While the developed world could go it alone with pyrolysis, unless China and India can be induced to take a lower carbon path than the west, there is absolutely no hope for us. While both maintain formidably tough international negotiating positions, there are signs of change, particularly in the energy sectors of both countries. China has a target for renewable energy of 10% by 2020, and is embarking on the largest nuclear power programme currently being developed, while India is pursuing wind and hydro power.
Were the leaders of either country seeking a guide to determining a negotiating position in Copenhagen, they could do no better than Oliver Tickell's just-published book Kyoto2 (Zed Books), which provides a big-picture approach to the prevention of climatic catastrophe. In essence, Tickell provides a blueprint for a global climate treaty. He documents the failings of the Kyoto protocol, then goes on to summarise the latest climate science, including the work of Hansen and his colleagues. The replacement to the Kyoto protocol, Tickell writes, must work effectively to achieve a level of atmospheric CO2 below 350ppm. At the heart of the proposal is a global trade in carbon with a series of reducing caps sufficiently rigorous to bring about such an outcome.
One of Tickell's most telling criticisms of Kyoto is its neglect of tropical forests as a means of sequestering carbon. The destruction of rainforests causes around 18% of the carbon going into the atmosphere annually, yet only a single project concerning tropical forests has been approved under Kyoto's clean development mechanisms. These allow for polluters to gain credits by investing in a variety of ways that reduce greenhouse gases.
Dyson's analysis of the Keeling curve demonstrates just how powerful forests can be as sequesterers of carbon. It's widely acknowledged that Kyoto's successor must develop mechanisms that encourage the protection and regrowing of tropical forests.