THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE NEWS
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
UNEP and the Executive Director in the News
Bali in the News
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Every reason for optimism (Guardian)
UN environment body urges prompt actions to adapt to climate change
(Xinhua)
Climate Change Meeting Adds to Emissions (AP)
Report: Communities Adapting to Climate (Scoop NZ)
Communities begin adapting to Climate Change (Africa Science News)
SIDEBAR: UNEP report: Adapting to climate change is necessity (Earth
Times)
UN stresses ‘climate proof’ economies (Daily Times, Pakistan)
Communities Across the Globe Getting to Grips with Adapting to Climate
Change (Yuba Net)
IPCC's four assessment reports on climate change (Xinhua)
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Other UNEP News
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Developers face new curbs (Gulf Times)
InterCall Announces Partnership With Climate Action to Promote Green
Benefits of Conferencing (PR Newswire)
Other Environment News
Bali in the News
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Bali delegates skirmish over China and India (Reuters)
Beijing and Delhi resist calls to cap their CO2 (FT)
Bali climate talks advance despite squabbling (Reuters)
Europe urges steeper greenhouse gas cuts (AFP)
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At last, say scientists about Kyoto (ABC)
Developing nations wary over targets: UN (The Age)
Bali talks won't agree carbon capture: U.N. official (Reuters)
FACTBOX - What Bali means for carbon markets (Reuters)
Australia signs up to Kyoto deal to end 10-year exile (Guardian)
Climate change talks (China Daily)
Bali Global Warming Success May Depend on China, U.S. Agreement (Bloomberg)
Can Climate Progress Succeed Without U.S.? (ABC)
Time to stop the climate blame game (BBC)
US Wants to Negotiate New Climate Pact (AP)
In Bali, EU Floats 50% Greenhouse Gas Cut (Business Week)
'We must revisit the polluter-pays norm' (Economic Times)
Washington in the Crosshairs (All Africa: Africa)
Rudd urges US to sign Kyoto pact (Aljazeera)
UN special group to focus on climate change talks (Earth Times)
China wants climate talks to back technology fund (Reuters)
Saving rainforests a thorny issue at Bali talks (Reuters)
Rich not doing enough to help poor fight climate change: Oxfam (AFP)
Climate Change Considered a 'Threat' to World's Poorest (VOA)
Rich Countries Must Pay Up to Help Poor Countries Adapt to Climate Change
(Kansas City InfoZone)
Japan proposal stirs environmentalist ire at Bali; 'Trying to please U.S.?' (IHT)
Dubai fund to back clean energy (FT)
Dress code changed to fit Bali climate change meeting's aura (Xinhua)
Other Environment News
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Britain must "do more" on climate change: Benn (Reuters)
Monsanto joins carbon credit trading group (Reuters)
"Out of Balance" climate film targets ExxonMobil (Reuters)
Environmental groups find hundreds of toys containing lead, release guide to toxin
levels (IHT)
How rising heat traps millions in poverty (Daily Nation)
EPA Urged to Regulate Airplane Emissions (LA Times)
Australia's Rudd May Trigger Low-Emissions Boom, Citigroup Says (Bloomberg)
A Look at Carbon Capture and Storage (AP)
Environmental News from the UNEP Regions
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ROA
RONA
Other UN News
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Environment News from the UN Daily News of 4 December 2007
Environment News from the S.G.’s Spokesman Daily Press Briefing of 4 December 2007
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UNEP and the Executive Director in the News
Bali in the News
Guardian: Every reason for optimism
It's not just the planet and vulnerable communities that will benefit from bold decisions in Bali. Jobs
will be created all over the world
Achim Steiner - The Guardian, Wednesday December 5 2007
As ministers from more than 180 countries meet in Bali this week for perhaps the most crucial
round of climate change talks, the discussions are pivoting on impacts, adaptation and the urgent
need for a post-2012 regime to reduce emissions. The role of forests and carbon markets and the
need to finance a transfer of clean and green technology from the north to the south are also high on
the agenda.
If governments rise to their responsibilities, vulnerable communities from Bangladesh to Barbados
will have cause to celebrate. It will also mean a transition to a low-carbon society, new industries
and a different way of doing business on this planet, and that means jobs.
The employment potential of combating climate change and of climate-proofing economies is only
now coming to the fore. These are jobs not for just the middle classes, but also in a range of work
from construction and agriculture to engineering and transport.
A study by the US-based Management Information Services estimated that in 2005 the
environmental industry in the US generated more than 5.3m jobs, over $340bn (£165bn) in sales
and $47bn in tax revenue, and employed 10 times more workers than the pharmaceutical industry.
In June this year, Eaga, which improves the energy efficiency of UK homes, floated on the London
stock exchange. It employs 4,000 people in one of the UK's former coal-mining regions.
A new report by the UN Environment Programme's (Unep) sustainable energy finance initiative
estimates that investment in renewables has reached $100bn, and now represents 18% of new
investments in the power sector.
Hansen, a wind power gearbox maker owned by the Indian company Suzlon, has just built a factory
in Tianjin, China, which will employ 600 people, and is building another in Coimbatore, Tamil
Nadu, which will employ 800. New Delhi is introducing new eco-friendly compressed natural gas
buses, which will create 18,000 jobs.
Direct employment in tourism in Kenya - mainly based on wildlife, national parks and landscapes is about 200,000. The wider impact on the economy and employment is estimated to be far greater.
About 80% of young people questioned for a new survey in the US were interested in jobs that had
a positive impact on the environment, and more than 90% said they would choose to work for
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environmentally friendly and socially responsible firms. A survey of workers in Brazil, China,
Germany, India, the UK and the US found that employees who perceived their companies as
socially responsible were happier and more likely to stay.
Roland Berger, a consultancy in Munich, estimates that in Germany in 2020 more people will be
employed in environmental technology industries than in the car industry. Working Capital, a
financial report from Unep, says the market providing finance for clean and renewable energy could
reach $1.9 trillion by 2020.
A report by one of the world's largest law firm concludes that, in key cases, the investment
community has the legal responsibility to incorporate environmental, social and governance (ESG)
issues into investment decisions, and a Unep meeting this year in Brazil concluded that both
institutional investors and "high net-worth individuals" were progressively realising the importance
of ESG-inclusion in long-term investment.
Kyoto's clean development mechanism could send $100bn from north to south for investment in
carbon offsetting projects, such as renewable energy schemes and tree planting. An alliance of
tropical forest countries is pressing for standing forests to be included in the carbon markets, which
could generate jobs in conservation and tourism, and several countries, including Costa Rica,
Norway and New Zealand, have pledged carbon neutrality, which will create more jobs.
In the wider landscape, more creative market mechanisms are emerging, such as payment for
ecosystem services: power companies with hydroelectric stations are paying farmers and
communities to maintain forests and soil upstream in Costa Rica and Kenya, for example. With
debt-for-nature swaps, countries have some debts cancelled, and some of the savings are invested in
conservation and the rehabilitation of degraded ecosystems.
More than 20 states and some 300 cities in the US have adopted renewable energy standards and/or
emission reduction targets in line with the Kyoto protocol.
Last week, the National Development and Reform Commission and the commerce ministry in
China announced bans and restrictions on foreign investment in mining and some energy sectors.
In a recent report, US economist Roger Bezdek concluded that, with the right government
incentives and investment in research and development, renewable energy and energy-efficiency
industries could create 40m jobs in the US by 2030.
Clearly, we stand on the edge of something quite exciting and transformational. If Bali maintains
the momentum of 2007, there is every reason for those out of work from Merseyside to Mumbai
and Birmingham to Bangkok to be optimistic.
Achim Steiner is UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UN Environment
Programme
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Xinhua: UN environment body urges prompt actions to adapt to climate change
BALI, Indonesia, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) urged
communities across the globe to get to grips with adapting to climate change, saying the current
deficit in adaptation makes it imperative to adapt now.
The UNEP made the appeal here on Tuesday at a press conference for issuing a report
Assessments of Impacts and Adaptation to Climate Change (AIACC).
"Adapting to better manage current climate risks is an essential step towards adapting to future
climates," said the AIACC project report.
The AIACC project is a global initiative developed in collaboration with the UNEP and the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and funded by the Global Environment
Facility (GEF) to advance scientific understanding of climate change vulnerabilities and adaptation
options in developing countries.
The report underlines that factoring climate into development strategies is do-able, but that in
some cases hard choices may have to be made.
"2007 has, as a result of the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
been a year in which the science of climate change has reached a finality -- it is happening, it is
unequivocal," said Achim Steiner, U.N. under-secretary and UNEP executive director.
"2007 has also seen clear and cost effective strategies for cutting greenhouse gas emissions put
on the table from improved energy efficiency in buildings to ones that address deforestation and
agriculture," he added.
"One of the big missing links has been adaptation, both in terms of adaptive strategies and in
terms of resources for vulnerable communities. This assessment, involving experts across the
developed and developing world, lays a solid and much needed foundation -- a foundation upon
which adaptation can become part of country development plans and built into international
assistance including oversees development aid," said Mr. Steiner.
Monique Barbut, chief executive officer and chairperson of the GEF, said, "The GEF has a long
history working with the world's most vulnerable countries that want environmentally-friendly ways
to adapt to changing climate without sacrificing key development goals".
"As this wide sweeping assessment shows first hand, we are moving forward in a very focused
way to weave adaptation strategies into daily practices," she added.
"Adaptation to climate hazards is not new," said leading author Neil Leary of the International
START Secretariat in Washington D.C., who along with the Academy of Sciences for the
Developing World in Trieste, Italy have executed the project.
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"People have always been at risk from the climate and have continually sought ways of adapting.
Still, variations and extremes of climate regularly exceed abilities to cope, too often with
devastating effect, and give evidence of what has been called an adaptation deficit," he said.
"Reducing emissions of the gases that cause climate change is necessary. But adaptation is
necessary too," he added.
The report makes recommendations for climate change adaptation, including creating conditions
to enable adaptation, integrating adaptation with development, increasing awareness and
knowledge, strengthening institutions, protecting natural resources, providing financial assistance,
involving those at risk, and using place-specific strategies.
The AIACC project was implemented over the period 2001-2007 and24 assessments were
executed in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Small Island States. Multi-institutional teams of more
than 300 scientists, stakeholders and students from 50 developing countries conducted the
assessments.
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AP: Climate Change Meeting Adds to Emissions
By ROBIN McDOWELL – 11 hours ago
BALI, Indonesia (AP) — Never before have so many people converged to try to save the planet
from global warming, with more than 10,000 jetting into this Indonesian resort island, from
government ministers to Nobel laureates to drought-stricken farmers.
But critics say they are contributing to the very problem they aim to solve.
"Nobody denies this is an important event, but huge numbers of people are going, and their
emissions are probably going to be greater than a small African country," said Chris Goodall, author
of the book "How to Live a Low-Carbon Life."
Interest in climate change is at an all-time high after former Vice President Al Gore and a team of
U.N. scientists won the Nobel Peace Prize for highlighting the dangers of rising temperatures,
melting polar ice, worsening droughts and floods, and lengthening heat waves.
Two big climate conferences have been held in less than a month, both in idyllic, far-flung, holiday
destinations — first Valencia, Spain, and now Bali. They were preceded by dozens of smaller
gatherings. In Bangkok, Paris, Vienna, Washington, New York and Sydney, in Rio de Janeiro,
Anchorage, Helsinki and the Indian Ocean island of Kurumba.
The pace is only expected to pick up, prompting some to ask if the issue is creating a "cure"
industry as various groups claim a stake in efforts to curb global warming.
No, says Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Climate Change Conference.
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"Wherever you held it, people would still have to travel to get there," he said. "The question is,
perhaps: Do you need to do it at all? My answer to that is yes."
"If you don't put the U.S., the big developing countries, the European Union around the table to
craft a solution together, nothing will happen and then the prophecy of scientists in terms of rising
emissions and its consequences will become a reality," de Boer said.
The U.N. estimates 47,000 tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants will be pumped into the
atmosphere during the 12-day conference in Bali, mostly from plane flights but also from waste and
electricity used by air conditioners at five-star hotels lining palm-fringed beaches.
If correct, Goodall said, that is equivalent to what a Western city of 1.5 million people, like
Marseilles, France, would emit in a day.
But he believes the real figure will be twice that, more like 100,000 tons, close to what the African
country of Chad churns out in a year.
Organizers said they are doing everything possible to offset the effects.
Host Indonesia, which has one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world, averaging 300
football fields an hour, said it had planted 79 million trees across the archipelago nation in the last
few weeks.
"Our aim is not just to make this a carbon neutral event, but a positive one," Environment Minister
Rachmat Witoelar said.
In largely symbolic gestures, 200 bright yellow mountain bikes are being offered to participants so
they can pedal around the heavily guarded conference site, and recycled paper is being used for the
reams of documents being handed out. Bins separating plastic and paper dot hallways — a rare sight
in a country where formal recycling is virtually nonexistent.
Yet SUVs, taxis and other cars sit in long lines at the gates to the site, spewing out exhaust as they
wait to get through security checkpoints.
Side trips, from scuba diving to shopping, are being offered at hotels. Indonesia's tourism ministry
hopes to showcase its remaining forests, island jewels and bustling metropolises by providing
expense-paid junkets.
Optimists hope the meeting will inaugurate a two-year process of intensified negotiations on a deal
to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and required signatories to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels.
But no one expects concrete results here, with closed-door talks expected to be a battle over
language and nuance, including whether emission reductions should be voluntary or mandatory and
whether developing nations should have the same restrictions as industrial countries.
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"We don't need talk, talk, talk," said Ursula Rakova, 43, of Papua New Guinea's Carteret islands,
describing how the rising sea has destroyed once-fertile farmland on her island of Huene and split
the land mass in two.
"For us to move, we need money to purchase land, build schools, build medical clinics," said
Rakova, who along with other farmers and fishermen were ferried by boat, bus and plane to the Bali
gathering. "Our situation is before us. We need something tangible."
In all, 190 countries are represented.
The United States is sending more than 100 delegates and all 27 countries of the European Union
are flying in national teams, with Germany bringing 70 people and France 50. Many of them are
just observers with no formal role.
Non-governmental organizations also are attending, from groups advocating the rights of
indigenous people to those seeking to protect rapidly dwindling forests. Groups like Oxfam and
CARE, which provide food and other humanitarian aid for the hungry, also are here.
And there are those with something to sell, including technology to produce pure drinking water
and businesses ready to capitalize on future carbon trading markets.
Some say the size of the gathering doesn't matter.
"I look at it from a very simple point of view," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N.
Environmental Program.
"It may sound like a lot of people, but you have to look at the issues, the number of countries
involved, the number of people affected. Global warming is literally everyone's business."
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Scoop NZ: Report: Communities Adapting to Climate
Wednesday, 5 December 2007, 2:31 pm
Press Release: United Nations
New UN-Backed Report Spotlights How Communities Are Adapting to Climate Change
New York, Dec 4 2007 5:00PM
As negotiators meet in Bali, Indonesia to frame a legally binding regime on international responses
to climate change, a new United Nations-backed report was released today on how communities
spanning the globe are coping with the problem.
The new study by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Environment Facility
(GEF) includes results from case studies ranging from food security in the Sahel, pastoralists in
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Mongolia, rice farmers in the lower Mekong basin and artisanal fishing communities in South
America.
Vulnerable communities and nations can draw on examples of ‘climate proofing’ the report –
entitled “Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change” – provides to quickly
respond to the challenges posed by global warming.
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner pointed out that 2007 was the year in which science has
demonstrated that climate change is unequivocally occurring.
But “one of the big missing links has been adaptation, both in terms of adaptive strategies and in
terms of resources for vulnerable communities,” he added.
“This assessment, involving experts across the developed and developing world, lays a solid and
much needed foundation – a foundation upon which adaptation can become part of country
development plans and built into international assistance including overseas development aid.”
More than 350 scientists, experts and others from 150 institutions in 50 developing nations and 12
developed ones participated in the report, which underscores the need to develop early warning
systems especially, but not exclusively, in Africa, where monitoring networks are sparse, underfunded or poorly maintained.
In a related development, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) today noted that
increased investment in predicting, monitoring and developing adaptation measures for climate
change is critical.
In addition to mitigation, efforts must be bolstered to help populations adapt to water scarcity,
extreme weather and other natural hazards which could be exacerbated by global warming, WMO
Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement at the UN Climate Change Conference
underway in Bali, Indonesia.
“It is now recognized that mitigation alone is unlikely to fully address, in a reasonable time the
challenges that human-induced climate change is likely to bring and that, therefore, much greater
attention needs to be given to adaptation to climate change,” he observed.
ENDS
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Africa Science News: Communities begin adapting to Climate Change
The way farmers in the Sudan are beginning to adapt to climate change are distilled in a new
report launched today.
The five-year Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change provides new and
inspiring examples of how vulnerable communities and countries may ‘climate proof’ economies in
the years and decades to come. In doing so, the assessments lay a foundation upon which at-risk
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nations and the international community can build and fund a credible and timely response to the
climate change that is already underway.
The report underlines that factoring climate into development strategies is do-able but that in some
cases hard choices may have to be made.
In a modern re-run of Aesop’s famous fable, it highlights the case of tortoise and the rabbit rather
than hare. One study in South Africa’s world famous Cape Floral Kingdom—a unique and
economically important ecosystem—indicates that climate change is likely to increase the risk of
extinction of the highly endangered riverine rabbit.
However, adaptation measures might conserve the padloper tortoise highlighting how across
sectors—from biodiversity to agriculture, water and infrastructure—investments in adaptation will
need to be intelligently and cost-effectively targeted.
The more than $ 9 million assessment has been funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF),
implemented by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and executed by the START secretariat
in Washington DC and TWAS, the Academy of Science for the Developing World in Trieste, Italy.
Twenty-four case studies were carried out under the AIACC project, including eleven in Africa.
They encompass food security in the Sahel. More than 350 scientists, experts and ‘stakeholders’
from 150 institutions in 50 developing countries and 12 developed ones took part. Pilot adaptation
programmes have been drawn up in some cases and some of these have already been tested with
many encouraging results.
The findings, stories and recommendations from the AIACC case studies are presented in two
newly published books, Climate Change and Vulnerability and Climate Change and Adaptation.
Results of the project are also summarized in the final technical report and detailed in a number of
supporting reports available at www.start.org.
A key success of the assessment has been the increased awareness among the scientists,
governments and local communities as to the importance of adaptation.
It also highlights in many cases the need to develop early warning systems especially, but not
exclusively in Africa, where weather and climate monitoring networks remain sparse, under funded
or poorly maintained.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: “2007 has, as a
result of the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), been a year in which
the science of climate change has reached a finality—it is happening, it is unequivocal”.
“2007 has also seen clear and cost effective strategies for cutting greenhouse gas emissions put on
the table from improved energy efficiency in buildings to ones that address deforestation and
agriculture,” he added. “One of the big missing links has been adaptation, both in terms of adaptive
strategies and in terms of resources for vulnerable communities. This assessment, involving experts
across the developed and developing world, lays a solid and much needed foundation—a foundation
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upon which adaptation can become part of country development plans and built into international
assistance including overseas development aid,” said Mr Steiner.
Monique Barbut, Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson of the GEF, said: “The GEF has a long
history working with the world’s most vulnerable countries that want environmentally-friendly
ways to adapt to changing climate without sacrificing key development goals”.
“As this wide sweeping assessment shows first hand, we are moving forward in a very focused way
to weave adaptation strategies into daily practice. GEF money is working today to ensure that food
security, access to drinking and irrigation water, sound public health and other basic needs are
protected now and into the future,” she added.
Neil Leary of the International START Secretariat in Washington, who along with the Academy of
Sciences for the Developing World in Trieste, have executed the project said: “Adaptation to
climate hazards is not new. People have always been at risk from the climate and have continually
sought ways of adapting. Still, variations and extremes of climate regularly exceed abilities to cope,
too often with devastating effect, and give evidence of what has been called an adaptation deficit”
. “Now climate change threatens to widen the deficit, as shown by the AIACC studies. But the
AIACC studies also find and document a variety of adaptive practices in use that reduce
vulnerability. Building on and improving many of these practices can serve as a good starting point
for adapting to the growing risks from climate change. Reducing emissions of the gases that cause
climate change is necessary. But adaptation is necessary too,” he added.
The decision to carry out the assessments was at the request of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC). Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC said the peer reviewed reports had
made a significant contribution to the IPCC’s landmark fourth assessment report published this
year.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace today launched a landmark proposal for reducing, and ultimately stopping,
tropical deforestation while preserving forest biodiversity and respecting indigenous peoples’ rights.
The initiative was launched at a side event of the Bali Climate Conference, featuring the Governors
of Papua and Papua Barat, the provinces with the largest intact tropical forests in Indonesia.
Tropical deforestation accounts for approximately 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions and
must be dealt with under the Kyoto Protocol’s second phase.
Indonesia and Brazil are the third and fourth largest emitters in the world largely due to
deforestation. In order to prevent dangerous climate change, deforestation needs to be stopped
globally within a decade.
“We want deforestation to be addressed at the Bali Conference. The world has the resources to stop
deforestation, what is needed now is the political will.
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Governors from Papua and Brazil’s Amazonas State have shown that will, world governments in
Bali must now follow. No money, no forests, no future,” said Greenpeace Brazil’s Amazon
campaign coordinator, Paulo Adario.
The Greenpeace proposal has the potential to raise funding in the range of several billion US$ per
year, some of which can be used in the near future to finance urgent action to cut emissions from
deforestation.
In Bali, earlier this year, the Governors of the Papua provinces recognised the need to reduce
deforestation and called for the “support of the international community through carbon financing
mechanisms and transfer of technology to protect our forests and provide income to local
communities”.
Bill Hare, Greenpeace political advisor on climate change and co-author of the initiative, said “Our
proposal merges market opportunities with funding for public policies. It will achieve real
deforestation reductions without shifting deforestation from one place to another and also ensures
that local communities share the benefits”.
