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CARBON TRADING’ THE NEXT SUB-PRIME- NEW REPORT.

Online video clip of report’s author, Sarah-Jayne Clifton, is available from the Friends of the Earth press office in London.

Plans to expand carbon markets at UN climate talks this December could trigger a second ‘sub-prime’ style financial collapse and fail to protect the world from global warming catastrophe, a new report from Friends of the Earth warns today (Thursday 5 November 2009).

‘A Dangerous Obsession’ focuses on the buying and selling of a new artificial commodity – the right to emit carbon dioxide – which the UK and other developed country governments want to see expanded into a massive worldwide market and are pushing in the negotiations running up to the big Copenhagen climate talks in December.

The trade in carbon permits and credits, mainly based in Europe, was worth $126 billion in 2008 and is predicted to balloon to $3.1 trillion by 2020 if a global carbon market takes off.

But the majority of the trade is carried out not between polluting industries and factories covered by carbon trading schemes, but by banks and investors who profit from speculation on the carbon markets – packaging carbon credits into increasingly complex financial products similar to the ‘shadow finance’ around sub-prime mortgages which triggered the recent economic crash.

This risks the development of sub-prime carbon and the possibility of an eventual collapse in confidence in the market, with catastrophic consequences for the global economy and also for our prospects of avoiding runaway climate change.

Friends of the Earth’s report warns that the UK Government’s obsession with carbon trading as a solution to climate change is high risk, irresponsible and dangerous.

Existing carbon trading schemes are not delivering the emissions cuts promised, and relying on this mechanism to reduce emissions globally is gambling with the health of the planet and the future of billions of people.

Carbon trading is also being used as a smokescreen by rich countries to avoid their legal and moral commitment to provide money and technology to developing countries to grow cleanly and adapt to climate change.

The green campaign group is calling on the UK Government to use simple, direct and proven policy tools like regulation, a carbon tax, and major public investment in greening the economy to reduce our emissions by at least 40 per cent by 2020, without offsetting.

Friends of the Earth’s international climate campaigner and author of the report Sarah Jayne-Clifton said:

“Pushing a world carbon market as part of a global agreement to tackle climate change risks a double whammy of financial and environmental disaster.

“Carbon trading is failing dismally at reducing emissions, yet allows speculators to grow rich from the climate crisis and hands politicians and industry a get-out clause for polluting business as usual.

“Science tells us rich countries must act first and fast to cut their emissions at home if we are to avert climate catastrophe – and support poorer countries
with adequate public money to grow cleanly and adapt to the effects of climate change which they are already feeling.

“The credit crunch has taught us that Governments, not markets are best placed to safeguard our future – at this critical point in the fight against climate
change Ministers must step in and lead the way with a new, direct approach to tackling carbon emissions to create a safe and green future for us all.”

Friends of the Earth is demanding in the UK that the UK Government changes its approach to climate change and is asking everyone to sign its international petition to world leaders for a strong and fair climate deal at www.demandclimatechange.org .

ENDS

5 November, 2009

Liquid granite and the hunt for a carbon-neutral cement

Standard, or Portland, cement is made by heating limestone or clay to around 1,500C. This use of energy and the decomposition of the limestone as it cooks releases copious amounts of CO₂. As the carbon reduction targets from global climate agreements begin to bite, sorting out cement will become a priority.

Engineers have been working hard on the problem in recent years, with a range of approaches to cutting the environmental impact of the construction industry: some have tried synthetic polymers that would remove the need for limestone; others have fiddled with how cement is used in buildings. The latest on the block is Liquid Granite, a binding material that, according to its inventor, could almost entirely replace cement with a powder made from recycled waste materials.

Liquid Granite replaces the need for more than two-thirds of this Portland cement when making concrete, thereby saving the associated carbon emissions. “One of the biggest culprits of carbon footprint is cement, which we use in making concrete – Liquid Granite does away with most of the use of cement. The amount used is pretty small,” says Prof Pal Mangat of Sheffield Hallam University, who came up with the product. “Potentially, by the time we’re finished with this developmental technology, it’ll be close to zero.”

Mangat is cagey about the exact formulation of Liquid Granite, and with good reason: by 2020, the French bank Credit Agricole estimates, demand for cement will be 50% greater than today, and a new carbon-free building material could reap huge rewards. All that Mangat will say is that Liquid Granite is made from an inorganic powder, 30-70% of which is recycled industrial waste materials. Using the same aggregates as normal concrete, it could be used anywhere cement is but with a fraction of the carbon footprint.

