EcoRadio

Category: Climate chaos

The atmosphere is to the earth as a layer of varnish is to a desktop globe. It is thin, fragile and essential for preserving the items on the surface.150 years of burning fossil fuel have overloaded the atmosphere to the point where the earth is ill. It now has a fever. Read the detailed article, Soothing Gaia’s Fever for an evocative account of that analogy. The items listed here detail progress on coordinating 6.5 billion people in the most critical project undertaken by humanity. 

  • America makes first move to allow independent fund for poor countries

     

     

    Although US negotiators have not made any specific promises on finance at talks currently under way in Bangkok, the US has accepted the principle of a single independent fund to be administered at least in part by the UN.

     

    This is a long way from what developing countries want – firm pledges of large sums of money to allow poor countries to buy technologies to help them develop cleanly and to adapt to climate change. But because talks have been frozen on the issue for months, the movement in the US position is being seen as a positive step.

     

    Until now, America, backed by Britain, has proposed that any money paid should be channelled through existing organisations like the World Bank. In addition it has insisted that contributions by rich countries should be voluntary.

     

    This has been flatly rejected in the past by G77 countries (an umbrella group of 130 developing nations) who have long mistrusted the bank, saying it is institutionally biased against poor countries. They have said they want the UN to administer a separate fund which would be guided, controlled and managed by all countries. In addition they do not want promises of cash, but guaranteed, predictable flows of money.

     

    Under the new US proposal, countries would be allowed to choose how much they paid and to direct it to specific areas, such as forestry or technology. Rich countries would come together every few years for what have been called “pledge parties”, where they would indicate how much they intended to pay. In addition, they want businesses and other groups including NGOs to have access to the funds.

     

    The proposal will almost certainly be rejected by G77 countries and insiders do not expect it to form part of the final Copenhagen deal, but the US move is considered significant because it represents some movement in the negotiating positions. The talks have been deadlocked on finance for months.

     

    “The positions are becoming clearer. The US has opened the door to a single fund. The worrying sign is that it assumes that the developing countries will take what they can get and will not walk out of the talks. That’s a dangerous assumption,” said Oxfam analyst Antonio Hill.

     

    “We still have a deadlock on finance. The key to unlocking it is with the Annex 1 [rich] countries. At the moment no money has been put forward,” said Raman Metha of Action Aid who suggested that the US proposal was a negotiating tactic to force the G77 to compromise.

     

    Countries have made no progress in Bangkok on how much money they are prepared to put up, or what proportion would be new rather than come from carbon markets or existing aid. Discussions are expected to go to the wire at Copenhagen in December.

     

    At present the leading contender is still Gordon Brown’s suggestion of $100bn a year (£61bn) which has been endorsed by the EU’s environment minister Stavros Dimas.

  • Wong boring everyone to tears with details of flawed CPRS/

     

    The science says that we need to reduce emissions by about 40% by 2020 if we want even a 50% chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. Wong has ignored that advice in setting the targets for her so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) and in developing Australia’s negotiating position for the upcoming talks at Copenhagen.

    Imagine the following situation. You observe increasingly worrying changes in your body’s behaviour so you consult a doctor. The doctor diagnoses a serious illness, but assures you that with a long dose of drugs with some nasty side effects, you have a 90% chance of pulling through. You seek a second opinion, which confirms the diagnosis and the prescribed course of treatment. Both doctors remind you that there is some chance that their diagnosis might be wrong and that there is no guarantee that the cure will work. What would you do?

    Those with an interest in evidence-based medicine would most likely take the pills, wear the side effects and hope for the best.

    But the sceptics have got two options: ignore the diagnosis or ignore the prescription. When it comes to climate change, Wong is clearly the second kind of sceptic.

    Imagine walking out of the doctor’s surgery and calling your accountant to help you decide whether to undertake the course of treatment. How much will the treatment cost? How long will you have to spend in hospital? How much money could you earn if you were working instead? What discount rate shall we apply? No doubt some people make decisions in that way, but would you?

    But Penny Wong isn’t just a science sceptic, she is an economics sceptic. There is no economic case for the billions of taxpayers’ dollars that are to be given to the polluters and arguments about the need to protect our polluters are inconsistent with our longstanding strategy of lowering our trade protection to encourage other countries to follow suit.

    But the economics of the minister’s approach to climate change are much worse than her generosity with taxpayers’ money when it comes to silencing the polluters. Does anybody remember Sir Nicholas Stern? Stern made it quite clear that the economic costs of doing nothing to tackle climate change are much bigger than the costs of decisive policies to solve it.

    Of course, some jobs and profits will be lost in the emission-intensive sectors of the economy if we are serious about reducing emissions. That is, supposedly, the whole point. We now find ourselves in the farcical situation of trying to transform ourselves into a low carbon economy without actually changing the behaviour, or the profits, of the biggest polluters.