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Earth Times: SIDEBAR: UNEP report: Adapting to climate change is necessity
Posted : Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:44:02 GMT
Author : DPA
Bali, Indonesia - Th effects of climate change - droughts, floods - has already forced people to
adjust their work and living situations, according to a study presented by the UN Environmental
Programme (UNEP) Tuesday at the UN climate conference on the island of Bali. "Making
adjustments is no longer an option, but necessary for survival, if the worst consequences of climate
change are to be prevented," said Neil Leary, one of the authors of the five-year Assessments of
Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change report.
Some solutions are relatively inexpensive, but training and education is needed for implementation.
In Gambia, where projections of climate change indicate steadily declining rainfall, the millet
harvest can be increased by 13 to 37 per cent by using new varieties of seeds, fertilizers and
introducing irrigation.
In the Sudan farmers could stay on their land if they adapted to small-scale irrigated vegetable
gardens, utilized pest management and switched from goats to sheep.
A temperature rise in the Caribbean could triple the cases of the mosquito-borne dengue fever that
can be adressed by education on the disease, its transmission and eradicating breeding grounds.
The rising water levels of the South American La Plata River will cause floods and storm surges on
coastal lands. The report recommended improving early warning systems and flood response
strategies.
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Adaptation to climate change must be promoted and implemented immediately, said Leary, adding
that appropriate measures should be incorporated into all development projects.
Financing these adaptations is one of the most important topics of the world climate conference,
stressed Leary.
Daily Times, Pakistan: UN stresses ‘climate proof’ economies
NUSA DUA: Developing nations from Sudan to Uruguay are finding new ways to “climate proof”
their economies from threats ranging from desertification to storms, a UN-backed study said on
Tuesday.
Schemes to mute the impact of climate change such as wider use of drought-resistant crops,
irrigation or better forecasting of storm surges could show how to help protect hundreds of millions
of people this century, it said. Achim Steiner, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP),
said that UN-led climate efforts had so far focused most on ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions,
rather than helping people adapt to effects such as erosion or rising seas.
“One of the big missing links has been adaptation,” he said of the report issued at 190-nation
climate talks in Bali, Indonesia. About 350 experts made 24 studies around the world in a $9 million
assessment of ways to adapt to a warmer world. A 190-nation climate meeting in Bali began a hunt
for a new global deal to fight global warming by 2009 on Tuesday with skirmishing about how far
China and India should curb surging greenhouse gas emissions.
After an opening day dominated by ceremony, governments set up a “special group” to look at
options for launching two years of talks meant to bind the United States and developing nations led
by China and India more firmly into fighting climate change.
De Boer, head of UN Climate Change Secretariat, said the group of senior officials would report
back to 130 environment ministers who will arrive next week at the talks in a luxury Indonesian
beach resort. Reuters
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Yuba Net: Communities Across the Globe Getting to Grips with Adapting to Climate Change
By: United Nations Environmental Programme
Published: Dec 4, 2007 at 07:26
The way farmers in the Sudan, flood-prone communities in Argentina and disease-challenged
islands in the Caribbean are beginning to adapt to climate change are distilled in a new report
launched today.
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The five-year Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change provides new and
inspiring examples of how vulnerable communities and countries may 'climate proof' economies in
the years and decades to come.
In doing so, the assessments lay a foundation upon which at-risk nations and the international
community can build and fund a credible and timely response to the climate change that is already
underway.
Choices - the Tortoise and the 'Hare'
The report underlines that factoring climate into development strategies is do-able but that in some
cases hard choices may have to be made.
In a modern re-run of Aesop's famous fable, it highlights the case of tortoise and the rabbit rather
than hare.
One study in South Africa's world famous Cape Floral Kingdom-a unique and economically
important ecosystem-indicates that climate change is likely to increase the risk of extinction of the
highly endangered riverine rabbit.
However, adaptation measures might conserve the padloper tortoise highlighting how across
sectors-from biodiversity to agriculture, water and infrastructure-investments in adaptation will
need to be intelligently and cost-effectively targeted.
The more than $ 9 million assessment has been funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF),
implemented by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and executed by the START secretariat
in Washington DC and TWAS, the Academy of Science for the Developing World in Trieste, Italy.
Twenty-four case studies were carried out under the AIACC project, including eleven in Africa.
They encompass food security in the Sahel; smallholder farmers and artisanal fishing communities
in South America; coastal townships of small islands in the Pacific; pastoralists in Mongolia; rice
farmers in the lower Mekong basin.
More than 350 scientists, experts and 'stakeholders' from 150 institutions in 50 developing countries
and 12 developed ones took part. Pilot adaptation programmes have been drawn up in some cases
and some of these have already been tested with many encouraging results.
The findings, stories and recommendations from the AIACC case studies are presented in two
newly published books, Climate Change and Vulnerability and Climate Change and Adaptation.
Results of the project are also summarized in the final technical report and detailed in a number of
supporting reports available at www.start.org.
Community Involvement and Early Warning
A key success of the assessment has been the increased awareness among the scientists,
governments and local communities as to the importance of adaptation.
15
It also highlights in many cases the need to develop early warning systems especially, but not
exclusively in Africa, where weather and climate monitoring networks remain sparse, under funded
or poorly maintained.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "2007 has, as a
result of the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), been a year in which
the science of climate change has reached a finality-it is happening, it is unequivocal".
"2007 has also seen clear and cost effective strategies for cutting greenhouse gas emissions put on
the table from improved energy efficiency in buildings to ones that address deforestation and
agriculture," he added.
"One of the big missing links has been adaptation, both in terms of adaptive strategies and in terms
of resources for vulnerable communities. This assessment, involving experts across the developed
and developing world, lays a solid and much needed foundation-a foundation upon which
adaptation can become part of country development plans and built into international assistance
including overseas development aid," said Mr Steiner.
Monique Barbut, Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson of the GEF, said: "The GEF has a long
history working with the world's most vulnerable countries that want environmentally-friendly ways
to adapt to changing climate without sacrificing key development goals".
"As this wide sweeping assessment shows first hand, we are moving forward in a very focused way
to weave adaptation strategies into daily practice. GEF money is working today to ensure that food
security, access to drinking and irrigation water, sound public health and other basic needs are
protected now and into the future," she added.
Neil Leary of the International START Secretariat in Washington, who along with the Academy of
Sciences for the Developing World in Trieste, have executed the project said: "Adaptation to
climate hazards is not new. People have always been at risk from the climate and have continually
sought ways of adapting. Still, variations and extremes of climate regularly exceed abilities to cope,
too often with devastating effect, and give evidence of what has been called an adaptation deficit".
"Now climate change threatens to widen the deficit, as shown by the AIACC studies. But the
AIACC studies also find and document a variety of adaptive practices in use that reduce
vulnerability. Building on and improving many of these practices can serve as a good starting point
for adapting to the growing risks from climate change. Reducing emissions of the gases that cause
climate change is necessary. But adaptation is necessary too," he added.
The decision to carry out the assessments was at the request of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC). Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC said the peer reviewed reports had
made a significant contribution to the IPCC's landmark fourth assessment report published this year.
Highlights--Africa
16
South Africa
The Berg River dam was commissioned in 2004 to supply Cape Town, South Africa with water for
uses such as drinking and irrigation. Climate change is likely to put increased stress on water
availability over the coming decades in the Western Cape region.
The researchers looked at various costs and benefits linked with a variety of adaptation measures
including increasing the capacity of the dam to creative water markets. They conclude that
"substituting water markets for the existing allocation system substantially increased the simulated
marginal cost of water to urban users and led to reduced consumption".
The researchers add that such a system would have to take into account the impact on poor
households in the Cape Town area.
Another study has looked at cost effective adaptation opportunities in parts of the Cape Floral
Kingdom in the Western Cape-a biodiversity hotspot and major tourist attraction.
By 2050, climate change may result in loss of habitat for over 10 per cent of species and six per cent
would need to move to new locations. Wildlife corridors will help.
One option might also be to expand the conservation network including reserves. Overall however a
more cost effective option will be to pay farmers to manage land for conservation or to encourage
more environment-friendly farming, the study concludes.
The Gambia
Some projections of climate change suggest steadily declining rainfall from 2010 to the end off the
century in West Africa. Should a drier climate come to pass, millet, a key staple crop, would
undergo a gradual decline in yields unless adaptation measures are taken.
The researchers looked at four responses including the introduction and extension of irrigation, the
introduction of new crop varieties and the use of fertilizers.
The findings show that millet crop yields can be increased even in a climate constrained world with
harvests improved by 13 per cent if new varieties are deployed; up to a third if fertilizers are made
available and increased by 37 per cent if irrigation is introduced.
The analysis indicates that new varieties and expanded use of fertilizer can be cost effective
measures for maintaining grain yields in a drier climate. However, the adoption of irrigation is
found to be too costly to be economically viable for growing relatively low valued grains.
The actual income for poor farmers might fall without assistance as irrigation will require the
purchase and maintenance of diesel-powered water pumping kit. Solar-powered pumping could
reduce the costs by perhaps 60 per cent.
Sudan
17
Here three case studies were undertaken in the dry, drought-prone and often degraded lands of Bara
Province of North Kordofan; Arbaat, Red Sea State and El Fashir, North Darfur to see if
communities can be made more resilient to climatic shocks.
The findings indicate that relatively minor but well thought out interventions, if supported by
community involvement and involving in many cases the empowerment of women and services
such as veterinary to micro-credit, can boost livelihoods and reduce vulnerability.
In Bara, a pilot to develop sustainable livelihoods has been tested under an UN Development
Programme-GEF initiative called the Community-Based Rangeland Rehabilitation for Carbon
Sequestration'.
Small-scale irrigated vegetable gardens, pest management, a switch from goats to sheep, sand dune
stabilization and other measures have been tested as adaptive measures.
The project in Bara has seen land rehabilitation rise by close to 60 per cent; the carrying capacity
for livestock rise by over 45 per cent and forage production climb by 48 per cent.
In Arbaat, various practical and institutional measures have been tested including the deployment of
rainwater harvesting and tree planting alongside micro credit schemes, adult literacy for women and
training for improved agricultural practices.
The work in Arbaat has led to land productivity increasing by 12 per cent and crop productivity by
almost a fifth with improvements in both water quality and quantity.
In El Fashir, the community has developed their own response to a changing climate now
supplemented by outside assistance.
Utilizing a water collection system known as trus alongside earth dams.
Responding to the encroachment of sand over fertile soils by adopting magun cultivation involving
the sinking of regular placed holes five to 15 cm deep in which to plant melon and other seedlings.
Diversifying crop production including pumpkin, okra, tomatoes, citrus fruits, cucumbers, tobacco,
millet and sesame.
The establishment of trades union-the Traditional Farmers and Fruits and Vegetable Unions-to
organize production, harvesting and distribution.
The project has registered a 50 per cent improvement in productivity of the land as a result of
dramatically increased water harvesting.
Asia
Mongolia
18
A study of livestock-a key mainstay of the Mongolian economy – indicates that climatic impacts are
already affecting productivity.
Over the period 1980 to 2001, the average weight of sheep, goats and cattle have fallen by an
average of 4kg, 2kg and 10 kg. Wool and cashmere production are also down.
Models forecast increasing impacts as a result of climbing air temperatures including a spread of the
desert area to the north by 2080. The weight of ewes in the summer is expected to decline by 50 per
cent by the same date as a result of factors including heat stress.
The area of land in Mongolia suitable for grazing may decline from 60 per cent now to 20 per in
2080.
There is also concern that climate change may intensify weather extremes from drought to a
phenomenon called dzuds-sudden spurts of heavy and long-lasting snowfall that bar animals from
access to grazing land.
In 1999-2000 a dzud event saw herders losing more than a quarter of their livestock forcing
Mongolia to request international assistance.
A suite of adaptation measures are pinpointed ranging from insurance systems and risk funds to
buffer herders against climatic shocks up to improved forecasting of extreme weather events.
The revival of traditional pasture management, reforestation of flood plains and irrigation of pasture
lands are also proposed alongside the provision of animal shelters.
Studies on climatic impacts and possible adaptation strategies have also been carried out for
Indonesia.
Here the Citarum watershed emerges as highly vulnerable to climate change with more extreme
floods and droughts likely over the coming decades.
Studies indicate that many of these impacts can be minimized if forest cover is kept above 25 per
cent. The authorities and the private sector are now looking at paying communities upstream to
maintain rather than fell the forest-a system known as payment for ecosystem services.
"The electricity company Indonesian Power is also willing to support community reforestation
activities through a community development programme. With these efforts, it is expected that a
minimum forest cover of 25 per cent could be achieved to ensure a continuous supply of water
during dry season and extreme drought years," says the AIACC report.
China
19
A further study in Asia has focused on the Heihe River Basin in Northwestern China-an area where
water supplies are already heavily utilized if not overtly utilized and where conflict of water is
already occurring.
The study forecasts that that average temperature rises of between 2.5 degrees C and 6.5 degrees C
could occur by 2050.
A vulnerability assessment has also been undertaken indicating a range of serious emerging risks as
a result off climate change including very severe water shortages; increased floods and droughts and
impacts on food supplies.
"Ecosystem vulnerability to climate change in the Heihe River Basin is also high. The degree of
vulnerability is highest in the lower reach of the basin which is largely unmanaged grassland," says
the report. Indeed, it warns that increasing pressure from climate, population and over use of naturebased resources could trigger ecological collapse in some areas.
The researchers have drawn up a list of adaptation options that might assist the communities of the
Heihe River Basin.
These include water-saving irrigation strategies; leak reduction from irrigation channels; conserving
soil moisture by plastic films, straw and deep plowing methods up to the establishment of market
mechanisms such as water permits and water allocation policies.
Latin America
Argentina and Uruguay
One AIACC study here has focused on the likely impact of climate change on floods and storm
surges on coastal and estuary lands on La Plata River.
Strong winds, high tides and the natural features of the La Plata mean flooding occurs already with
vulnerable areas identified as Samborombon Bay and up stream as far as Buenos Aires and its
surrounds.
The researchers modeled likely future floods as a result of climate change including effects on
storm surges and sea level rise.
It is likely that the level of the La Plata will rise higher than average sea level rise because of
changes in wind patterns with the increase higher on the Uruguay coast and greater up the river's
estuary.
The report estimates that, as a result of climate change and a modest one per cent per year increase
in population, the population at risk of floods could be 1.7 million by 2070-more than three times
the current numbers at risk of floods.
20
Around a quarter of a million people will be at risk of flooding each year or six times the current
number at risk.
Property and infrastructure losses for the period 2050-2100 could range from five to 15 billion US
dollars. Part of the loss calculation is based on the assumption of a single storm surge surging into
the Metropolitan region of Buenos Aires.
The findings have been presented to the governments concerned alongside recommendations that
include a review of coastal and city defenses and of early warning systems and flood response
strategies.
The report also flags up concern that a traditional adaptation strategy is being ignored with
increasing numbers of poor settlements and 'gated communities of upper middle class people' being
sited on very low coastal lands.
The Caribbean
Dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome are forecast to increase in the tropics and
sub tropics as a result of climate change.
In the Caribbean cases have climbed from a few hundred a year in the 1980s to as many as 8,000 a
year since the early 1990s.
There are concerns that rising cases of dengue could impact on the economically-important tourism
industry which accounts for nearly 70 per cent of GDP in Antigua and more than 10 per cent on
most other islands.
The researchers estimate that a two degree C temperature rise in the Caribbean could, by the 2080s,
triple the cases of dengue.
This AIACC study not only assessed the likelihood of dengue increasing but pin pointed measures
that can reduce the risk.
It found, for example, that pupae of the dengue-carrying mosquito favour breeding in 40 gallon
drums commonly used for outside water storage. The study also concluded that informal settlements
and poor households, often headed by a single unemployed woman, were at greatest risk.
Education on the disease and its transmission, targeted at these households, is suggested as one
important adaptation strategy, alongside measures to deal with the breeding grounds.
A pilot early warning system has also been developed and the findings and recommendations
discussed with several countries including Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
______________________________________________________________________
21
Xinhua: IPCC's four assessment reports on climate change
BALI, Indonesia, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change (IPCC) is
set to submit its fourth assessment report on climate change to the 2007 UN Climate Change
Conference taking place on Indonesia's Bali island.
The IPCC was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations
Environment Program to assess the scientific and technical literature produced worldwide on
climate change. So far, the body has published four assessment reports.
The first assessment report was completed in 1990, and served as the basis of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change. The report said levels of man-made greenhouse gases
were increasing in the atmosphere and predicted these would cause global warming.
The second assessment report, published in 1995, concluded that the balance of evidence
suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.
The third assessment report was published in 2001. It said there was new and stronger evidence
that most of the warming over the last 50 years was attributable to human activities.
The IPCC released its fourth assessment report in November this year, saying that warming of the
climate system was unequivocal. It also said with 90 percent certainty that human activities,
especially the burning of fossil fuels, had caused global warming during the past 50 years.
The report warned that urgent action must be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions otherwise
climate change will intensify and have a dramatic effect on nature and human society.
Other UNEP News
Gulf Times: Developers face new curbs
By REBECCA TORR
DEVELOPERS will have to pay compensation for damaging ecosystems if a new environment
proposal gets the go-ahead.
The money collected would then be used to support efforts to maintain or return biodiversity of
ecosystems to its previous state.
22
Developers would have to complete a report on the damage they have caused and the amount of
compensation would be worked out accordingly.
The Environmental Compensation Framework programme is among five others that are part of a
proposal being put together by the Public Commission for the Protection of Marine Resources,
Environment and Wildlife.
It comes under the umbrella of the Bahrain National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan
(BNBSAP), which is being formed by consultants Woods Hole Group Middle East in co-operation
with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The proposal will be submitted to authorities for approval at the end of the month and backers hope
it will be implemented for three to five years from next year.
"People are dredging and reclaiming and they are not considering the costs," said Woods Hole
Group Middle East, Saudi Arabia marine ecologist Dr Alec Shepherd.
"The true costs must be identified and used in compensating biodiversity.
"We can't stop development, but we can demand compensation."
He said other programmes include improving and protecting the biodiversity management of Hawar
Islands, Mashtan Island and Ras Sanad.
Hawar Island is a Ramsar site (an internationally recognised biodiversity protected area) and
considered to have the potential to become a World Heritage Site.
Mashtan Island and the surrounding reef area are described as a "sensitive habitat", but little
information is available about the site.
Ras Sanad is the largest of five small natural mangrove stands in Bahrain, all in Tubli Bay, and has
been a designated Ramsar site since 1997.
Fund
BNBSAP officials have also recommended an Environment Trust Fund be established.
The fund would build on the existing Environment Wildlife Trust Fund and be used to finance
biodiversity management.
The environment experts also suggest Bahrain's financial and tourism services could help the
government build the fund.
Other programmes that make up the proposal include programme management, public
communication and strategic environment assessment.
23
"The development goal to which BNBSAP contributes is sustainable environmental, economic and
social development," said Woods Hole Group Middle East, Saudi Arabia general manager Dr David
Aubrey.
"The main goal of BNBSAP is that loss of diversity within Bahraini ecosystems - terrestrial,
freshwater and marine - is reversed.
"This will not happen overnight, but we have tried to come up with a series of first steps towards
achieving this goal.
"Bahrain is a signatory to the International Convention on Biodiversity and the BNBSAP is a key
instrument to achieving this goal."
Public Commission environmental assessment and planning directorate director Zahwa Al Kuwari
said the BNBSAP was being put together because Bahrain was required to take action to preserve
and protect biodiversity as a signatory to the International Convention on Biodiversity.
"We submitted a report on the status of biodiversity last year, but now we need to do an action plan
to protect and preserve biodiversity," she explained.
"At the end of December we will submit the proposal to the Public Commission and then it will go
to other authorities.
"We hope to start implementing the programme next year, it will take between three and five years."
The environment experts were speaking at a BNBSAP workshop held at the Al Areen Wildlife Park
and Reserve, Sakhir, yesterday.
About 20 academics, environment consultants, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and
government sector representatives attended the workshop, which aimed to inform and involve
stakeholders in the BNBSAP.
becky@gdn.com.bh
________________________________________________________________________
PR Newswire: InterCall Announces Partnership With Climate Action to Promote Green
Benefits of Conferencing
Global conferencing leader aligns with Sustainable Development International and United Nations
Environment Program for worldwide communications initiative
InterCall Announces Partnership With Climate Action to Promote Green Benefits of Conferencing
CHICAGO, Dec. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- InterCall, the world's largest conferencing
provider, is now a Platinum sponsor of Climate Action, a joint development of Sustainable
24
Development International and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) promoting
environmentally-responsible business.
Through an upcoming book, Web site, and marketing program, InterCall and Climate Action will
educate businesses, governments and non-profits on what they can do to reduce their carbon
footprint and reduce their impact on climate change. Other environmentally friendly best practices,
new technologies and practical initiatives to help companies and governments create a more
sustainable business will also be shared in the publication. Features authored by government
entities, intergovernmental organizations, the public and the private sector will raise awareness of
the latest market trends, environmental threats and opportunities in response to climate change.
"InterCall is proud to support an organization that will be a powerful agent for change in the Green
movement," said Carolyn Campbell, Senior Director of Marketing for InterCall. "While InterCall
has already launched its own environmental-awareness initiative, GreenConferencing.com, through
the power of this partnership we will have a much stronger voice in helping businesses realize the
carbon savings they can achieve through conferencing and collaboration services."
