Climate Change Blog

Sometimes, listening to climate change negotiators, you get optimistic about positive work being done, but often their frustration is also apparent (see Grenada’s Ambassador for Climate Change) because the political level above them is working and thinking too slowly. Why are there still doubts that the money promised for mitigation and adaptation will be actually given, let’s say to build new wind farms in Mongolia and flood barriers in Pakistan? As the Chairman of the IPCC put it “For heaven’s sake, please get the commitment on funding” (AFP).

Pat Finnegan suggests with others that a three-year new commitment period (2013-2015) could be established to avoid a gap before the new treaty is agreed. In fact, even if a new binding text is signed next year, or more likely at COP18, it might take until 2016 or more to see it approved by Parliaments and governments (the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997 but became operative in 2005!). The international community might even use a series of smaller agreements (plus bilateral and regional accords) to tackle climate change on technology transfer and capacity building, finance, forestry and agriculture, and adaptation. Maybe this would work better and quicker than waiting for Godot, i.e. the new global agreement.

The world got richer; economic and technological progress transformed our societies in the last 150 years, but this is causing an unprecedented environmental crisis. The degree of countries’ development is still mostly measured in GDP per capita. China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines are now recognised as newly industrialised countries¹. These nations are emerging / developing fast and others will do so, increasing their pressure on the planet, but ice sheets are melting even faster (see Greenland’s new icebergs²).

In the past, the world has overcome huge challenges – such as recovering from two world wars. Now it’s the time to make a new big step in history, drastically limiting pollution and deforestation, saving energy and using extensively renewable resources. Everything is ready for people to make every action count, and for governments to “make the pot and cook the meal” in Cancun (Christiana Figueres’ press conference in Bonn). Development will hopefully mean the capacity to decouple economic growth and environmental degradation. Nations will have to increase their GDP per capita, via investing in wind and sun over coal and oil. Is it too expensive? Sometimes it still is, but it’s like going to the shop to always buy cheaper unhealthy food over organic products, the latter will never get cheaper; it’s a matter of changing consumer and government preferences in the natural resources supermarket. Without forgetting that sun, wind, tides etc. will last for a few more billions years yet.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country

2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2010/aug/11/greenland-petermann-glacier

We might imagine that when a serious threat is right outside our front door, we would do everything we can to make ourselves safe. Well, maybe that is slowly happening in the United Nations climate change house, but the family is very divided, potentially dysfunctional. Members discussed for three years (since COP13) on how to agree upon strong actions to reduce carbon emissions worldwide. They have been meeting and meeting every few months thereon and left Copenhagen last winter, just about signing a last-minute declaration.

How about moving from endless discussions on the text, writing (and printing) thousands of pages, to verify countries’ compliance like the Nigeria’s chief delegate suggests?

In the meantime the first half of 2010 has been the hottest on record; floods hitting Pakistan killed over 1,500 and displaced 20 million people¹ and Russian heatwaves made Prime Minister Putin stop the export of wheat. The high pressure blocked over Russia seems to have changed the position of the jet streams², creating a clash hot air / monsoon, possibly responsible for the extreme rainfalls in Pakistan³. Scientists are very careful in associating these extreme events to climate change, but the 2007 IPCC report had warned the world about the increasing frequency of similar situations (see Rajendra Pachauri on Climate-Change.tv).

The media critically influence how people perceive climate change, decide to act or not on a personal level and elect political leaders who can make a difference. There are still too many TV debates are about whether there even is a problem rather than focusing on how to move to a low carbon economy. How can pressure from, for instance, the US citizens on their Senate be raised if so many members of the media speculate, rather than inform correctly?

On the other side of the planet, the African Group is available to contribute to reduce deforestation, but “in a fair manner and taking into account the interest of forest dependent communities” and not just to accommodate people from the North and our lifestyle. Securing the resources promised to the poor countries to adapt to climate change now and mitigate it tomorrow should be a priority. The rich countries’ credibility is at stake: will they manage to be fair for once and cut their national budgets in the right places?

Luca Marazzi

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/14/pakistan-flooding-disaster-partition-gilani

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream

3. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/weather/08/12/heat.floods.extremes/?hpt=C1#fbid=826FQddRwuD&wom=true

On 19 July, this year, the world lost a pre-eminent climate scientist, Stephen Schneider, Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University in the US. He suffered a heart attack flying to London from a conference in Sweden. A few years ago, he survived a lymphoma, he wrote the famous book “The Patient from Hell” to encourage other affected people to fight their disease.

He has been adviser to US Presidents from Nixon to Obama, and contributed widely and deeply, with 450 papers and many books, but crucially broadened public awareness on climate change. In Schneider’s words, “Responsible advocacy and popularization are not oxymoronic — but it takes discipline to minimize trouble.” In fact he was under constant attack by climate sceptics, as he advocated strong measures to confront global warming and defended the integrity of climate science and scientists.

