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  • Oxfam: 4.5 million children at risk of aid ‘raids’ to pay for climate change

     

    The aid agency believes $50bn a year (£30bn) is needed to help developing countries cope with the impacts of global warming including droughts, floods, storms and rising sea levels.

    And it says the money must be provided in addition to the 0.7% of GDP developed nations have pledged as aid to improve the lives of people in some of the world’s poorest countries – or efforts to tackle poverty will stall.

    A report by Oxfam warns that diverting $50bn from existing aid pledges to fund climate measures would lead to the death of 4.5 million children, while 75 million fewer youngsters would be likely to go to school and 8.6 million fewer people would have access to HIV/Aids treatment.

    It could prove a major setback to efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals which aim to end hunger and poverty and boost education, health, gender equality and environmental sustainability by 2015, the report warns.

    Oxfam said it was already seeing people going without food, pulling their children out of school or selling livestock to pay for debts caused by failing crops and other climate-related problems.

    According to the aid agency, just three countries including the UK are in favour of additional funding for climate measures – and the issue could prove to be a deal breaker in the upcoming crunch talks aimed at agreeing global emissions cuts in Copenhagen in December.

    A failure by developed countries to address the problems surrounding adaptation funding has led to distrust between the two sides and could undermine efforts to secure a deal to cut emissions.

    Oxfam is also concerned that a Conservative government in the UK would divert existing aid provisions to pay for measures such as flood prevention and the introduction of drought-resistant crops.

    Barbara Stocking, chief executive of Oxfam Great Britain, said: “Forcing poor countries to choose between life-saving drugs for the sick, schooling for their children or the means to protect themselves against climate change is an unfair burden that will only exacerbate poverty.

    “Stealing money from tomorrow’s schools and hospitals to help poor people adapt to climate change is neither a moral or effective way of rich countries paying their climate debt.

    “Funds must be increased, not diverted,” she said.

    Oxfam wants to see a carbon market in which rich countries have to buy allowances to cover national emissions under a new global deal to slash greenhouse gases, with the money going towards paying for adaptation measures.

    The scheme, similar to one which has been proposed by the Norwegian government in advance of Copenhagen, would avoid the “familiar problem” of developed countries failing to meet aid promises, the Oxfam report’s co-author Robert Bailey suggested.

    A spokeswoman for the Department for International Development (DfID) said: “Climate finance will be one of the most important and most challenging issues to be addressed over the coming years and that is why the UK are leading the way by offering new investment in addition to our existing aid commitments.

    “In June the UK became the first country to publicly address the issue with the proposal for an annual $100bn global fund, to help developing countries both prepare for the impacts of climate change and build for a low-carbon future.”

    The shadow international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, said: “We must tackle both the causes and the consequences of global climate change.

    “As well as setting the framework for carbon markets, international agreements will be key to establishing additional support for adaptation.

    “We believe that Britain must work towards an ambitious global deal at Copenhagen that will limit emissions and see substantial financial resources made available for adaptation.”

  • Business raises carbon claim

     

    The demands came as the government’s climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, warned yesterday against more industry compensation under the “arbitrary” carbon reduction system devised by the government – against his advice – saying it had led to “ugly money politics” and unnecessary budgetary costs.

    Professor Garnaut said demands for more compensation for electricity generators to make up for lost asset value because of the carbon price was an “abominable” policy idea.

    The BCA was part of the industry-green alliance that gave provisional backing to Kevin Rudd’s revised and delayed ETS, unveiled in May, but it is now demanding higher compensation for emission-intensive industries, guaranteed for at least 13 years after the start of the scheme.

    The demands, the result of extensive internal discussion in the business group, come despite the fact that senior government sources have indicated they believe there is limited room for amendments.

    However, the BCA has rejected the centrepiece of the Opposition Leader’s proposed “greener, cheaper, smarter” hybrid emissions trading scheme – the Frontier Economics’ proposal for a different treatment of the electricity industry – saying it does not solve industry’s problems.

    “We sat down with Frontier Economics, but quite frankly you still end up with the same problems,” BCA president Greig Gailey said.

    Opposition emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb is consulting with industry before finalising amendments to be put to the deeply divided opposition partyroom, but the BCA’s rejection of the Frontier model undercuts the Coalition’s assertion that its proposal presents a cheaper alternative for households and businesses.

    Mr Gailey said business hoped an amended carbon reduction scheme could pass the Senate as soon as possible, with bipartisan support.

    “We want the two parties to put their heads together. This is such a fundamental economic change, it is critical it has the support of both major parties,” he said.

