Financial Crisis Dampen Motivation For Carbon Control

Leaders around the world have grown more reluctant to slash greenhouse gas emission as the world economy gets worse.

As the governments shift their priority to economy rescue, it makes less sense to push the cap on greenhouse gas emission since such effort will increase the cost for the government.

German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said today she wanted to keep nuclear power, build new coal-fired plants, and shield chemical, steel, manufacturing, cement and auto industries. Merkel previously promised to eliminate coal and nuclear power in Germany.

New York Times analysis said: “There is now a greater possibility that the E.U. misses a deadline it set for itself,” Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said on October 20. “That would call into question Europe’s willingness to back up an offer that was applauded by the whole world with specific policies.”

Such retraction in Europe, warned by some analysts, might cause a chain reaction and lower eagerness of developing countries like China and India, who have already made it very clear about their request on extra funding from developed countries in curtailing global warming.