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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. 

  • Acid seas could starve 100 million

    Related story from ScienceDaily

    Coral reefs could disappear entirely from the Coral Triangle region of the Pacific Ocean by the end of the century, threatening the food supply and livelihoods for about 100 million people, according to a new study from World Wildlife Fund.

    Averting catastrophe will depend on quick and effective global action on climate change coupled with the implementation of regional solutions to problems of over-fishing and pollution, according to The Coral Triangle and Climate Change: Ecosystems, People and Societies at Risk,  a WWF-commissioned study presented at the World Oceans Conference in Manado, Indonesia May 13.

    “This area is the planet’s crown jewel of coral diversity and we are watching it disappear before our eyes,” said Catherine Plume, Director of the Coral Triangle Program for WWF-US. “But as this study shows, there are opportunities to prevent this tragedy while sustaining the livelihoods of millions who rely on its riches.”

    The report offers two dramatically different scenarios for the Coral Triangle, which is comprised of the coasts, reefs and seas of the countries of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Timor Leste. The Coral Triangle occupies

    Just one percent of the Earth’s surface, but is home to fully 30 percent of the world’s coral reefs, 76 percent of reef-building coral species and more than 35 percent of coral reef fish species. It is also serves as vital spawning grounds for other economically important fish such as tuna.   

    “In one scenario, we continue along our current climate trajectory and do little to protect coastal environments from the onslaught of local threats,” said Queensland University Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, who led the study. “In this world, people see the biological treasures of the Coral Triangle destroyed over the course of the century by rapid increases in ocean temperature, acidity and sea level, while the resilience of coastal environments also deteriorates under faltering coastal management. Poverty increases, food security plummets, economies suffer and coastal people migrate increasingly to urban areas.”

    The report also highlighted opportunities to avoid a worst-case scenario in the region through significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and international investment in strengthening the region’s natural environments, solutions that would help to build a resilient and robust Coral Triangle in which economic growth, food security and natural environments are maintained.

    “Climate change in the Coral Triangle is challenging but manageable, and the region would respond well to reductions in local environmental stresses from overfishing, pollution, and declining coastal water quality and health,”  Hoegh-Guldberg said.

    Even under the best case scenario however, communities  in the region can expect to experience  dramatic losses of coral, rising sea level, increased storm activity, severe droughts and reduced food availability from coastal fisheries. But effective management of coastal resources would mean the communities would remain reasonably intact and more resilient in the face of such hardships.

    WWF officials said world leaders have a role to play in helping Coral Triangle countries strengthen management of their marine resources and through international action on climate change.

    “We must forge a strong international agreement to bring about sharp reductions in greenhouse gases at the UN Climate Conference at Copenhagen in December,” Plume said.

  • China exposes Rudd’s 25% climate fig leaf

    “It was in complete breach of the Kyoto Protocol and all negations since
    – seriously undermining his first act as Prime Minister, which was to
    sign Kyoto with great fanfare.”
    “The bargain of Kyoto was that developed countries accept and meet
    mandatory reduction targets before developing countries took on
    mandatory targets.”
    “By making Australia’s target 25% conditional upon developing countries
    accepting a mandatory target of 20% below business-as-usual, Mr Rudd
    knew full well he was putting up conditions that would never be agreed.”
    “As Sue Wei has indicated today, Australia going against the spirit of
    the Kyoto Protocol and the subsequent Bali roadmap, will see increased
    anger and frustration in developing countries and undermine the
    prospects of a global agreement.”
    “Kevin Rudd was happy to get the accolades in Bali by ratifying the
    Kyoto Protocol, but is clearly not happy to take the responsibilities,
    and do the heavy lifting, that his signature implied.”
    Senator Milne said the rest of the world would see straight through what
    Australia was doing.
    “Why should China accept climate demands by Australia, when Australia
    remains  one of the highest per-capita emitters in the world?”
    “Why will the European Union accept that developed countries cut their
    emissions by 40% in aggregate, but that Australia should not take its
    fair share of that cut because Mr Rudd wants to protect the polluting
    coal industry?”
    For more information phone Russell Kelly 0438376082 ends

    —
    Another message from the Greens Media mailing list.

  • Climate change could kill Coral Triangle: WWF

    “Some of the locations in the Coral Triangle are really important areas for all sorts of fish. The migration of tuna and turtles that spawn in the Coral Triangle are not going to have a next generation.”

    Saving the Coral Triangle will require countries to commit to deep cuts in carbon gas emissions when they gather for global climate talks in the Danish capital Copenhagen in December to work out a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol.

    Cuts of 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050 would be needed to avert the worst effects on the region, home to more than half the world’s coral reefs and a lynchpin for ocean life in the region.

    Heat-trapping carbon gases – notably from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas – are blamed for warming Earth’s atmosphere and driving changes to weather patterns.

    Local communities and governments will also have to curb over-fishing and pollution, the WWF report said.