    “Our concern about a double-dissolution election is that it means we would not have bipartisan support, and that after the election the government is unlikely to be inclined to accept what we consider to be necessary amendments … a lot depends now on the Coalition and the view they come to about what they are able to support. We hope they come to the view they can support amended legislation.”

    Mr Gailey said a double-dissolution election fought on the emissions issue would be a bad result for business.

    Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said she would consider the BCA’s proposals, but welcomed the fact that “business wants us to get moving, so investors have certainty”.

    Mr Robb said the BCA concerns “confirmed that the CPRS in its current form is far from being right”.

    In the letters, the BCA said the compensation proposed by the government for emission-intensive industries and electricity generators – $5.8 billion over the first two years of the scheme – should be increased and then left in place for longer.

    The chamber says the compensation scheme should operate until “at least 2020” and should be varied after that date “on an activity by activity basis and with five years’ notice”.

    The BCA proposes that compensation be removed only when 80 per cent of a particular industry’s trade competitors face a similar carbon price, even if those competitors are in developing nations – a far tougher hurdle than proposed in the government’s arrangements.

    And the chamber wants the so-called “decay rate”, which scales down assistance by 1.3 per cent a year to force industry to become more energy-efficient, abolished after five years.

    The Rudd government has pledged to reduce Australia’s emissions by 5 per cent by 2020, but has said it could lift that target to 15 per cent depending on the ambition of any global deal struck at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December, and to 25 per cent, if approved by an expert review.

    Those targets and conditions have received bipartisan support from the opposition. But the BCA is now demanding a public review of any promise to take Australia’s target above 5 per cent.

    Speaking before a speech in Canberra last night to mark the anniversary of the delivery of his climate change report, Professor Garnaut said many of his recommendations had been accepted, but he railed against the government’s rejection of his proposed principles for offering industry assistance.

    He said the absence of principle had led to “arbitrary distribution … and to the ugliest ‘money politics’ we have seen for a generation”.

    He said more compensation for industries such as coalmining “within the current arbitrary mechanism … would make the system more costly to the Australian economy”.

    “Once we have committed to targets, the main question is how costly it would be to reach those targets, and for those who support handing out more permits to the coal generators, are they actually in favour of bigger budget deficits or lower expenditure on other things by government? They have to answer where is the money coming from,” Professor Garnaut said.

    He said the idea of compensating electricity generators for asset value loss was an “abominable innovation in Australian public policy”.

    “If we had worked other reforms on that principle, we would not have had reform … it is not a valid basis for making payments to someone affected by a change in economic policy or an economic reform,” he said.

  • Planned burns and vegetation clearing will not stop catastrophic fire events: report

     

    cover-2009-bush-fire-report-300.jpg
    Cover of February 2009 Victorian Fire Report – by Chris Taylor. Click image to download full report (PDF 6.2 MB)

    Report Conclusions;

    A number of key issues and observations are made in this report that are relevant to the Royal Commission’s investigation on land management for the protection of life, property and the environment:

    • Most fires started on private land,
    • The area burnt across Victoria comprised state forests (43 per cent), timber plantations (5 per cent), private land (29 per cent) and National Parks (23 per cent).
    • Fires that started on private or leased land on 7 February were uncontrollable by the time they arrived at the boundaries of National Parks (e.g. Kinglake and Yarra Ranges).
    • Fires that started within parks and protected areas (e.g. Wilson’s Promontory and Mt Riddell in Yarra Ranges National Park) were mostly contained within National Parks; the exception being the fire in the Bunyip State Park
    • The condition of vegetation plays a significant role in the intensity and spread of fire (i.e. there is evidence fire spreads more readily in modified and disturbed vegetation)
    • Climate change is likely to be having a significant influence on droughts, maximum temperatures, the low moisture content of fuel, decreased humidity levels and an important contributing factor in the unprecedented maximum temperatures on 7 February 2009
    • The number of high, very high, extreme and catastrophic fire danger days is predicted to increase under climate change
    • The number of extreme fire danger days already exceeds those predicted to occur in 2050
    • The probability of previous prescribed burns slowing a head fire significantly decreases with increasing FFDI
    • On 7 February many areas of forest that had been treated with prescribed burns were still severely burnt because of the extreme conditions

     
    It is recommended that the Royal Commission, fire management agencies and the community consider the above aspects of land management for fire risk, and the implications for the appropriate and effective use in mitigating bushfire risk. Reliance on any one method of fire management and/or focusing on one land tenure type could increase risk, particularly given the observations and predictions being made with the increasing intensity and frequency of fire danger days under climate change scenarios.