The Climate Action publication will be launched around the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties and the Meeting of the Parties to the
Kyoto Protocol (COP/MOP) in December. It will be distributed widely to governments, think-tanks,
environmental organizations, businesses, fund managers and business associations. More
information on Climate Action can be found at http://www.ClimateActionProgramme.org
About InterCall
InterCall, a subsidiary of West Corporation, is the largest service provider in the world specializing
in conferencing and collaboration. Founded in 1991, InterCall helps people and companies be more
productive by providing advanced audio, event, Web and video conferencing solutions that are
easy-to-use and save them time and money. Along with a team of over 500 Meeting Consultants,
the company employs more than 1,500 operators, customer service representatives, call supervisors,
accounting, marketing and IT professionals. InterCall's strong U.S. presence, which includes four
call centers and 26 sales offices, is bolstered by a global reach that extends to Canada, Mexico,
Latin America, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Australia, New
Zealand, China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. For more information, please visit
http://www.intercall.com.
_______________________________________________________________________
25
Other Environment News
Bali in the News
Reuters: Bali delegates skirmish over China and India
(Article also appears in Gulf Times)
Published: Wednesday, 5 December, 2007
A Greenpeace activist sets up a banner around a globe reading “Don’t cook the climate” at the
venue of the UN Climate Change Conference 2007 in Nusa Dua, on Bali island, yesterday
NUSA DUA, Indonesia: A 190-nation climate meeting in Bali began a hunt for a new global deal to
fight global warming by 2009 yesterday with skirmishing about how far China and India should
curb surging greenhouse gas emissions.
“The conference got off to a very encouraging start,” said Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate
Change Secretariat of the December 3-14 meeting of 10,000 participants that will try to launch talks
on a climate pact to succeed the UN’s Kyoto Protocol.
After an opening day dominated by ceremony, governments set up a “special group” to look at
options for launching two years of talks meant to bind the US and developing nations led by China
and India more firmly into fighting climate change.
De Boer said the group of senior officials would report back to 130 environment ministers who will
arrive next week at the talks in a luxury Indonesian beach resort.
The meeting also agreed to study ways to do more to transfer clean technologies, such as solar
panels or wind turbines, to developing nations. Such a move is a key to greater involvement by
developing nations in a new pact beyond Kyoto.
The Kyoto Protocol now binds 36 rich nations to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from
burning fossil fuels, by 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-12 in a step to curb droughts, floods, heat
waves and rising seas.
The Bali talks seek a mandate to widen Kyoto to all nations beyond 2012. Of the top world’s top
five emitters Kyoto only cuts Japan’s greenhouse gases, with the US outside the pact, and China,
India exempt and Russia facing easy caps.
But there was controversy about how to share out the burden. Environmentalists accused Kyoto
nations Japan and Canada of asking China and India to do too much.
Canada said in a submission to the talks that “to be effective, a new international framework must
include emission reduction obligations for all the largest emitting economies”. It did not mention
deeper cuts for rich nations beyond 2012.
26
And Japan on Monday called on all parties to “effectively participate and will contribute
substantially”. A Japanese official said it was “essential” that China and India were involved.
China and India say that rich nations must take on far deeper cuts in emissions and that they cannot
take on caps yet because they need to burn more fossil fuels to end poverty.
“Canada and Japan are saying nothing about legally binding emission reductions for themselves
after 2012,” said Steven Guilbeault of environmental group Equiterre. “They are trying to shift the
burden to China and India.”
De Boer played down the objections, saying that all nations were merely laying out ideas. “A
marriage contract is not something to discuss on a first date,” he said. “No proposals have formally
been made.”
In Australia, new Climate Minister Penny Wong said Australia hoped to be a leader at the Bali talks
after Australia ratifed the Kyoto Protocol on Monday, leaving the US alone in opposition among
rich nations.
“We have already said we would expect binding commitments to be on the table for both developed
and developing nations,” she said, adding the nature of those commitments would be the subject of
negotiations.
Outside the Bali conference centre yesterday, a group of environmentalists gave a mock swimming
lesson to delegates, saying that rising seas could swamp low-lying tropical islands such as Bali
unless they acted. “Sea level rise is threatening hundreds of millions of people,” they said. “Sink or
swim!” – Reuters
________________________________________________________________________
FT: Beijing and Delhi resist calls to cap their CO2
By Mure Dickie and Jo Johnson
Published: December 5 2007 02:00 | Last updated: December 5 2007 02:00
Anyone in doubt about the pivotal position played by China and India at this month's global climate
change talks in Bali should glance through the latest forecasts from the International Energy
Agency.
Assuming government policies remain unchanged, Chinese and Indian economic development
would be the key drivers in sending annual global energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide - the
main greenhouse gas - from 27bn tonnes in 2005 to 42bn by 2030, the IEA said last month.
"China is expected to overtake the US to become the world's biggest emitter in 2007, while India
becomes the third biggest emitter by around 2015," the agency said in its World Energy Outlook
report.
27
But while it is clear why China and India are firmly in the Bali spotlight, what role they should play
there remains the focus of fierce debate.
Beijing and New Delhi bristle at calls from the developed world that they should accept caps on
future greenhouse gas emissions as part of a global deal to replace the Kyoto protocol after it
expires in 2012.
Even a United Nations Human Development report that suggested developing countries cut
emissions by 20 per cent by 2050, while rich nations slash theirs by four-fifths, was enough to
infuriate Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the head of India's planning commission.
"Its recommendations look egalitarian but they are not," complains Mr Ahluwalia, arguing that such
a target would leave India's per capita emissions capped at less than a third of the average level
permitted to the US and EU.
"It cannot be fair that you are projecting a reduction that leaves us on a per capita basis much below
the rest of the world," he says.
Mr Ahluwalia's objections go to the heart of the issue: that while the world's two most populous
nations are the most important sources of new emissions growth, their citizens individually share
little of the blame for global warming.
Not only are Chinese and Indian per capita emissions still small but their past contribution to the
crucial "stock" of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is lower than that of most developed countries.
"These nations accounted for 95 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide resulting from the
use of fossil fuels from the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century to 1950, and for 77
per cent in the 1950-2000 period," China's state Xinhua news agency said of the developed
countries in a commentary yesterday.
Both Beijing and New Delhi fear that binding emission caps that limit energy use could threaten
future economic development - and condemn many of their people to perpetual poverty.
But such a position, however principled, risks making China and India the rock on which dreams of
post-Kyoto climate co-operation are broken.
The US and Australia have long used China and, to some extent, India to justify their own refusal to
curb emissions.
More willing warriors against climate change fear any global pact will be meaningless if it does not
include caps for the two Asian goliaths.
Beijing is seeking to ease such concerns by stressing the action it is already taking to soften its
carbon impact. Wen Jiabao, the premier, has made one of the government's top goals reducing
China's energy intensity - the amount of energy required to produce each unit of gross domestic
product - by 20 per cent between 2006 and 2010.
28
Some observers say Beijing might be willing to agree to other policy targets instead of binding
emission caps, a compromise that might pave the way for a post-Kyoto consensus.
But China is so far failing to hit its energy intensity target and the pressure for caps is sure to grow.
Exempting China and India from binding caps would also be the equivalent of an emissions-free
pass for their economic elites, whose luxurious cars, air-conditioned villas and frequent-flyer miles
affect global warming as much as those of rich-nation citizens.
Greenpeace, the environmental group, has accused India of "hiding behind its poor", saying the
unsustainable carbon footprint of its 150m-strong middle and upper classes is disguised by the tiny
emissions produced by their 823m low-income compatriots.
Still, both Beijing and New Delhi are sure to oppose any suggestion that emissions targets be
imposed on a sub-national level. Indeed, Chinese officials appear to rule out any acceptance of
binding curbs.
India, however, has offered to cap its per capita emissions - currently around 1 tonne of carbon
dioxide equivalent a year - below those of the developed world average.
"We have promised our emissions will not move beyond yours," says one Indian negotiator. "Please
rise to the challenge. Climate change negotiations cannot be a means of enshrining an economic
status quo."
Reuters: Bali climate talks advance despite squabbling
Tue Dec 4, 2007 8:21 AM EST
By Gerard Wynn
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - A 190-nation climate meeting in Bali took small steps towards a
new global deal to fight global warming by 2009 on Tuesday amid disputes about how far China
and India should curb rising greenhouse gas emissions.
Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate official, praised the December 3-14 meeting of 10,000
participants for progress towards a goal of launching formal talks on a long-term climate pact to
succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.
"But in this process, as in so many, the devil's in the detail," he cautioned in an interview with
Reuters at a beach-side conference centre on the Indonesian island.
Governments set up a "special group" to examine options for the planned negotiations meant to bind
the United States and developing nations led by China and India more firmly into fighting climate
change beyond Kyoto.
29
The meeting also agreed to study ways to do more to transfer clean technologies, such as solar
panels or wind turbines, to developing nations. Such a move is key to greater involvement by
developing nations in tackling their climate-warming emissions.
The Kyoto Protocol now binds 36 rich nations to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from
burning fossil fuels, by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 in a step to curb
droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising seas.
But there was skirmishing about how to share out the burden beyond Kyoto and environmentalists
accused Kyoto nations Japan and Canada of expecting China and India to do too much.
Canada said in a submission to the talks that "to be effective, a new international framework must
include emission reduction obligations for all the largest emitting economies." It did not mention
deeper cuts for rich nations beyond 2012.
And Japan on Monday called on all parties to effectively participate and contribute substantially. A
Japanese official said it was "essential" that China and India were involved.
"Canada and Japan are saying nothing about legally binding emission reductions for themselves
after 2012," said Steven Guilbeault of environmental group Equiterre. "They are trying to shift the
burden to China and India."
NO FORMAL PROPOSALS
Green groups gave Japan a mock award as "Fossil of the Day" -- made daily to the nation accused
of holding up the talks.
De Boer played down the environmentalists' objections, saying that all nations were merely laying
out ideas. "A marriage contract is not something to discuss on a first date," he said. "No proposals
have formally been made."
China and India say that rich nations must take on far deeper cuts in emissions and that they cannot
take on caps yet because they need to burn more fossil fuels to end poverty.
The Bali talks are seeking a mandate to widen Kyoto to all nations beyond 2012. Of the world's topfive emitters, only Russia and Japan are part of Kyoto. The United States is outside the pact, while
China and India are exempt from curbs.
And de Boer also said the talks should not focus solely on the plan to launch new negotiations.
"There's a bit of a risk that countries that are very keen to see negotiations being launched go over
the top and focus only on that," he said.
Developing nations were worried that more immediate issues -- such aid to help them cope with
droughts, floods and rising seas -- could "be forgotten in all the excitement about the future," he
said.
30
Outside the Bali conference centre on Tuesday, a group of environmentalists gave a mock
swimming lesson to delegates, saying that rising seas could swamp low-lying tropical islands such
as Bali unless they acted.
"Sea level rise is threatening hundreds of millions of people," they said. "Sink or swim!"
-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on:
http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/
(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle, David Fogarty and Adhityani Arga in Bali; Editing by
David Fogarty)
________________________________________________________________________
AFP: Europe urges steeper greenhouse gas cuts
22 hours ago
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) — The EU again dangled the prospect of even steeper cuts in
greenhouse gas emissions on Tuesday, as nations held nitty-gritty talks to cope with the looming
threat of global warming.
The proposal came as nearly 190 nations began hammering out the preliminary details in a long
process to agree to a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the main international accord on climate
change, before its expiry in 2012.
But as wealthy countries wrangled over how to cut the emissions blamed for placing the planet in
peril, poorer nations said they needed tens of billions more dollars right away to fight the ravages of
global warming.
Trying to spur nations like the United States which have hesitated to make binding commitments on
emissions cuts, the European Union urged rich nations to rally together to slash greenhouse gas
output by 30 percent by the year 2020.
The wealthy bloc has pledged a 20 percent reduction by then, but reiterated that it would raise that
commitment to 30 percent if other developed nations agree to do the same under a new worldwide
deal.
"We are not aiming for a low-carbon economy for the European Union alone -- we are aiming for a
low-carbon economy for the globe," said Nuno Lacasta, a climate change official of current EU
chair Portugal.
"Under a new global climate agreement, for which we hope this Bali conference will agree to
launch negotiations, it is actually necessary for developed countries to cut their collective emissions
by 30 percent by 2020."
31
The offer came at the 11-day UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
conference on Indonesia's resort island of Bali, which is intended to take the first steps to finding
Kyoto's replacement.
The United States -- currently the world's worst polluter and the only industrialised nation not to
have ratified the Protocol -- has so far rejected mandatory emissions cuts, advocating voluntary
targets instead.
Growing economies such as India and China, which are on track to become the major carbon
polluters, are also reluctant to commit to binding targets, saying the industrialised world was
historically to blame for climate change.
UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer said talks were off to an encouraging start.
He said a working group had been established to thrash out a calendar for the intricate years-long
international negotiations needed to forge an agreement of such complexity and sweep.
He also said an important decision had been taken to help oversee the transfer of technologies to
cope with climate change from richer to poorer nations.
"Developing countries feel that the rich countries have not done enough to transfer technology," de
Boer told AFP. "It's very important that this issue is examined."
Poor countries are forecast to suffer most from the effects of global warming, with increased
droughts, flooding, hunger and water stress.
Delegates from Bangladesh, Cambodia and Papua New Guinea joined global relief agency Oxfam
in demanding that rich countries help foot the bill, with costs estimated at 50 billion dollars a year.
Oxfam said the current level of funding for poorer nations was an "insult".
The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said earlier this year that
evidence for global warming was unequivocal, and without prompt action, the world could see
irreversible effects, including desertification and extinction of up to 30 percent of plants and
animals.
But delegates cautioned the world needed more than just ambitious goals.
"Setting targets is one thing," said Artur Runge-Metzger of the European Commission.
"Implementing these targets is the second question, so you need to really need to come forward with
the right legislation."
________________________________________________________________________
32
ABC: At last, say scientists about Kyoto
Tuesday, 04 December 2007
ABC/Reuters
carbon dioxide
Australia's decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol sends an important message to developing countries
and the US, commentators say (Source: iStockphoto)
Climate change researchers have applauded Australia's agreement to ratify the Kyoto Protocol at
this week's UN-led talks in Bali.
They were responding after Australia's decision won a standing ovation at the opening of two-week
negotiations on the Indonesian island.
The talks aim to pull together rich and poor countries to agree a broader successor to Kyoto by
2009.
Professor Barry Brook, director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability at
the University of Adelaide, says Australia's agreement to ratify Kyoto has done two major things.
"It has acknowledged that for the last 11 years Australia has had backwards thinking in terms of
what the science is telling us and what other nations are doing," he says.
"The second important thing is this has given America no excuse now. They are now the only
country who won't ratify Kyoto, they are the ones most responsible for the problem and they are not
living up to their responsibility."
But Brook says ratifying Kyoto in itself is not a fix for climate change.
"It is an illustration of the fact that we are now serious about it and we are moving into Kyoto phase
2 with action rather than delay in mind."
About 190 nations are in Bali seeking a breakthrough for a new global pact to include the US and
developing countries to fight climate change.
The new treaty is meant to widen the Kyoto Protocol, which binds 36 industrial countries to cut
greenhouse gas emissions by 5% below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
Professor Matthew England, from the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New
South Wales, talks of a world, post-Kyoto.
"The next step is to secure the future by establishing a post-Kyoto accord; one that is legallybinding and that minimises the risk of dangerous climate change."
Bogged down
33
Past climate change talks have been bogged down by arguments over who curbs their fossil fuel use
and carbon emissions most, and how to share that burden between rich and poor nations.
China and India, among the world's top emitters and comprising more than a third of humanity, say
it's unfair that they agree to targets when rich countries contributed most to the problem, and as they
try to lift millions out of poverty.
Dr Josep Canadell, executive director of the Canberra-based Global Carbon Project, says Australia's
decision to ratify Kyoto sends an important message to poorer nations.
"Less developed countries will not come to the table unless they see full commitment from the
developing world. This is why it is so important for Australia to say 'yes'," says Canadell, a senior
research scientist with CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research.
"It's a very significant moment for Australia both domestically and internationally and the hope is
that this near-consensus by the developed world will release a snowball effect on the attitude of
developing countries."
Symbolic
Kurt Lambeck, professor of geophysics at the Australian National University and president of the
Australian Academy of Science, says Australia's move is "very symbolic".
"It isolates the US, which is not a bad thing as it may encourage them to come to their senses. It also
makes it more difficult for China and India to say 'why should we act on this when major developed
nations do not'. It is an important step forward."
Dr Ben McNeil, a senior research fellow at the University of New South Wales' Climate Change
Research Centre, says signing Kyoto brings new opportunities for Australia.
"Now companies can use the schemes set up within Kyoto like the Clean Development Mechanism
to develop, invest and deploy clean energy projects in the developing world to earn carbon
reduction credits.".
________________________________________________________________________
The Age: Developing nations wary over targets: UN
December 5, 2007 - 8:44AM
Developing countries are unlikely to agree to setting emission reduction targets while they are
trying to eradicate poverty, the United Nation's top climate change official says.
About 190 countries are in Bali this week to thrash out a new post-Kyoto strategy to combat climate
change.
34
Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Yvo de Boer, said the
Bali meeting was crucial.
"What we hope Bali will lead to is an agreement, first of all an agreement to launch negotiations,
secondly that it will adopt an agenda for those negotiations and thirdly that Bali will set an end date
when negotiations need to be completed," Mr de Boer told ABC Radio.
"I think that end date is going to be 2009."
But Mr de Boer said he doubted developing countries would be willing to agree to setting emission
reduction targets "given the fact that their economies are still fast growing and they're trying to
eradicate poverty."
"And in that context it's important to remember that under the Kyoto Protocol a number of
industrialised countries, including Australia, actually have emissions growth targets, so I don't think
emission reduction targets are the logical thing to look at," he said.
"What some developing countries like Brazil and South Africa have been advocating is that it might
be possible for developing countries to commit to specific action that would limit the growth of
their emissions."
© 2007 AAP
________________________________________________________________________
Reuters: Bali talks won't agree carbon capture: U.N. official
Tue Dec 4, 2007 12:30pm GMT
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Current talks in Bali on climate change will not decide to
include support for the burying of greenhouse gases as part of a successor deal to the Kyoto
Protocol, the U.N.'s top climate official said.
But the talks may put the so-far unproven technology, carbon capture and storage, on the agenda for
future backing, Yvo de Boer told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
About 190 countries are meeting in Bali, Indonesia, aiming to launch two years of talks to agree a
new global climate change pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.
"I think there's still quite a lot of concern out there about carbon capture and storage," said de Boer.
"I think more pilot projects have to be done, more analytical work has to be done really to convince
the skeptics that this is a technology that can be safely applied."
"It (the Bali talks) might put CCS on the agenda as one technology to be considered as part of a
mitigation solution."
35
Carbon capture technology is widely believed to be a crucial weapon without which emissions of
the commonest man-made greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2), may pass dangerous limits.
The technology is supposed to trap emissions from coal-fired power plants, which are proliferating
globally, and pump the gas underground. But there is no such commercial-scale power plant project
yet anywhere.
That is because of the extra expense to install CCS technology, estimated at some $1 billion per
plant.
One idea is that, under a new global climate deal, rich countries could meet their emissions limits by
funding carbon capture projects in developing nations, earning carbon offsets in return.
Because no new commercial-scale CCS projects are expected to be operational for several years, the
technology is only relevant to a Kyoto successor deal.
(Reporting by Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle, Editing by Anthony Barker)
________________________________________________________________________
Reuters: FACTBOX - What Bali means for carbon markets
Tue Dec 4, 2007 9:37am GMT
(Reuters) - About 190 countries are meeting in Bali, Indonesia, aiming to kick-start two years of
talks to agree a new global climate change deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol from 2013.
Kyoto has created a carbon market whereby rich countries can meet their binding greenhouse gas
emissions limits by funding emissions cuts in developing nations, through a trade in carbon offsets
worth $5 billion last year.
That trade has attracted speculators including investment banks and specialised carbon project
developers, and has cut the cost for rich countries of meeting their Kyoto targets.
Some supporters of carbon markets want these extended under a Kyoto successor to include huge
emissions-cutting projects.
Following are carbon market issues under discussion at Bali:
REDUCED DEFORESTATION
Under Kyoto, rich countries can earn carbon offsets by investing in projects to plant trees, which
soak up the commonest man-made greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2).
Now some countries want to include forest protection, whereby rich nations earn offsets by paying
countries not to chop trees down. Complicating issues include: calculating the CO2 saved;
36
establishing whether these trees were really at risk; and whether the resulting offsets will make it
too cheap for rich countries to offset their own emissions.
The Bali meeting will not decide whether avoided deforestation is included in carbon markets. The
meeting may formally approve pilot projects to test inclusion from 2013.
CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE
Burying CO2 underground, also called carbon capture and storage (CCS), is widely believed to be a
crucial weapon without which carbon emissions may pass dangerous limits.
The technology is supposed to trap CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants, which are
proliferating globally, and pump the gas underground. But there is no commercial-scale power plant
project yet anywhere.
That is because of the extra expense to install CCS technology, estimated at some $1 billion per
plant.
The Bali meeting will not decide whether to include CCS in the carbon market but may achieve
such consensus that a decision at the next meeting in 2008 in Poland is a formality.
Because no new commercial-scale CCS projects are expected to be operational for several years, the
technology is only relevant to carbon markets in a Kyoto successor deal after 2012.
HFC PLANTS
At present under Kyoto rich nations can earn carbon offsets by funding the destruction of potent
greenhouse gases called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a waste product from the manufacture of
refrigerant gases for use in air conditioners.
Such projects have attracted criticism because chemical plants, for example in China, make more
money under the scheme than from selling the refrigerant gas, removing any incentive not to
produce the waste gas in the first place.
At present factories are not allowed to claim offsets for destroying the production of HFCs above a
2000-2004 baseline.
China wants to be able to sell offsets from subsequent, additional capacity. But the European Union
is concerned that will encourage companies simply to manufacture the greenhouse gas in order to
earn offsets, making those meaningless.
As a result the Bali meeting may not resolve this issue.