“In some applications it’s more suitable than concrete. For example, one of the main areas we are currently exploiting it is fire-resistant building materials,” he says. “It has good fire-resistant properties, unlike concrete, which explodes upon exposure to high temperatures.”

There has already been interest from the building industry, with Liquid Granite has already been used in fire-rated lintels at the Olympic Village and Stratford Shopping Centre in east London.

Others are hot on Mangat’s heels. Novacem, based in London, last year created a cement that has a negative carbon footprint over its lifetime. His invention uses magnesium silicates, which emit no CO₂ when heated, and the processing is carried out at a much lower temperature than that required for Portland cement. In addition, the cement absorbs CO₂ as it hardens – each tonne could remove around 0.6 tonnes of the greenhouse gas over its lifetime.

Transforming a global industry as established as construction was never going to be simple. But tackling the problem of cement seems a good place to start.

Climate talks must consider water

The importance of water must not be overlooked when negotiators come to the table for the Copenhagen climate talks in December.

This will be the central message of a day of campaigning by senior UN officials, NGOs and governments held to coincide with the ongoing UNFCCC talks in Barcelona this week.

The latest version of the negotiating text on water adaptation, which will form part of the COP15 agenda, has removed specific reference to water management as part of a climate change adaptation strategy.

Many leading voices believe that while greenhouse gases are bound to be the key consideration, water should not be sidelined in the debate and are now lobbying to have the issue reinistated on the texts.

Speakers at the Water Day in Barcelona on Tuesday, November 3 include Pasquale Steduto, chairman of UN-Water, Xianfu Lu, programme officer, Adaptation, Technology and Science Programme, UNFCCC and Danish Ambassador Niels Pultz.

Sam Bond

Australia’s bad faith at climate negotiations triggers Africa walkout

Launceston, Thursday 5 November 2009

Kevin Rudd has been singled out by a leading African climate negotiator
as a leader failing to live up to his political promise as a meeting at
global climate negotiations chaired by Australian negotiators ended with
African nations walking out in protest.

The 55 African nations, supported by all other developing nation
negotiating blocs (G77 plus China, the Alliance of Small Island States
(AOSIS) and the Least Developed Countries group), are calling for
developed nations to commit to binding targets in the order of 40% below
1990 levels by 2020 before negotiations continue on other, less critical
issues.

“Kevin Rudd cannot claim to be a ‘friend of the chair’ at the global
climate negotiations while his woeful targets are undermining meaningful
action,” Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne said.

“African representatives are rightly pointing out that their people are
dying now because of the historic and current behaviour of rich
countries like Australia.

“Kevin Rudd’s woeful 5% target and the unreasonable conditions on his
still too weak 25% maximum offer are part of the problem.

“The Greens are the only group in Australia’s parliament whose
commitment to science-based climate action would actually deliver an
agreement in Copenhagen.”

Australian negotiators were chairing a ‘trust building’ meeting on
behalf of the ‘Umbrella Group’, including the USA, Canada and others.
However, African negotiators led a walkout when it became clear that
meaningful emissions reduction targets would not be on the table.

Sudanese delegate and lead negotiator for the G77 plus China, Lumumba
Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping, said in his press conference: ‘If there is
anything that you know about politics and political manifestos is that
they are worth very little. Tell me of any politician who delivered on
his political manifesto. Is it Gordon Brown? Is it Kevin Rudd?’

“The African nations should be applauded for their courage in standing
up for what is necessary in the face of climate crisis and their move
has been vindicated by the decision to focus the majority of remaining
negotiations in Barcelona on targets,” Senator Milne said.

“While some such as the Climate Institute in Australia have been keen to
suggest that financing mechanisms from rich to poor countries is the key
to negotiations, it is becoming clear that, while financing is vital,
the targets are the primary and critical piece of the puzzle.

“Focussing on financing instead of targets is only giving cover to the
Rudd Government and others who are trying to portray themselves as
leading on climate change while their actions show they are dragging
badly.

“Jeffrey Sachs has added his voice to the growing chorus of global
experts including Lord Nicholas Stern and Kofi Annan who say that it
would be better not to conclude negotiations this year than to risk a
political agreement which will lock in failure on the climate crisis.

