Snowfalls down by 40 per cent over 50 years

UN’s climate chief warns of real risk of failure at climate change talks
Yvo de Boer says process too slow to reach deal at close of meeting in Bonn aimed at trimming 200-page draft treaty
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David Adam, environment correspondent

guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 August 2009 18.16 BST
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Cooling towers at Eggborough power station, near Selby. Photograph: John Giles/PA
A new global treaty on climate change is unlikely unless negotiations accelerate, the UN’s top climate change official warned today. Speaking at the close of another meeting intended to lay the ground for a new deal, Yvo de Boer, head of the UN climate secretariat said there was a real risk of failure.
According to Reuters, he said: “If we continue at this rate we’re not going to make it.” De Boer said the week-long meeting in Bonn had made only “selective progress” towards trimming a huge 200-page draft treaty text.

He warned that just 15 days of negotiations remain before key UN talks begin in December in Copenhagen at meetings in Bangkok in September and October and Barcelona in November.
The Bonn talks were not expected to make a significant breakthrough. Observers said there was little movement on the key issues of new curbs on greenhouse gas pollution and funds to help poorer nations cope with global warming.
“It is clear that there is quite a significant uphill battle if we are going to get there,” said Jonathan Pershing, head of the US delegation, according to Reuters. But he said there were some signs of movement. “You absolutely can get there,” he said.
“Delegates spent too much time arguing over procedures and technicalities. This is not the way to overcome mistrust between rich and poor nations,” said Kim Carstensen, head of WWF Global Climate Initiative. “Delegates are kept back by political gridlock. The political leaders must now unblock the process.”
Mike Childs, head of climate change at Friends of the Earth, said: “Rich countries are once again pushing the con of carbon offsetting at UN climate change talks, which means avoiding real action through dodgy accounting and putting pitifully inadequate targets on the table. Not only does this do nothing to protect people from the threat of runaway climate change, it means the UK will miss out on the new green jobs and industries that would be created by moving to a safe, clean, low-carbon future.”
The talks closed as India said the new global climate change agreement should ban trade barriers erected by rich countries against those that refuse to accept limits on their carbon emissions.
India suggested a clause to bar any country from taking action against another country’s goods and services based on its climate policy. The clause is largely directed against efforts by US Congress to impose trade penalties on countries that do not commit to specific action against greenhouse gases. India’s chief delegate Shyam Saran said such measures looked like “protectionism under a green label,” and were complicating the latest round of climate negotiations in Bonn.
Trade issues are “extraneous to what we are trying to construct here, which is a collaborative response to an extraordinary global challenge,” Saran told the Associated Press.

Government and Opposition renewables deal welcome: But community will
pay so polluters can benefit

Sunday 16 August 2009

The Greens today welcomed news that community pressure has ensured that
the increased renewable energy target legislation will be implemented
swiftly.

However Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne, expressed concern
that Penny Wong has picked up the phone to the Coalition to ensure that
the community will pay to install renewable energy so that polluters can
benefit from the cheap energy they produce.

“It is an ominous sign that Minister Wong has chosen to brown down the
renewable energy target with the coalition and the polluters,” Senator
Milne said.

“The Greens have proposed amendments to the bill that are supported by
renewable energy industry, while the Coalition and the Government are
doing the bidding of the big polluters.

“While this is a disappointing move, the critical point is that we bring
on the renewable energy target legislation as swiftly as possible, to
unleash the tremendous potential of renewable energy to re-energise
Australia and create tens of thousands of jobs.

“Modelling has shown clearly that the renewable energy target will
reduce the pool price of electricity because it will smooth the most
expensive peaks. Under this deal between the big old parties, the
polluters will get windfall gains from cheaper electricity without
having to pay to install the renewable energy in the first place. How is
that fair or reasonable?

“Both the big old parties have been using Australia’s clever and clean
renewable energy industry as a political football. Both old parties bend
over backwards to sandbag the old polluters, but neither is willing to
give priority to the renewable energy powerhouse that the Australian
community wants.”