    “If you continue down the path of the over-exploitation of resources, even if you get an incredible reduction in emissions there will still be a threat,” WWF climate campaigner Richard Leck said.

    The report comes as ministers and officials from over 70 countries meet in the Indonesian city of Manado for the World Ocean Conference, the first global meeting on the relationship between oceans and climate change.

    Nations at the conference hope to pass a joint declaration aimed at influencing the direction of the Copenhagen talks in December.

    A concurrent meeting will also see leaders from the six Coral Triangle nations – Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, East Timor, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea – pass a joint plan on conserving the region.

    WWF campaigner Leck said any agreement to save the Coral Triangle would help limit damage to the region, which despite gloomy forecasts would likely be among the reef regions slowest to be ravaged by climate change.

    “The Coral Triangle is potentially more resilient than other coral areas around the world and what is amazing is the level of political commitment we are seeing this week,” he said.

  • Climate change biggest threat to health, doctors say

     

    “We have not just underestimated but completely neglected and ignored this issue,” said Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, which published the report commissioned from University College London. “This has not been an issue on the agenda of any professional body in health in the last 10 years in any significant way. This report is one of the stepping stones in changing that culture within the health sector. It is the biggest employer in Britain and it should be a leading voice in the debate.”

    The lead author of the report, Prof Anthony Costello, a paediatrician who works on maternal and newborn health in the developing world, said his own views had changed. “I thought there were other priorities 18 months ago,” he said. Now he believed that mitigating the impact of rising temperatures was urgent. “Every year we delay, the costs go up. We are setting up a world for our children and grandchildren that may be extremely turbulent.”

    The biggest impact could be in food and water shortages, which in the past have led to war and mass migration.

    Prof Hugh Montgomery, of UCL’s institute for human health and performance, who was one of the report’s authors, noted that Mikhael Gorbachev had linked 21 recent conflicts to water instability.

    The report says that the poorest people in the world will be worst affected. Although the carbon footprint of the poorest billion people is about 3% of the world’s total footprint, loss of life is expected to be 500 times greater in Africa than in the wealthy countries.

    Despite improvements in health, 10 million children still die every year, more than 200 million children under five are not developing as well as they should, 800 million people are hungry, and 1,500 million people do not have clean drinking water. All those things could worsen very significantly, the report says.

    The impact of heatwaves, flooding and global food shortages will be felt in Britain too, the authors warned. “This is an immediate danger. It is going to affect you and it will certainly affect your children. While there is the injustice that the poorest will be worst affected, you will be affected too,” said Montgomery.

    The report says evidence on greenhouse gas emissions, temperature and sea-level rises, the melting of ice-sheets, ocean acidification and extreme climatic events suggests the forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 might be too conservative. The UK target, to limit global warming to two degrees more, is unlikely to be achieved.

    Costello, however, said the message from the report was not entirely negative. “There is an awful lot we can do,” he said. Reducing carbon emissions would encourage people to cut use of vehicles, and if that led to more walking and cycling it would tend to lower stress levels, reduce obesity, and lessen heart disease, lung disease and stroke risks.

