Earth Summit 2002 - Greenpeace

5 February 2002: Greenpeace brought a positive environmental message to the Winter Olympics when activists flew a hot-air balloon over the site with a banner reading, "Clean Energy Now! Stop Global Warming," to publicise the urgent need for clean energy solutions to save winter sports, which are threatened by climate change.

What was agreed at the Earth Summit in 1992 to help fix this problem?

The world's governments acknowledged that climate change was a real problem and agreed to deal with this issue by limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

The agreement they made at Rio, the Framework Convention on Climate Change, provided the foundation for governments to negotiate the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which sets out the legally binding targets and timetables for reductions that different countries must achieve.

However, real action in the last decade has been minimal. We are worse off than in 1992, as climate destroying greenhouse gases have soared while governments continue to quarrel. Now even the reductions agreed through the Kyoto negotiations, which only constitute a small fraction of the cuts needed to reduce further warming, are threatened as the US is refusing to participate in this international effort to reduce climate damage.

What is happening in Salt Lake City now?

This month, Salt Lake City is hosting the Winter Olympic Games. Fortunately, there is sufficient snow for the games to go ahead. But in the future this could change.

Global warming threatens winter. Winter tourism is already affected, and future winter Olympic Games may be at risk.

Winters are getting shorter and warmer, especially in northern latitudes. Global warming has already affected winter sports as shown by the cancellation last November of the World Cup Downhill in Utah. Warmer temperatures also mean that the snow melts earlier in the year, cutting short winter tourism. Scientists expect that these shrinking winter season trends will continue, with ever-increasing unpredictability in snow and rainfall patterns in the Western US.

Other global warming impacts on winter include:

· Decreased water supply in areas that rely on winter snowfall to provide summer water. Scientists are already tracking the decrease in glacier volume and earlier melt of glaciers, which along with reduced annual snow cover leads to unreliable and reduced water supply throughout the summer. Global warming affects water supplies needed for agriculture, residential and industrial uses, and for hydropower.

· Decreased winter tourism. Many northern and mountain communities are dependent on revenues from winter tourism. Shifts in the predictability of winter make a big difference to these communities.

· El Niño is the phenomenon of periodic warming of the eastern equatorial Pacific. It disrupts normal weather patterns around the world and has a broad impact on winter weather in the US. El Niño has happened more frequently in recent years and is predicted to become even more common as global warming progresses.

- Perhaps the greatest indicator of changes in the northern hemisphere winter is the dramatic
decrease in extent and thickness of the Arctic ice pack. The natural air conditioning system for much of the earth has shrunk dramatically in thickness and extent over the past 40 years, and has lost an area the size of the state of Texas (US) in the last 20 years. Apart from the global impacts associated with this loss, decreased sea ice affects Alaska Natives who depend upon the sea ice for their livelihood, as well as dramatically increasing the damage from autumn and spring storms.

How can the 2002 Earth Summit fix this?

The 2002 Earth Summit cannot address climate change by creating more words. A new initiative to provide energy for sustainable development through clean technologies would begin to combat climate change right now, and address issues of development and poverty alleviation. At the 2002 Earth Summit, governments should commit to:

- Providing access to sustainable, renewable energy sources within 10 years for the two billion of the world's poorest people who do not have basic, modern energy services; and
- Rapidly accelerating the development of renewable energy markets globally. This would reduce technology costs and fulfill the primary task of meeting the drastic emissions targets necessary to combat climate change.

Governments already have commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, which they should implement immediately. They should ratify the Kyoto protocol as a first step towards protecting the climate, and use the Earth Summit to accelerate negotiations so that industrialised countries plan for much deeper emissions cuts in coming years.

- Join the worldwide effort to stop global warming. Join our campaign for clean energy for the world at www.choose-positive-energy.org. Sign up and tell world leaders that you demand clean energy now!