He supported and practiced interdisciplinary research working on both the climate physics and, with his wife Terry Root, on the global warming impacts on organisms and ecosystems (see also Prof. Visser and Dr. Parmesan on Climate-Change.tv, at COP15).

In this video, Prof. Schneider says we have to love our children more than our grandchildren because, if we do not, we risk leaving them a legacy of biotic impoverishment and natural disasters. Everybody should then stop “using the atmosphere as an un-priced sewer to dump our tailpipe and smokestack wastes”.

In 1979, he was already warning the world¹ about the risks of irreversible climate change caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, but too many people are still deaf to that alarm. Ben Santer², colleague and friend, remembers him: “We honor Steve Schneider by caring about the strange and beautiful planet on which we live, by protecting its climate, and by ensuring that our policymakers do not fall asleep at the wheel”.

Luca Marazzi

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4XUAM8A9bo&feature=related

2. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/a-eulogy-to-stephen-schneider/

2010 is on course to be the warmest year since records began in 1880, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Meanwhile, the climate change negotiations are heading towards asiatic superpower China (October) via Bonn (early August). From there, we go to Cancun for COP16, South Africa (COP17) and finally back to the Far-East for COP18 in South Korea or Qatar.

The International Energy Agency’s director, Nobuo Tanaka, recently declared, “China’s emissions of carbon dioxide need to peak by 2020 if the world is to meet its 2050 targets”¹.

In his new challenging book, “When a Billion Chinese Jump”², Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent for the Guardian, believes China is in a better position to become a green superpower than the US. The leading nations have had enough time to clean up post development. While many developing countries talk about following a green path (see Heung-keyong Park, Head of the South Korean delegation), and so avoid the catastrophic consequences of western development, China is best placed to create a significant sustainable green economy, its love affair with coal notwithstanding.

Many are criticising the US promise of a 17% CO₂ level reduction from 2005, equivalent to a small 4% cut from 1990. Added to that, Senate and Congress will not sign a hoped-for ambitious climate bill, but instead a smaller energy bill focused on power plants. Senator John Kerry aspires to convince American citizens to rally to influence their representatives to move stronger and quicker. The timeframe for that must surely be faster than the twenty years on healthcare reform.

Seductive though it is, it is not only up to China and the US to solve the climate puzzle. Much is expected from the European Union, Japan, Canada, Russia and Brazil, India. EU Artur Runge Metzger, for example, talks of how the EU continues to drive forward the negotiations, and “how their fingerprints are all over the text”.

The cost of prevention is always lower than the cost of cure, Sri Lankan delegate from Sri Lanka, Mr. Sumathipala, reminds us, but the world is already ill, and we need to stop the irreversible from happening.

Luca Marazzi

1. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66F2XC20100716

2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/23/china-search-greener-values

At the recent two weeks negotiations in Bonn, Christiana Figueres, the new head of the UNFCCC, expressed confidence that governments will meet the climate change challenge “because humanity has no option” although suggesting “we will never have a final agreement on climate, certainly not in my lifetime”¹ (see also her interview with Climate-Change.tv).

Many scientific articles actually suggest a few groups of countries would agree better on many issues than 194 countries subscribing individually to one single global treaty. A final conclusive agreement is probably a mirage and it seems the signing of one piece of paper is a hopeless endeavour. Every initiative, national, coordinated or at community level is important to cut CO₂ emissions. Giving freedom for technological and financial exchanges to take place among countries regardless of their Annex I / Non-Annex I status and promoting bilateral and regional agreements would be helpful (see interview with Iryna Rudzko. Open areas of collaboration between companies in the marketplace and between governments can be decisive, for example the Paris-Oslo process² to fund anti deforestation actions in the REDD+ framework^*.

Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping told us the architecture of the new deal should set a target of a maximum temperature increase “well below 1,5 °C by 2100”. Nobody knows what will be the average temperature on Earth in year 2100, but population increase and lifestyle improvements are driving billions of people to consume more food, water and energy at high rates; small island states and some developing countries are desperate to turn things around more dramatically towards that extremely difficult goal. Will this happen or we need “to get real”? How much will the People’s agreement and the Climate Coalition³ be taken into account by the governments in the next COP meant to be more inclusive?

Bolivia suggested to allocate 6% of national GDPs, in line with defence budgets, for climate action – recognising the very serious sovereign threat of climate change. Let’s hope that Christiana’s optimism and experience will enhance the chances to succeed at COP16 and thereafter and that the governments will make the United Nations truly united.

Luca Marazzi

1. http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2010/06/10/new_climate_chief_says_no_option_but_to_take_action/

2. http://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=2015

3. http://cc2010.mx/en/cop/Organizaciones_de_la_Sociedad_Civil

* Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) – is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. “REDD+” goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (http://www.un-redd.org).

