Climate Change: are we heading for a new Cold War?
Chair: Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute
Speaker: Professor Graciela Chichilnisky, director of Columbia Consortium for Risk Management and professor of Economics and Statistics at Columbia University
Content of lecture
There is an historic standoff between China and the US on the issue of global warming. Neither wants to limit emissions unless the other does so first.
In Copenhagen, December 2009, the nations of the world will decide whether to resolve the Global Warming problem extending Kyoto after 2012 – or to start a new Cold War of escalating emissions – the outcome of which may determine the fate of humankind.
Professor Graciela Chichilnisky suggests two modest improvements to the Kyoto Protocol that could resolve the impasse and literally save the day. These unique proposals have received positive attention in China and in the US. But will they be adopted in Copenhagen?
Graciela Chichilnisky has worked extensively in the Kyoto Protocol process. The architect of the carbon market that she wrote into the protocol, and lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which received the 2007 Nobel Prize.