Monday, December 28, 2009
NASA climate expert hopes Copenhagen summit fails
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LONDON (AFP) - A leading scientist who helped alert the world to the dangers of global warming said on Thursday that climate talks in Copenhagen next week were based on such flawed proposals that he hoped they failed.
James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies since 1981, said attempts to forge a global deal on cutting emissions after the Kyoto treaty expires were based on a "fundamentally wrong" approach.
"I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right track because it's a disaster track," he told Britain's Guardian newspaper ahead of the December 7-18 summit.
Hansen is highly sceptical about a favoured measure of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, a cap-and-trade system under which a progressively stricter 'right to pollute' is exchanged in a carbon market.
Instead, he has previously argued for a direct tax on fossil fuels as the only realistic way to achieve the necessary cuts.
"The approach that's been talked about is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to reassess the situation," Hansen told the paper.
"I think it's just as well that we not have a substantive treaty, because if it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing, and people agree to that, then they'll spend years trying to determine exactly what that means and what is a commitment, what are the mechanisms.
"The whole idea that you have goals which you're supposed to meet and that you have outs, with offsets (sold through the carbon market), means you know it's an attempt to continue business as usual."
Hansen, who made headlines worldwide in 1988 with his US Congress testimony that climate change was already well under way, compared the current approach to the Catholic Church's use of indulgences in the Middle Ages.
Sinners paid the bishops to give them redemption, a system that was patently absurd but suited both sides.
"We've got the developed countries who want to continue more or less business as usual and then these developing countries who want money and that is what they can get through offsets," Hansen said.
However, he insisted there was still hope, telling the Guardian: "I find it screwy that people say you passed a tipping point so it's too late.
"In that case what are you thinking: that we are going to abandon the planet? You want to minimise the damage."
Labels: global warming news, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, greenhouse gas emissions, James Hansen
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Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Five keys to Copenhagen
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COPENHAGEN - President Barack Obama's decision to participate in the end - rather than beginning - of the international climate change conference here stems from some newfound hope that negotiators can reach a deal by the time the conference wraps up at the end of next week.
But there's a lot to do between now and then.
As delegates from more than 190 countries arrive in the Danish capital, they'll confront more than just a dizzying schedule of meetings, a sea of protesters and a bicycle-powered Christmas tree in City Hall Square.
They'll have to navigate Pacific Islanders who want protection from rising sea levels; Africans who want billions of dollars in aid to cope with severe droughts, freak storms and spreading tropical diseases; Chinese and Indian delegates who don't want global-warming-prevention measures to slow their development; and leaders from the United States and the European Union who want to cut emissions without hurting already shaky economies back home.
How will you know if they're making progress? Here are five things to watch.
1. Can they cut it?
The centerpiece of any deal will be the various countries' agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Developing countries argue that richer nations have created most of the global-warming pollution over the past century through their industrialization - and, therefore, they should be the ones that make the deepest reductions.
But U.S. negotiators do not want to make drastic cuts unless emerging countries like China and India agree to their own robust reductions.
So far, the European Union has vowed to slash emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels - more if other nations agree to do the same. Japan has set a goal of a 25 percent reduction from 1990 levels, an almost 30 percent cut from 2005 levels. And last month, White House officials promised to cut greenhouse gases to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
That amounts to a mere 3 percent or 4 percent cut below 1990 levels, according to experts, and it's unclear whether that's enough to satisfy China, India and other developing nations.
A draft text of the pact circulated by Danish officials would have nations agreeing to cut emissions in half by 2050, but China and India say they oppose that target.
"If the Denmark draft is any indication, then we are heading to a dead end," Jairam Ramesh, India's environmental minister, recently told reporters.
Brazil, South Africa, India, China and Sudan plan to submit their own draft - one that rejects legally binding emissions cuts. And poorer countries have already agreed that they'll walk out of the talks if developed nations try to impose their will on them.
2. Is there any money on the table?
One of the most contentious issues at the summit will be figuring out climate financing - or how much rich nations will pay to help poorer countries develop new, clean technologies and deal with the devastating impact of climate change.
Although they have contributed relatively little to global warming, poor countries in the Southern hemisphere are likely to feel the worst effects of climate change over the next few decades. Rural African farmers already face changing weather patterns that disrupt centuries of traditional farming methods. Small island nations are sinking under rising sea levels. And national security experts predict that a scarcity of water and other resources will exacerbate conflicts in already strapped regions.
Now, they say, it's time for the United States, Europe and other developed countries to pay up. The World Bank estimates developing countries will need $75 billion to $100 billion per year over the next 40 years to adapt to climate change.
But that's more than most rich nations are willing to pay. Developed countries are expected to propose jump-start financing closer to $10 billion per year through 2012.
"I think it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to reach agreement on that exact long-term cost sharing," Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate official, said last week.
How the funds are distributed presents another difficult issue. The United States has proposed a new global fund that would operate under the World Bank. But poor nations and environmental activists have long been skeptical of the bank, which they say favors richer nations and focuses too much on the development of fossil-fuel industries.
3. Who's seeing red?
China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has long resisted adopting binding emissions limits. Its position has made reaching a deal extremely difficult because the United States is reluctant to act unless China takes some serious steps.
But some progress was made last month when Chinese officials promised a "carbon intensity target" that would lower greenhouse gas intensity 40 percent to 45 percent per unit of gross economic output by 2020.
Still, Western officials remain deeply skeptical of China's ability to follow through on its promises. Although Chinese officials promised their targets would be binding, they would not be subject to verification by the world community.
