BANGKOK (AP): There's no shortage of ideas for high-tech measures to combat global warming: develop clean biofuels made of corn or palm oil, ramp up production of advanced nuclear power stations, or bury harmful carbon emissions in underground vaults.
Those are the last solutions many environmentalists want to hear about.
For the green lobby pushing this week for forceful action at a UN conference on limiting the rise in global temperatures, such answers either cost too much, delay an inevitable weaning from fossil fuels, or get in the way of the real solutions, such as renewable energy and greater efficiency.
"There are a lot of technologies that are mentioned ... that are not exactly the most sustainable options," said Catherine Pearse, international climate campaigner for the Friends of the Earth environmentalist group. "We may be replacing one existing problem with new ones."
Finding effective mitigation measures at the meeting in Bangkok is crucial to ensuring the world is able to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and keep the atmosphere from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degree Fahrenheit) and avert the worst impacts of climate change.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN network of 2,000 scientists that has produced two landmark reports on global warming this year, is working on a third study to be released Friday. This one deals with mitigation measures.
A draft of the report features a lengthy list of possible solutions: improved energy efficiency such as hybrid vehicles, renewable sources such as solar and hydropower, cleaner-burning coal, biofuels and reforestation.
Nuclear energy is also mentioned, and the United States is pushing for that option to get greater emphasis in the final document.
But not all the proposals are equal, environmentalists argue, saying some - such as nuclear power - are even dangerous, while technologies such as renewable energy sources are not given proper emphasis.
The green lobby is a varied group, but the lion's share of them insist mounting concern over global warming should not lead to increased reliance on nuclear energy.
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