Senator Milne wrote to Ministers Wong and Combet on Friday setting out
the Greens’ proposed amendments to the RET. The Greens’ amendments
would:
* Lift the target to 30% by 2020, expressed as a percentage of
total energy demand, and introduce a two-yearly review of the adequacy
of the target;
* Decouple the bill from the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme by
simply removing the exemptions for polluting industry (since there is
compelling evidence that the pool price for electricity will drop due to
the RET, an exemption would give a windfall gain to polluters);
* Fix the problem of ‘phantom renewable energy credits’ created by
the solar multiplier and lift the size limit on solar installations;
* Replace the ill-thought-out solar multiplier with a gross
national feed-in tariff for all forms of renewable energy; and
* Strengthen the definition of renewable energy by removing native
forest bioenergy, solar water heating and heat pumps.

“Having provided the amendments to her last week, I will be getting in
touch with Minister Wong again to encourage her to green up the
renewable energy bill with us, rather than brown it down with the
Coalition, and get it signed into law as swiftly as possible.”


Tim Hollo
Media Adviser
Senator Christine Milne | Australian Greens Deputy Leader and Climate
Change Spokesperson
Suite SG-112 Parliament House, Canberra ACT | P: 02 6277 3588 | M: 0437
587 562
http://www.christinemilne.org.au/| www.GreensMPs.org.au
<http://www.greensmps.org.au/>




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Government yields on climate bill split

Posted 1 hour 55 minutes ago
Updated 1 hour 24 minutes ago

Bill split: the Government says it doesn’t want renewable energy targets held up in the Senate. (Library of Congress)

• Video: Christopher Pyne discusses the ETS (Insiders)


• Related Story: Industry waits on elusive carbon trading consensus

The Federal Government will amend its renewable energy plan to break the Senate deadlock.

The Opposition parties want to support the 20 per cent renewable energy target, but say they can not because the Government linked the legislation to the contentious emissions trading scheme.

The Greens and the Opposition have both put forward amendments that would split the bills.

She said they had been brought forward together in the first place because of their “integrated compensation package”.

“This isn’t the best way to do it … [but] faced with the obstruction of the Liberal Party in the Senate we will take some interim steps, make some amendments to the renewable energy target legislation so it can come into effect,” she said.

She said the best way for tackling climate change is for the Liberal Party to “stop getting in the way” and allow both policies through.

“But we are in a world of Liberal obstruction because of their divisions, so we are safeguarding our renewable energy target legislation so it can come into effect even if the Liberal Party continues to block the carbon pollution reduction scheme,” she said.

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull had not been able to exercise any leadership on behalf of the Liberal Party, which thought the easy political position was to obstruct the government’s legislation, Ms Gillard said.

“Of course, that is the worst position for the nation,” he said.

“Mr Turnbull is presiding over a rabble under the banner of the Liberal Party.

“His political party straddles those from people who deny the science of climate change, who simply don’t think it’s happening, through to people who do believe that the Liberal Party should support the Government’s legislation.”

The assisting Minister for Climate Change, Greg Combet, has told Channel 10 the Government does not want the renewable energy target held up in the Senate.

“What we’re concerned to do is to ensure that the renewable energy legislation can get through Parliament, because that’s going to unlock a lot of investment in renewable energy sources like solar power, or wind power or geothermal energy,” he said.

‘Purely politics’

But the Federal Opposition says the Government’s decision shows its original position was more about playing politics.

Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne has told ABC1’s Insiders program the Government only linked the schemes to try and force the emissions trading scheme through the Senate.

“What the Government wanted last Thursday was the beginning of a trigger for an election – it was purely politics,” he said.

“That’s why the Renewable Energy Target bill never needed to be part of that emissions trading scheme bill, and it’s of no surprise to me at all that they will decouple that bill.”

– ABC/AAP

Tags: business-economics-and-finance, environment, climate-change, government-and-politics, federal-government, emissions-trading, australia