“A failure to agree this year is far better than an agreement to fail.”

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/>

PROTECTING THE CLIMATE IS A JOB FOR EVERYONE

Copenhagen is an opportunity for ethics to trump economics

US Senators on both sides of the aisle are doing all they can to block action with talk of danger to jobs and the US economy. Countries in eastern Europe say that contributing too much will wreck their fragile economies, and wealthier westerners are unwilling to fix numbers, hoping to translate silence into a stronger bargaining position with the US and Japan. No one wants to pay too much, and everyone wants someone else to pay more. This is only rational, isn’t it, just part of getting a fair deal for all? It depends on how one counts the cost of climate change.

Some insist that the options on the table are simply too expensive. No deal is better than a deal which costs us too much. Money is the determining factor – not warnings about a grim future or something as wishy-washy as concern for the poor. As idiotic as this sounds, it nevertheless gets you where you live, right in the wallet, and many people actually fall for it. Recall Bush’s excuse for pulling the US out of Kyoto, the world’s first failed opportunity for a climate deal: “complying with those mandates would have a negative economic impact, with layoffs of workers and price increases for consumers.” He does at least speak plainly. Relieved of some of the fanfare, the climate talks are in danger of stalling because of thoughts not too distant from plain words like these. Serious action on climate change will damage our current wealth, so we won’t do it.

There is something fundamentally vicious about putting money at the heart of the negotiations. No doubt matters are excruciatingly complex, and reasonable people can argue about how best to spend money on climate change and the world’s other ills, but that’s not what’s happening. We are in danger of failing to act simply because some maintain that the cost of action is too high. Think about the relevant causes and effects of climate change: our easy lives of high-energy consumption and the damage we are doing to the planet. Consider the human beings who will suffer because of our easy lives. Avoiding meaningful action on climate change just because it might be too expensive is on a moral par with harming other people for money. Call it what it is: keeping money in exchange for the suffering of others.

Ethics sometimes has to trump economics. If you have a moral obligation to take action, you don’t get out of it with talk of expense. Would you forgive someone for avoiding a moral duty because he thought it might cost him too much? He’d rather not abandon plans for a festive weekend in Spain, so those child care payments will have to wait. No judge would let a father get away with that. Sometimes we have to tighten our belts and do the right thing, even if it costs us more than we’d like.

The west has a long history of industrialisation, and it has done the most damage to our world. Therefore the west has the largest moral obligation to take action. No doubt all countries, even those industrialising much later, have moral responsibilities too, but the point is that our obligations click in no matter what the rest of the world does, no matter what other countries pay. We have to pay for our fair share of the damage, not fight hard for the cheapest way out.

Some think that talking about moral obligations just makes us feel guilty, and we’ve had enough of that. Others collapse in the face of complexity, groaning that we can’t do enough in the short time that we have. Don’t believe a word of it. Human beings can move mountains in an instant when they see that something is wrong – the obvious examples are the right ones to think about. If our representatives have forgotten the moral demand for action on climate change, it’s up to the rest of us to do something – maybe remind them that they’ve mistaken money for the things which really matter.

• James Garvey is secretary of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and author of The Ethics of Climate Change

A melted arctic: gold mine or honey trap ?

A melted Arctic: gold mine or honey trap?

Andrew Marszal

3rd November, 2009

As the melting Arctic ice cap opens a new ocean to the world, governments and private speculators are rushing to cash in on lucrative resource deposits and shipping lanes. But they may find these virgin waters a dangerous place to do business…

When the U.N. Conference on Climate Change convenes in Copenhagen next month, one inconvenient truth little discussed will be the benefits Arctic nations – including the Danish hosts – stand to gain from global warming.

It has become generally accepted that, as ice starts to cover less and less of the north pole each year, an emergent new ocean will offer prospects of untold mineral resources and unparalleled access to distant markets via new, shorter shipping routes.

Numerous recent reports have made startling predictions regarding the rate of this ice break-up. Last month, introducing the results of the Catlin Arctic Survey, Professor Wadhams of the University of Cambridge declared a new consensus that ‘the summer ice will disappear within twenty to thirty years’, with most of that melt occurring in the next ten.

He went on to say, ‘That means you’ll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer and have transport across the Arctic Ocean’.

A brave – or foolish – new world?

Though the ice certainly is thinning and receding rapidly, politicians…

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