Ultimatum Read Online Free PDF

Kyoto 5 and see where we are then. Go ahead. It’s your show now. You’re the boss.”
     
    “China’s not the only emitter,” said Benton. “Even if you did a bilateral deal with them, what happens next?”
     
    “Senator,” said Art Riedl, “what has to happen is for the world’s leading emitters to agree to sharp cuts, even savage cuts, and to show they’re doing it. Action, not words. You get us doing it, you get China doing it, and then you’ve got the leverage to bring the rest of the world on board. No one’s going to believe it’s going to happen if the United States isn’t involved, but you can’t sell this to the American people if the Chinese aren’t on board as well. So that was our strategy. Us and China first, then use that to bring the rest of the world into line. We believe the American people will take the pain if they can see China doing it as well and if there’s a genuine verification mechanism with penalties to back it up. We don’t believe they’ll take the pain for the sake of yet another Kyoto that’s going to turn out to have been ignored by everyone else in ten years time.”
     
    “How deep were the cuts?” asked Eales.
     
    Riedl and the president looked at him.
     
    “The emissions cuts you offered the Chinese, Mr. President. What did you offer them?”
     
    “We showed them the data,” said Gartner. “They knew why it’s necessary to do something. When it came to the bottom line, we offered an immediate freeze, and a matched point for point emissions reduction over the next seven years. Mutually verified.”
     
    “How much?”
     
    “Eighteen percent,” said Gartner.
     
    Benton didn’t react. Not outwardly. Eighteen percent over such a short time frame was a massive reduction. And all the painless steps to cut emissions had been taken long ago. The economic impact of this would be . . . considerable.
     
    “The time when we could do this easily is long gone,” said Gartner quietly. “That was thirty years ago. There’s no way to do it easy anymore.”
     
    “Mike,” said Benton, almost not wanting to hear the answer to the question he was about to ask, “this accelerated rate of change we’ve been talking about—what’s the impact? How bad is it?”
     
    “The Relocation plan I took to Congress envisaged the abandonment of the majority of the Gulf Coast, parts of southern Florida, the Chesapeake Bay area, parts of the San Francisco Bay area, and sectors of New York and other coastal cities. That was a total of a little over six million people and the congressional requisition was 4.2 trillion over the next ten years.”
     
    There was silence in the room. Everyone waited for what was coming next. They all knew the numbers Gartner had just listed. Joe Benton had fiercely opposed Gartner’s plan. The estimate of the total population to be relocated, he knew, was too small, and the financial allocation, six percent of the budget projection, was way too low to do anything but condemn those people to poverty. Benton expected to have to double it.
     
    Gartner took a deep breath. “Magnify it fivefold. And while you’re at it, say good-bye to Miami. The tri-county area will take a category four or better hurricane every two years and the storm surge will drown every living thing all the way to Orlando. And in case you’re wondering, the drought in southern California, its never going to end. We’re talking desert. All up, we’re talking maybe thirty million people, and a cost of twenty-five trillion over the ten year period.”
     
    Joe Benton stared at him.
     
    “Art can show you the math.”
     
    Benton didn’t need to see it. Whatever Gartner said about the cost, he’d have to double it at least. “Is this done, or does it only happen if we don’t get a deal for the emissions cuts you mentioned?”
     
    “Most of it’s done,” replied Gartner. “Art’s got the exact breakdown. You go spending another five years messing around with Kyoto 4