    Despite the fact that the climate change minister is ignoring the scientists and ignoring the economists, she does appear to be winning. Recent polls showing a reduction in concern for climate change will have been music to her ears. The strategy of boring everybody to tears with the byzantine detail of the flawed CPRS seems to be working.

    Rather than being grilled about why her targets ignore the science, why her compensation package ignores the economics and why her scheme design ignores common sense, she has simply been able to talk about the sceptics in the Opposition and her commitment to the passage of the CPRS. Neither of those issues is in doubt, but neither of them is terribly relevant.

    Fortunately for Penny Wong, the sceptics in the ALP are only influential in cabinet rather than noisy in parliament. But unfortunately for the atmosphere, the political pain of the Opposition is no substitute for a science-based approach to tackling climate change.

  • DEVELOPED COUNTRY EMISSIONS PLEDGES FALL SHORT, ANALYSIS SHOWS

     

    Comparability of Annex I Emission Reduction Pledges, a new analysis by the World Resources Institute (WRI), examines the pledges made by the European Union, Japan, Russia, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Belarus, Ukraine and Canada as negotiations on a new global climate agreement near their climax in Copenhagen this December. Also included is the United States’s emission reductions based on the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed by the House of Representatives in June.

    WRI’s analysis reveals that commitments by these industrialized country parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) would result in a 10 to 24 percent reduction of global emissions below 1990 levels by 2020.

    This is less than the 25 to 40 percent range of emission reductions that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states would be necessary for stabilizing concentrations of carbon dioxide at 450ppm, a level associated with a 52 percent risk of overshooting a two degrees Celsius goal. Both the G8 and the Major Economies Forum – representing the world’s 17 leading economies – recently agreed to a goal of limiting average global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.

    “Our analysis provides a preliminary picture of where the world is headed in the run-up to Copenhagen,” said Jennifer Morgan, director of WRI’s climate and energy program. “While emission reduction commitments by these countries could have an important and potentially substantial impact, they will not be enough to meet recommendations of IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report. WRI therefore urges industrialized countries to bring forward more ambitious pledges to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.”

    The report, which covers pledges by countries responsible for 98% of all developed country emissions, uses three metrics to compare country commitments – per capita reductions, emission intensity reductions, and absolute reductions. The 10 to 24 percent reduction is based on the inclusion or omission of factors, such as changes in land use, forestry data and low vs. high pledges. Other key findings include:

    • The choice of metrics used by countries (such as whether to include offsets, land-use change or forestry emissions) can alter their emission reduction calculations significantly.

    • High regulatory standards and robust accounting rules will be critical to ensure that international emission reductions are real and additional.

    This article was shared by our content partner World Resources Institute, a member of the Guardian Environment Network.

  • ETS war heats up on costs as coalition set for talks

     

    The debate on the emissions trading scheme will enter its endgame next week after a crucial meeting of Coalition MPs on Sunday to sign off on the opposition’s proposed amendments to the Labor legislation.

    Malcolm Turnbull, who has staked his leadership on the partyroom allowing him to negotiate with the government on the amendments to be decided on Sunday, declared again yesterday that the Coalition would not be a credible alternative government if it did not offer amendments to the legislation.

    “A major political party – any political party that aspires to be in government – has to have a clear and credible policy on action on climate change,” said Mr Turnbull, who was environment minister in the Howard government.

    Homing in on hip-pocket concerns, Mr Macfarlane has written to federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson demanding a full briefing as he drafts the Coalition amendments.

    “From what we can see from Treasury modelling, the price of electricity to industry and households will rise by 30to 40 per cent,” he said – an outcome that would be “obviously devastating” for industry and could mean a power bill slug of up to $20 a week for households.

    But the government says Mr Macfarlane has got his figures and the details of their compensation scheme wrong.

    According to Treasury modelling released last year, the price of electricity will rise by an average of 25 per cent by 2020, with large variations between thestates.

    In the first year, when the carbon price is fixed, household electricity prices could rise by about 7 per cent (an average of $1.50 a week), and in the second year when the market starts, by a further 13 per cent (an average of $2.80 a week). But the government has promised to fully compensate all low-income and middle-income households for CPRS-related rises, with the compensation continually adjusted as the carbon price increases.

    And it is offering $2.75 billion over the first five years of the scheme to help small and medium businesses find energy-efficiency improvements to make up for higher power prices.

    The Coalition is determined to address the compensation issue in the amendments to be presented by Mr Macfarlane and Mr Turnbull to their partyroom on Sunday. If endorsed by the party, negotiations with the government could start almost straight away.