________________________________________________________________________
37
Guardian: Australia signs up to Kyoto deal to end 10-year exile
John Vidal
Tuesday December 4 2007
Australia yesterday joined the fold of rich countries committed to tackling climate change by
signing the Kyoto agreement to limit CO2 emissions, at once distancing itself from the US and
ending a 10-year diplomatic exile on the issue.
The decision on the first day of the UN conference in Bali follows the election last week of a new
government which has promised to address climate change. It was applauded by delegates from
many of the 189 countries who have arrived in Indonesia to start negotiations on a follow-up treaty
to come into force in 2012.
Yesterday the US, now the only developed country not to have signed up to Kyoto, said it intended
to be "very open and flexible" in the talks, which will continue for 11 days in the Indonesian resort
island.
Harlan Watson, US chief negotiator, said America, which is responsible for 22% of the world's
climate change emissions, still backed voluntary targets to fight climate change but viewed a
possible deal "with an open mind". But he held out little hope that the US would agree to a cap on
its emissions at this early stage of negotiations.
The 4,000 conference delegates are under pressure to agree an agenda for negotiations lasting until
2009, when it is hoped a deal will be struck forcing all countries to address climate change.
Among the most contentious issues will be whether emission cuts should be mandatory or
voluntary, and to what extent countries such as China and India should limit their emissions.
The Bali meeting will be considered a success if countries can agree to limit the global
concentration of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere to around 450 parts per million and can keep
rapidly developing countries such as China and India in the talks with the US and Europe.
There is growing recognition that rapidly developing countries hold the key to limiting climate
change. This was underlined yesterday with a report showing emissions from China, India, Brazil,
Mexico and Indonesia would threaten the world with severe climate change within one generation,
even if the rich countries stopped their own greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow.
Projections by the independent Washington-based Centre for Global Development showed that
cumulative emissions from developing countries alone would drive the atmospheric concentration
of CO2 well past 450ppm within 35 years, the threshold which UN scientists say will have
significant irreversible impacts.
________________________________________________________________________
38
China Daily: Climate change talks
(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-12-04 07:00
Bali is the right venue for new negotiations on the way forward to save the planet from the
devastating effects of global warming. It has witnessed extreme natural disasters and seen smaller
isles submerge as sea level rises.
World leaders restart their talks which experts believe could be the last chance to save the Earth
from catastrophic climate change.
They are expected to agree to a new international treaty to continue the work of the Kyoto Protocol
after 2012 and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Or, they may agree to a roadmap or timetable for
more negotiations.
Whatever the outcome of the Bali conference, a new treaty is a matter of urgency for the world
leaders. Governments are expected to send their senior figures to finalize any agreement in the last
three days of the conference.
Xie Zhenhua, vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, will head a
high-level Chinese delegation.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol have laid a
solid legal foundation for the international community to deal with climate change. China will
support an international treaty on climate change after 2012 under the framework of the two
documents.
The target to cut emissions for developed countries should be set as soon as possible. To sharpen
developing countries' edge to handle climate change, developed nations are expected to offer them
financial and technological support.
China is watching and waiting for substantial results from the conference, as it is also not safe from
the catastrophic consequences of global warming. An average rise of its temperature by 1.7 C from
2020 to 2030 will bring physical changes to the country. Also, it will make living conditions
portentous.
So, China is committed to working hard for a sustainable development.
The world leaders have started bargaining a new international climate deal that addresses the
interests of both developed and developing countries. An agreement of this kind will make everyone
a winner.
If a decision to hold more negotiations is taken, if an agenda for the negotiations is agreed, and if an
end-date for completing negotiations is set, the Bali conference will have been a success.
39
"Anything short of that will constitute a failure," Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the
conference, said before the meeting.
________________________________________________________________________
Bloomberg: Bali Global Warming Success May Depend on China, U.S. Agreement
By Alex Morales and Kim Chipman
Enlarge Image/Details
Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Cobbling a global treaty to slow the planet's warming may require an
unprecedented agreement between the U.S. and China, the world's largest greenhouse gas polluters.
Delegates, lawmakers and scientists from 187 countries gathering in Bali, Indonesia, for the next
two weeks aim to set a deadline for replacing the global warming treaty signed 10 years ago in
Kyoto, Japan, that expires in 2012. The accord, which prescribes emissions cuts for industrialized
nations, didn't require mandatory reductions for developing countries such as China, and the U.S.
refused to sign it.
China and the U.S. each say they want the other to take on binding commitments to limit emissions
in order to participate in a new accord. China's officials says the country needs to expand its
economy, while the Bush administration says it is concerned that emissions caps will harm
economic competitiveness Both nations will have to make concessions in a new deal, says U.K.
Environment Minister Phil Woolas, a Bali participant.
``We need the world's biggest economy, the U.S., on board,'' Woolas says. ``A new climate deal
must include fair, effective contributions from developing economies such as China.''
The two countries are responsible for about 40 percent of global emissions, according to data
compiled by the U. S. Department of Energy. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change this year said global emissions must peak by 2015 and drop by half by 2050 to
avoid the worst effects of global warming, including rising sea levels and more frequent droughts.
The current treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, binds 36 nations to cut the gases by a combined 5.2 percent
from 1990 levels by 2012. U.S. President George W. Bush has refused to ratify the Kyoto accord
and the treaty doesn't set goals for China.
Mandatory Caps
``The U.S. and other industrialized nations must accept mandatory caps and acknowledge that
poorer nations won't forego economic growth,'' said Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat,
in a response to e-mailed questions.
``China and other developing countries will have to take on their own binding commitments -- not
the same form as ours -- but perhaps a commitment per unit of GDP growth,'' said Kerry, a
Congressional delegate.
40
China has a plan to reduce the amount of energy used to generate each unit of gross domestic
product by one-fifth by 2010 from 2005 levels. The world's most populous nation can't do as much
to control warming as the U.S. or Europe, because it needs to consume energy to generate growth
and reduce poverty, Chinese officials say.
China's Coal Plants
``Developed countries should lead by example in cutting their own emissions and energy use,'' the
Chinese foreign ministry's spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said at a press conference in Beijing.
``Furthermore, they should transfer technology and financial assistance to developing countries.''
China burns coal to generate 78 percent of the electricity used in the world's biggest energyconsuming nation after the U.S. Chinese power demand may rise 13.5 percent next year, according
to the State Grid Corp. of China.
``We don't have the motivation or incentives to reduce carbon emissions at coal-fired plants,'' said
Zhang Shaopeng, Beijing-based spokesman for Datang International Power Generation Co., China's
second-largest power utility by market value. ``It's unrealistic to expect power companies to assume
the cost.''
`Crying and Whining'
As China has grown in wealth and influence, its argument that it remains a developing nation
sounds hollow, said Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union. The economy may
expand 10.8 percent next year after growing 11.4 percent this year, economists from China's State
Information Center said Dec. 3. China also has the most foreign reserves of any nation.
``I'm sick and tired of China crying and whining,'' Gerard said in an interview. ``They aren't a
developing country. They've got an advanced economy. They are the export capital of the world.''
China's 20 percent energy intensity target compares with a plan by Bush in 2002 to curb U.S.
emissions per unit of GDP by 18 percent by 2012.
The Bush administration rejects mandatory caps on emissions and the carbon credit trading system
used by the European Union in favor of developing clean technology, such as equipment that
captures power station emissions and pumps them underground.
``What's the alternative?,'' James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental
Quality, said in a Nov. 21 phone interview. ``If we don't have the technology for producing power
from coal with low-carbon emissions we can't solve the problem, right?''
`Father Christmas'
The key to an agreement is to get ``convergence'' between those who want to cap emissions and
those who prefer to focus on strategies to accomplish the reductions, he said. ``I'm hopeful that
convergence is actually going to occur'' in Bali.
41
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the
organizer of the Bali talks, says there won't be a new agreement in place at the end of the two-week
meeting. Rather, the task for delegates is to set a negotiation agenda for the next two years, leading
up to a new deal in 2009, he says.
``I won't need to call Father Christmas if Bali delivers all that,'' de Boer said in a telephone
interview. ``The earlier you do the deal, the better.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net ; Kim
Chipman in Denpasar, Indonesia, at kchipman@bloomberg.net
________________________________________________________________________
ABC: Can Climate Progress Succeed Without U.S.?
On Eve of Bali Talks, World's Top Greenhouse Gas Emitter Still Won't Sign Kyoto Protocol
The United States stands alone as the last major industrialized country not to have ratified the Kyoto
Protocol, after Australia's announcement Monday that it would now sign the pact.
Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol was the first official act of the new Australian Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd. It was announced by Australia's representative, Howard Bamsey, at the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change, which began Monday in Bali, Indonesia.
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"Australia making that announcement was fantastic, and there was very long applause in the room,"
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer told ABC News.
"The day as a whole got off to a good start with very enthusiastic introductory statements, people
pointing to the scientific evidence that we now have and the need to move forward on that," he said.
Delegates from 187 countries flew to Bali for two weeks of talks on how to tackle global climate
change issues.
At a press conference Sunday, de Boer said that "earlier spring, melting glaciers, longer droughts
and changing rainfall patterns" are signals that have raised public awareness about climate change.
Some of the 10,000 people registered to attend the conference arrived today on bikes, an ecofriendly gesture encouraged by the Indonesian government. They met in the heavily secured Bali
International Convention Center to discuss and debate climate change, its impact and what is to
follow of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
The pact, ratified by more than 170 countries and made during a U.N. conference in Kyoto, Japan,
in 1997, went into force in 2005. It was a long-debated agreement and commitment by the
42
developed nations to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Industrialized countries are required to
reduce emissions to at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.
Will the U.S. Now Sign?
In a statement, the White House reacted coolly to Australia's announcement that it would sign the
pact.
"The challenges of climate change are big, and serious. The next step is to reach agreement in Bali
on a negotiating roadmap for a new post-2012 framework. We look forward to continuing to work
together constructively with Australia, as we have in APEC, the Asia Pacific Partnership, and the
Major Economies process," said Kristen Hellmer with the White House Council on Environmental
Quality.
______________________________________________________________________
BBC: Time to stop the climate blame game
As a key UN climate change conference gets underway in Bali, Malini Mehra says the current
global political system is "abysmally unfit for purpose". In this week's Green Room, she calls
for nations to stop playing the blame game, and work together to deliver a low carbon global
economy.
Representatives from more than 180 nations have gathered in Bali to begin discussions towards a
new global deal on climate change.
The odds could not be higher - climate change is a challenge of civilisational dimensions.
Scientists have coined a term for our new age - they call it the "anthropocene" because human
interference with planetary systems is affecting the very life-support systems we depend upon.
They warn that we may be the last generation to live in an age of climate stability, and that we are
now entering an era outside human experience.
Jim Hansen - the man who first broke the warnings about the greenhouse effect in 1988 - says: "We
are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption."
The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) puts it more
diplomatically. In its carefully worded, politically-parsed and vetted Synthesis Report, it warns that
"anthropogenic warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon
the rate and magnitude of the climate change".
More recent studies suggest that phenomena such as accelerated melting of the Greenland ice sheet
and less carbon dioxide (CO2) being absorbed by the oceans mean that tipping points and abrupt
climate change could actually be much closer than we think.
Breaking the deadlock
43
If the scientists are worried and calling for action, what has been the reaction of our political
leadership?
As I sit here in Delhi, the talk is of Bali being an almighty battle between the "rich North" and the
"poor South".
The position of my own government is well known. India is a staunch supporter of the "principle of
common but differentiated responsibilities" enshrined in the text of the UN climate convention
when it comes to environmental effort.
In short, this holds that as non-historical emitters with large poor populations and negligible per
capita emissions, developing countries should not be expected to reduce their emissions.
Development pathways cannot be compromised as a result of climate change, and developing
countries need room to develop.
The head of the Chinese delegation at Bali - citing figures suggesting developed countries are
responsible for 77% of greenhouse gas emissions prior to 2000 - says: "The primary responsibility
for tackling climate change should rest with the developed countries - they should take the lead."
This southern perspective is a bit of a caricature of reality. Outside the handy world view of
political blocs such as the G-77/China, the world of the 21st Century is infinitely more diverse.
It defies the easy categorisation of labels, such as "developing" or "southern" that political traditions
and ideological expediency ascribe.
For example, the inconvenient truth is that countries at immediate risk of climate change, such as
small island states, are given short shrift by more powerful middle-income nations like India and
China, which are more effective at setting agendas on behalf of the developing world.
Indeed, a coalition of small island states now wants China and India to reduce their emissions.
China's CO2 emissions now arguably exceed those of the US, while India is the world's fourth
largest emitter.
Even if the developed world were to stop emitting tomorrow, we would still be locked into longterm climate change, with China's and India's projected emissions tipping us over the edge.
In it together
Current global climate politics are abysmally "unfit for purpose". The carving up of the world into
"developed" and "developing" countries is not only archaic, it has created a pack mentality and selfjustifying logic that has hidden diversity, masked interests and obstructed the emergence of truly cooperative global solutions.
Finding a politics more suited to the precarious climate-constrained age we are living in will require
a return to first principles, new thinking and new mindsets.
44
The first principle is to recognise a common human interest in a pro-active response to climate
change. Playing the waiting game will not benefit anyone - we are imperilled as a species, not as
nationalities.
Climate justice requires that we maintain climate stability for poor, vulnerable and marginalised
communities in every country. The poor should not be used by others as an excuse for inaction.
Once we have agreed to preserve climate stability, we need to ensure there is a fair share of the
global commons for everyone and that all countries can gain from the opportunities presented by
moving to a low carbon economy. Weaning the world off oil will be of greatest benefit to the
poorest countries.
Thirdly, if our bloc politics are a constraint on action, we need to change them. Thinking "out of the
box" may be difficult for bureaucrats and others with a vested interest in the institutional status quo,
but change is possible.
Progressive politicians, business leaders, civil society organisations and opinion formers have a key
role to play in articulating a new global ethics and a politics of the possible that drive change in a
new forward-looking direction.
Climate change must be seized as a new agenda of hope and opportunity to galvanise a new
generation of leaders for whom action, not rhetoric, counts and who are committed to making
positive change happen.
As the delegates in Bali reflect on our future, they would do well to think as human beings.
Malini Mehra is the founder and chief executive of the Centre for Social Markets, which specialises
in corporate responsibility, sustainability and climate change
The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC
News website
A series of thought-provoking environmental opinion pieces
________________________________________________________________________
AP: US Wants to Negotiate New Climate Pact
By MICHAEL CASEY – 1 day ago
BALI, Indonesia (AP) — American delegates at the U.N. climate conference insisted Monday they
would not be a "roadblock" to a new international agreement aimed at reducing potentially
catastrophic greenhouse gases.
But Washington refused to endorse mandatory emissions cuts, which are seen by many
governmental delegations at the meeting as crucial for reining in rising temperatures.
45
Faced with melting polar ice and worsening droughts, delegates from nearly 190 nations opened the
two-week conference with pleas for a new climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires
in 2012. That deal required the 36 signatories to cut emissions by 5 percent.
A key goal of the conference will be to draw in a skeptical United States, now the sole industrial
power that has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, citing fears it would hurt the U.S. economy
because cuts aren't required of rising economies like those in China and India.
"We're not here to be a roadblock," Harlan L. Watson, a top U.S. climate negotiator, told reporters.
"We're committed to a successful conclusion, and we're going to work very constructively to make
that happen."
The Americans, however, were forced to repeatedly defend their refusal to embrace emission caps
after Australia's new prime minister signed papers Monday to ratify the 1997 Kyoto agreement —
reversing the decision of his nation's previous, conservative government.
Delegates in Bali erupted in applause when Australia's representative, Howard Bamsey, told the
session that his country was jumping on board.
Still, the United Nations acknowledged no pact can be effective without the Americans, and the
European Union said it expected the U.S. delegation to play a constructive role in the days to come.
"There is no doubt that the U.S. has to play a key role in the post-2012 agreement," said Artur
Runge-Metzger, the EU's climate chief. "I think what the rest of the world would like to see is a
credible effort, a credible commitment from the side of the U.S. to resolving this major challenge."
Conference leaders urged delegates to move quickly to launch negotiations on a climate agreement
that many hope will be completed by 2009.
Among the most contentious issues are whether emission cuts should be mandatory and how much
up-and-coming economies like China and India should have to rein in their skyrocketing emissions.
Also on the table are efforts to curb deforestation and help for the world's poorest countries to adapt
to a worsening climate.
"The eyes of the world are upon you. There is a huge responsibility for Bali to deliver," said Yvo de
Boer, executive secretary of the conference. "The world now expects a quantum leap forward."
The conference opened as momentum grows around the globe in support for dramatic steps aimed
at stopping a rise in temperatures that many scientists fear could lead to swamped coastal areas and
islands, the loss of species, economic havoc and a spike in natural disasters such as storms, forest
fires and droughts.
The meeting is the first major climate conference since former Vice President Al Gore — due to
arrive next week — and a U.N. scientific council were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their
environmental work.
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Confronted with the past year's scientific reports on the climate problem, the Bush administration
has signaled a willingness to play a larger role in negotiations.
The American delegation presented a statement detailing measures the U.S. is taking, such as
promoting energy efficiency and cleaner technologies. Yet, it remains opposed to mandatory
emission cuts on an international level and scoffed at the notion of taking any action to immediately
phase out use of fossil fuels.
The meeting's goal of simply launching negotiations didn't sit well with the Athabaskan Arctic
Council's representative.
James Allen said native communities in Canada and Alaska are seeing their ice environment melt
away and that the warming climate has also led to an invasion of spruce beetles that has destroyed
several hundred acres of forest and led to increasing wildfires.
"We would like to see things happen a lot faster," Allen said. "The effects are happening now. We
don't have time to debate these issues. People's lives are at stake."
On the Net:
* U.N. Climate Change Conference: http://unfccc.int/2860.php
________________________________________________________________________
Business Week: In Bali, EU Floats 50% Greenhouse Gas Cut
The EU sets the bar high at the international climate change conference in Bali by
calling for ambitious emissions targets to reach by 2050
Representatives from the world's leading governments began Monday to unveil the potentially
conflicting agendas they will seek to advance during an international climate change conference in
Bali, Indonesia.
Leaders from the European Union kicked off the UN-led conference Monday by declaring that they
will seek ambitious international emissions reduction targets of 50 percent below 1990 levels by
2050.
"It would be sensible, to give direction to the negotiation process, but we have to see how far we
get," said Arthur Runge-Metzger, leader of the European delegation.
EU member states have already committed to reducing emissions by 20 percent by 2020, and a
spokeswoman for the European Commission told SPIEGEL ONLINE last week that they would
seek a 30-percent international decrease in the new contract.
Officials from over 180 nations have gathered in Bali to start drafting a new international treaty to
govern greenhouse gas emission reductions.
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There was good news for environmentalists already on the first day of the conference, as newlyelected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signed the Kyoto Protocol. Australia is now the 37th
country to make a binding commitment to reduce emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Rudd's decision to ratify the treaty reverses the position of his conservative predecessor, John
Howard, who refused to sign the pact.
"I think I can speak for all present here by expressing a sigh of relief," said conference host and
Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar during the conference's opening session.
Australia's decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol isolates the United States as the only developed
nation that has not signed the treaty. The leader of the US delegation in Bali, Harlan Watson, said
the US would respect Australia's reversal and stressed that their goal in Bali was not to sidetrack the
negotiation of a new treaty.
"We're not here to be a roadblock," Watson said during a press conference. "We respect the decision
that other countries have made and we would, of course, ask them to respect the decision we have
made."
President George W. Bush rejected the pact in 2001, saying that it would hinder the US economy
and that it unfairly excused some of the world's largest polluters, like the developing economies of
China and India.
Watson said Monday that the US would openly discuss the possibility of a new international
emissions reduction treaty, but that any binding commitments would need to cover those major
developing economies as well. Leaders in China and India have said in the past that it is unfair to
impose emissions restrictions on their rapidly growing economies as they attempt to lift hundreds of
millions of their citizens out of poverty.
The conference in Bali, which runs until Dec. 14, is the first meeting to establish a successor to the
Kyoto Protocol, which expires after its commitment period ends in 2012. While broad issues will be
discussed at the conference, concrete expectations are modest.
UN officials hope that delegates will set 2009 as the deadline by which a new treaty must be
drafted, which they believe would leave enough time for it to be ratified and enacted in 2012. That
would leave no gap between the parameters of the Kyoto Protocol and the requirements of a new
treaty.
Provided by Spiegel Online—Read the latest from Europe's largest newsmagazine
________________________________________________________________________
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Economic Times: 'We must revisit the polluter-pays norm'
4 Dec, 2007, 0236 hrs IST,Narayani Ganesh, TNN
YVO de Boer , executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) and his team are in the thick of the international conference at Bali, Indonesia, where
negotiations to chart a future course of action to deal with the pressing issue of climate change have
already begun. Mr de Boer spoke on the issues that could be discussed at Bali.
What is the significance of the Bali meeting?
We’ve had very clear scientific reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that
we have to turn the trend of global emissions within the next five to 10 years. If we don’t manage to
launch negotiations at Bali to conclude and complete those negotiations by 2009, the future would
be bleak.
What is the gap between future financial flow requirements to counter climate change and existing
resources?
According to the International Energy Agency an investment of $20 trillion over the next 25 years
would be necessary to be able to meet the growing world energy demand. The challenge is how to
get investors to go with cleaner energy options. May be something can be done through taxes;
standards for industrial processes and appliances... You still need money to finance those projects
that are not commercially viable on their own. We would need $200 billion per year by 2030 to
return emissions to the levels where they were in the year 2000.
But you said at the recent Carbon Forum in Asia that the carbon trading market “could disappear
more quickly than it appeared”.