As climate change is starting to be a hot literary topic, with the Guardian Hay Festival packed with scientists, the reality is that worldwide too many people are not aware of this phenomenon or convinced about the serious risks. The IPCC and climate scientists are always under attack: they are not infallible, but they contributed decades of work and hundreds of papers and books so that now we can better understand the effects of human behaviour on the planet. Should we focus on responding to the problem, instead of arguing for ages around hacked emails and a couple of embarrassing errors about the Himalayan glaciers?

The President of Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, participated in this British festival too. He is a man who was jailed twice for criticising the former Maldivian president. Now a global green icon, he declared that the United States are the problem, more than China, and that to  fight climate change their citizens “need a huge social 60s-style catalytic, dynamic street action”. (Also see President Nasheed speaking from Copenhagen on Climate-Change.tv).  In terms of public awareness, more vital signals are coming from the Asian giants than the US, but we cannot forget that the Chinese government is using the brakes in the negotiations. The same could be said of the US Senate. The peculiar convergence between US and China in their approach to the climate change negotiations is best seen from John Ashe’s interview on Climate-Change.tv – to be uploaded later today.

At this pace the only fast action will be the emission of more and more CO2 to satisfy billions of people’s needs plus millions of people’s privileges and weaknesses (big cars, casinos, alcohol and food in excess).

In the rich world we cannot immortalise our current life styles, …can we? The economic and environmental meltdown might in the end force us to change, being content, if I may say so, with less beer and more bears, less ice in the glass and more on the Poles to cool down the Earth. And perhaps we could, instead of spending, learn to save as well.
The Maldives, Costa Rica and New Zealand are already working towards carbon neutrality, a 21st century dream launched from paradisiacal places.

Luca Marazzi

In two weeks time, new sessions of  the UNFCCC subsidiary bodies, Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol and Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action will take place in Bonn from May 31^st to June 11^th. Negotiators will have 12 days to move forward the agenda for COP16 and organise any additional meetings required. The labyrinth of the climate change negotiations reflects the complexity of the task ahead – that of dealing with an unprecedented threat to the livelihoods of billions of people and to the existence of millions of forgotten species¹.

In the meantime, a question arises on who will be leading the run-up to Cancun in terms of policies put in place and planned. India² and China have committed to the Copenhagen Accord to reduce their emission intensity of their GDP respectively by 20-25% and 40-45% by 2020 in comparison to the 2005 level. In the US, a big but slow policy change is happening with the Obama administration: their plan is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% (vs 2005) in 15 years time. On the other side of the Atlantic the new UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced his endorsement of the 10:10 campaign³, but we still aren’t sure of his plans on, or commitment to, the international agreement.

Achim Steiner, the United Nations Environment Programme’s director, recently declared: “Many economies remain blind to the huge value of the diversity of animals, plants and other life-forms and their role in healthy and functioning eco-systems,”¹. At the next G8 and G20 summits in Ontario and Toronto (25-27 June), the wealthiest countries have a new opportunity to open their eyes on what is happening on the planet (unbelievable oil spills, mass species extinction and non-linear climatic changes) and decide that we cannot live without a cleaner atmosphere and healthier ecosystems.

UNFCCC’s new head, Christiana Figueres (see Climate-Change.tv’s interview with her in April) has already expressed concern over the Copenhagen Accord and the need for countries to be more ambitious. She’s picking up a poisoned chalice, but perhaps has the nature to drive the negotiations to the next level.

Luca Marazzi

1. http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/05/10/biodiversity.loss.report/

2. A worrying emission trend has been just declared by the Indian authorities: +58% in the 1994-2007 period but it is still a fourth of China and US’ figures.

3. A 10% cut in CO₂ emissions in the next 12 months (http://www.1010global.org/uk)

The Indonesian chief climate change negotiator, Agus Purnomo,  depicts a clear painting of the current situation in regards to the race to get the top UN job as Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC. He is concerned about the most demanding criteria for the selection of the winning candidate, i.e. having managed a 100 million dollars budget, and a 450 international staff. Eleven candidates applied up to now:  Vijai Sharma,  Permanent Secretary at the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests; Christiana Figueres , Lead Negotiator Costa Rica; Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South African Minister of Tourism; Senator Elizabeth H. Thompson from Barbados; Grace Akumu from Kenya, and Janos Pasztor from Hungary, advisor to the UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon. The last candidate seems to be the only one to fulfill those requirements though, only he, Christiana Figueres and Marthinus van Schalkwyk are still in the running.

