U.N. climate recap adds heat to '08 race

But cutting greenhouse gases dramatically – 80 percent from 1990s levels by 2050, which is what many Democrats and climate experts are urging – could bring steep short-term economic costs, says a Washington Post story.

"All of the leading Democratic contenders for the presidency are committed to a set of cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that would change the way Americans light their homes, fuel their automobiles, and do their jobs, costing billions of dollars in the short term.... Americans could be paying 30 percent more for natural gas in their homes and even more for electricity. At the same time, the cost of coal could quadruple, and crude oil prices could rise by an additional $24 a barrel."

Even so-called "green states," such as Oregon and Washington, will find the transition difficult, according to a new analysis by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council cited in TheOregonian newspaper.

"It would mean eliminating reliable and inexpensive coal power – roughly 20 percent of the Northwest supply – even as a booming population demands more energy. 'It's going to be a lot harder than people think,' said Terry Morlan, director of power planning at the council, which Congress created to monitor the region's energy needs. 'You have to not only offset a lot of what you already use, but you have to come up with new sources of power on top of it.'"

Skeptics, however, remain unmoved by what Time magazine online described as the IPCC's "final warning to humanity."

In the view of H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the free-market think tank the National Center for Policy Analysis, (NCPA) the IPCC research "does not show that we have reached a tipping point or that disaster is in the offing." The press release from the NCPA continued:

"There is nothing that is realistically expected to occur due to future warming that we have not already experienced and adapted to in the past and that should be our direction in the future."

Meanwhile the White House still says it can't define what's a "dangerous" level of human interference in climate patterns, according to an AFP press service story quoting officials at Saturday's IPCC meeting in Valencia, Spain.

"Head US delegate in Valencia, Sharon Hays, cited recent American studies made on the basis of the last IPCC report, in which US researchers stated 'very clearly' that 'value judgments' still have to be made in determining what the dangers of climate change really are. 'So the science simply can't tell us what that number is,' Ms. Hays stated."

• This weekly feature appears with links at csmonitor.com

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