Climate chaos – Page 117

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.Â The items listed here detail progress on coordinating 6.5 billion people in the most critical project undertaken by humanity.Â

Oxfam: 4.5 million children at risk of aid ‘raids’ to pay for climate change

The aid agency believes $50bn a year (£30bn) is needed to help developing countries cope with the impacts of global warming including droughts, floods, storms and rising sea levels.

And it says the money must be provided in addition to the 0.7% of GDP developed nations have pledged as aid to improve the lives of people in some of the world’s poorest countries – or efforts to tackle poverty will stall.

A report by Oxfam warns that diverting $50bn from existing aid pledges to fund climate measures would lead to the death of 4.5 million children, while 75 million fewer youngsters would be likely to go to school and 8.6 million fewer people would have access to HIV/Aids treatment.

It could prove a major setback to efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals which aim to end hunger and poverty and boost education, health, gender equality and environmental sustainability by 2015, the report warns.

Oxfam said it was already seeing people going without food, pulling their children out of school or selling livestock to pay for debts caused by failing crops and other climate-related problems.

According to the aid agency, just three countries including the UK are in favour of additional funding for climate measures – and the issue could prove to be a deal breaker in the upcoming crunch talks aimed at agreeing global emissions cuts in Copenhagen in December.

A failure by developed countries to address the problems surrounding adaptation funding has led to distrust between the two sides and could undermine efforts to secure a deal to cut emissions.

Oxfam is also concerned that a Conservative government in the UK would divert existing aid provisions to pay for measures such as flood prevention and the introduction of drought-resistant crops.

Barbara Stocking, chief executive of Oxfam Great Britain, said: “Forcing poor countries to choose between life-saving drugs for the sick, schooling for their children or the means to protect themselves against climate change is an unfair burden that will only exacerbate poverty.

“Stealing money from tomorrow’s schools and hospitals to help poor people adapt to climate change is neither a moral or effective way of rich countries paying their climate debt.

“Funds must be increased, not diverted,” she said.

Oxfam wants to see a carbon market in which rich countries have to buy allowances to cover national emissions under a new global deal to slash greenhouse gases, with the money going towards paying for adaptation measures.

The scheme, similar to one which has been proposed by the Norwegian government in advance of Copenhagen, would avoid the “familiar problem” of developed countries failing to meet aid promises, the Oxfam report’s co-author Robert Bailey suggested.

A spokeswoman for the Department for International Development (DfID) said: “Climate finance will be one of the most important and most challenging issues to be addressed over the coming years and that is why the UK are leading the way by offering new investment in addition to our existing aid commitments.

“In June the UK became the first country to publicly address the issue with the proposal for an annual $100bn global fund, to help developing countries both prepare for the impacts of climate change and build for a low-carbon future.”

The shadow international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, said: “We must tackle both the causes and the consequences of global climate change.

“As well as setting the framework for carbon markets, international agreements will be key to establishing additional support for adaptation.

“We believe that Britain must work towards an ambitious global deal at Copenhagen that will limit emissions and see substantial financial resources made available for adaptation.”

Business raises carbon claim

The demands came as the government’s climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, warned yesterday against more industry compensation under the “arbitrary” carbon reduction system devised by the government – against his advice – saying it had led to “ugly money politics” and unnecessary budgetary costs.

Professor Garnaut said demands for more compensation for electricity generators to make up for lost asset value because of the carbon price was an “abominable” policy idea.

The BCA was part of the industry-green alliance that gave provisional backing to Kevin Rudd’s revised and delayed ETS, unveiled in May, but it is now demanding higher compensation for emission-intensive industries, guaranteed for at least 13 years after the start of the scheme.

The demands, the result of extensive internal discussion in the business group, come despite the fact that senior government sources have indicated they believe there is limited room for amendments.

However, the BCA has rejected the centrepiece of the Opposition Leader’s proposed “greener, cheaper, smarter” hybrid emissions trading scheme – the Frontier Economics’ proposal for a different treatment of the electricity industry – saying it does not solve industry’s problems.

“We sat down with Frontier Economics, but quite frankly you still end up with the same problems,” BCA president Greig Gailey said.

Opposition emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb is consulting with industry before finalising amendments to be put to the deeply divided opposition partyroom, but the BCA’s rejection of the Frontier model undercuts the Coalition’s assertion that its proposal presents a cheaper alternative for households and businesses.

Mr Gailey said business hoped an amended carbon reduction scheme could pass the Senate as soon as possible, with bipartisan support.

“We want the two parties to put their heads together. This is such a fundamental economic change, it is critical it has the support of both major parties,” he said.

“Our concern about a double-dissolution election is that it means we would not have bipartisan support, and that after the election the government is unlikely to be inclined to accept what we consider to be necessary amendments … a lot depends now on the Coalition and the view they come to about what they are able to support. We hope they come to the view they can support amended legislation.”

Mr Gailey said a double-dissolution election fought on the emissions issue would be a bad result for business.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said she would consider the BCA’s proposals, but welcomed the fact that “business wants us to get moving, so investors have certainty”.

Mr Robb said the BCA concerns “confirmed that the CPRS in its current form is far from being right”.

