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Brazil defends biofuels at Copenhagen summit

Brazilian delegates were at pains to show that not only is biofuel production the best way to reduce greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions but can also combat poverty as exemplified by the country’s scheme to promote micro-distilleries to provide additional income for rural families.

Biofuels have, however, come under serious attack in recent years for eating into farmlands meant for food production. As a result, the European Union backed out, last year, from a commitment to introduce a 10 percent mandatory quota of biofuels in all transportation by 2020.

In Brazil itself environmentalists have pointed to biofuel production as one of the key reasons for the steady deforestation of the Amazon basin.

Countering such criticism Jose Migues from the Brazilian ministry of science and technology said: “We were told that biofuels lead to deforestation in the Amazon, but the ethanol production areas are 3,000 km away from the Amazon.”

Migues referred to Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC), a phrase describing the effects of biofuel production, which pushes human activities towards the Amazonian forests. In the Sao Paulo area, where most ethanol production is concentrated, there has been a significant decrease in cattle raising and agricultural production.

“But is it fair to say that all of these activities are now moving to the Amazon?” asked Thelma Krug, another representative of the ministry. “There is much room for making agriculture and cattle raising more efficient in Brazil.”

While the question of where Sao Paulo’s farmers moved remained unanswered in Copenhagen, the planned expansion of the ethanol industry threatens further displacement. Over six million hectares are under sugar cane in Brazil but Krug said there were plans to make ”64 million ha available for expanding sugar cane production.”

Krug said the government is working on using satellite imagery to monitor the loss of forest cover and keep deforestation under check. A representative of Nature Conservancy a Brazilian non-governmental organisation (NGO) spoke of the thoroughness of forest protection laws.

As for food security issues linked to biofuel production, Andre Correa do Lago, director general of the energy department in the ministry of foreign affairs, stopped short of an outright denial that biofuels were to blame for the 2008 rise in food prices.

“Food security is one of the main concerns of our government,” he said. “Biofuels, like any other human endeavour, can be done in a better way. So we should not use the worst case as a general reference point.”

Legislation is under consideration to prevent biomass burning, which is responsible for large amounts of GhG emissions.

Much of the waste, especially bagasse, is replacing polluting nitrogenous fertilisers and the production process streamlined with nine units of energy being produced from bagasse against every unit from fossil energy.

While admitting that “biofuels are no silver bullet,” Brazilian authorities insist that biofuels are the best way forward for developing countries.

• This article was shared by our content partner IPS, part of the Guardian Environment Network

Ocean acidification rates pose disater for marine life, major study shows

A report by more than 100 of Europe’s leading marine scientists, released at the climate talks this morning, states that the seas are absorbing dangerous levels of carbon dioxide as a direct result of human activity. This is already affecting marine species, for example by interfering with whale navigation and depleting planktonic species at the base of the food chain.

Ocean acidification – the facts says that acidity in the seas has increased 30% since the start of the industrial revolution. Many of the effects of this acidification are already irreversible and are expected to accelerate, according to the scientists.

The study, which is a massive review of existing scientific studies, warns that if CO2 emissions continue unchecked many key parts of the marine environment – particularly coral reefs and the algae and plankton which are essential for fish such as herring and salmon – will be “severely affected” by 2050, leading to the extinction of some species.

Dr Helen Phillips, chief executive of Natural England, which co-sponsored the report, said: “The threat to the delicate balance of the marine environment cannot be overstated – this is a conservation challenge of unprecedented scale and highlights the urgent need for effective marine management and protection.”

Although oceans have acidified naturally in the past, the current rate of acidification is so fast that it is becoming extremely difficult for species and habitats to adapt. “We’re counting it in decades, and that’s the real take-home message,” said Dr John Baxter a senior scientist with Scottish Natural Heritage, and the report’s co-author. “This is happening fast.”

The report, published by the EU-funded European Project on Ocean Acidification, a consortium of 27 research institutes and environment agencies, states that the survival of a number of marine species is affected or threatened, in ways not recognised and understood until now. These species include:

• whales and dolphins, who will find it harder to navigate and communicate as the seas become “noisier”. Sound travels further as acidity increases. Noise from drilling, naval sonar and boat engines is already travelling up to 10% further under water and could travel up to 70% further by 2050.