If companies don’t have clarity that there is going to be a long-term climate change regime beyond
2012 then they don’t have incentives to invest in clean development mechanisms (CDMs) because
they don’t know that there is going to be an international regime that will reward them for those
investments. So it is important that we launch a negotiating process to give the market confidence at
the Bali meeting that international climate change policy will continue.
The rich countries are responsible for the carbon dioxide emissions stocks and both rich and poor
are creating CO2e flows. Would a Bali mandate take this into account?
It would not be reasonable to ask developing countries to commit to emission reduction targets. But
it is important that developing countries avoid the mistakes made by the west by choosing
inefficient industrial processing with very high emissions. The challenge is to design a regime
where countries in the North would provide finances to the South to go green. India might be
willing to commit to have an X per cent of renewables by 2020. Or improve the efficiency of its
cement production processes voluntarily, those would be voluntary commitments not to reduce their
emissions, but to limit the growth of emissions and then not in a legally binding sense. It depends
49
on what you can do on your own and what you could do extra if international finance resources are
provided.
_______________________________________________________________________
All Africa: Africa: Washington in the Crosshairs
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
4 December 2007
Marwaan Macan-Markar
Bangkok
The U.S. government of President George W. Bush is heading for a rough ride during a major
international conference about the planet's future that began this week on the Indonesian resort
island of Bali.
The most visible pressure is expected to come from environmental groups assembled at the United
Nations Climate Change Conference, which runs from Dec. 3-14. The activists' choice to single out
Washington was made easier on the first day of the summit, with an announcement by Australia's
newly-elected government that it was breaking ranks with the United States and joining nations that
had ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC).
"Friends of the Earth and other NGO (non-governmental organisation) activists in Bali will
highlight the complete isolation of the Bush administration," said Elizabeth Bast, international
policy analyst for the U.S. office of Friends of the Earth, a global environmental lobby group. "The
administration is standing alone, not only from the rest of the world as the sole country failing to
ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but also from the American people, who are increasingly calling for
dramatic and binding (greenhouse gas) emission reductions."
"Instead of fully engaging with the U.N. process, the administration is focusing its efforts on
creating other processes," she added in an e-mail interview from Nusa Dua, the conference venue.
"The administration's intransigence should not be allowed to stand in the way."
The emerging domestic divide between the Bush administration's rigid views on climate change and
the rest of the United States was highlighted in a report released by the National Environmental
Trust (NET), a Washington D.C.-based environmental lobby group, on the eve of the Bali meeting.
"Serious proposals to limit greenhouse gas emissions are gaining momentum in the U.S. Senate, and
the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency must promulgate
greenhouse gas regulations," notes the study, 'Taking Responsibility'.
50
That Washington has not budged on the international front was clear during the opening day of the
U.N. conference, which has attracted some 10,000 government officials, delegates from
international organisations, private sector representatives and activists. There was hardly a hint that
the U.S. government was expected to bridge the divide on the crucial issue of greenhouse gas
(GhG) emissions spelled out in the Kyoto Protocol.
The Bush administration has refused to ratify the protocol due to language that calls on 36
industrialised countries to impose mandatory cuts on GhGs, which have contributed to global
warming. The target set was a five percent cut below the 1990 GhG emission rates by 2012.
Washington favours voluntary cuts on emissions, despite the U.S. being a leading emitter of these
heat-trapping gases that are expected to wreck havoc across the planet in coming years. All 27
member nations of the European Union, on the other hand, have embraced the binding
commitments of the protocol and have introduced plans to cut GhG emissions by 20 percent by
2020.
"The administration is hoping to package its old voluntary policies by bringing some new faces to
Bali to sell them," Angela Anderson, director of NET's climate programme, said in an e-mail
interview from Nusa Dua. "They are proposing ideas that were wisely rejected at (the 1992 U.N.
summit in) Rio (de Janeiro) as unworkable."
"The U.S. claims it wants to be constructive, so we hope that they continue to participate in the
UNFCCC discussions on adaptation and deforestation and stay out of the discussion of (GhG)
emissions ranges that is taking place among the Kyoto signatories," she added. "The U.S. should be
held responsible for trying to derail the mitigation discussion if that's what they do."
The UNFCCC, which was signed by 192 countries at the Rio summit, called for voluntary goals to
curb the emission of GhGs as a way to mitigate the earth's rising temperature. But lack of progress
on this front prompted the need, five years later, for the Kyoto Protocol, which set specific limits on
GhG emission reductions and singled out the industrialised nations to take the lead in this.
The Bali summit is expected to secure commitments to cut GhGs after the Kyoto Protocol expires in
2012. U.N. officials hope that negotiations for the post-Kyoto agreement will take two years to
finalise, thus giving countries sufficient time to ratify the agreement for a smooth transition.
This challenge was highlighted by Rachmat Witoelar, Indonesia's environment minister and the
president of the current conference, on the opening day.
"The scientific debate has been conclusively laid to rest by the latest scientific findings from the
U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): climate change is unequivocal and
accelerating," he said. "Whilst the launch of negotiations and a clear deadline of 2009 to end the
negotiations would constitute a breakthrough, anything short of that would constitute a failure."
In their report, the global network of scientists who are members of the IPCC warned that the level
of GhGs emitted into the atmosphere must stabilise by 2015 and then start declining to avoid an
environmental catastrophe. Failure, they added, would lead to the deaths of millions of people,
51
mostly in the developing world, from extreme climate conditions ranging from a rise in sea levels to
natural disasters and droughts.
Little wonder, then, why environmentalists fear Washington's position in Bali may put a brake on
the negotiations and help make the grim forecast of the IPCC a reality.
"All nations have a vital self-interest in getting the next round (of the protocol) going, and they
shouldn't let the same old story from the U.S. be an excuse for a weak start to the post 2012
negotiations," said Anderson of NET.
________________________________________________________________________
Aljazeera: Rudd urges US to sign Kyoto pact
Rudd is due to attend the Bali climate change conference next week [EPA]
Australia's newly-installed prime minister has urged the US to follow his country's lead and ratify
the Kyoto Protocol on fighting global warming.
Kevin Rudd formally adopted the pact this week, leaving the US as the only industrialised nation
still refusing to adopt its binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions.
"Our position vis-a-vis Kyoto is clear cut, and that is that all developed and developing countries
need to be part of the global solution," Rudd told the Southern Cross Broadcasting radio network on
Wednesday.
"And therefore we do need to see the United States as a full ratification state when it comes to
Kyoto."
In depth
Q&A: The Kyoto Protocol
Rudd, who plans to visit Washington by mid-2008 for talks with George Bush, dodged the question
when asked if he would urge the US president directly to ratify the Kyoto pact.
The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997, requires industrialised nations to cut greenhouse gas
emissions from 1990 levels by an average of 5.2 per cent by 2012.
Climate conference
After reversing a decade of resistance by his predecessor, Rudd received a standing ovation at the
UN conference on climate change in Bali when he ratified the Kyoto agreement on Monday in his
first act after being sworn in as prime minister.
Environmentalists have been working to get
their message across in Bali [Reuters]
52
Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), said the applause was emotional and spontaneous.
"The long applause in fact reflects people's appreciation for the courage shown by Australia to take
this dramatically different position, to engage even more strongly with the international community
on the question of climate change."
Rachmat Witoelar, the UNFCCC president, said Australia would be given a seat at the negotiating
table and invited to fully participate in the talks for a new climate change regime.
Rudd is preparing to attend the Bali talks next week along with Penny Wong, his climate change
minister, and Peter Garrett, the environment minister.
The conference in Bali, which opened on Monday and runs to December 14, is bringing together
representatives from about 190 countries aiming to expedite formal negotiations for a successor
agreement to Kyoto that will expire in 2012.
On Wednesday, Japan proposed that the conference pursue a broad, "least common denominator"
approach with no legally-binding targets, drawing flak from environmentalists.
To charges that Tokyo was just trying to please the US, Hombu Kazuhiko, a Japanese delegation
spokesman, told The Associated Press: "Yes, of course. We don't want the US out of the final
decision-making.
"Our top priority is to start negotiations. Once that begins we can add some more elements."
________________________________________________________________________
Earth Times: UN special group to focus on climate change talks
By Joydeep Gupta
Bali (Indonesia), Dec 4 - The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has
decided to set up a special working group (SWG) to focus on climate change negotiations.
Over 10,000 delegates from 187 countries gathered here for the Dec 3-14 summit decided the SWG
will have three objectives -- decide on how climate change negotiations should move forward; what
the key elements of a long-term climate change strategy should be; and what should be the
deadlines in different subject areas, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said Tuesday.
The SWG will report directly to the new UNFCCC president, Indonesia's Environment Minister
Rachmat Witoelar, and 'will try to narrow down differences and put a few options before the
ministers who gather here for the end of the summit Dec 12-14', de Boer said.
He said that all the 187 participating countries would be the members of the SWG.
53
Asked if that would not make the group unwieldy, he said: 'It has been done to keep the process
transparent.'
The UNFCCC executive secretary referred to the unease expressed by a number of developing
countries, who felt the Bali summit was focussing on the future at the expense of present climate
change, while these countries were already having to deal with effects of climate change through
reduced agricultural output, water scarcity, more frequent and more serious floods, storms and
droughts and a rising sea level.
The developing countries wanted more focus on measures to adapt to climate change, the funding
and the technology transfer that would help them do this. The UNFCCC had responded by shifting
the subject of technology transfer to a high-powered body that implements the UN body decisions,
de Boer said.
He also expressed confidence that the adaptation fund meant to finance the fight against climate
change by developing countries would become operational by the end of the Bali summit Dec 14.
Reuters: China wants climate talks to back technology fund
05 Dec 2007 04:17:43 GMT
By Chris Buckley
BEIJING, Dec 5 (Reuters) - China wants rich economies to back a fund to speed the spread of
greenhouse gas-cutting technology in poor nations as it seeks to persuade delegates at global
warming talks the focus of responsibility belongs on the West.
At talks in Bali to start crafting an international agreement to fight climate change after the Kyoto
Protocol expires in 2012, some rich countries have said a new pact must spell out greenhouse gas
goals for all big emitters.
China is emerging as the planet's biggest source of carbon dioxide from industry, vehicles and farms
that is trapping more atmospheric heat and threatening disastrous climate change. Under Kyoto, it
and other poor countries do not shoulder fixed goals to control such pollution.
While Beijing fends off calls for targets, it will press its own demands, especially that rich nations
back a big boost in funds to encourage the spread of clean technology, Chinese climate policy
advisers told Reuters.
"We want to see a substantial fund for technology transfers and development," said Zou Ji of the
People's University of China in Beijing, a member of his country's delegation to Bali.
"There's been a lot of talk about developing and spreading clean coal-power and other emissionscutting technology, but the results have been puny, and we want the new negotiations to show that
developed countries are now serious about it."
54
That fund could come under a "new body to promote technology transfers," he said, adding that it
would take some time for negotiations to settle on specifics.
China's demand for clear vows on technology, as well as a big boost in funds for adaptation to
droughts, floods and rising sea levels caused by global warming, is real enough.
It also part of Beijing's effort to keep a united front with other developing countries and shine the
spotlight back on rich nations, especially the United States, the world's biggest emitter, which has
refused to ratify Kyoto.
"The real obstacle is the United States," said Hu Tao of Beijing Normal University, who previously
worked in a state environmental think tank. "China must surely be part of any solution. But the
answer has to start what the developed countries do to cut their own emissions and help us cut
ours."
China says it is unfair to demand that it accept emissions limits when global warming has been
caused by wealthy countries' long-accumulated pollution.
CLEAN POWER TECHNOLOGY
The United Nations recently issued data showing that Americans produced an average 20.6 tonnes
of carbon dioxide each in 2004, versus 3.8 tonnes each for Chinese people.
A senior Chinese climate change policy-maker, Gao Guangsheng, last week told Reuters that
China's hopes to obtain clean power-generation equipment had been frustrated by foreign
politicians' and companies' worries about intellectual property theft, foregone profits and sensitive
technology.
The adviser Zou said a technology transfer body could pair government support with private
investors, easing worries about commercial returns and intellectual property safeguards.
China has set itself ambitious domestic targets to increase energy efficiency and replace carbonbelching coal with renewable energy sources, but it failed to meet its efficiency target in 2006.
An influx of funds could underwrite joint research projects and help developing countries create
their own energy-saving devices, said Zhang Haibin, an expert on climate change negotiations at
Peking University.
"The point is that we don't just want to buy fish. We want to learn how to fish for ourselves," Zhang
said. "But if you want to keep selling fish for high prices, you won't teach me." (Editing by Nick
Macfie)
55
Reuters: Saving rainforests a thorny issue at Bali talks
Wed Dec 5, 2007 1:45am EST
By David Fogarty
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Protecting tropical rainforests, which soak up vast amounts of
greenhouse gases, is proving a real headache at U.N.-led climate talks in Bali, where delegates are
trying to sort out a pay-and-preserve scheme.
Scientists say deforestation in the tropics is responsible for about 20 percent of all man-made carbon
dioxide emissions blamed for global warming. Halting the destruction, or at least curbing the
clearing and burning of remaining tropical forests, is widely regarded as a crucial part of any new
climate pact.
Under a scheme called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries (REDD),
developing nations could earn billions of dollars through carbon trading by simply leaving forests
such as in the Amazon and Congo basins.
"I do think we will see deforestation in the agenda for the future (negotiations). The focus here is
pilot projects and more methodological work," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change
Secretariat.
"It's clearly one of the issues that a number of countries want to introduce," he told Reuters.
Curbing deforestation has become a top issue for the thousands of delegates at Bali because the
Kyoto Protocol does not include schemes that reward developing nations to preserve tropical
rainforests.
The United Nations hopes the two-week conference will agree to include a REDD scheme in
negotiations to work out a broader climate pact by 2009 to replace or expand the Kyoto Protocol,
whose first phase ends in 2012.
The problem, though, is finding a scheme that fits all developing nations, said Hans Verolme of
conservation group WWF.
"My instinct is there will be an agreement on a phased approach where we will start with some
countries that are more ready than others," said Verolme, director of the WWF's Global Climate
Change Program.
Nations also needed to sort out the type of compensation scheme, such as a market-based carbon
scheme, a fund-based scheme or a blend.
CASH FOR FORESTS
56
To help nations prepare, the Bali meeting is expected to launch a series of pilot projects, which have
not been finalized.
At its simplest, the idea is to issue carbon credits to qualifying developing nations and rich nations
buy these credits to offset their emissions at home.
It's a system that commoditizes forests and rewards poor nations for keeping forests that might
otherwise be cleared for their hardwood or to create vast plantations for biofuels or timber to feed
ever-growing global demand for pulp and paper.
"Right now there are no standards for these credits," said Verolme, adding it was crucial to ensure
any new forest credits did not flood Europe's carbon market.
Delegates are still sorting out how to monitor the world's remaining rainforests, how to ensure a halt
in logging in one area or country doesn't shift the problem elsewhere, how to work out the amount
of carbon that can be saved from a particular forest and the historical rate of deforestation.
But by far the biggest issue is compliance.
"The most difficult thing is how to ensure that within the institutions and governance of some of
these countries that things are going to truly happen and that in the long run those things will not be
undone," said Pep Canadell, executive officer of the Global Carbon Project.
He said total emissions from deforestation over the past 7 years from Southeast Asia had risen while
those from the Amazon basin, described at the lungs of the earth, had fallen.
Indonesia, which is losing vast areas of forest every year, is keen to earn money from saving what's
left and some provinces have already taken a headstart by signing agreements with international
carbon investment companies.
The government also plans to launch studies measuring emission cuts from deforestation and
distributing the benefits from a possible financing scheme to forest-dependent communities.
A Brazilian delegate told the Bali conference her government did not believe in market-based
mechanisms to limit deforestation unless rich nations agreed to make major emissions cuts at home.
Canadell, from Australia's state-backed research body CSIRO, said rich nations needed to curb their
appetite for tropical timbers.
"Despite our efforts and developing standards and global markets that are conscious of, and aware
of, destroying the tropics, the developed world has continued buying tropical timber from nonsustainable sources," he said.
-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: blogs.reuters.com/environment/
57
(Additional reporting by Adhityani Arga, Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn in Bali; Editing by
Alister Doyle)
AFP: Rich not doing enough to help poor fight climate change: Oxfam
1 day ago
LONDON (AFP) — Rich countries need to increase their financial support to help the world's
poorest nations adapt to the effects of climate change, Oxfam said Tuesday, describing current
levels of aid as "an insult".
The British-based relief agency said rich nations had so far only contributed 67 million dollars into
a United Nations fund to help impoverished countries combat global warming.
Americans spent more on suntan lotion each month, Oxfam calculated in a report published to
coincide with the opening of the Bali conference sponsored by the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is designed to pave the way for a new pact to address the
problem.
"This figure represents quite an insult, to be frank, given that the least developed countries will need
at least one to two billion dollars to meet just their most urgent adaptation needs," said the report's
author, Charlotte Sterrett.
Oxfam said rich countries gathering on the Indonesian island need to honour their promises to the
fund by increasing their commitments, with an emphasis on adaptation rather than mitigation.
"Bali needs to tackle both cause and effect equally. Even if the world stopped polluting today, the
worsening impacts of climate change will be with us for 30 years or more," Sterrett said.
"That's why it is so vital that rich countries help developing countries to cope now. This would also
signal their genuine intent to tackle the problem."
Negotiators should help identify new systems for raising financing to help vulnerable people in
developing nations have resources and support to plan for and protect themselves from the impact
of global warming, Oxfam said.
Adapting to climate change in developing countries is likely to cost at least 50 billion pounds (103
billion dollars) per year and potentially more if carbon emissions are not cut worldwide, it added.
But current pledges to the fund set up to deal with this stand at 163 million dollars, of which 67
million dollars has been delivered.
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Vulnerable communities were being hit by food and water shortages and increased poverty because
of unpredictable weather and climate-related crises like floods, strong winds, high tides, forest fires
and drought, it added.
________________________________________________________________________
VOA: Climate Change Considered a 'Threat' to World's Poorest
By Trish Anderton
Bali, Indonesia
04 December 2007
Anderton report - Download MP3 (528k) audio clip
Listen to Anderton report audio clip
The anti-poverty group Oxfam says global warming is altering the human food supply and
threatening some of the world's poorest people with hunger. At the United Nations Conference on
Climate Change in Bali, the group argued developed countries should pay to address the problem,
and costs could top $50 billion a year. Trish Anderton reports from Bali.
Climate change, which many scientists believe is fueled by human activities, alters rain cycles and
causes increased droughts and flooding.
A farmer waits for rain on his drought hit paddy field in Morigoan in India’s northeastern state of
Assam (File)
A farmer waits for rain on his drought hit paddy field in Morigoan in India’s northeastern state of
Assam (File)
Rising temperatures mean some traditional crops do not grow as well as they used to. The United
Nations predicts that in some African countries, crop yields could fall by half.
Oxfam researcher Kate Raworth says coping with these issues will be expensive.
"Oxfam has estimated that for all developing countries to adapt to climate change will cost at least
$50 billion a year," she said. "And for that to be done with justice we believe that the rich and the
most polluting countries should pay the vast share of the money to make possible for those
countries most vulnerable and least responsible for causing the problem to cope with the new
realities they have to deal with."
A report released by Oxfam at the conference on Tuesday says some countries are already feeling
the effects of a warming planet. In South Africa, farmers are planting faster-maturing crops to adapt
to unpredictable rainfall.
Bangladeshis are creating floating vegetable gardens that can thrive in spite of floods. But
Mozaharul Alam, who heads Bangladesh's climate adaptation effort, says overall improvements to
the food system still leave many families vulnerable.
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"Most of the agriculture is subsistent in nature," said Alam. "So if [there is] any failure of the crop
on the ground, even if there is food available in the market, unless the people has the buying
capacity, that availability of the food in the market has no meaning to the vulnerable family."
Oxfam argues the United States, the European Union, Japan, Canada and Australia should be
among the major sources of funds to help developing countries solve their climate change problems.
These countries have agreed in principle, but one task of the Bali Conference is to find out how
much individual countries are willing to spend on climate-related issues.
It also aims to begin deciding how to divide those resources between prevention of further climate
change, and adaptation to the changes that are already taking place.
The conference involves thousands of scientists, government officials and development group
representatives, and runs for another 10 days.
Kansas City InfoZone: Rich Countries Must Pay Up to Help Poor Countries Adapt to Climate
Change
Boston, MA - infoZine- Rich countries have paid only $67m into a UN fund to help the world's
poorest countries adapt to climate change which is less than what Americans spend on suntan lotion
each month, according to a new report published today by international agency Oxfam.
"This figure represents quite an insult, to be frank, given that the least developed countries will need
at least $1-2 billion to meet just their most urgent adaptation needs," said report author Charlotte
Sterrett. Oxfam calls on rich countries gathering in Bali for the 13th UN conference on climate
change to honour their promises and increase their commitments to pay adaptation costs.
"Bali needs to tackle both cause and effect equally. Even if the world stopped polluting today, the
worsening impacts of climate change will be with us for 30 years or more. That's why it is so vital
that rich countries help developing countries to cope now. This would also signal their genuine
intent to tackle the problem," she said.
"Oxfam wants to see negotiators in Bali set a plan for identifying new finance-raising mechanisms,
so that vulnerable communities in developing countries will have the resources and support they
need to plan for and protect themselves from the worst impacts of climate change. This is not about
aid, it is about the world's biggest and richest polluters covering the costs forced upon those who are
most vulnerable," she said.
Oxfam estimates that adapting to climate change in developing countries is likely to cost at least
$50bn each year, and far more if global greenhouse-gas emissions are not cut fast enough. Further,
Oxfam estimates that it will cost at least $1-2bn to meet the most urgent and immediate adaptation
needs of the least developed countries. Yet current pledges to the Least Developed Countries Fund,
set up specifically for this purpose, have reached a mere $163 million - less than half of what the
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UK is investing in cooling the London Underground - and worse, only $67m has actually been
delivered.
