There Is Still Hope for the Climate: Regional Cures for Planetary Fever

There is still hope for the climate, even if a world-wide climate accord proves to be unattainable.  A new report shows that regional measures can hold the global rise in temperature within the two-degree limit.

"A number of analyses have already shown that the rise in temperature can be kept to within two degrees through a global quota market.  This could be the parachute that Earth so urgently requires, but we are still far from reaching the agreement that is needed for it to be implemented," says Bjørn Bakken of SINTEF -- the largest independent research organisation in Scandinavia.

The SINTEF scientist has been leading an international project whose members have performed a computer simulation that asks what would happen if individual countries agreed to take measures within their own region, adopting the European Union's climate and energy strategy as a template?

Their simulation showed that the two-degrees goal could be reached using this climate cure, but that it would cost about 15 -- 20 per cent more than a well-functioning global carbon market.

There Is Still Hope for the Climate:  Regional Cures for Planetary Fever