Global Leaders Agree on Temperature Cap
Nicolas Loris /
Leaders of eight industrialized nations met last week in Italy to discuss a number of critical issues, including climate change, and in what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a “historic agreement,” the G8 agreed that “average global temperatures shouldn’t increase by more than 2 degrees Celsius[,] in a significant new acknowledgment in the fight against global warming.”
So, the G8 reached an agreement on global temperatures. A certain amount of pretentiousness lingers from this statement. As if it’s something they can really control – limiting global temperatures increases to only a two degrees C is well within their scope of power.
To reach this limit, global leaders want to cap carbon dioxide emissions, which would have devastating effects on economies reliant on fossil fuels, such as our own. Since 85 percent of America’s energy needs come from fossil fuels, cap and trade would be a massive tax on energy consumption if enacted.