In addition to identifying new funding sources for the Adaptation Fund - the largest potential source
of funds for climate adaptation in poor countries - Oxfam is calling for a decision on management
of the Fund that puts poor countries first as well as a post-2012 negotiation that puts adaptation on
an equal footing with the urgent mitigation agenda.
The report highlights the injustice that poor countries are already paying the price of industrial
growth in rich countries, which has brought about global warming. Vulnerable communities are
already suffering food and water shortages and worsening poverty because of unpredictable weather
patterns and increasing weather-related crises, brought about by climate change.
In Niger, changed rainfall patterns are contributing to worsening desertification which for
indigenous people like the Tuareg and the Wodaabe means massive losses in livestock and food
insecurity. In Tuvalu, a small island nation in the Pacific, strong winds and high tides regularly
crash against damaged sea walls, bringing waves and debris onto the land, inundating homes and
ruining fresh water supplies. In Bolivia, rising temperatures are causing more and bigger forest fires
which is damaging agriculture.
"Most people in poor countries rely on natural resources from the land and sea for their survival.
Therefore people from an agrarian society like Cambodia for example, who are least responsible for
causing global warming, are being hardest hit by it," said Sterrett.
The Cambodian government was one of the first to submit a National Adaptation Programme of
Action (NAPA) and awaits final approval from the Least Developed Country fund, set up by the
UNFCCC in 2002. Author of Cambodia's NAPA and project manager of the Climate Change Office
in Phnom Phen, Tin Ponlok, says:
"Unfortunately, UN negotiations in the past have focused more on mitigation, with adaptation
receiving much less attention. This trend must be reversed. We need tangible support - not just talk,
not just negotiations."
________________________________________________________________________
IHT: Japan proposal stirs environmentalist ire at Bali; 'Trying to please U.S.?'
The Associated Press
Published: December 5, 2007
BALI, Indonesia: In an opening gambit, Japan has proposed that the Bali climate conference pursue
a broad "least common denominator" approach to negotiating new controls on global-warming
gases. Environmentalists couldn't think less of it.
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The proposal says nothing about making future targets for emission reductions legally binding —
the principle underlying the current Kyoto Protocol.
"Is Japan scrapping the Kyoto Protocol on its 10th birthday?" asked Japanese environmentalist
Kyoko Kawasaka. A Canadian colleague spoke of a "plot" by Japan and the United States to block a
new Kyoto-style global agreement.
For their part, the Japanese protest they're simply trying to kick-start negotiations here at the annual
U.N. climate meeting, viewed as the most critical such session in years.
The exchange offers an early view of what promises to be a contentious two weeks on this lush,
relaxed resort island, where many hope the more than 180 assembled nations will decide to launch
two years of serious negotiations on a future regime to head off dangerous climate change.
The 175-nation Kyoto Protocol of 1997 requires 36 industrialized nations to reduce their emissions
of heat-trapping "greenhouse gases" — carbon dioxide and some other industrial, agricultural and
transportation byproducts — by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
The United States is the only industrial nation to have rejected Kyoto. President George W. Bush's
administration objects that such mandatory cutbacks would damage the U.S. economy, and that they
should have been imposed on such poorer but fast-developing nations as China and India. Bush
favors allowing each country to decide on voluntary, "bottom-up" reductions.
The pro-Kyoto parties, on the other hand, led by the European Union, seek a "Bali roadmap" of
talks that, by 2009, will produce a new deal requiring still-deeper reductions by richer nations after
Kyoto expires in five years. Many also want firm but less stringent commitments from China and
others to slow the emissions growth of their booming economies.
The EU has pledged 20 percent cutbacks by 2020, and 30 percent cuts if the U.S. joins in. Many
scientists believe emissions must be cut at least in half by midcentury to head off the worst of global
warming — rising seas, flooding, severe droughts, extreme weather and other drastic impacts.
In a draft decision to be submitted for consideration Wednesday, Japan proposed that talks begin on
a post-Kyoto agreement that would address a "global long-term goal for emission reduction" and
"policies and measures" for reining in emissions.
It mentions a possible "sectorial approach on bottom-up basis" — meaning nationally, not
internationally, determined targets for power plant or automobile emissions, for example.
But the draft doesn't speak of internationally binding targets.
"It's clear to a number of us that the U.S. would like nothing more than for nothing to happen on the
Kyoto track," said Canadian Steven Guilbeault, a leading environmentalist spokesman here. "They
will let their Japanese colleagues do that."
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Asked Kawasaka, of Tokyo's environmentalist Kiko Network, "Is Japan trying to please the United
States?"
"Yes, of course," Hombu Kazuhiko, a Japanese delegation spokesman, told The Associated Press.
"We don't want the U.S. out of the final decision-making. Our top priority is to start negotiations."
Once that begins, he said, "we can add some more elements."
Of binding targets, he said, "between the lines, we're saying those things." But for now, Kazuhiko
said, "we are aiming at some common denominator."
Chief U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson told the AP the Japanese were acting "on their own,"
but that "we see a lot of elements in the Japanese proposal that are very much in our thinking."
The U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, facing hard talks ahead in Bali, took a wait-and-see attitude.
"These are exactly the kinds of issues I would expect the group to focus on in the coming days," he
said.
FT: Dubai fund to back clean energy
By John Aglionby in Nusa Dua, Bali
Published: December 5 2007 02:00 | Last updated: December 5 2007 02:00
Dubai World, the country's sovereign wealth fund, is today planning to commit $150m (€102m,
£73m) to a co-investment fund for climate change mitigation projects, the first time such an
investment vehicle has entered the mushrooming sector.
Istithmar World Ventures, a part of Istithmar World, a Dubai World-owned investment house, is
partnering Sindicatum Carbon Capital, a British climate-change project developer, to form a fund
aiming to raise $600m.
Ahmed Bin Fahad, Istithmar World Ventures' chief executive officer, will sign a memorandum of
understanding on the fund with Sindicatum on the sidelines of the UN climate change conference in
Bali, Indonesia.
Assaad Razzouk, Sindicatum's chief executive officer, told the Financial Times his company would
invest up to $400m from its own sources alongside the new fund, called the Istithmar & Sindicatum
Climate Change Partnership, into projects over the next 18 months.
"If you're a sovereign wealth fund, whether you're Sing-apore, Malaysia or the United Arab
Emirates or the Saudis, you are currently evaluating what to do with climate change," he said.
"Dubai is just faster. They took the view that climate change is good business."
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Ahmed Bin Sulayem, the chairman of Dubai World, said his fund believed "sustainability and
development are inseparable".
"It is a challenge to address global climate change while sustaining a growing global economy, but
we are confident that we can do a lot in co-operation with SCC," he said.
The fund will seek projects, predominantly in Asia, such as the eight Sindicatum announced
yesterday. It is investing in the projects with Odira Energy Persada, an Indonesian company.
"Of the eight projects, four capture gas that was previously flared, three make gas fuel available to
replace more polluting fuels and one is a new-build gas-fired power generation plant," Anthony
Moody of SCC told a briefing - in a spa - on the sidelines of the Bali conference. The Odira projects
will involve a total investment of $500m.
The new fund is small compared with the $74bn invested in clean energy in 2006 - a figure that is
expected to rise by as much as half this year.
Xinhua: Dress code changed to fit Bali climate change meeting's aura
Special Report: Fight against Global Warming
BALI, Indonesia, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- No Western suit and tie, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change (UNFCCC), gave a press conference
at the Bali International Convention Center here on Sunday ahead of the opening of the U.N.
climate change conference.
De Boer, wearing a casual shirt, has set a good example for others to follow suit to echo the
conference's theme of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
An information posted on the website of the UNFCCC said that "in consultation with the host
country and responding to numerous queries from participants, the Climate Change Secretariat
would like to propose that the dress code for participants at the upcoming Conference be adapted to
take into account the warm and humid conditions in Bali.
The temperature in Bali ranges from 26 degrees centigrade to 30degrees centigrade at this time of
year and humidity is over 80 percent.
UNFCCC secretariat hopes that "Amending the dress code will allow participants to conduct
discussions in a more comfortable environment, as well as limit the use of air conditioning and
thereby reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
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The U.N. climate conference, to open on Monday, is tasked with launching negotiations on a new
climate change regime to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which will expire in 2012.
Officials of the organizing committee said more than 10,000 people from some 180 countries
have confirmed their attendance at the conference, including 130 environment ministers and five
heads of state and government, plus Australian Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd and U.S. former
vice president and 2007 Nobel Prize co-winner, Al Gore.
The conference will be held from Dec. 3 to 14.
Other Environment News
Reuters: Britain must "do more" on climate change: Benn
Tue Dec 4, 2007 12:31pm EST
By Jeremy Lovell
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will miss by a large margin its own goal of cutting carbon dioxide
emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2010 and must make far greater efforts, Environment
Secretary Hilary Benn said on Tuesday.
Giving evidence to parliament's all-party Environment Audit Committee, Benn said the actual
figure in 2010 was likely to be a 16 percent cut -- and that only with a significant quantity of carbon
emission credits purchased overseas.
"We will not be achieving the target we have set but it is still real progress," he said, defending the
efforts the government has been making.
"We are not making fast enough progress on carbon reductions. We have got a long, long way to
go. We have a very big task on our hands," he said, highlighting the Climate Change Bill now going
through parliament.
The Bill, which the government hopes will become law within six months, sets a target of cutting
carbon dioxide emissions by 26-32 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 and 60 percent by 2050.
But Benn and Prime Minister Gordon Brown have both said they will ask for an independent
climate change monitoring committee to be set up by the bill to look at the possibility of raising the
end target to 80 percent.
He acknowledged that extra measures would be necessary to obtain the necessary cuts in emissions
of climate warming carbon gasses from burning fossil fuels for power and transport, but declined to
go into detail.
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Pressed on whether it was right for a country to be able to buy carbon credits from abroad to make
its own performance look better, Benn said that it was a global problem so the solution had to be
equal in scope.
As long as the foreign carbon credits were verifiable reductions in emissions, they were acceptable
as part of a national performance evaluation, he added.
Benn, who will go next week to a meeting of UN environment ministers on the Indonesian island of
Bali to discuss a possible future global carbon cut package, said it was vital the meeting agreed the
format for future talks to end in December 2009.
"We have got to get on with it," he said, noting that the biggest risk was of countries refusing to
participate in any accord to tackle climate change after the Kyoto Protocol on cutting carbon
emissions expires in 2012.
On the other hand, the biggest spur was the fact that the science of human-induced climate change
was now irrefutable as was the fact that there was only one planet Earth on which to live.
Scientists predict that average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius this
century because of global warming, causing floods, droughts and famines, raising sea levels and
putting millions of lives at risk.
(Reporting by Jeremy Lovell; editing by James Jukwey)
________________________________________________________________________
Reuters: Monsanto joins carbon credit trading group
Tue Dec 4, 2007 1:49pm EST
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Monsanto Co said on Tuesday it joined the Chicago Climate Exchange, a
carbon-dioxide credit trading group, and agreed to reduce its emissions of the gas or buy emission
offsets.
The company said it will reduce its direct carbon emissions by 6 percent below its 2000 levels by
2010 or buy the offsets.
It will also encourage farmer groups to discuss reducing carbon dioxide by practicing no-till
agriculture.
(Reporting by Michael Erman; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
_______________________________________________________________________
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Reuters: "Out of Balance" climate film targets ExxonMobil
Tue Dec 4, 2007 2:35pm EST
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Environmentalists love taking aim at ExxonMobil Corp., which many
see as the biggest corporate culprit in human-fueled climate change. A documentary on global
warming takes this to a new level: buy the $24.99 DVD online, and the film's distributor will donate
$10 to victims of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
"Hey, $10 might not be the $339 billion in revenue that ExxonMobil's going to generate ... this year,
but it's what we can do," said Halfdan Hussey, executive director of Cinequest, which is distributing
the film "Out of Balance." "We might be able to write a $100,000 check."
The donations would go to the Bidarki Youth Center in Cordova, Alaska, on Prince William Sound,
where the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in March 1989, spilling 11 million gallons (50 million
liters) of crude oil along 1,200 miles of Alaskan coastline.
The Valdez spill was what originally got filmmaker Tom Jackson interested in ExxonMobil and its
influence.
"I was in college then and pretty upset by that whole thing ... and the way it was handled, or perhaps
one would say, mishandled," Jackson said by phone from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He stopped
buying Exxon gas and noticed a boycott of the company's credit cards, but did not then associate the
company with the growing issue of global warming.
That came much later, after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the U.S. Gulf Coast and some scientists
linked more severe storms with climate change. Scenes of the ravaged Louisiana coastline open the
film.
"I myself took a while to come around to the whole climate change issue, and bought the whole 'the
jury is still out' (argument)," Jackson said. But then he heard reports that ExxonMobil has funded
those skeptical of the reality of global warming.
"FOSTERING THE CONFUSION" ON CLIMATE CHANGE
"When I started to find out who it was that was really fostering the confusion around the issue ... I
just thought it was outrageous that here's this company that basically has been portraying this major
debate among climate scientists ... when largely the debate was over a long time ago, back in the
90s."
Jackson, who made "Out of Balance" for about $50,000, said the connection between the Valdez
spill and ExxonMobil's stance on global warming was former chief executive Lee Raymond, who
headed the corporation's cleanup operations in Alaska in 1989. Jackson and others quoted in the
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film dismissed this operation as a "PR charade" aimed more at looking busy than fixing the
problem.
ExxonMobil has weathered numerous accusations of funding what critics call "junk science" on
climate change by saying that the corporation funds a wide range of organizations and does not
dictate what they produce.
Asked specifically about the accusations in "Out of Balance," ExxonMobil spokesman Gantt
Walton said by e-mail, "This film was produced and originally aired a year ago and the recycling of
discredited conspiracy theories diverts attention from the real challenge at hand: how to provide the
energy needed to sustain and improve global living standards while also reducing greenhouse gas
emissions."
ExxonMobil, unlike other oil companies including BP and Chevron, has not been very vocal in
opposing climate-warming emissions. But it did run double-page spreads in The Washington Post
and The New York Times to promote its new technology that could make the batteries in hybrid
vehicles more efficient.
The ads ran on December 3, the opening day of an international conference in Bali, Indonesia,
aimed at figuring out how to cut greenhouse emissions after the current Kyoto Protocol runs out in
2012.
The Exxon Valdez case is still winding its way through the legal system. The U.S. Supreme Court
will hear the company's appeal to overturn a $2.5 billion punitive damage award to about 32,000
commercial fishermen, Alaska natives, property owners and others affected by the worst U.S. tanker
spill.
Exxon's Walton called the spill "a tragic accident," but said the company has paid $3.5 billion in
cleanup and other costs and believes that no punitive damage payment is warranted.
(Editing by Eric Walsh)
________________________________________________________________________
IHT: Environmental groups find hundreds of toys containing lead, release guide to toxin
levels
The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
DETROIT: Tests on more than 1,200 children's products, most of them still on store shelves, found
that 35 percent contain lead — many with levels far above the federal recall standard used for lead
paint.
A Hannah Montana card game case, a Go Diego Go! backpack and Circo brand shoes were among
the items with excessive lead levels in the tests performed by a coalition of environmental health
groups across the country.
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Only 20 percent of the toys and other products had no trace of lead or harmful chemicals, according
to the results being released Wednesday by the Michigan-based Ecology Center along with the
national Center for Health, Environment and Justice and groups in eight other states.
Of the 1,268 items tested, 23 were among millions of toys recalled this year.
Mattel Inc. recalled more than 21 million Chinese-made toys on fears they were tainted with lead
paint and tiny magnets that children could accidentally swallow. Mattel's own tests on the toys
found that they had lead levels up to 200 times the accepted limit.
The Consumer Action Guide to Toxic Chemicals in Toys, which is available to the public at
http://www.healthytoys.org, shows how the commonly purchased children's products rank in terms
of containing lead, cadmium, arsenic and other harmful chemicals. It comes in time for holiday
shopping — and amid the slew of recalls.
"This is not about alarming parents," said Tracey Easthope, director of the Ecology Center's
Environmental Health Project. "We're just trying to give people information because they haven't
had very much except these recall lists."
Easthope said 17 percent of the children's products tested had levels of lead above the 600 parts per
million federal standard that would trigger a recall of lead paint. Jewelry products were the most
likely to contain the high levels of lead, the center said, with 33.5 percent containing levels above
600 ppm. Among the toys that tested above that limit was a Hannah Montana Pop Star Card Game,
whose case tested at 3,056 ppm.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a level of 40 ppm of lead as the maximum that
should be allowed in children's products. Lead poisoning can cause irreversible learning disabilities
and behavioral problems and, at very high levels, seizures, coma, and even death.
A spokeswoman for New York-based Cardinal Industries Inc., which sells the Hannah Montana
game, said Tuesday that Cardinal was unaware of the environmental groups' tests or procedures but
the product has passed internal tests.
"We test every (product) before it ships numerous times," Bonnie Canner said. "We have not tested
this product high for lead."
Easthope said the product is manufactured in China. Canner declined further comment until she had
more information.
The center and its testing partners found The First Years brand First Keys, Fisher-Price's Rock-aStack and B.R. Bruin's Stacking Cups were among the 20 percent that contained none of the nine
chemicals.
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"There's a lot of doom and gloom about lead in the products — people only hear about the recalls,"
said Jeff Gearhart, the Ecology Center's campaign director. "Companies can make clean products.
Our sampling shows that there's no reason to put lead in a product."
Gearhart and Easthope said the products, while not necessarily representative of everything on the
market, were considered among those commonly bought and used. Testers purchased most at major
retailers such as Wal-Mart, Toys "R" Us and Babies "R" Us.
The testing began in 2006 but most of the items were checked in the past six months, Gearhart said.
Calls to a Mattel spokeswoman were not immediately returned Tuesday. A Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
spokeswoman declined to comment because the company had not seen the report.
Toys "R" Us Inc. spokeswoman Kathleen Waugh also declined to comment because she needed to
fully review the report's findings, referring questions to the Toy Industry Association.
Joan Lawrence, the association's vice president of standards and safety, said the group and its
members support limiting accessible lead in children's products. But she said the industry and
standard-setting bodies are struggling with how to measure exposure, accessibility and what limits
to set.
She said she hasn't seen all of the Ecology Center's findings but called them misleading because the
testers did not appear to follow recognized test procedures for lead and other substances. The two
most common ways are to use solutions to simulate saliva and digestion, and another to attempt to
dissolve the surface coating.
The center and its testing partners performed what they describe as a "screening" of chemicals using
a handheld X-ray fluorescence device that detects surface chemical elements.
"The mere presence of any substance alone is only half of the answer — you need to know if it's
accessible to the child," Lawrence said. "We can't tell that from what I know of the tests that have
been done by this group."
Easthope said her group's tests aren't meant to replace those tests, and that's noted on the Web site.
She said it's important for people to know what's in these products since nobody else is providing
this data.
"We're not saying that ... all of it will come out into a child," she said. "We're saying it's a concern
that so much of these products have these chemicals of concern in them.
"We shouldn't have lead in kids' products. We can make products without lead in them."
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman Scott Wolfson said he also hasn't seen the
Ecology Center's tests but said the federal agency would seek to verify its findings and initiate
recalls if warranted.
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He said the commission has been meeting with ASTM International, which spearheads voluntary
safety standards for toys, to discuss crafting standards specific to lead in plastics. He said there also
is movement on Capitol Hill to revise laws on lead in children's products.
Wolfson said the commission launched 40 toy recalls in fiscal year 2006, three involving lead-paint
violations. In 2007, there were 61 recalls, 19 involving lead-paint violations.
"What we would like to consumers to know is more recalls are on the way," he said.
________________________________________________________________________
Daily Nation: How rising heat traps millions in poverty
Story by JEFF OTIENO
Publication Date: 12/5/2007
Gains made in human development in Africa may be reversed if climate change is not checked, the
UN now warns.
Smoke from a mine above and an industrial complex below all add to global warming that could
prove disastrous in the future. Photo/NATION FILE
A document published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says the increasing
global warming, threatening to average more than two degrees centigrade before the end of the
century, may compromise gains made in developing countries, mainly African states.
It provides a stark account of the threat posed by global warming and argues that the world is
drifting towards a ‘tipping point’ “that could lock the world’s poorest countries and their poorest
citizens on a downward spiral”.
If this happens, the document warns, it will leave hundreds of millions facing malnutrition, water
scarcity, ecological threats and a loss of livelihoods.
“Ultimately, climate change is a threat to humanity as a whole. But it is the poor, a constituency
with no responsibility for the current ecological debt, who face the immediate and most severe
human costs,” says UNDP administrator Kemal Dervis after the launch of the Human Development
2007/08 entitled: Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World.
Low human development
Focusing on the 2.6 billion people surviving on less than two dollars a day, UNDP warns that forces
unleashed by global warming could stall and then reverse progress built up over generations.
Kenya is one of the countries that would lose heavily if global warming, caused by massive
pollution originated from the developed world, is not addressed.
The country is currently ranked 148, out of 177, on human development, meaning that it belongs to
the category of those that have achieved medium human development.
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However, it might be pushed to the low human development category if the aftershocks of global
warming prevail.
The document ranks Seychelles the top African country with the highest human development score,
occupying the 50th position. The researchers use the Human Development Index (HDI) to rank the
UN member countries.
HDI measures achievements in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real
income.
Libya comes second in position 56, followed by Mauritius at the 65th position.
All developed countries, some of them the biggest polluters, belong to the high human development
category, occupying the top 20 positions.
Overall, Iceland tops as the best country in providing basic necessities to its population.
The island country is followed by Norway, which has also made tremendous progress in human
development.
Australia occupies the third position, followed by Canada with Ireland.
Sweden takes the sixth position, followed by Switzerland, Japan and The Netherlands, with France
occupying the 10th position.