    Download the full report here (PDF 6.2MB) >>

     

    Further reading

    Summary and implications of Report: Victorian 2009 February Fires
    Article – 10 September 2009
    This summary and discussion of the implications of the report has been compiled by the conservation groups. The Report it refers to analyses the driving influences of the February 7 fires and looks at how the fires passed through and affected different areas of land. More >>

    Joint Media Release
    10 September 2009
    Planned burns and vegetation clearing will not stop catastrophic fire events: report. More >>

     

     

  • Sustainable cities are the solution

     

    Earlier this year in Strasburg, Obama acknowledged that the US bears the brunt of the responsibility for climate change. Combined with nearly $50bn in infrastructure spending in the stimulus package, the new administration’s emphasis on building better cities is clear.

    As for New York, the new Brooklyn building is part of a $250m programme to make Brooklyn’s Navy Yard a hub for green industry, just one aspect of the mayor’s broader plan to make the city more eco-friendly. When he launched PlanNYC two years ago, Bloomberg pointed out that the world’s cities were responsible for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Former US president Bill Clinton and UN officials have quoted the same figure.

    This bit of data would mean city dwellers emit nearly four times as much as their rural counterparts. (The UN estimates that humanity became more urban than rural in 2008. Right now, the global populations of urban and rural folk are roughly the same.) Put another way, living in a city is almost four times as polluting as living outside of one.

    Thankfully, the figure turns out to be wildly inaccurate.

    The carbon footprint of urban dwellers is relatively light, says a report by David Dodman in the April issue of Environment and Urbanisation. Dodman, a researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development, examined emissions reports from cities in the Americas, Asia and Europe.

    He found that New Yorkers emit a third less greenhouse gases than the average American and that Barcelonans and Londoners emit about half of their national averages. And urban Brazilians are truly green: the residents of Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro are responsible for only one-third the national emissions average. Dodman’s paper complements an earlier study by IIED senior fellow David Satterthwaite, who argued that cities emit about 40% of all greenhouse gases, as opposed to the oft-cited 80%.

    On average, then, people who live in small towns and rural areas emit 50% more greenhouse gases than city folk. That cities may be part of the solution, however, does not mean that efforts like Bloomberg’s PlanNYC are misplaced. Precisely the opposite is true.

    By 2050, some 70% of us will live in urban settings, and it will ultimately be well-managed urban environments, with smart, energy-efficient buildings, power systems, transport and planning, that will save us from ourselves. Seeking better ways to do precisely that, a constellation of designers, architects and academics gathered at a conference on “ecological urbanism” at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design earlier this year.

    Mitchell Joachim, who teaches architecture and design at Columbia University and was selected by Wired magazine as one of 15 people Obama should listen to, presented his vision for a collapsible and stackable electric city car, which would hang at public recharging stations, available for shared use.

    He also explained “meat tectonics”. Aiming to use meat proteins developed in a lab as building material, Joachim presented a digital rendering of an armadillo-shaped, kidney-coloured home. “It’s very ugly, we know that,” he said. “We’re not sure what a meat house is supposed to look like.”

    Dorothee Imbert, associate professor in landscape architecture at Harvard, pointed to urban farming, a trend that has taken root in Detroit, New York, Milwaukee and a handful of international cities. Imbert mentioned her own student-assisted organic farms in Boston, yet acknowledged that adequate food supplies for future cities “would require rethinking of landscape in the building process”.

    Pritzker-winning Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas is thinking regionally. The Harvard professor and designer of the MC Escher-esque CCTV building in Beijing talked about his Zeekracht (“sea power” in Dutch), a plan for oceanic wind farms across the North Sea that would provide energy to much of northern Europe. With its constant high winds, shallow waters and advanced renewable industries, Koolhaas believes the North Sea offers energy potential approaching that of Persian Gulf oil.

    His plan, which includes production belts in a half-dozen urban centres on or near the sea, energy cooperation and clean-tech research centres, is the type of project that, ideally, will both preserve green spaces and increase urban sustainability.

    Another is a recently approved high-speed rail project in California, which will link that state’s southern and northern hubs. Obama’s stimulus package contains $8bn for high-speed and urban rail projects. That amount is nowhere near enough to install networks on a European scale, but, like windmills on the Brooklyn waterfront, it’s a step in the right direction.

    Henry David Thoreau moved to Walden Pond “to live deliberately“, as he put it. But shortly thereafter the American naturalist and philosopher accidentally burned over a hundred acres of pristine Massachusetts woodlands. We can no longer afford to be like Thoreau. If we want to continue to romanticise our natural world, we, as a civilisation, must also avoid it.

  • Protecting Climate Change refugees.