  • Carbon trading won’t stop climate change

    This is the partly the result of the economic downturn.  As heavy industries mothball factories, energy use drops and demand for permits goes down.  At the same time businesses try to raise cash by selling their unused permits, flooding the market and further depressing prices.  French energy company EDF recently complained that carbon markets were failing just like the market for subprime mortgages.  As a result, all kinds of green energy schemes are grinding to a halt.
    So how do you set a meaningful price for carbon?  The reality is more complicated than the ETS might suggest, which is a problem for those who advocate using market forces to reduce emissions.  As NASA climate scientist James Hansen points out, getting it right or wrong could determine whether or not we can avert irreversible climate change.
    Apart from the ETS, there are many ways to put a value on carbon.  You can, for example, work out what it costs per tonne to reduce emissions.  But calculating this “marginal abatement cost” is complicated by doubts over the effectiveness of carbon offsetting and the true impact of some supposedly green technologies.
    Another method is the “social cost of carbon”, which estimates the cost of the damage from emitting a tonne of carbon over its whole lifetime in the atmosphere.  This has been used by the UK treasury, and the Dutch government and the World Bank have experimented with it.  But with so many variables to account for, estimates range from £35 to £140 per tonne.  The UK has now dropped it for a new “shadow price of carbon”, an approach supported by the French government and some members of the European Commission.
    The shadow price is similar to the social cost but includes “other factors that may affect willingness to pay for reductions”, to use the UK government’s own words.  It is “a more versatile concept”.  In other words, it gives politicians some scope to rig the price.  Although well intentioned, it is vulnerable to abuse.
    Each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages, but there is one problem that none can solve.  I’ll call it the paradox of environmental economics, in which worthy attempts to value natural resources hit a wall.
    The paradox is this.  All these methods of pricing carbon permit the creation of a carbon market that will allow us to pollute beyond a catastrophic tipping point.  In other words, they require us to put a price on the final “killing” tonne of CO2 which, once emitted, tips the balance and triggers runaway global warming.  How can we set such a price?  It’s like saying, how much is civilisation worth?  Or, if you needed a camel to cross a desert alive, what is a fair value for the straw that breaks its back?
    If you needed a camel to cross a desert, what is a fair value for the straw that breaks its back?
    The paradox reveals the fatal shortcoming of market solutions to environmental problems.  Unless the parameters for carbon markets are set tightly in line with what science tells us is necessary to preventing runaway warming, they cannot work.  That palpably did not happen with the ETS, which initially issued more permits to pollute than there were emissions and now, in the recession, is trading emissions that don’t exist – so-called hot air.
    Carbon markets cannot save us unless they operate within a global carbon cap sufficient to prevent a rise of more than 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures.
    Governments are there to compensate for market failure but seem to have a blind spot about carbon markets.  They could counteract the impact of low carbon prices by spending on renewable energy as part of their economic stimulus packages, yet they have not done so.  The UK, for example, has spent nearly 20 per cent of its GDP to prop up the financial sector, but just 0.0083 per cent in new money on green economic stimulus.
    Price mechanisms alone are unable to do the vital job of reducing carbon emissions.  They are too vague, imperfect, and frequently socially unjust.  To prevent over-consumption of key resources such as fuel during the second world war, the UK government rejected taxation in favour of rationing because taxation unfairly hit the poor and was too slow to change behaviour.  Rationing was the quicker, more equitable option.  Carbon rations calculated in line with a safe cap on overall emissions provide a more certain way of hitting emissions targets.
    Is there an answer to the paradox of environmental economics that could make the market approach workable?  I can’t imagine one, but am open to suggestions.  Even if you could price the killing tonne, it is a transaction that should never be allowed.  Economics becomes redundant if it can rationalise an exchange that sells the future of humankind.
    Andrew Simms is author of Ecological Debt: Global warming and the wealth of nations (Pluto Press), and policy director and head of the climate change programme at nef (the New Economics Foundation)

  • Government climate change report call for new institutions to curb global warming

    Government climate change report calls for new institutions to curb global warming.

    A report commissioned by the British government will call today for an overhaul of global institutions to combat climate change.

    The report, to be published by the Centre on International Co-operation at New York University, recommends the creation of powerful surveillance and enforcement mechanisms similar to those of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. The new institutions would ensure countries honour their commitments to cut carbon emissions.

    “This implies a significant pooling of sovereignty, greater coercive powers at international level, and significant investment in surveillance and research,” the authors, Alex Evans and David Steven, write. They say that for any new climate deal to be effective, countries that do not join the international effort to curb global warming should face pariah status.

    “It seems inevitable that a long-term climate deal will ultimately require an ‘all or nothing’ approach to international participation. Either countries play a full part in the system, or they sit outside the international system and are effectively barred from all forms of international co-operation,” they say. “Carbon default, in other words, would become as weighty an issue as sovereign default, or failure to comply with a security council resolution. That this should currently seem inconceivable indicates the extent of the shift in understanding that is still needed.”

    The Kyoto accord on global climate change has weak enforcement ­mechanisms and involved very little institutional change. Kyoto is due to expire in 2012, and summit negotiations on a successor treaty take place in Copenhagen in December.

    The report, An Institutional Architecture for Climate Change, was commissioned by the Department for International Development. It does not necessarily represent the department’s views, a Dfid spokesman said, but was a starting point for a necessary debate at the Copenhagen conference. “This report highlights many of the issues that will be on the table for discussion at the Copenhagen summit in December,” the spokesman said.

    “Copenhagen represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to set climate goals that avoid dangerous temperature rises and it is vital that we ensure ­effective reform of global institutions as part of this.”

    The report warns that a long-term solution to global warming could be delayed if a deal in Copenhagen falls foul of wholesale cheating, exploitation by corrupt officials and rigging of carbon markets – tainting the climate change effort.

    Bickering over burden-sharing, overseen by toothless institutions would waste effort and distract attention from the looming threat of catastrophic change.

    The report suggests that a transparent formula, or algorithm, would have to be agreed which would distribute the burden of restructuring economies. A new body would be created, the International Climate Control Committee, with a robust surveillance mandate to report on, among other things, national performance in reducing emissions.

    There would also have to be a new institution with an enforcement role and the capacity to make intrusive inspections, measuring emissions, in the same way that inspectors from the IAEA now oversee nuclear facilities.

    The role of the World Trade Organisation would also have to be rethought, the report says, to take account of the carbon implications of international trade.

    Such reform of international institutions is likely to be hugely controversial and bitterly fought out, but the authors say there is very little time left to get it right.

    They estimate the world has less than a decade to limit global warming to less than two degrees, and “less time than that to design the institutions of the post-carbon age.”