The world’s only superpower, the USA, takes the 12th position, behind Finland, while UK is ranked
16th.
Is the best overall
In the medium human development category where Kenya belongs, Tunisia is the highest ranked
African country at 91, followed by Cape Verde at 102 and Algeria at 104.
Egypt is ranked 112th ahead of Gabon and Africa’s economic powerhouse of South Africa at 119
and 121 respectively.
Other African countries that are placed above Kenya are Ghana, Mauritania, Lesotho, Congo and
Swaziland.
Also performing better than Kenya are Madagascar, Cameroon, Papua New Guinea and Sudan at
147th position.
Kenya is the best, overall, in the East African Community (EAC), meaning it has achieved more in
health, education and income levels. Uganda is the only other EAC member country in the medium
human development category.
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The remaining member countries, namely Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda, occupy the low
human development tier, where all countries with the poorest human development standards are
grouped.
The low human development category is occupied by African countries, some of which are the
poorest in the world, and scientists believe that climate change will push them further down the
ranks.
Among the threats to human development, that African countries may have to deal with, is
breakdown of agricultural systems due to increased exposure to drought, rising temperatures and
more erratic rainfall, leaving up to 600 million more people facing malnutrition.
Global warming also poses health risks, with an additional population of up to 400 million people
threatened with malaria, which is one of the leading killers in the tropics.
Semi-arid areas of sub-Saharan Africa, with some of the highest concentrations of poverty in the
world, face the danger of potential productivity losses of 26 per cent by 2060.
The document warns that if the status quo prevails, an additional 1.8 billion people in Africa and
other areas will face water stress by 2080, a trend that is worrying considering the fact that water
scarcity has been one of the limiting factors to agricultural production.
It is not only Africa that is in problems, areas of South Asia and northern China face a grave
ecological crisis as a result of glacial retreat and changed rainfall patterns, which are partly
attributed to global warming.
Up to 332 million people in coastal and low lying areas also face displacement through flooding and
tropical storm activity.
In fact, more than 70 million Bangladeshis, 22 million Vietnamese, and six million Egyptians could
be affected by global warming-related flooding, considering the typography of the areas.
Despite the evidence showing that all is not well, the authors of the report argue that the human
costs of climate change have been understated.
The researchers involved in the publishing of the document say that climate shocks, such as
droughts, floods and storms, which will become more frequent and intense with climate change, are
already among the most powerful drivers of poverty and inequality-and global warming will
strengthen the impacts.
“For millions of people, these are events that offer a one-way ticket to poverty and long-run cycles
of disadvantage,” say the researchers.
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In Ethiopia, for example, the report finds that children exposed to a drought in early childhood are
36 percent more likely to be malnourished — a figure that translates into two million additional
cases of child malnutrition.
“For millions of people, these are events that offer a one-way ticket to poverty and long-run cycles
of disadvantage,” says the report.
Going by the immediate threats on the world’s poor, the scientists behind the publication of the
report warn that failure to tackle climate change could leave future generations facing an ecological
catastrophe.
They single out the possible collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheets, the retreat of glaciers, and the
stress on marine ecosystems as systemic threats that cannot be wished away.
The UN warning comes at a time when the world is preparing to forge a new multilateral agreement
for the period after 2012, the year when the current commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol
comes to an end.
The major concern is that African countries, which are the least polluters, will be the most
vulnerable, unlike the Western countries, which are technologically prepared to deal with the effects
of climate change.
To minimise the mega-catastrophes, the UNDP document is now advocating for a twin track
approach that combines stringent mitigation to limit the average warming in the current century to
less than two degrees centigrade, with strengthened international cooperation and adaptation.
UNDP urges developed countries, to demonstrate leadership by cutting greenhouse gas emissions
by at least 80 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050.
Though the world’s major polluters, apart from the US, made commitments to reduce global
pollution, many are yet to fulfil their commitments.
To ensure that the developed world keeps its promise, the document proposes a mix of carbon
taxation, more stringent cap-and-trade programmes, energy regulation and international cooperation
on financing for low-carbon technology transfer to update Africa’s preparedness.
If the proposals are not considered, UNDP warns that inequalities in ability to cope with climate
change will emerge as a powerful driver of wider inequalities between and within countries in the
near future.
The document calls on rich countries to put climate change adaptation at the centre of international
partnerships on poverty reduction.
“We are issuing a call to action, not providing a counsel of despair. Working together with resolve,
we can win the battle against climate change. Allowing the window of opportunity to close would
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represent a moral and political failure without precedent in human history,” says the lead author
Kevin Watkins.
Mr Watkins describes the forthcoming talks on climate change in Bali, Indonesia, scheduled for
next week, as a unique opportunity to put the interests of the world’s poor at the heart of climate
change negotiations.
The world will be waiting to see whether the developed world will this time round not only commit
itself, but do more to fight the dreaded climate change.
________________________________________________________________________
LA Times: EPA Urged to Regulate Airplane Emissions
By TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writer
10:06 PM PST, December 4, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO -- A coalition of states and environmental groups is urging the federal
government to curb global warming pollution from planes and other aircraft.
California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia plan
to file a petition Wednesday asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate
greenhouse gas emissions from domestic and foreign aircraft departing or landing at American
airports.
"We want the EPA to take their head out of the sand and actively promulgate rules to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions," California Attorney General Jerry Brown told The Associated Press.
"The EPA has taken a very passive and unimaginative approach to combating global warming."
Aviation is responsible for about 3 percent of the country's overall carbon dioxide emissions, and
the Federal Aviation Administration expects domestic aircraft emissions to rise by 60 percent by
2025, according to the petition.
The petition asks the EPA to develop rules to reduce aircraft emissions by requiring operators to
boost fuel efficiency, use cleaner fuels or build lighter, more aerodynamic airplanes.
Earthjustice, an Oakland-based environmental law firm, plans to file a similar petition on behalf of
Friends of the Earth, Oceana and the Center for Biological Diversity. The city of New York and
California's South Coast Air Quality Management District joined the states' petition.
EPA officials said the agency will review the petitions after they're filed but defended its efforts to
combat global warming.
"The U.S. has invested over $37 billion on climate change science, technology and tax incentive
programs -- more than any other country in the world," the EPA said in statement.
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The Air Transport Association, which represents the country's major airlines, said establishing a
greenhouse gas emissions standard for aircraft engines was not necessary "when the commercial
airlines already are driven to be as fuel efficient and environmentally conscious as possible."
U.S. airlines have doubled their fuel efficiency over the past three decades and are committed to
boosting fuel efficiency by another 30 percent by 2025, according to the ATA.
California and several conservation groups filed a similar petition in October asking the EPA to
limit emissions of heat-trapping gases from cargo ships, cruise liners and other oceangoing vessels.
________________________________________________________________________
Bloomberg: Australia's Rudd May Trigger Low-Emissions Boom, Citigroup Says
By Angela Macdonald-Smith
Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Australia's new Labor government may trigger a surge in construction of
low-emissions, coal-fired power stations similar to the resources boom in Queensland and Western
Australia over the past two years, Citigroup Inc. said.
Capture and storage of carbon emissions may develop into an industry worth as much as $10 billion
a year in Australia, depending on construction costs and the targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions,
Citigroup said in a Dec. 3 report. Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, has set a goal of
reducing carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2050 and is yet to set nearer-term targets.
Carbon-capture and storage technology, or CCS, which is at the demonstration stage, involves
trapping carbon in waste gases from power plants and disposing it underground. Australia, which
uses coal for 85 percent of its electricity, would rely on the technology to meet targets that may
require reductions in emissions of as much as 47 percent, Citigroup said.
``Carbon-capture and storage may not be commercial by 2020, but it is difficult to see some
scenarios being met without it,'' Sydney-based analyst Elaine Prior said in the report. ``Using our
assumption of 100 million to 200 million metric tons a year of CCS capacity required, this indicates
capital investment of $16 billion to $31 billion, possibly occurring from 2020.''
Labor Policy
Australia's new Labor government yesterday ratified the Kyoto Protocol, reversing the policy of
former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, ousted in the Nov. 24 election. Howard argued that
ratifying the Kyoto accord, which is aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for
global warming, would cut economic growth and cost jobs.
Australia's target under the Kyoto accord is to limit growth in greenhouse gas emissions to an 8
percent increase above 1990 levels over the 2008-2012 period. The country is ``tracking within 1
percentage point'' of meeting that target, then-environment minister Malcolm Turnbull said in May.
Australia is one of only three industrialized nations signed up to the accord that are allowed to
increase emissions from 1990 levels by 2008-2012.
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Citigroup studied a range of emissions target scenarios that may be set by Australia's new Labor
government for 2020, including a 10 percent or 20 percent cut from 2000 levels and a stabilization
at 1990 levels.
BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Anglo American Plc are among companies working on carboncapture and storage projects in Australia.
Higher Costs
Others have estimated higher capital costs to set up a carbon-capture and storage industry in
Australia, Citigroup said. A paper presented in October at a conference in Sydney by Peter Neal
from a research program between the University of New South Wales and the Cooperative Research
Center for Greenhouse Gas Technologies estimated an initial capital investment of A$90 billion
($78 billion) spread over a decade or more, and operating costs of A$7 billion a year, the securities
firm said.
Investment opportunities would arise across a range of industries including petroleum, oilfield
services, chemicals, industrial gases, infrastructure and engineering, Citigroup said.
The value of incremental construction work over the two years to June 2007 in Western Australia
and Queensland driven by the expansion of the resources industry was between A$25 billion and
A$40 billion, Citigroup said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Angela Macdonald-Smith in Sydney at
amacdonaldsm@bloomberg.net
________________________________________________________________________
AP: A Look at Carbon Capture and Storage
By The Associated Press – 2 days ago
Some scientists want to combat global warming by capturing the carbon dioxide from power plant
exhaust and storing it deep underground. Here is a look at the still experimental technology:
_ WHAT IS CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE? Removing the carbon dioxide from
smokestack emissions and injecting it into permanent underground storage. An alternative approach
would take out the carbon before the fuel is burned.
_ PUT IT WHERE? The carbon dioxide could be stored in former coal mines, underground areas
where natural gas and oil have been pumped out or in large geological formations called aquifers.
Some also propose storing it in solid form on the ocean floor.
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_ ADVANTAGES: If successful, the technology could allow the continued use of plentiful and
relatively cheap coal and natural gas, while the world develops other sources of energy such as wind
and solar.
_ DISADVANTAGES: The biggest hurdle is cost. Skeptics say the technology also would burden
future generations with maintaining large underground storage sites. They argue that money should
be spent on developing alternative energy sources rather than perpetuating dependence on fossil
fuels.
_ TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGES: Scientists are struggling to find an energy-efficient way to
separate carbon dioxide from other power plant emissions. Another major challenge is fusing the
coal-burning process with carbon capture and storage.
_ WHO'S DOING IT? Norway captures and stores carbon at a natural gas field in the North Sea.
The United States, Australia and Japan have pilot projects for power plants. The $1.5 billion U.S.
project would build such a plant by 2017.
________________________________________________________________________
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ROA MEDIA UPDATE
THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE NEWS
Wednesday, 05 December, 2007
UN – UNEP In The News
10,000 delegates attend Climate talks in Indonesia
PANA (New York, UN): About 10,000 delegates from 180 countries are in Indonesia for a summit
on climate change and its effect on ecosystems worldwide, according to a UN statement, made
available to PANA here Sunday. The delegates are convening for the 13th Conference of Parties to
the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They are also billed for the third
Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, which opens Monday on the island of Bali, Indonesia. The
summit, scheduled to end 14 December, will dwell on the most important issue to date, as world
leaders and negotiators gather to work out the successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in
2012. "The 12-day Bali conference aims to build on a recent United Nations report that warns of
devastating consequences if the countries can't agree on a new climate change pact,'' it said. "The
talks are also aimed at setting the necessary wheels in motion for the ratification of a new agreement
by 2012 when the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends,'' it noted. PANA learnt that the UN
Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, is scheduled to address the delegates at the end of the first week
of discussions.
Ban lobbies US, others on climate change
PANA (New York, UN): UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is rallying the support of major
economies, as the UN Climate Change Conference got underway in Bali, Indonesia. "As the
conference goes on, the secretary-general is engaged in securing political support from world
leaders,'' UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters Monday. She said Ban will be attending
the conference next week, when the high-level segment will commence. "However, he has spoken
over the weekend by telephone with the leaders of India and China. Last week, he also spoke with
the Presidents of Russia, the United States and Brazil,'' she noted. Asked about the secretarygeneral's views on proposals to move forward on climate change, Montas said he had recently
called on the delegates and negotiators to agree on an agenda for reaching a new climate change
agreement by 2009. "He also made it clear the science on global warming is out, and it is time for
political leaders to act,'' she added. PANA learnt that more than 10,000 participants from 187
countries are taking part in the two-week session, which is aimed at negotiating a possible successor
to the Kyoto Protocol and other environmental treaties.
Ban fait pression sur les USA à propos du changement climatique
PANA (New York, Etats-Unis) : Le Secrétaire général de l'Organisation des Nations unies (ONU),
Ban Ki-moon est en train de rallier le soutien des grandes économies au moment où la Conférence
des Nations Unies sur le changement climatique se tient à Bali en Indonésie. "Alors que la
conférence se poursuit, le Secrétaire général de l'ONU se bat pour obtenir la soutien politique des
leaders du monde", a déclaré le porte-parole de l'ONU, Michèle Montas aux journalistes lundi.
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Selon elle, M. Ban prendra part à la conférence la semaine prochaine, quand les plus hautsresponsables entreront en scène. "Il s'est toutefois entretenu au téléphone avec les leaders indiens et
chinois durant le week-end. La semaine dernière, il s'est également entretenu avec les présidents
Russe, américain et brésilien", a-t-elle déclaré. Interrogée sur le point de vue du Secrétaire général
par rapport aux propositions pour avancer sur le changement climatique, Mme Montas a déclaré que
M. Ban a invité récemment les délégués et négociateurs à accepter l'Agenda pour parvenir à un
nouvel accord sur le changement climatique d'ici à 2009. "Il a également noté que le temps des
mises en garde est épuisé et qu'il est temps que les leaders politiques passent à l'acte", a-t-elle
déclaré. La PANA a appris que plus de 10.000 participants en provenance de 187 pays prennent part
à cette session de deux semaines qui vise à négocier un possible remplaçant au Protocole de Kyoto
et aux autres traités sur l'Environnement.
General Environment News
Cameroon: Experts Adopt Waste Management Strategy
Cameroon Tribune (Yaoundé): Waste management is one of the major problems facing the
environment in Cameroon today. It is for this reason that two day workshop on the validation of the
document of the national strategy on waste management opened in Yaoundé yesterday. Organised
by the Ministry of the Environment and Nature Protection, the workshop brings together experts
from the Ministry of Environment and Nature Protection and technical partners specialised in the
prevention, valorisation and waste disposal. For two days, the experts will exchange ideas and to
come out with concrete recommendations in view of the validation of the national strategy
document on the management of waste in Cameroon of which the three cardinal points are
prevention, valorisation and disposal of waste. Every year, over 10 million tons of wastes are
produced in the world resulting to about four billion per year. Out of the four billion, only one
billion is valorised in the form of energy, secondary material or biomasses. The rate of waste
management is increasing especially in developing countries such as Cameroon where urbanisation
is growing at a fast rate. In the framework of the national strategy on waste management, the
approach proposed is applied on different types of waste products in Cameroon.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200712040787.html
Senegal: Citizens On Coastal Environment Watch
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks: Concrete walls, boulders, tyres; enclosed vegetable
gardens: These are just some of the means Senegal's coastal communities are using to stop trashdumping and sand-mining as well as the reckless chopping down of the coast's protective trees.
These illegal but profitable activities are eroding Senegal's coast and damaging the marine
environment, and community groups and authorities say it must stop. "There is increased
exploitation along this strip that must prompt the local population to mobilise to protect this
treasure," El Hadj Amadou Bèye, president of SOS Littoral (SOS Coastal), told IRIN. The
organisation, created in 2007, installs all sorts of protective barriers and educates coastal residents
"in an effort to block these horse and cart drivers who attack the marine environment", Bèye said.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200712040680.html
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Ethiopia: Environmental Group, School Club Transplant Over 600 Tree Seedlings
The Daily Monitor (Addis Ababa): A local environmental group, along with members a school's
Green Club on Sunday transplanted over 600 tree seedlings on a 2 hectare of land area near the
French Embassy here in Addis Ababa . The transplanting of trees was made by members of the NIB
Environment Conservation Club and students and parents of the Andinet International School in
Addis Ababa. Representatives of the two green groups said the tree planting was made as part of the
millennium tree planting campaign. As far as the school was concerned, the tree planting event was
conducted as part of the school's theme adopted for this semester: 'Sharing the Earth'.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200712040964.html
________________________________________________________________________
RONA MEDIA UPDATE
ENVIRONMENT IN THE NEWS
Tuesday 4 December 2007

UNEP AND THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR IN THE NEWS

GENERAL ENVIRONMENT NEWS
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Washington Post - Divorce Found to Harm The Environment With Higher Energy
Associated Press - State fines Energy Department $500,000 for Hanford spill
Associated Press - Coastal flooding damage from climate change could reach $35 trillion
Associated Press - Trapped by global warming, islanders trek to Bali seeking huge boost in
climate aid
Associated Press - Report: World food prices to rise, limiting access for poorest
NewsDay - Mapping local risk of tsunamis
Orlando Sentinel - Manatees' status up for vote -- or not -- on Wednesday
BusinessWeek - The Real Costs of Saving the Planet
CanWest News Service - Dramatic shift in treeline predicted
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OTHER UN NEWS
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Reuters - Bali climate talks advance despite squabbling
Associated Press - Climate Change Meeting Adds to Emissions
Associated Press - Climate Fund Falls Far Short
Associated Press - Climate change extravaganza: 10,000 participants add to greenhouse
gas burden, critics say
NewsDay - A U.S. vow on warming; Nation won't be a 'roadblock,' delegates say at
conference, but they rule out mandatory cuts
Boston Globe - Planet's fate hinges on our choices
Toronto Star - One more try on climate change
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UNEP AND THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR IN THE NEWS
GENERAL ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS
Divorce Found to Harm The Environment With Higher Energy, Water Use
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post
December 4, 2007
Divorce is not just a family matter. It exacts a serious toll on the environment by boosting the
energy and water consumption of those who used to live together, according to a study by two
Michigan State University researchers.
The analysis found that cohabiting couples and families around the globe use resources more
efficiently than households that have split up. The researchers calculated that in 2005, divorced
American households used between 42 and 61 percent more resources per person than before they
separated, spending 46 percent more per person on electricity and 56 percent more on water.
Their paper, published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also
found that if the divorced couples had stayed together in 2005, the United States would have saved
73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water in that year alone.
Married households use energy and water more efficiently than divorced ones because they share
these resources -- including lighting and heating -- among more people, said Jianguo Liu, one of the
paper's co-authors. Moreover, the divorced households they surveyed between 1998 and 2002 used
up more space, occupying between 33 and 95 percent more rooms per person than in married
households.
"Hopefully this will inform people about the environmental impact of divorce," Liu said in an
interview yesterday. "For a long time we've blamed industries for environmental problems. One
thing we've ignored is the household."
Liu, who directs Michigan State University's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, and
research assistant Eunice Yu spent five years analyzing data from 12 countries, including Belarus,
Brazil, Kenya and Greece.
Lester Brown, president of the D.C.-based Earth Policy Institute, said the study's finding made
sense, but it is hard to craft public policies to address the problem of the increasing number of
households in the United States and elsewhere. He noted that in many countries, such as Japan,
women are choosing to marry later or not marry at all, which also expands the number of people
living alone.
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"I'm not sure how to get around this," Brown said. "Shifting to more energy-efficient appliances is
the answer, not trying to prevent divorce or trying to make divorce more difficult."
There is one solution to this conundrum, the study's authors found: Individuals who remarry soon
establish new households that use the same amount of resources as married couples who have never
divorced.
Ralph Cavanagh, a lawyer at the advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council who has
studied this issue for decades, said the findings serve as an argument for marriage and cohabitation,
rather than as reason not to divorce.
"There's strong evidence, which emerges clearly in this paper, that merging what otherwise would
be separate households will reduce energy and other resource needs," Cavanagh wrote in an e-mail.
"The best advice to those who are miserable together is not, however, to avoid divorce for the sake
of the environment, but to find someone else as quickly as possible."
Liu, who recently celebrated his 20th wedding anniversary, said he also tries to practice what he
preaches. "I'm not divorced, and I've not thought about divorce," he said.
The study does deliver a warning to men and women headed down the aisle, Brown said.
"It would suggest we should be a little more careful when one's marrying to make sure the marriage
is going to last, but that would be counter to the trend we've seen in recent decades, at least in this
country," he said.
State fines Energy Department $500,000 for Hanford spill
The Associated Press
December 4, 2007
Washington state has fined the U.S. Department of Energy $500,000 for a radioactive hazardous
waste spill at the Hanford nuclear reservation.
The spill occurred July 27, 2007, when a cleanup contractor was pumping waste from an
underground tank. Workers tried to unblock a pump by running it in reverse, but more than 80
gallons of waste spilled onto the ground.
There are 177 underground tanks that hold at estimated 53 million gallons of radioactive and
hazardous waste at the south-central Washington site.
The state Department of Ecology issued the fine under the Tri-Party Agreement, a cleanup
agreement signed by the state, Energy Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Coastal flooding damage from climate change could reach $35 trillion
The Associated Press
December 4, 2007
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The number of people threatened by coastal flooding could more than triple by 2070 due to climate
change, while the financial impact of flooding could increase by tens of trillions of dollars,
according to a report released Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development.
The Paris-based OECD, an international non-governmental organization that collects and studies
economic statistics and social data, called for quick action on coastal defenses for cities at risk,
saying it can take 30 years to build defenses for vulnerable cities.