     

    As early as 1990, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) suggested that the “gravest effects of climate change may be those on human migration.” Similar predictions today suggest that 200 million people could be forced from their homes by 2050 due to environmental factors arising from climate change.

    Crucially, it is evident that environmental stresses affect communities and regions least able to adapt to change, typically hitting the poorest people on our planet. At the same time, many of the regions and populations that will be most affected, such as Bangladesh or small island developing states such as the Maldives and Seychelles, also have some of the lowest per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Historically, they have been responsible for a tiny fraction of the warming gases released, compared with those released by western industrialised nations. For many in the west, the effects of a changing climate remain largely an abstract concept, yet among poorer nations the climate is already devastating the lives of millions.

    Meanwhile, there is a complete absence of any formal, enforceable, legal multilateral mechanism designed to address the needs of these people and assist in creating some greater equality and proportionality between those causing climate change and those most affected.

    The 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was drafted in the immediate aftermath of the second world war; its focus on those who are forced from their country of origin through fear of persecution, “for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion”. In today’s world, the 1951 convention cannot meet the needs of climate refugees, as its narrow legal definitions will not apply to most of those affected by climate change. Also, the specific desire and best option for many will be to stay within their national boundaries if the financial and technical assistance to do so were forthcoming.

    Just as the overarching threat of climate change is one of global responsibility, so is the fate of climate refugees. In this context, there is a clear and compelling imperative to create a new multilateral legal mechanism – and with it a new legal definition for climate refugees – that enshrines the right to life, food, health, water, housing and other essentials. This should apply to all those who are now affected and the millions more who will be affected by the changes in our climate created largely by a distant, and still largely unresponsive, wealthy west.

    Every year, climate change leaves more than 300,000 people dead, 325 million people seriously affected, and economic losses of $125bn. If anyone should be in any doubt as to the comparative costs of propping up failing economies, and of protecting millions of people from climate change, the UN has estimated that annual global spending to mitigate the worst effects of climate change amounts to about $0.5bn. Compare that with the $150bn spent by the US federal government to bail out just one failing insurance company, or the top nine US banks which gave over $32bn in bonuses alone that same year.

    The recent financial crisis has shown that both political will and financial muscle can be mobilised when the wealth and way of life for the developed world is threatened. Now, in the knowledge that not just the way of life, but the actual existence of many is threatened by climate change, we must mount a similarly forceful response and create a new legal framework for climate refugees alongside the essential action to curb our carbon emissions.

  • The public energy-efficiency database a private company won’t let you lose

     

    Perplexed? You haven’t seen anything yet. Let me introduce you to the Kafkaesque world of the government’s privatised data services.

    In principle you can – or so the government has promised – immediately discover how energy-efficient a public building is. All you have to do is go online and look at the certificate (which in this case is called a Display Energy Certificate) which all such buildings – everything from government departments to theatres – of over 1,000 sq metres are now obliged to show. There’s meant to be a hard copy visible in the building, and an electronic copy visible online. But, as James Berry of the Energy Saving Trust has pointed out to me, it doesn’t quite work like that.

    The government has outsourced the service to a company called Landmark Information Group. So you go to its website to perform what should be a quick and simple search. It says, “Click here to retrieve one of the below certificates or reports … Display Energy Certificate (DEC)”. Having accepted some truly ridiculous terms and conditions you are then invited to enter the certificate’s identification number.

    There’s just one snag: the only way to discover the identification number is to look at the certificate. But you can’t look at the certificate unless you have the identification number. It’s a perfect catch-22.

    Hoping that I might be able to solve the problem by telephone, I rang Landmark this morning, and spoke to a friendly man called Colin. I told him I wanted an identification number for a Display Energy Certificate. This is what he said.

    “We are not allowed to disclose that information.”

    “Why not?”

    “Unfortunately, that’s because of the way DCLG [the Department for Communities and Local Government] set up the contract. I can’t really comment on why we’re not allowed to release the information, because that’s the DCLG’s rules and regulations.”

    “So how do I get to see the certificates in your database?”

    “You can view them if you’ve got the number.”

    “So how would I get the number?”

    “I would imagine you’d probably struggle, to be honest.”

    Thanks to some heroic efforts by the BBC Open Secrets blog, there is finally a publicly available database of Display Energy Certificates, but you won’t find it on Landmark’s website.

    It wouldn’t be too difficult to devise a system that worked, would it? You would simply enter the name and address of the building and the certificate would appear. But that would carry the danger that the system might actually work, and voters would then be able to see how public money is being spent. Instead we have a system that is designed to be impossible to use, for which a private company is being paid by the taxpayer. Is this what open government looks like?

    monbiot.com