Climate Change: UNFCCC

Next Monday in Bali, the United Nations is holding the Framework Convention on Climate Change to negotiate an international agreement on the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. This week I will be posting on the legal issues and business strategies surrounding global climate change. Today, I will post on the legal issues involving the conspicuously absent from Kyoto, the United States. And, expect a post on extracting certified emission reduction credits (CERs) from China and the tax consequences.

For those who are still skeptics of the mainstream views on global climate change (which does not include us members of the Skeptics Society) here is/are:

• some science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a panel of over 2,500 scientists and "experts", and co-recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore;
• some pictures from Scientific American;
• some solutions from SciAm;
• a map;
  
• a sort of Pascal's Wager, call it IPCC's Gambit; and
  
• some opportunities for cold hard cash (or at least pieces of paper, well, maybe in 'Olden Times, now probably a collection of 0's & 1's, allowing the holder of said pieces of paper to pollute a certain amount or trade said pieces of paper in a derivatives market) from Lehman Brothers.
  

There is a lot of money to be made in CERs, and they will do a lot of good in bringing GHG emissions under control, but they need to be implemented properly with proper incentives.

Feel free to give a voice to the other side in the comments.