Straight ahead on "Our World," the climate-change debate heats up in 2006, mysterious ice worms face extinction with the Arctic's meltdown and we celebrate the twin robots' extended stay on Mars.
SQUYRES: "Well, believe it or not, it's the second anniversary of Spirit's landing on Mars. These rovers were expected to last for 90 days, and it has been two years now."
Exploration and discovery continues on the red planet? that and the latest health news. Hi! I'm Rosanne Skirble, sitting in for the vacationing Art Chimes. Welcome to VOA's science and technology magazine, "Our World."
SKIRBLE: Two-thousand-five will go down in the history books as the planet's hottest year on record, following a decades-long rise in average global temperatures. Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 40 percent since the late 1970s, and last year, warmer ocean water contributed to a record number of storms in the Atlantic. Will these trends continue in 2006? Just ahead ? some expert opinion about the prospects for climate change ? and the international response.
TEXT: The Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change went into effect early last year with a commitment from 38 industrialized nations that by the year 2012 they would reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions more than 5 percent below their 1990 levels.
The United States rejected the treaty because it says trying to achieve such emission reductions would harm the U.S. economy, and that the treaty fails to require emission reduction targets from major polluters in developing countries like China or India.
The U.S. did agree to non-binding climate talks after meeting last month in Montreal, Canada, where delegates from many countries had gathered to discuss the future of climate change policies after the Kyoto pact expires in 2012.
The Bush Administration has favored a voluntary approach to addressing global warming, a position long favored by industry. Jonathan Lash with the World Resources Institute believes private companies are beginning to see the virtue of clear and consistent government rules for counteracting climate
change.
LASH: "For the first time a number of companies (are) saying publicly what many of us have heard them say privately which is they would like for the federal government to define the rules. If people are making long-term decisions, they want to know what it is going to cost them to deal with carbon in the future. I don't think that voluntary agreements do that. If we go on with the voluntary there will be some 1400 new coal fired power plants built. At that point it doesn't matter that we get serious (over global warming), it is too late."
Mr. Lash says election politics may force some Congressional action on climate change. However, he expects the most aggressive initiatives to come from state and local governments.
LASH: "I believe the count of cities that have made climate commitments is now up to 194. Twenty-eight states have climate action plans. Governor Schwarzenegger last June announced a program for California. It puts California on a path toward 80 percent reductions by 2050 and makes commitments in the near-enough-term so that it will have some bearing not only on future governors,
but on the decisions that are made now in California."
Not everyone believes such government mandates ensure an effective response to global warming. Patrick Michael with the Cato Institute - a public policy group that promotes limited government - doubts that California's progressive policies will have a major impact on the global climate picture.
MICHAELS: "california can issue all the standards it wants. California had a mandate to have all the vehicles on the road to be non-polluting, meaning electric vehicles by the year 2000. The technology simply wasn't there. Just because you say you are going to do something doesn't mean that you are going to do it. Interesting enough, the northeastern states that were entering into a much-vaunted compact have just seen two states defect, and the reason they said, 'No, we are not doing this,' is because this will cause us economic problems and it really doesn't do much about (global) warming. That seems to be the (political) wave of the future."
But another wave of the future, notes Jonathan Lash of the World Resources Institute, is renewable energy resources like solar, wind, biomass and geothermal. Mr. Lash believes renewables are becoming more financially attractive as the global demand for energy continues to grow.