Fighting global warming will require “profound lifestyle changes” for millions of people, according to leaked European Union documents obtained by The Guardian.
“It will require exploring possibilities for realizing ‘negative’ emissions as well as profound lifestyle changes of current generations,” read the document laying out the European Commission’s agenda. It was presented to foreign ministers in Belgium Monday.
“The potential scale of such a deep transformation will require a wide societal debate in Europe,” according to the document which calls for a European-wide debate on how people need to change their day-to-day lives to fight warming.
For years, European regulators have been trying to fight global warming through a variety of schemes targeting people’s energy consumption. From cap-and-trade, to high energy taxes, to green energy mandates, little has actually worked to drastically decrease carbon dioxide emissions.
In recent years, environmentalists have even been frustrated by Europe’s cap-and-trade system. In 2013, carbon prices in the EU’s cap-and-trade system hit rock bottom and it became economical to once again start burning coal — environmentalists then deemed the system “worthless.”
Europe’s CO2 emissions have come down, but it’s not clear climate policies have had any appreciable effect on this trend — since CO2 intensity of the economy is always decreasing as industries use energy more efficiently.
“CO2 intensity in the economy has come down,” environmental economist Richard Tol told a crowd gathered at the libertarian Cato Institute last fall, “but you can’t really see a trend break in 1990. It just seems that the last 20 years were a continuation of the trends of the 20 years before.”
“And this is true for the United states, where there has been some climate policy, but it’s also true for some of the countries — Germany, Japan, United Kingdom — who have consistently claimed to be in climate policy and claim to have done a whole lot to reduce their emissions,” Tol said. “It’s just not visible in the data.”
EU leaders are now looking to capitalize on the United Nations Paris deal that was hashed out in December as a way to kickstart policy debates over how to change the way people live after years of failed energy schemes.
As part of the U.N. treaty, the EU has pledged to cut CO2 emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. But the leaked document added even deeper cuts that could be on the way after the U.N. publishes its next climate report in 2018.
It’s not exactly clear what sorts of “profound lifestyle changes” the EU wants its population to make, but the U.N. has put forward suggestions in several reports on how they want people to lower their environmental footprint.
One major activity the U.N. is targeting is what people eat. The U.N. basically wants people to eat less red meat and even supplement their diets with insects.
[dcquiz] For years, U.N. officials have been pushing rich countries to cut red meat out of their diets because of methane emissions from cows and the amount of water it takes to sustain livestock.
“Keeping meat consumption to levels recommended by health authorities would lower emissions and reduce heart disease, cancer, and other diseases,” former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told The Guardian last year.
“And of course there are alternative sources of protein. For example, raising insects as an animal protein source,” Annan said. “Insects have a very good conversion rate from feed to meat. They make up part of the diet of two billion people and are commonly eaten in many parts of the world.”
Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter
This article originally appeared in The Daily Caller
Environmentalists are a waste of space.
Man’s CO2 is not relevant to climate change.
There is more Argon in the atmosphere than CO2.
And there is more nitrogen than oxygen in the atmosphere. Your point is?
That no warmist has ever shown a viable mechanism for warming and CO2. Every action produces its reaction and the balance in nature is analogue. Gravity also has a small effect but like CO2 its not the cause of the non event referred to as Global Warming. Climate change however is normal and natural.
The “viable mechanism” is basic physics. Did you go to The Kid’s Britannica video… What is it that you don’t understand?
http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-149342/The-greenhouse-effect-is-a-natural-phenomenon-through-which-Earth?&articleTypeId=31
Explain it here in your own words, or we will know that you don’t understand it yourself. Sending folk to oversimplified propaganda sites is a very weak get out that stops argument.
You know I have done so previously many times. Calling something propaganda without any supporting evidence is actually the “weak get out”…your standard deflection. What exactly do you not understand or take issue with Encyclopedia Britannica’s explanation? Feel free to respond to them too: [email protected]
Big fibbin to hide inability to grasp basics: That no warmist has ever shown a viable mechanism for warming and CO2.
Best,
D
Explain yourself, argue your point if you understand it. What you might accept as viable has no value unless you can understand it and explain.
Already done. Many times. You pretend it never happened.
Best,
D
It did not, a weak support of a flawed theory is not a viable explanation however many times you repeat it.
People will, indeed, have to become more thoughtful and less wasteful in the future. That’s a fact. No sense whining about it or making common-sense changes a boogeyman.
Best,
d
No arguments here Dano, most of us non warmists will go with cleaner combustion and less waste.
Yes green policies do make a difference……world in chaos needs some sanity.:-)
Thats the big problem Jeanette, I’m sure the chaos is because these guys have an emotional feeling and they never will argue the theory. I don’t think they understand it properly. I had the only explanation on C02 from a Proffessor and at the end of the day he remained polite and not so dogmatic as some war mists are here. A theory needs to be supported by observed evidence, not facts adjusted to suit the theory.
The insignificant effect of CO2 on climate is quantified at http://globalclimatedrivers.blogspot.com with a near-perfect explanation of average global temperature since before 1900; R^2 = 0.97+