In the letters, the BCA said the compensation proposed by the government for emission-intensive industries and electricity generators – $5.8 billion over the first two years of the scheme – should be increased and then left in place for longer.

The chamber says the compensation scheme should operate until “at least 2020” and should be varied after that date “on an activity by activity basis and with five years’ notice”.

The BCA proposes that compensation be removed only when 80 per cent of a particular industry’s trade competitors face a similar carbon price, even if those competitors are in developing nations – a far tougher hurdle than proposed in the government’s arrangements.

And the chamber wants the so-called “decay rate”, which scales down assistance by 1.3 per cent a year to force industry to become more energy-efficient, abolished after five years.

The Rudd government has pledged to reduce Australia’s emissions by 5 per cent by 2020, but has said it could lift that target to 15 per cent depending on the ambition of any global deal struck at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December, and to 25 per cent, if approved by an expert review.

Those targets and conditions have received bipartisan support from the opposition. But the BCA is now demanding a public review of any promise to take Australia’s target above 5 per cent.

Speaking before a speech in Canberra last night to mark the anniversary of the delivery of his climate change report, Professor Garnaut said many of his recommendations had been accepted, but he railed against the government’s rejection of his proposed principles for offering industry assistance.

He said the absence of principle had led to “arbitrary distribution … and to the ugliest ‘money politics’ we have seen for a generation”.

He said more compensation for industries such as coalmining “within the current arbitrary mechanism … would make the system more costly to the Australian economy”.

“Once we have committed to targets, the main question is how costly it would be to reach those targets, and for those who support handing out more permits to the coal generators, are they actually in favour of bigger budget deficits or lower expenditure on other things by government? They have to answer where is the money coming from,” Professor Garnaut said.

He said the idea of compensating electricity generators for asset value loss was an “abominable innovation in Australian public policy”.

“If we had worked other reforms on that principle, we would not have had reform … it is not a valid basis for making payments to someone affected by a change in economic policy or an economic reform,” he said.

Planned burns and vegetation clearing will not stop catastrophic fire events: report

Cover of February 2009 Victorian Fire Report – by Chris Taylor. Click image to download full report (PDF 6.2 MB)

Report Conclusions;

A number of key issues and observations are made in this report that are relevant to the Royal Commission’s investigation on land management for the protection of life, property and the environment:

Most fires started on private land,
The area burnt across Victoria comprised state forests (43 per cent), timber plantations (5 per cent), private land (29 per cent) and National Parks (23 per cent).
Fires that started on private or leased land on 7 February were uncontrollable by the time they arrived at the boundaries of National Parks (e.g. Kinglake and Yarra Ranges).
Fires that started within parks and protected areas (e.g. Wilson’s Promontory and Mt Riddell in Yarra Ranges National Park) were mostly contained within National Parks; the exception being the fire in the Bunyip State Park
The condition of vegetation plays a significant role in the intensity and spread of fire (i.e. there is evidence fire spreads more readily in modified and disturbed vegetation)
Climate change is likely to be having a significant influence on droughts, maximum temperatures, the low moisture content of fuel, decreased humidity levels and an important contributing factor in the unprecedented maximum temperatures on 7 February 2009
The number of high, very high, extreme and catastrophic fire danger days is predicted to increase under climate change
The number of extreme fire danger days already exceeds those predicted to occur in 2050
The probability of previous prescribed burns slowing a head fire significantly decreases with increasing FFDI
On 7 February many areas of forest that had been treated with prescribed burns were still severely burnt because of the extreme conditions

It is recommended that the Royal Commission, fire management agencies and the community consider the above aspects of land management for fire risk, and the implications for the appropriate and effective use in mitigating bushfire risk. Reliance on any one method of fire management and/or focusing on one land tenure type could increase risk, particularly given the observations and predictions being made with the increasing intensity and frequency of fire danger days under climate change scenarios.

Download the full report here (PDF 6.2MB) >>

Summary and implications of Report: Victorian 2009 February Fires
Article – 10 September 2009
This summary and discussion of the implications of the report has been compiled by the conservation groups. The Report it refers to analyses the driving influences of the February 7 fires and looks at how the fires passed through and affected different areas of land. More >>

Joint Media Release
10 September 2009
Planned burns and vegetation clearing will not stop catastrophic fire events: report. More >>

Protecting Climate Change refugees.

As early as 1990, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) suggested that the “gravest effects of climate change may be those on human migration.” Similar predictions today suggest that 200 million people could be forced from their homes by 2050 due to environmental factors arising from climate change.

Crucially, it is evident that environmental stresses affect communities and regions least able to adapt to change, typically hitting the poorest people on our planet. At the same time, many of the regions and populations that will be most affected, such as Bangladesh or small island developing states such as the Maldives and Seychelles, also have some of the lowest per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, they have been responsible for a tiny fraction of the warming gases released, compared with those released by western industrialised nations. For many in the west, the effects of a changing climate remain largely an abstract concept, yet among poorer nations the climate is already devastating the lives of millions.

Meanwhile, there is a complete absence of any formal, enforceable, legal multilateral mechanism designed to address the needs of these people and assist in creating some greater equality and proportionality between those causing climate change and those most affected.