• brittle stars (Ophiothrix fragilis) produce fewer larvae because they need to expend more energy maintaining their skeletons in more acid seas. These larvae are a key food source for herring.

• tiny algae such as Calcidiscus leptoporus which form the basis of the marine food chain for fish such as salmon may be unable to survive.

• young clownfish will lose their ability to “smell” the anemone species that they shelter in. Experiments show that acidification interferes with the species’ ability to detect the chemicals that give “olfactory cues”.

The report predicts that the north Atlantic, north Pacific and Arctic seas – a crucial summer feeding ground for whales – will see the greatest degree of acidification. It says that levels of aragonite, the type of calcium carbonate which is essential for marine organisms to make their skeletons and shells, will fall worldwide. But because cold water absorbs CO2 more quickly, the study predicts that levels of aragonite will fall by 60% to 80% by 2095 across the northern hemisphere.

“The bottom line is the only way to slow this down or reverse it is aggressive and immediate cuts in CO2,” said Baxter. “This is a very dangerous global experiment we’re undertaking here.”

Written for policy makers and political leaders, the document is being distributed worldwide, with 32,000 copies printed in five major languages including English, Chinese and Arabic. Every member of the US congress, now struggling to agree a binding policy on CO2 emissions, will be sent a copy.

Congressman Brian Baird, a Democrat representative from Washington state, who championed a bill in Congress promoting US research on ocean acidification, said these findings would help counter climate change sceptics, since acidification was easily and immediately measurable.

“The consequences of ocean acidification may be every bit as grave as the consequences of temperature increases,” he said. “It’s one thing to question a computer extrapolation, or say it snowed in Las Vegas last year, but to say basic chemistry doesn’t apply is a real problem [for the sceptics]. I think the evidence is really quite striking.”

Copenhagen is a world and a decade away from Kyoto

But the deficiencies of the protocol are also well known. To name only three: the reductions required are small when compared to what climate science is now telling us; the most rapidly developing economies are not required to achieve any measurable emissions reductions, and it provides no real guidance to business needing to plan for the long term.

It isn’t as if the world has been blind to these deficiencies. Since the United Nations climate conference in Bali in 2007, over the past two years climate negotiators from more than 190 countries have been meeting to overcome these constraints and establish a more effective global climate treaty. And this task is meant to conclude in less than 10 days at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen.

Already the Scandinavian city made famous by Hans Christian Andersen is becoming shorthand for the success or failure of our collective efforts to combat climate change. If Copenhagen ends in “success” then we will have succeeded in avoiding the danger of global warming and climate destabilisation; if it is a “failure” then we too will have failed to address this most wicked of problems.

If only it were so simple. If only tools such as text and agreement actually achieved the measureable, reportable and verifiable emissions reductions that all economies must achieve over the coming years. For Copenhagen can only be a beginning: the start to investment in modern low emissions technology and infrastructure and the imposition of costs on the old, polluting industries of the past.

The stakes at Copenhagen are high. The peer reviewed science has only firmed since Kyoto. There is now a consensus that the level of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that the atmosphere can bear before warming triggers unpredictable and potentially catastrophic changes to the global climate system is considerably lower. Climate scientists who only a decade ago would have argued that the amount of greenhouse gas should be 550 parts per million, now argue that even 450pmm may be too much.

Our understanding of the climate problem and our experience of developing effective climate policy have progressed enormously over the past twelve years. The world is now a lot clearer about the policies and incentives that can reduce emissions, maintain economic growth and get our carbon cycle into greater balance. Prior to 1997 no one could refer to the learning from an emissions trading system in Europe, or the rapid move to renewable energy in Germany.

And perhaps more important than all of this is how public sentiment, and with it our politics, has shifted. Kyoto was before An Inconvenient Truth , the Stern review, hurricane Katrina, the 2003 European heatwave and Australia’s worst drought on record. In many countries climate change is now an issue which bridges the standard political divide. Some of the most progressive leaders on the issue come from the right of politics: Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and even an actor turned politician not known for his warm hearted roles: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Climate change is now a fixed agenda item for any meeting between heads of state: how to maintain economic growth, energy security and reduce emissions. And no longer is the President of the United States sceptical of the problem: in Barack Obama the White House is occupied by a man who has made tackling climate change a core part of his political narrative.

