is assuming their numbers, although they don't look so good or impressive, they are fair for a developing country.
