Courtesy of vox.com

When bloggers for USDemocrazy procrastinate, we lose a few hours of sleep.

When world leaders fail to act on climate change, the human race takes another step towards a grim (and warmer) future.

Despite growing concern for the climate demonstrated by the recent People’s Climate March in New York City, the current talks among UN members are far from guaranteed to succeed.

Disagreements over which nations should bear the burden of reducing emissions (think: developed economies versus developing economies) has made a binding international agreement difficult to craft. And disbelief back at home isn’t helping either.

As it turns out, the powerful nations of the world would have to slash their emissions in half over the next forty years to meet the 2 degrees Celsius target agreed upon by world leaders.

For the US, that would only be possible by moving towards nuclear power, renewable energy sources, and electric cars while capturing the carbon emissions of remaining coal plants.

It’s hard to imagine accomplishing such a drastic shift in energy delivery with a Congress that has proven itself to be so inept at tackling the big issues of our time. Will the answers come from the bottom?

Can global governance tackle global climate change, or are we toast?