    Mr Turnbull’s colleagues are demanding he drive a hard bargain with the government – particularly in support of the small business sector – before they would consider voting for the scheme.

    The Ozcar affair and the leadership destabilisation surrounding emissions trading have hit Mr Turnbull’s poll ratings, and new modelling by Essential Research yesterday suggests the voter verdict could be permanent, with 58 per cent saying they thought Mr Turnbull did not have “the temperament, patience and judgment to be a leader of a major party” – including 32per cent of Coalition voters.

    Kevin Rudd said the government was “open to good-faith negotiations with all comers when it comes to climate change”.

    The Coalition had hoped to appease the small and medium business sector by endorsing a hybrid emissions trading scheme proposed by Frontier Economics, which would have resulted in lower electricity price rises by reducing the scheme’s impact on electricity generators.

    But the Frontier model failed to win the backing of major business groups and will not be endorsed by the Coalition. The government claims Treasury modelling has found a $3.2billion “black hole” in the Frontier scheme, but has declined to release its modelling.

    Mr Macfarlane says he is also frustrated by the government’s refusal to release a study by the Morgan Stanley investment bank into the compensation offered to coal-fired electricity generators for their loss of asset value under the ETS.

    Meanwhile, the Greens released an alternative climate change plan yesterday to cut Australia’s emissions by a minimum of 25 per cent of 1990 levels by 2020.

     

  • Monsoon threatens Sri Lankan refugees with ‘humanitarian disaster’, warns UN .

     

    The government says that the dangers are being exaggerated and that it has dug enough drainage ditches to cope with rising water levels in 90% of the camp. It has also accused the UN of failing to provide adequate accommodation and toilet facilities for those in the camps.

    But the latest assessment of the humanitarian situation by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) identifies three zones in Menik Farm as being at dire risk in the monsoon season. Gordon Weiss, the UN spokesman in Sri Lanka, said the threat had been obvious: “We have been saying for a while that we think there is going to be a serious problem when the monsoon rains come. There were rains a couple of months ago, which displaced thousands of people in the space of a couple of hours. The monsoon is going to be a much more punishing force.

    “Unless people are moved from these areas, they are going to be in trouble from an inundation of water that will make it impossible to live. Up to 66,000 people will be flooded. The latrines will overflow, water supplies will be unusable and access by wheeled vehicles impossible. It will be pretty unbearable.”

    Last week, Britain’s international development minister, Mike Foster, visited Menik Farm and warned of the threat of disease as a result of the monsoon. Announcing that UK funding would be withheld after the monsoon, he said he was unhappy with the continued detention of many in the camps and 70% should now be allowed to leave. “If we continue to fund day-to-day commitments of running those camps, there is no incentive for the government to encourage people to leave,” he added.

    OCHA’s October 2009 humanitarian report notes that “key priorities for preparedness include moving people out of the most vulnerable zones, decommissioning toilets and bathing areas, as well as implementing mitigating measures, such as extensive drainage works and fencing around ditches”.

    New York-based Human Rights Watch Asia director Brad Adams said yesterday: “If they aren’t out of there before the monsoons hit, their lives and health will be in serious danger.” The group called on donors such as Japan, the US and EU to press Sri Lanka to free the war displaced.

    Weiss said the authorities had started to move some people out of the camps, but the UN had urged it to speed up the process. After the rout of the Tamil Tiger rebels in May, the government pledged that civilians who were interned in the camps after fleeing the fighting would be returned home within 180 days.

    Estimates vary of the numbers of civilians picked up by the military as they fled the fighting, but the total is thought to be close to 300,000. The government argued that it needed to screen them to weed out former Tamil Tiger fighters and others with links to the group. About half are believed to have been screened.

    According to the OCHA report, 253,567 people are interned in the main camps, with another 3,358 in transit camps and 1,984 in hospitals. More than 11,000 people suspected of links with the Tamil Tigers have been sent for “rehabilitation” at camps elsewhere in the country.

    The report said that 6,813 people had returned to their homes and another 7,835 had been released from the camps. Last week, Mahinda Samarasinghe, Sri Lanka’s human rights and disaster management minister, said the latest figures were 10,593 and 22,668 respectively.

    The government says it plans to release thousands more people in the coming weeks. But Rajiva Wijesinha, permanent secretary to Samarasinghe’s ministry, said that there were still security concerns which prevented a more widespread release.

    He disputed the OCHA assessment and criticised some UN agencies for failing to provide adequate facilities for those in the camps, claiming that subcontractors used by Unicef in particular had carried out substandard work. He said the UN agencies had been urged to raise the standard of toilets and accommodation in the camps. Wijesinha said he did not think that so many people would be affected by the rains. “We don’t see this as potentially a major problem, but it is something we have to be careful about,” he said.

