Campaigners across Europe and the US use the threat of starvation to argue for drastic carbon cuts.

Trying to force carbon cuts instead of investing first in research puts the cart before the horse.

In principle, one could cut other taxes to offset the effects of a carbon tax, neutralizing the revenue effects.

Estimates suggest that using carbon taxes to achieve a further 330 Mt CO2 reduction in the EU would cost 250 billion per year.

In Denmark, a group of researchers estimated by how much various energy crops would reduce CO2 emissions.

What defines the Kyoto approach, of course, is a single minded focus on cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

For the money it takes to save one life with carbon cuts, smarter policies could save 78,000 lives.

This has now been backed up with a five year green growth plan aimed at cutting carbon dependency while producing 1.8 million jobs.

From 1990 to 2008, the EU cut its emissions by about 270 million metric tons of CO2.

Hypothetically, switching off the lights for an hour would cut CO2 emissions from power plants around the world.

Japan issued a challenge, agreeing to cut CO2 emissions by 25 by 2020 if other nations follow.

It will most likely continue to do so until we stop it by cutting CO2 emissions.

Proponents of carbon cuts argue that green energy technologies only seem more expensive, because the price of fossil fuels does not reflect the cost of their impact on the climate.

An ambitious policy framework that underpins Europe s energy security and strengthens the single market would also support Europe s drive towards reduced CO2 emissions and low carbon prosperity.

But, unfortunately, it is by focusing on cutting CO2 that we really dishonor human suffering, because any realistic carbon cuts will do virtually nothing for the next 50 100 years.

This also means much less CO2 reductions in Denmark, where a ton of CO2 is reduced at more than six times the current average cost in the EU.

Iran plans to reduce emissions by 175,270 kt CO2 equivalent by reducing flaring and by introducing new technologies that would capture the gases.

Other representatives stressed the need to consider additional reduction steps for methyl bromide, as well as the variable reporting of carbon tetrachloride data.

China pays 38 per ton of CO2 avoided with wind power, for example, while the US pays around 600 for cutting a ton of CO2 with biofuels.

Moreover, although politicians focus nearly exclusively on cutting carbon emissions, CO2 is not the only gas causing warming. The second biggest culprit is methane.

Much of the current policy debate remains focused on cutting carbon, but there are many ways to go about repairing the global climate.

Say we decide to reduce CO2 emissions by three quarters by 2100 while maintaining reasonable growth.

By focusing purely on cutting CO2, we neglect to help many more people, much faster, and less expensively.

The EU did not just implement a single carbon market in order to meet its target for CO2 emissions. Instead, the EU made a bad deal a lot costlier through a host of partly contradictory policies.

If an international agreement to protect the world s climate is to be reached, much greater action to reduce CO2 emissions will be needed on the part of the US, as well as binding commitments on China s part to reduce its carbon burden.

There is a significant delay between carbon cuts and any temperature drop even halving global emissions by mid century would barely be measurable by the end of the century.

China s President Hu Jintao spoke about all that his country is already doing to reduce energy intensity and invest in green alternatives. He emphasized that China is prepared to do more under an international agreement, as did US President Barack Obama.

Too much focus has been put on carbon cuts for nearly two decades, almost to the exclusion of other elements.

These prices are not unique to Europe. China pays 38 per ton of CO2 avoided with wind power, for example, while the US pays around 600 for cutting a ton of CO2 with biofuels.

Germany alone spends more than 3 billion annually, or 167 per ton of avoided CO2 emissions, which is more than 37 times the cost of carbon reductions in the European Union Emissions Trading System.

Through new energy efficiency initiatives, Singapore aimed to reduce up to 190,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2012 and help achieve a 25 per cent improvement in carbon intensity between 1990 and 2012.

Furthermore, given that deforestation accounts for as much as 20 of the emission problem, carbon storage is as important as carbon cuts.

Carbon prices expand the potential for both public and private financing by raising public revenue and creating private sector demand for emission reductions.

Yet activists claimed that there was a moral obligation to cut carbon dioxide emissions, and were cheered on by businesses that stood to gain.

Now, global warming is real, and cutting CO2 is a good idea when the reduction cost is lower than that of the damage it prevents.

If we really want to come to a point, we really want to put a cap on our carbon emission, we want to really lower the use of energy it has to be solved in countries like India.

Moreover, 30 years of tax cutting has left the US government without the financial resources needed to carry out effective programs in key areas such as the transition to low carbon energy.

Consider the European Union s 20 20 policy, which targets a 20 reduction in CO2 emissions below 1990 levels by 2020.

For the US, such commitments would mean cutting emissions to around one tenth of today s per capita level, while for China it would mean creating a new low carbon model of economic development.

Twenty years ago, the world agreed to reduce sharply emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, but little progress has been made.

Rather than relying on cutting a few tons of incredibly overpriced CO2 now, we need to invest in research and development aimed at innovating down the cost of green energy in the long run, so that everyone will switch.

Net changes in carbon stocks are converted to CO2 by multiplying C by 44 12 and by changing the sign for net CO2 removals to be negative ( ) and for net CO2 emissions to be positive ( ).

Mitigation attempts to reduce these flows and thus reduce the rate of increase of the stock of carbon in the atmosphere, with the ultimate goal of stabilizing or reducing it to safe levels.

The 1998 Declaration on HCFCs, HFCs and PFCs could also usefully be revisited.

If the EU is successful in reducing CO2 emissions by 20 by 2020, Böhringer and Keller find that its reliance on imported fossil fuel would be reduced by just two percentage points.