In accounting for Kyoto’s ineffectiveness, in 1997 one could easily cite the lack of public understanding; a lack of clarity in the science; a lack of effective politics or an immaturity in our experience of effective climate policy. None of these excuses now apply.

Whether the final chapter in a story that started in Bali two years ago is one of resolution and joy, or confusion and despair, remains unknown. An unambiguous political agreement establishing how the new binding international rules can be agreed may still mean that Copenhagen becomes shorthand for describing when a new and powerful approach to tackling this most wicked of global problems was begun. That would be cause for celebration by this and all future generations.

• Erik Rasmussen is the founder of the Copenhagen Climate Council.

Professor Tim Flannery is chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council and author of The Weather Makers

Hamilton at Copenhagen- Lulus-back-in-town

This loophole is so big that it undoes much of the effort by Western European nations to cut their emissions under the protocol. The Russian surplus is enough to cause a collapse in the price of international emission permits should Russia decide to flood the market.

It was therefore with some excitement that the old hands at Copenhagen pricked up their ears when they heard a rumour that the Medvedev government is considering giving the world an early Christmas present by renouncing its surplus allowances awarded at Kyoto.

The second Kyoto loophole also took the form of a gift extracted from reluctant givers by a nation playing hard ball. At 2am on the Saturday morning, after the clock had been stopped to allow the conference to continue beyond its mandated closing time, the conference chair was gaveling through the treaty finally agreed.

In those dying minutes, when all else had been agreed and the thoughts of exhausted delegates turned to their beds, Australia’s environment minister, Robert Hill, rose to his feet and declared that Australia would refuse to join the consensus unless the parties agreed to include in the accounting carbon emissions from land-clearing.

The blackmail worked and article 3.7 was duly incorporated into the agreement. It was immediately dubbed “the Australia clause” because it would apply to no other country. As the delegates trooped out a senior European negotiator told the press that “the Australian deal is a disgrace and will have to be changed”.

Although it was to generate years of dissension, Robert Hill returned a hero to the Howard government, receiving a standing ovation at his first cabinet meeting after Kyoto. The reason for the bitterness abroad and the jubilation at home was the same. Emissions from land-clearing in Australia had declined sharply after 1990 due to changes in the economics of beef farming, so that the Australia clause turned Australia’s headline emissions target of an 8% increase into a de facto 30% increase in fossil emissions over the 1990-2010 period.

It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that before the last election the Howard government could claim that Australia would meet its Kyoto target even though it had implemented no policies that reduced emissions.

History matters in international climate negotiations. History builds or destroys trust. And what a nation has done in the past conditions how others receive what it proposes to do in the future. So the Australian delegation in Copenhagen, new as their faces are, should not be surprised if the rest of the world takes a jaundiced view of any arguments it advances for the treatment of land-based emissions, including forests.

At Copenhagen, a good deal of suspicion surrounds developed country proposals to meet emission reductions by the use of accounting tricks through provisions covering “land use, land-use change and forestry” or LULUCF (pronounced “loo loo CF”).

The G77 group of developing countries wants a cap on the ability of rich countries to meet any targets through changes in forest and land use instead of cutting fossil emissions. Australia is arguing that it should be able to count reforestation as a credit against fossil emissions but that emissions from cutting forests down should be excluded. So forests would be counted as a carbon sink but not a carbon source, a provision that would encourage intensified harvesting.

The desire to have it both ways naturally raises suspicions, and Australia’s track record with article 3.7 does not help.

The history of LULUCF should be remembered too when assessing Tony Abbott’s argument that the Opposition wants to refocus greenhouse policy on land-based emissions. It’s an excuse to do nothing about the real culprit, burning fossil fuels, deferring to the next generation the hard tasks, while pandering to a rural constituency that has reverted to its customary stance of angry whingeing and demands for special treatment.

In this case, the farmers want all the financial benefits to be had from augmenting land-based carbon stores — from tree-planting, changed tillage methods and biochar — while shirking responsibility for emissions from livestock, rice cultivation and fertiliser use.

Of course, when the agricultural sector does not pull its weight, it free-rides on the rest of the community, which has to do more to make up the difference. If the coalition gets its way, instead of referring to primary producers as “rural socialists” they will perhaps be better described as “climate bludgers”.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/12/10/hamilton-at-copenhagen-lulus-back-in-town/

Wealthy nations reneging on emission: China.

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.