    He said some people seemed determined to criticise the government whatever it did: “There are some people who prefer to be prophets of doom.”

    If the camp does flood, moving the worst hit will not be simple because, as the OCHA report highlights, all but one of its eight zones are already overcrowded and the one which is not has room for fewer than another 2,000 people. Reports from people released from the camps, and those still inside, suggest conditions remain difficult, with limited access to water and good sanitation.

    Much of the £12.5m donated to Sri Lanka by Britain in the past year has been used to help people in the camps and another £4.8m has been allocated but not yet spent.

  • Recession ‘ threatens UK effort to tackle global warming’

    Recession ‘threatens UK effort to tackle global warming’

    • Investment in green housing, power and transport at risk, says government committee
    • Millions of new electric cars plus rescue of carbon trading schemes among proposed measures

    Carbon trading

    Europe is relying on carbon trading between polluters to make it cheaper to build wind turbines and develop technology to trap and store gases from power stations. Photograph: HAYDN WEST/PA

     

    The recession is threatening the vast investment needed in green housing, power and transport and could seriously undermine Britain’s efforts to meet its targets for tackling global warming, the government’s climate change advisers warn today.

    The UK already has the toughest climate change laws in the world but the Committee on Climate Change says that “radical” action is still needed. It highlights the need to rescue carbon trading schemes – a key weapon in the battle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – from problems caused by the slump.

    The committee demands “dramatic improvements” in the carbon efficiency of cars and measures to cut the growth in traffic, potentially including road pricing. It recommends that there should be 1.7m electric cars, with 3.9m drivers trained in fuel-efficient techniques, by 2020.

    Europe is relying on carbon trading between polluters to make it cheaper to build wind turbines and develop technology to trap and store gases from power stations as part of a promised switch to a low-carbon economy.

    The committee also warns that a “step change” is needed in the pace of UK emissions reductions if the government is to stick to tough new carbon budgets. Annual cuts must increase by at least four times, from the recent rate of 0.5% to 2-3%.The report also demands “more forceful” policy approaches.

    Lord Turner, chair of the committee, said: “The government needs to build on its low-carbon transition plan and put in place a comprehensive delivery framework. What we have proposed is achievable and affordable, but action needs to be taken now if we are to make our contribution to combating climate change.”

    Andy Atkins, head of Friends of the Earth, said: “The Climate Change Act is a world-class piece of legislation, but the true test is the policies put in place to deliver its goals. Crucial strategies on fossil fuels, aviation and energy infrastructure, due out shortly, will demonstrate whether or not the government has heeded the committee’s warnings.”

    With greater effort, the committee says, Britain could be transformed. It calls for a nationwide programme to boost energy efficiency in homes and offices, similar in scale to the installation of natural gas in every house from the late 1960s.It wants to see 10m lofts insulated by 2015 and 12m old boilers replaced by energy-efficient versions by 2022, as well as “significantly” increased numbers of energy-efficient washing machines and refrigerators. New laws may be needed to force private landlords to insulate and upgrade rented homes, the report says.

    The CCC says Britain should slash emissions from the power sector by 50% before 2020 by building 8,000 new wind turbines, alongside four new coal power stations fitted with carbon capture technology and three new nuclear power plants. It also calls for an urgent overhaul of the national grid, to accommodate new windfarms. The report says: “In a world where carbon budgets are achieved, we will meet more of our energy needs from low carbon power, live in well insulated homes with energy efficient boilers and appliances. We will also work in energy efficient offices and drive more carbon efficient cars including hybrids and electric vehicles.”

    David Kennedy, chief executive of the committee, said the recession could demolish such plans. “It’s a very big problem,” he said.

    The fall in economic activity has lowered CO2 emissions in Europe and left companies in the EU’s emissions trading scheme with a surplus of carbon credits. The committee estimates this could result in a carbon price of just €20 a tonne in 2020, rather than the €50 a tonne used for its previous analysis.

    Options to strengthen the carbon price, including the government underwriting a minimum price or intervening in the electricity market, should be “seriously considered”, the committee says. On Friday, a report from Ofgem suggesting domestic energy bills could rise 14-60% by 2020 was seen by energy industry experts as an acceptance that the market-driven system has failed and the government needs to be more interventionist.

    The analysis comes as a separate report from the Aldersgate group of companies says that a more radical approach to financing low carbon projects is needed to ensure carbon targets are met. It argues that a new strategic approach to reduce investor risks, mobilise capital and streamline institutional structures would accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy and reduce costs.

    Emma Howard Boyd, head of socially responsible investment and governance at Jupiter Asset Management, said: “There remains a credibility gap between policy and delivery which has resulted in too much uncertainty and risk for investors to finance at the scale that is required.”