"Although this is a domestic voluntary action, it is binding," Xie Zhenhua, the Chinese climate policy envoy, told reporters. "As we've made this commitment, well, Chinese people stick to their word."
But China's "word" isn’t enough for many developing nations, who want to put in place strict systems to measure, report and validate the Chinese emissions cuts.
In the United States, manufacturing-state lawmakers also want to impose border taxes on Chinese imports if the country fails to take sufficient emissions reductions actions by a certain date - a proposal that sets the two countries on a collision course. China and other emerging economies have threatened to walk out of the talks if they are used to set up trade barriers.
4. What does Congress say?
It's a classic Catch-22: Without congressional action - or at least the promise that a Senate bill will come soon - foreign nations will be unwilling to make their own reductions. But unless international negotiators make movement toward a global agreement, U.S. lawmakers will resist making cuts at home, fearing that new regulations will drive manufacturing jobs to cheaper markets such as China and India.
That interdependency means that everyone in the Danish capital will be keeping a close eye on the congressional reaction to the negotiations. And one thing is certain: They'll be hearing the full range of outrage.
The House has already passed a cap-and-trade bill, and Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) will be in Copenhagen to assure the world that the Senate will follow suit soon. Democratic moderates released a letter last week saying they'll support binding targets - as long as competitors like China and India also make commitments.
But Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), longtime global-warming skeptics, are also traveling to Denmark - as a "climate truth squad" focused on informing the world that the U.S. Congress opposes the climate bill.
5. Is there O-mentum?
The Obama administration announced late last week that the president will travel to Copenhagen at the conclusion of the talks rather than this week, as he had originally planned.
But for Obama's in-the-thick-of-things visit to have much of an effect, he will have to make a serious commitment to getting a climate bill passed and signed this spring. International climate experts say such a promise is the only way to give other nations the reassurance they need to make their own emissions cuts.
"They're looking for that assurance from the president himself that this is going to get done," said Keya Chatterjee, climate program director for the World Wildlife Fund.
That pledge is particularly important, says Chatterjee, because the world has been burned by Congress before.
In 1997, lawmakers voted to reject any international deal adapting any climate treaty that exempted developing nations. It was a vote that effectively killed U.S. participation in the Kyoto climate treaty.
At the same time, Obama must be careful not to overpromise. Administration officials know that a repeat of Kyoto would be a major defeat for the White House - and for efforts to slow global warming overall.
Lisa Lerer
Labels: Copenhagen, global warming news, greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gas intensity
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Monday, September 14, 2009
G8 climate talks seek momentum on emission cuts
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KOBE, Japan (Reuters) - Environment ministers from rich countries and other major greenhouse gas emitters kicked off talks on ways to curb emissions and save species as the United States called for a global fund to develop clean technologies.
Ministers and their representatives said on Saturday that action was urgently needed to tackle climate change, but advanced and developing countries are split on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
The three-day meeting of the Group of Eight and rapidly growing economies such as China and India comes as poor countries balk at global targets to cut emissions, demanding that rich nations cut their own and pay for costly clean energy projects.
Japan said the G8 needed to show initiative for developing countries to do their part in fighting climate change, blamed for droughts, rising seas and more intense storms.
"We need to send a message that we will make it easier for emerging countries to act, with financial mechanisms and technological cooperation," Japanese Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita told reporters.
"At the same time, the G8 must make clear their stance that they will act firmly," he said.
Delegates, meeting in the port city of Kobe, are tasked with building momentum for talks on setting long-term targets to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, an issue to be taken up at a leaders' summit in July.
G8 leaders agreed last year in Germany to consider seriously a goal to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a proposal favored by Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan and Canada.
But developing countries, keen to put economic growth first, have resisted targets without the United States doing more to cut emissions and have demanded that rich nations help with funds to pay for clean technology.
"Technology and finance should be taken up in discussions," China's Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, told the meeting.
"China's government will be responsible for its actions and we will have to face up to the challenges."
Earlier, the United States, in talks with Japan, called for a global fund to finance research for clean technologies.
NO JACKETS, NO TIES
Eager to show off its green credentials at the meeting, Japan has sent fuel-cell and hybrid cars from its world-class carmakers to pick up delegates from the airport, and has called on participants to bring their own cups and chopsticks to cut trash.
The dress code will be "cool biz" -- a Japanese campaign every summer for office workers to take off jackets and ties to minimize air conditioning and reduce emissions.
Japan is debating its own long-term reduction target and domestic media have urged the government to also set a mid-term goal to show Tokyo can take the lead on climate change at the G8 and in U.N.-led efforts for a new framework after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
About 190 nations have agreed to negotiate by the end of 2009 a successor treaty to the Kyoto pact, which binds 37 advanced nations to cut emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
But countries are divided on how to shape the new framework and Japan may see limited support this weekend for its proposal for emissions curbs for particular industries, such as steel or cement, that could be added up to a national target.
Many developing nations worry that sector-based targets will throttle their energy-intensive growth.
The Kobe meeting kicked off with a session on biodiversity, which will review steps being taken for a U.N. goal set in 2002 to slow the rate of extinctions of living species by 2010. Most experts say that target is nowhere near being met.
Those discussions, which coincide with a U.N. conference in Germany, will include ways to combat illegal logging and reduce deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries.
Ministers will also talk about how to reduce, reuse and recycle waste.
By Chisa Fujioka, Additional reporting by Linda Sieg in Kobe and Alister Doyle in Oslo; Editing by Bill Tarrant
Labels: g8, global warming news, greenhouse gas emissions
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