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. 

  • Wealthy nations reneging on emission: China.

     

    Related Coverage

    Chinese climate official Su Wei said at the conference that it was “unfair” to set a limit on nations that were still developing while emissions from fully developed countries were still rising. He said anticipated offer of financial support from rich countries to poorer nations in the draft of $10 billion a year was drop in the ocean.

    Mr Su said the United States, the European Union and Japan simply had not brought enough to the table.

    “If thought about in terms of the world’s population, what is being talked about is less than $2 per person,” he said.

    Mr Su expressed disappointment in the plans laid out by the United States. “Currently, the target is to reduce emissions by 17 percent from the 2005 level. I think, for all of us, this figure cannot be regarded as remarkable or notable,” he said.

    “I do hope that President Obama can bring a concrete contribution to Copenhagen,” China’s top climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said.

    Another Chinese official, Yu Qingtai, China’s special representative in the UN climate talks, said: “You will find a huge gap if you make a comparison between their pledges and the actions they have so far taken,”

    Developing nations are asking for at least $US300 billion in financial support to help them deal with the impacts of climate change. Developed nations’ financial commitments have fallen far short of that goal, and no money has actually been provided, the People’s Daily newspaper said.

    Financial support for developing nations is not “charity work” of the rich nations, but their “legal obligations” under international conventions, Mr Yu said.

    Mr Su said that the EU’s announced 20 per cent target was also too little, too late.

    Japan, which is the world’s fifth-largest emitter, has said its commitment depends on ambitious targets being set by other major polluters. “The Japanese have actually made no commitment because they have set an impossible precondition,” Mr Su said.

    But Mr Su’s most vehement criticism was reserved for rich countries that seemed to want to violate international agreements. He said they wanted to go back on undertakings that allowed poorer countries to put economic growth ahead of reducing emissions.

    Mr Xie also said that China could accept a target of halving global emissions by 2050 if developed nations stepped up their emissions cutting targets by 2020 and agreed to financial help for the developing world to fight climate change, the China Daily reported.

    “We do not deny the importance of a long-term target but I think a mid-term target is more important. We need to solve the immediate problem,” Mr Xie said.

    He added that “if the demands of developing countries can be satisfied I think we can discuss an emissions target” aimed at halving global emissions by 2050.

  • You caused it: you fix it; Tuvalu takes off the gloves.,

     

    On the third day of the December 7-18 negotiations, Tuvalu proposed opening discussions on a “legally binding amendment” to the Kyoto Protocol that would set targets for the reductions of greenhouse gas emissions for major emerging economies, starting in 2013.

    But the move was blocked by China, India, Saudi Arabia and other large developing countries.

    “The constraints would mostly remain on developed countries but also, partly, on big developing economies as well,” Taukiei Kitara, head of Tuvalu’s delegation, told AFP.

    Kitara acknowledged that the proposal constituted the first serious breach in the up-to-now united front of the “G-77 plus China”, a bloc of 130 developing nations.

    “We know the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol is not complete and we want to create an impulse for a stronger commitment,” Kitara said, referring to the landmark treaty that imposes emissions cuts on rich nations up to 2012.

    Today more than half of global carbon pollution comes from developing countries, led by emerging giants China, India and Brazil, and the proportion is set to rise as their high-population economies grow.

    The 42-member Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), including Tuvalu, and the bloc of mainly African Least Developed Countries, have rejected the widely held goal of keeping global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius as inadequate.

    Only a cap of 1.5 degrees compared with pre-industrial times would give these nations a chance of fighting off rising seas or crippling drought, they say.

  • Copenhagen talks break down as developing nations split over ‘Tuvalu’ protocol

     

     

    The crisis, partly precipitated by revelations yesterday that the host country Denmark had proposed a text which could have seen the death of the Kyoto protocol, threatens to divide the powerful G77 plus China group of 130 developing countries.

     

    Tuvalu, a Pacific island state politically and financially close to Australia, proposed a new protocol which would have the advantage of potentially forcing deeper global emission cuts, but could lead to other developing countries – rather than rich nations – having to make those cuts.

     

    Many developing nations cherish the legally binding commitments that Kyoto places on industrialised nations and fiercely oppose proposals that would change this.

     

    Tuvalu was immediately supported by other small island states, including Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago and several African states. But it was opposed by 15 countries, including the powerful nations of China, Saudi Arabia and India. One of the two negotiating tracks was then suspended for several hours as no consensus could be reached.

     

    Civil society groups including the TckTckTck campaign and 350.org demonstrated outside the meeting in favour of Tuvalu, chanting: “Tuvalu is the new deal.”

     

    Observers said a G77 plus China rift at this early stage in the conference was a serious setback for the big developing countries. Small island states, least developed countries and Africa have so far worked together in public with the G77.