Purnomo warns conditionality and additional requirements are being put forward by Parties in the negotiations, making funding more difficult to flow towards poorer countries. It is the usual game “You go first, no you go first” and in the meantime the Earth’s ice caps will continue to melt and sea level rise will force millions of people to evacuate from their homes. Trust among nations is still definitely at risk after Copenhagen. In an article on “Current TV”¹ we read that the real cause of the developing countries’ anger at COP15 was that “funds from climate financing, originally allocated to go to the UN and then be doled out piecemeal to third world nations, would instead be paid directly into the coffers of the World Bank and IMF”. Past failures to help poor countries without enlarging their debts suggest new ways to manage the billions of dollars for adaptation and mitigation.

The “World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth” saw the participation of more than 31,000 people from all over the world, with representatives from almost 50 governments. People and governments are continuing to talk to each other at all levels, but more policy than politics, courage than tactics and more generosity than nationalism are necessary to solve the global climate puzzle.

An inspired new woman or new man at the UNFCCC steer will hopefully master this challenge: a high profile guide representing the poorer countries looks like a good idea.

Luca Marazzi

1. http://current.com/1hora4c

Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), resigned his mandate last 18 February; he will vacate his position from 1 July, five months before COP16 in Mexico. Climate-Change.tv interviewed him in Bonn.

He told us “There are all the ingredients to bake a new cake in Cancun” after a binding treaty was not signed in Copenhagen. He blamed the failure of those negotiations on the late change in direction towards striking a political instead of a binding accord, the deadlock due to the arrival of 120 heads of State and government, and the problematic submission of the Copenhagen Accords to the general assembly (see www.climate-change.tv/yvo-de-boer-march-2010). Even if it was up to the Danish presidency and the delegations to draft the text, the informal version leaked to the Guardian^* early in the talks ruined the whole process; despite the great job done in the past four years, couldn’t the UNFCCC Secretary have avoided this damaging short-cut that impaired the trust of some 160 countries excluded from the secret talks?

It is all about making our democratic systems work. James Lovelock, the Gaia hypothesis scientist, recently stated “Climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while”^**. Are we at that point already?

Yvo de Boer always said solutions to climate change will come from businesses: it is not by chance he will work for a Dutch consultancy to help build the new green-business-as-usual that we need. Will his successor be able to bake a cake with ambitious targets and clear rules for the players and show that democracy can still deliver?

Luca Marazzi

^*http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/copenhagen-climate-summit-disarray-danish-text

^** http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/01/james-lovelock-climate-change-pessimism

Knowing that the bottom line for a successful international strategy to reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) is that developed countries lead the way, large emerging economies such as China, India and Brasil, among others, will have to significantly participate in the efforts to tackle global warming and its impacts. So what is the better way to support developing countries to reduce their environmental impacts in the future? ZhongXiang Zhang, in an article included in the 2009 UNEP Report “Climate and Trade Policies in a Post-2012 World“¹, suggests that more incentives should be used. He argues that the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer demonstrated that financial assistance and technology transfer (carrots) assisted with trade restrictions (sticks) work effectively.

In the UNEP document other related critical points are mentioned, e.g the problem of carbon leakage, that’s to say when businesses move their production to countries with less stringent rules on GHG emissions. Border adjustment measures, i.e. taxes to be paid by a country for example when importing a carbon intensive technology, are proposed frequently by developed countries to solve this issue. The problem is that these unilateral (and punitive) measures don’t help global cooperation on climate change; they should be taken as a last resort, as embargos are during international political crises. It is also highlighted a contrast between policies of liberalization of goods and services addressed in the WTO negotiations and the “common but differentiated responsibilities” approach called upon by the UNFCCC to help developing countries. In fact if taxes or emission allowances are to be paid at the border to import carbon intensive products and technologies richer and “greener” countries might be advantaged in the global markets. On one side this would be unfair, especially if the adequate funding to developing countries will still lack in the future, but it is also true that the fear of facing such extra-costs could motivate emerging economies to take faster voluntary actions. Finally relaxing intellectual property rights for sustainable technologies is suggested as a measure to facilitate their transfer to less advanced nations; this would indeed mean to put the next generations before the present enrichment so that the best ideas and inventions can become humanity’s heritage.

Nicholas Stern in his famous Review² states that “the benefits to shift the world onto a low-carbon path could be in the order of US$ 2.5 trillion each year and markets for low-carbon technologies would be worth at least US$ 500 billion”. It is time to be positive towards the future and its large opportunities (not only economic, but in terms of better human health) and grab them or to be ready to face more severe conflicts over water, food and energy. The sooner everybody acts the better: the climate system doesn’t choose where to hit with tornadoes and droughts on the basis of people’s income (see hurricane Katrina). Reducing the risks of global warming is an obligation we all share on this planet and it makes sense for young people to assume a primary role.

Luca Marazzi

1. http://www.unep.ch/etb/publications

2. http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/Executive_Summary.pdf