The 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was drafted in the immediate aftermath of the second world war; its focus on those who are forced from their country of origin through fear of persecution, “for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”. In today’s world, the 1951 convention cannot meet the needs of climate refugees, as its narrow legal definitions will not apply to most of those affected by climate change. Also, the specific desire and best option for many will be to stay within their national boundaries if the financial and technical assistance to do so were forthcoming.

Just as the overarching threat of climate change is one of global responsibility, so is the fate of climate refugees. In this context, there is a clear and compelling imperative to create a new multilateral legal mechanism – and with it a new legal definition for climate refugees – that enshrines the right to life, food, health, water, housing and other essentials. This should apply to all those who are now affected and the millions more who will be affected by the changes in our climate created largely by a distant, and still largely unresponsive, wealthy west.

Every year, climate change leaves more than 300,000 people dead, 325 million people seriously affected, and economic losses of $125bn. If anyone should be in any doubt as to the comparative costs of propping up failing economies, and of protecting millions of people from climate change, the UN has estimated that annual global spending to mitigate the worst effects of climate change amounts to about $0.5bn. Compare that with the $150bn spent by the US federal government to bail out just one failing insurance company, or the top nine US banks which gave over $32bn in bonuses alone that same year.

The recent financial crisis has shown that both political will and financial muscle can be mobilised when the wealth and way of life for the developed world is threatened. Now, in the knowledge that not just the way of life, but the actual existence of many is threatened by climate change, we must mount a similarly forceful response and create a new legal framework for climate refugees alongside the essential action to curb our carbon emissions.

CO2 is not the only cause of climate change

The protocol explicitly aimed at phasing out substances such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) – found in products such as refrigerators, foams and hairsprays – in order to repair the thin, gassy shield that filters out the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. By 2010, close to 100 ozone-depleting substances, including CFCs, will have been phased out globally.

Without the decisions taken 20 years ago, atmospheric levels of ozone-depleting substances would have increased tenfold by 2050. This could have led to up to 20m additional cases of skin cancer and 130m more cases of eye cataracts, not to speak of damage to human immune systems, wildlife and agriculture.

But this is only part of the story that we celebrate on the international day for the preservation of the ozone layer (16 September). Over the past two years, it has been established that the Montreal protocol has also spared humanity a significant level of climate change, because the gases it prohibits also contribute to global warming.

Indeed, a study in 2007 calculated the climate mitigation benefits of the ozone treaty as totalling the equivalent of 135bn tonnes of C02 since 1990, or a delay in global warming of seven-12 years.

So the lessons learned from the Montreal protocol may have wider significance. Scientists now estimate that somewhere close to 50% of climate change is being caused by gases and pollutants other than C02, including nitrogen compounds, low-level ozone formed by pollution, and black carbon. Of course, a degree of scientific uncertainty remains about some of these pollutants’ precise contribution to warming. But they certainly play a significant role.

Meanwhile, many of these gases need to be curbed because of their wider environmental impact on public health, agriculture and the planet’s ecosystems, including forests.

Consider black carbon. A component of the soot emissions from diesel engines and the inefficient burning of biomass cooking stoves, it is linked to 1.6m-1.8 million premature deaths annually as a result of indoor exposure and 800,000 from outdoor exposure. Black carbon, which absorbs heat from the sun, also accounts for anywhere from 10% to 45% of the contribution to global warming, and is linked to accelerated losses of glaciers in Asia, because the soot deposits darken ice and make it more vulnerable to melting.

One study estimates 26% of black carbon emissions come from stoves for heating and cooking, with more than 40% of this amount from wood burning, roughly 20% from coal, 19% from crop residues and 10% from dung.

Some companies have developed stoves that use passive air flows, better insulation and 60% less wood to reduce black carbon emissions by around 70%. Mass introduction of such stoves could deliver multiple green-economy benefits.

While CO2 can remain in the atmosphere for centuries, other pollutants, including black carbon and ozone, remain for relatively short periods – days, weeks, months or years – so that reducing or ending emissions promises almost immediate climate benefits.

The international community’s overarching concern must be to seal a serious and significant deal at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December to curtail CO2 emissions and assist vulnerable countries to adapt. If the world also is to deploy all available means to combat climate change, emissions of all the substances that contribute to it must be scientifically evaluated and urgently addressed.

• Achim Steiner is UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UN Environment Program.

Revelation that Australia is the worst polluter in the world

Australia worse than the worst
* Revelation that Australia is the worst polluter in the world

Risk assessment company Maplecroft’s CO2 Energy Emissions Index has
revealed that Australia has overtaken the United States as the worst per
capita emitter of carbon pollution in the world.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said: “Australia has overtaken the US
on Kevin Rudd’s watch.”

“David Spratt has warned that just two infrastructure projects announced
in 2008 will alone result in destination emissions equal to 117 percent
of our domestic emissions.”

“With our coal export facilities expanding, things are getting worse.
The government’s emissions trading scheme will not reverse this,”
Senator Brown said.

As reported in The Age newspaper today, Australia is responsible for
19.78 tonnes of carbon per head every year.

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