     

     

    In a separate development, a new draft text prepared by Denmark and other rich countries is known to make several compromises to developing countries. Sources close to the Danish prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, today indicated that the text contains a commitment to complete a legally binding agreement by December 2010. This is significantly more time than is wanted by the UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, and the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, but is thought to be necessary to complete the legal work.

     

    The new text also also says that countries will work towards agreeing a new commitment period for the Kyoto protocol. This has been holding up talks because developing countries fear the Kyoto protocol will be abandoned. The document also makes reference to the present negotiations, in an apparent move to deflect criticisms that the UN process is being undermined by back-room manouevering.

     

     

    Elsewhere today, Britain, Mexico, Norway and Australia tabled a paper that strongly backs a major new climate fund for developing countries. This would be run by a board which would be accountable to the UN, where priority would be given to spending in the poorest and most vulnerable countries. It addresses the vexed question of how cash for developing countries to adapt to climate change should be raised and distributed.

     

    Britain has proposed that an fund of $10bn (£6.2bn) be set up immediately to pay poorer nations between 2012 and 2015. Developing countries want $400bn (£246bn) to come on stream a year by 2020.

     

    While the voices of climate sceptics have largely been drowned out in Copenhagen, former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has intervened in the debate, saying President Barack Obama’s “cap and tax” plan for cutting US greenhouse gas emissions would be an economic catastrophe. In a Washington Post article, which made no mention of climate change, she said Obama’s plan would outsource energy supplies to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Obama’s fiscal stimulus package gave $94bn for green measures in the US, second only to China.

  • Aussies swelter through hottest six months on record.

     

    “Australia had the third-warmest year on record with three exceptional heatwaves,” Mr Jarraud said.

    The WMO report said the heatwaves happened in January/February, when the hot weather contributed to the disastrous Victorian bushfires, in August and again in November.

    Related Coverage

    The presence of El Nino conditions underway in the Pacific saw near-record rises in sea surface temperatures and most parts of Australia experienced an exceptionally mild winter.

    Maximum temperatures were also well above the national average, with 3.2C above normal, the largest ever recorded in any month.

    Dr David Jones, head of climate analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology’s national climate centre, said one of the biggest impacts in the last year had been the absence of cold, with a massive decline in sea ice in the Arctic.

    “The last six months have been the warmest six months on record for Australia,” Dr Jones said.

    “We expect 2009 will be either the second warmest year on record for Australia or the third warmest.”

    He said the results were not surprising.

    “Every decade’s been getting warmer for the last 70 years.

    “Clearly climate change hasn’t stopped, global warming hasn’t stopped.”

    The outlook for the summer is consistent, Dr Jones said, with warm daytime conditions in northeast Australia forecast to continue.

  • Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text ‘ leak

     

     

    The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol‘s principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.

     

    The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as “a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks”.

     

    A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:

     

    • Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;

    • Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called “the most vulnerable”;

    • Weaken the UN’s role in handling climate finance;

    • Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.

     

    Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.

     

    “It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process,” said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.

     

    Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: “This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up. It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed.”

    Hill continued: “It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN. That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints on developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks.”

     

    The text was intended by Denmark and rich countries to be a working framework, which would be adapted by countries over the next week. It is particularly inflammatory because it sidelines the UN negotiating process and suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive next week.

     

    Few numbers or figures are included in the text because these would be filled in later by world leaders. However, it seeks to hold temperature rises to 2C and mentions the sum of $10bn a year to help poor countries adapt to climate change from 2012-15.

     

    • For news and analysis of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen sign up for the Guardian’s environment email newsletter Green light.

  • US climate agency declares CO2 public danger

     

    “Climate change has now become a household issue,” said Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), adding that the evidence of climate change was real and increasingly alarming. “This administration will not ignore science or the law any longer, nor will we ignore the responsibility we owe to our children and our grandchildren.”

    The announcement gives the EPA a legal basis for capping emissions from major sources such as coal power plants, as well as cars. Jackson said she hoped it would help to spur a deal in Copenhagen.

    The EPA action had been seen as a backstop should Congress fail to pass climate change law. Obama and other officials had repeatedly said they would prefer to pass legislation, but that prospect has grown increasingly remote. The House of Representatives narrowly passed a climate change bill in June, but the proposals have stalled in the Senate.

    Jackson said the EPA’s regulations, which would come into effect from next spring, would not be too onerous, applying only to facilities emitting more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

    The oil and manufacturing industries, which have opposed climate change action, said the move was overly politicised, and warned that the new regulations would be tied up in lawsuits.

    The US Chamber of Commerce, also sceptical on global warming, said the move would hurt the economy. “An endangerment finding from the EPA could result in a top-down, command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project,” said Thomas Donohue, the chamber’s president.

    Jackson is to address the Copenhagen meeting on Wednesday, while Obama will join more than 100 other world leaders in the Danish capital on the final day of the conference, on 18 December.

    The endangerment declaration dates from a supreme court decision in 2007 ordering the EPA to make a ruling on whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions were a pollutant subject to the Clean Air Act of the 1970s.