About 150 million people could be exposed to coastal flooding by 2070 up from 40 million now,
according to the report. The statistics were based on a "1-in-100-year" flooding event, described as
a commonly accepted risk assessment standard, with a mean rise in sea level of a half-meter (1.6
feet).
The study estimated the financial impact of such a scenario at $35 trillion, compared to $3 trillion
today.
The report pointed to the development of Asian "mega-cities," with their soaring populations, as a
key factor increasing the risk in coastal flooding.
Calcutta heads a list of the 10 top cities at risk in 2070 in terms of population exposure, with
Mumbai, or Bombay, second. Miami, Florida, in ninth place, was the only city in a developed
country on the report's list of the 10 top cities at risk due to population exposure.
However, Miami leads the list of cities with the highest value of property and infrastructure assets at
risk in 2070 should that "1-in-100-year" flood occur, the report said. Miami also leads in that
category today.
Trapped by global warming, islanders trek to Bali seeking huge boost in climate
aid
By Charles J. Hanley
The Associated Press
December 4, 2007
When your country is just 100 yards wide at points, where do you run when the water rises?
"There's nowhere to move back to," Kiribati's president, Anote Tong, told U.N. climate conference
attendees. "Because if you move back, you're either in the lagoon or in the ocean."
The leader of the central Pacific island nation spoke via videotape Tuesday in a stepped-up
campaign to win greater international aid to deal with rising seas, drought and other likely impacts
of global warming.
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The two-week conference in Bali, considered pivotal to efforts to reduce industrial and other
emissions warming the planet, will also likely decide on the future of the "Adaptation Fund," being
developed under U.N. agreements to enable poorer countries to adjust to climate change.
The fund is expected to finance projects ranging from sea walls and improved water systems to
training in new agricultural techniques. Thus far, however, it has drawn a mere $67 million for a
task the World Bank estimates will cost tens of billions of dollars a year.
The almost 190 nations assembled for the annual climate meeting are focused chiefly on launching
a two-year negotiating process to seal a deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in
2012.
That 175-nation accord requires 36 industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a key
source of global warming, by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States is
the only industrial nation to reject Kyoto.
The European Union and others are seeking a post-Kyoto agreement that would mandate much
deeper reductions by industrial nations in carbon dioxide and other such emissions by power plants,
factories, vehicles and other sources.
Many also want to see China and other major emerging economies take steps to curtail the growth
of emissions. The two weeks of talks promise to be difficult, with success far from guaranteed.
Operation, control and funding of the Adaptation Fund has been debated for years at meetings of
U.N. climate treaty parties.
The U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, told reporters Tuesday he hoped this meeting would make the
fund operational, "so that perhaps in as little as a year, real resources for adaptation can begin to
flow to developing countries."
All acknowledge, however, that the available money is far too little.
The fund is financed by a 2 percent levy on revenues generated by the Clean Development
Mechanism, the program whereby industrial nations pay for "carbon credits" produced by
emissions-reduction projects in the developing world credits then counted against reduction targets
at home.
Those levies thus far are "tiny compared to the need," said Kate Raworth, a senior researcher with
the Oxfam International aid group.
As seas expand from warming and from the runoff of melting land ice, higher tides are eating away
at fragile islands like those of Kiribati, a nation of 92,000 people in 33 island groups scattered over
2 million square miles of the Pacific.
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A small group from Kiribati played a troubling video for conference attendees, showing the latest
depredations of the encroaching sea: an inter-island causeway undermined, hospital grounds
threatened, the airport runway in peril.
Saltwater incursions have ruined pits growing giant taro the islanders' staple food and contaminated
freshwater wells.
"We can move inland, but where can we move to?" asked teacher Tangaroa Arobati, explaining that
the islands are only 100 to 300 yards wide. "We can build solid sea walls," he said. "But where do
we get the money?"
Developing countries and their advocates, such as Oxfam, favor a broadening of Adaptation Fund
revenue sources, perhaps to include aviation taxes or direct taxes on all fossil-fuel use.
"The money should come from the countries most responsible and most capable," Raworth said,
listing such major carbon emitters as the United States, the European Union, Japan, Australia and
Canada.
Kiribati President Tong said: "There are countries that have benefited from pollution, and we are
paying the price. How should they respond?"
On the Net:
U.N. Climate Change Conference: http://unfccc.int/2860.php
Report: World food prices to rise, limiting access for poorest
By Henry Sanderson
The Associated Press
December 4, 2007
Food prices are set to rise around the globe after years of decline, with climate change making it
harder for the world's poorest to get adequate food, according to a report released Tuesday.
Rising global temperatures as well as growing food consumption in rapidly developing countries
such as China and India are pressuring the world food system, meaning that food prices will rise for
the foreseeable future, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Joachim von Braun, the director of the Washington-based research group, said food prices have
been in a declining trend since scientists began developing high-yield plant varieties decades ago,
"but the days of falling food prices may be over."
"The last time the world experienced such food price increases was in 1973 to 1974 ... but today the
situation is completely different. For one, the climate risk and climate change situation has
increased, the climate vulnerability has increased," von Braun told reporters in Beijing.
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The institute said in a report that hunger and malnutrition could rise as poor agricultural
communities most sensitive to the environment, such as in Africa, are hurt. Dependency on food
imports will also increase as cereal yields decline in those countries.
The world's agricultural production is projected to decrease by 16 percent by 2020 due to global
warming, the report said, with land used for certain crops shrinking. For example, it said land to
grow wheat could almost disappear in Africa.
It said growing demand in rapidly developing countries such as China and India for processed food
and expensive meat and dairy products is driving up prices for those goods, as well as for staple
grains used to feed cattle.
In addition, switching to crops used for biofuels will also reduce the amount of available food and
increase prices, it said.
Trade barriers for food should be eliminated, especially in developed nations, the report
recommended, so small farmers can earn more money.
"A world facing increased food scarcity needs to trade more, not less," the report said.
The European Union and the United States have been reluctant to cut support for their own farmers
and reduce trade barriers in world trade talks.
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Mapping local risk of tsunamis
By Jennifer Smith
Newsday (New York)
December 4, 2007
A federal push to better gauge the risk tsunamis pose to U.S. coastal areas after thousands
died in the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami has produced the most detailed relief
map to date of Long Island's East End and the nearby seafloor.
Data from the map and dozens more being prepared for coastal communities across the
country will be used to predict the impact of tsunamis and flood threats, officials with the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday.
Historically, tsunamis are extremely rare in the Atlantic, unlike areas such as Hawaii and
the West Coast, which are vulnerable to the effects of Pacific Rim earthquakes, said
David Green, the agency's tsunami program manager. "That doesn't mean something can't
happen" on the East Coast, Green said. "If there is any chance we want to know."
The Long Island map, which researchers call a digital elevation model, contains
measurements of the topography above and below sea level east from Shinnecock Bay
and includes portions of the Connecticut and Rhode Island coastline.
This detailed snapshot will be used to create computer models to forecast the magnitude
and extent of coastal flooding that a tsunami could trigger. The data can also be used to
predict how waves from hurricanes and nor'easters - which are more common here could inundate Eastern Long Island.
The ocean depth information in the NOAA maps will help researchers project how waves
triggered by underwater earthquakes, landslides or volcanoes might move across the
seafloor. "Submarine canyons, submarine hills, they will affect the direction that the
tsunami is going to follow," said Barry Eakins, a marine geophysicist who lead the work
for the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences in Boulder, Colo.
Scientists with the institute and with NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center, also in
Boulder, have created 20 such digital elevation models of coastal communities since
2006 and expect to make another 50 in coming years, officials said.
It will take about a year to create the forecast model and inundation map for Eastern Long
Island, officials said.
Manatees' status up for vote -- or not -- on Wednesday
Wildlife officials still debate whether to take sea cows off the endangered list.
By Ludmilla Lelis and Maya Bell, Sentinel Staff Writers
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Orlando Sentinel (Florida)
December 4, 2007
On paper, Wednesday is the day that state wildlife officials will take manatees off the
endangered species list.
But that controversial vote -- which has been delayed time and again for the past several
years -- could be deferred yet again.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, at its September meeting,
bowed to a request from Gov. Charlie Crist to postpone the change.
A vote to move manatees from endangered down to threatened is back on the
commission's agenda for Wednesday in Key Largo, but it may land on the back burner
amid the contentious debate over what to call the state's official marine mammal.
"I don't feel so optimistic about what we will end up doing with the down-listing," said
commission Chairman Rodney Barreto. "We've polarized the whole community that was
involved, so we'll figure out our options."
"It's a shame for arguing over a word," Barreto said.
That word -- endangered -- is one of the most potent in environmental regulations,
backed by the power of state and federal laws and the public understanding that a species
could go extinct.
In the case of manatees, the debate over renaming the manatee status has renewed
controversy over what it means to be endangered and how that should be handled in
Florida.
The manatee has been ranked as an endangered species from the very first federal list
drawn up in 1967 and under state law in 1979.
Biologists estimate there are at least 3,200 manatees -- enough for many boating and
fishing groups to declare a comeback. State and federal officials have said the animal is
no longer on the brink of extinction and may be considered under the less-dire category
of threatened species.
Yet environmentalists say the Florida ranking system is flawed and skewed toward
underplaying the risk of extinction.
Whether endangered or threatened, manatees would still enjoy the same protection under
either status, state wildlife officials have said. After agreeing last year to start the downlisting process, the commission seemed poised to finalize the change until Crist
intervened.
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In a letter to Barreto, the governor wrote that he was concerned about last year's recordsetting deaths of 417 and he wanted some of his new appointees on the seven-member
board to have more time to delve into the topic before voting.
On Monday, Crist's communications director Erin Isaac said, "The governor remains
concerned about down-listing the manatee, but has confidence the commission will do
the right thing."
Though three of the commissioners didn't discuss their potential vote, none of those
reached by Monday strongly backed the change.
"I've studied it quite thoroughly, and it's an issue I think we need to be very cautious with
-- put it that way," said Ron Bergeron, one of the newer commissioners.
Barreto, who has been on the board for six years, said it's likely the commission will
discuss other options, which may include approval of a new state manatee management
plan, and another down-listing delay.
Another of Crist's appointees, contractor Dwight Stephenson, said he had not made up his
mind but will be ready to cast his vote Wednesday. "We want to do our best for the
manatees and for the state of Florida," he said.
Environmentalists want to delay the vote, hoping to revamp some of the inherent
problems they see in the state's grading system for species.
State officials rank species under three categories of extinction risk: endangered,
threatened and species of special concern.
The state adopted a set of scientific standards, from the IUCN or World Conservation
Union, to define those terms, but environmentalists say that the state had misaligned the
categories with the original scientific criteria, so that Florida underplays how endangered
the species are.
"We need to fix the system because manatees are only a symptom," said Pat Rose, an
aquatic biologist and executive director of the Save the Manatee Club.
"There was such a full steam engine pushing this forward, and that's why it was so
refreshing for the governor to come in and say this doesn't make sense."
Others say the down-listing serves as recognition that manatees are no longer on the brink
of extinction.
The Real Costs of Saving the Planet
Critics say limiting carbon emissions could cost trillions. But a new
study suggests the costs are much lower
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By John Carey
Business Week
4 December 2007
On Dec. 5, the U.S. Senate will begin marking up a bill that would, for the first time, put
mandatory limits on the gas emissions that are warming the planet. The bill, sponsored by
Senators John Warner (R-Va.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), imposes caps on the amount
of carbon dioxide allowed to spew from power plants, cars, and others sources. It would
also permit companies that cut more emissions than required to sell their excess
reductions to those that can't afford to meet the limit. Economists say this sort of cap and
trade scheme, which has worked well in reducing acid rain-causing pollution, could help
the economy slash emissions at the lowest possible costs.
Meanwhile, delegates from around the world are meeting in Bali, Indonesia, trying to
hammer out a global agreement to cut emissions. One of the biggest stumbling blocks:
the perceived high costs.
But what are those costs? If you listen to opponents of action against climate change, the
American economy will be brought to its knees by such efforts. The Chamber of
Commerce, for instance, says the bill would cost 3.4 million Americans their jobs; the
nation's gross domestic product, now about $13 trillion, would drop to $12 trillion; and
American consumers would pay as much as $6 trillion more because of higher prices for
gas, heating oil, and many other goods. Other economic projections put the total price tag
for preventing dangerous climate change at up to $20 trillion.
Yet a new analysis from McKinsey & Co. not only pegs the price tag for making
substantial cuts at just a few billion dollars, it also shows that at least 40% of the
reductions bring actual savings to the economy, not costs.
Long-Term Forecasts Are Less Reliable
Why the big difference? First consider the numbers used by the opponents. Typically,
they come from large-scale mathematical models of the economy. These models look at
the economy from the top down. They try to calculate the effects of changes such as
rising energy costs or financial penalties for carbon emissions. These models are widely
used to predict short-term changes in the economy. But longer-term forecasts are less
accurate because of their increasing reliance on the initial assumptions.
For example, the final result varies dramatically depending on the assumptions about the
pace of innovation. If the model assumes that development of new forms of renewable
energy will continue at the same rate as before carbon emission limits were enacted
(when the financial incentives for development were lower), then cutting carbon
emissions will be costly. But if you assume that an added financial incentive, such as a
price on carbon emissions, will increase the pace of innovation and the development of
new technologies, then meeting the limits will be cheaper. And if the model discounts the
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future benefits of avoiding the dangers of warming in terms of their present value, it will
also predict higher overall costs.
Different Conclusions Are Possible
Yet even with these inherent limitations, many of the models suggest that the ultimate
cost of slowing global warming is reasonable. Stanford University climatologist Stephen
Schneider, for instance, has analyzed one of the most prominent models, from Yale's
William Nordhaus. According to Nordhaus' results, stabilizing the climate would be
"unimaginably expensive—$20 trillion," Schneider says.
But the $20 trillion hit to the economy isn't immediate. Instead, that's the calculated cost
in the year 2100, Schneider says, not now. What does that really mean? Schneider ran the
numbers, assuming the economy grows at about 2% per year. The seemingly huge $20
trillion price tag works out to "a one-year delay in being 500% richer," he says. In other
words, paying the price to reduce climate change would mean Americans would have to
wait until 2101 to be as rich as they otherwise would have been in 2100. To Schneider,
that's a minuscule price to pay for saving the planet from the dangers of global warming.
"Are you out of your mind? Who wouldn't take that?" he says.
There's also a completely different way to approach the question of costs. Instead of
using a big, complicated mathematical model that looks down at the economy, you can
start by looking at the many individual steps that could be taken to reduce emissions, and
work from the bottom up. That's what McKinsey did in its recently released report.
Cost-Saving Steps
The report was "born of the frustration that there are no solid facts out there about the
costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions," explains McKinsey director Jack
Stephenson. So Stephenson and his team plunged ahead. They got support for the effort
from Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa), Pacific Gas & Electric (PCG), Honeywell International
(HON), DTE Energy (DTE), and a couple of environmental groups. They analyzed 250
possible steps, from more fuel-efficient cars and buildings to all types of cleaner energy.
And they assumed people wouldn't change anything about their lifestyles, driving just as
much and not lowering their thermostats.
The results are surprising. The report concludes that the U.S. can cut its greenhouse
emissions in half from projected levels in 2030 at minimal cost. None of the steps would
cost more than $50 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions avoided. Plus, 40% of the
reductions would actually save money. That puts the overall cost at just a few dollars per
ton of carbon dioxide—or in the tens of billions of dollars overall.
Moreover, it doesn't take any breakthroughs in technology. "Eighty percent of the
reductions come from technology that exists today at the commercial scale," says
Stephenson. And the remaining 20% comes from ideas already well along in
development, such as hybrid cars that plug into electrical outlets and have batteries big
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enough to go 30 or 40 miles on electric power alone and biofuels made from cellulose
(such as prairie grass) rather than foodstuffs like corn.
Waste Not
The overall price tag is so low because there are many simple ways the country can use
energy more efficiently, Stephenson explains. "The U.S. wastes a huge amount of
energy," he says. The vast majority of the power used by VCRs and DVD players occurs
when they're not even turned on, for instance. Electronics equipment, buildings, lighting,
water heaters, and autos are just some of the many products and facilities that could be
far more efficient. Improving efficiency in this way would save money, not cost money,
McKinsey figures.
Overall, the McKinsey report paints a far more encouraging picture than the figures from
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "It's the difference between a business consultant who
sees opportunities for business, and a hired-gun economist," says Dan Lashof, science
director of the Climate Center at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Until the U.S. actually tries to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, we won't know who's
right. But it does seem clear that the economy wouldn't be crippled. "The common
perception of high costs is just so radically wrong," concludes Stanford's Schneider.
Join a debate about climate change
Dramatic shift in treeline predicted
By Randy Boswell
CanWest News Service
December 04, 2007
On the eve of a key international climate change conference in Bali, a major Canadianled scientific study is predicting dramatic shifts in North America's tree cover this century
--including widespread losses of species in drier parts of the United States, but a much
richer diversity of trees in southern Canada and a northward march of forests that could
see stands of sugar maples sprouting along the James Bay shoreline.
"It's really an unprecedented habitat shift," said Canadian Forest Service landscape
analyst Daniel McKenney, lead author of a paper published with three other federal
government researchers and an Australian scientist in the latest edition of the journal
BioScience.
"There will be parts of the country that will have more tree species than they currently
do," said Mr. McKenney, describing how warming temperatures would essentially
redraw Canada's vegetation map so that "sugar maples and other hardwoods could be
grown around Hudson Bay."
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But the study, considered the most comprehensive of its kind, also predicts
"unprecedented pressure on ecosystems" north and south of the U.S.-Canada border, as
dry regions -- including the Canadian Prairies -- struggle to maintain existing species and
the expansion of other trees' growing ranges affects wildlife distribution, harvesting
practices and a host of other biological systems.
Mr. McKenney said changing climate is only one variable affecting the distribution of
trees, and that soil conditions, inter-species competition and other factors make precise
predictions difficult.
It's also not clear how quickly or effectively certain species will migrate even if the
expected changes in temperature and moisture levels would theoretically support
expansions of their ranges.
But one scenario constructed by the research team showed a "remarkable" average
northward shift in growing ranges of 700 kilometres, said Mr. McKenney.
"Alaska, the northern Prairie provinces, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes are predicted
to experience future climate that is favourable for a wide variety of tree species," the
authors state.
"Conversely, by the end of the century, the climate in much of the southern United States
will not be within the current known climatic tolerances for most of the 130 species in
this study."
Mr. McKenney said scientific bodies and government resource managers are already
debateng "how we move things around" pending widespread climate change. For
example, he said, experts are grappling with ethical issues such as whether to begin
planting economically lucrative trees -- including sugar maples -- beyond their current
"maternal climate" in anticipation of expanded growing ranges.
Meanwhile Australia raised hopes of global action to fight climate change yesterday by
agreeing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, isolating the United States at UN-led talks in Bali
as the only rich nation not in the pact.
Australia's decision won a standing ovation at the opening of tough two-week
negotiations on the Indonesian resort isle. The talks aim to pull together rich and poor
countries around a common agenda to agree to a broader successor to Kyoto by 2009.
About 190 nations are in Bali seeking a breakthrough for a new global pact to include the
United States and developing countries to fight climate change.
OTHER UN NEWS
Bali climate talks advance despite squabbling
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By Gerard Wynn
Reuters
December 4, 2007
A 190-nation climate meeting in Bali took small steps towards a new global deal to fight
global warming by 2009 on Tuesday amid disputes about how far China and India should
curb rising greenhouse gas emissions.
Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate official, praised the December 3-14 meeting of
10,000 participants for progress towards a goal of launching formal talks on a long-term
climate pact to succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.
"But in this process, as in so many, the devil's in the detail," he cautioned in an interview
with Reuters at a beach-side conference centre on the Indonesian island.
Governments set up a "special group" to examine options for the planned negotiations
meant to bind the United States and developing nations led by China and India more
firmly into fighting climate change beyond Kyoto.
The meeting also agreed to study ways to do more to transfer clean technologies, such as
solar panels or wind turbines, to developing nations. Such a move is key to greater
involvement by developing nations in tackling their climate-warming emissions.
The Kyoto Protocol now binds 36 rich nations to curb emissions of greenhouse gases,
mainly from burning fossil fuels, by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 200812 in a step to curb droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising seas.
But there was skirmishing about how to share out the burden beyond Kyoto and
environmentalists accused Kyoto nations Japan and Canada of expecting China and India
to do too much.
Canada said in a submission to the talks that "to be effective, a new international
framework must include emission reduction obligations for all the largest emitting
economies." It did not mention deeper cuts for rich nations beyond 2012.
And Japan on Monday called on all parties to effectively participate and contribute
substantially. A Japanese official said it was "essential" that China and India were
involved.
"Canada and Japan are saying nothing about legally binding emission reductions for
themselves after 2012," said Steven Guilbeault of environmental group Equiterre. "They
are trying to shift the burden to China and India."
NO FORMAL PROPOSALS
Green groups gave Japan a mock award as "Fossil of the Day" -- made daily to the nation
accused of holding up the talks.
95
De Boer played down the environmentalists' objections, saying that all nations were
merely laying out ideas. "A marriage contract is not something to discuss on a first date,"
he said. "No proposals have formally been made."
China and India say that rich nations must take on far deeper cuts in emissions and that
they cannot take on caps yet because they need to burn more fossil fuels to end poverty.
The Bali talks are seeking a mandate to widen Kyoto to all nations beyond 2012. Of the
world's top-five emitters, only Russia and Japan are part of Kyoto. The United States is
outside the pact, while China and India are exempt from curbs.
And de Boer also said the talks should not focus solely on the plan to launch new
negotiations. "There's a bit of a risk that countries that are very keen to see negotiations
being launched go over the top and focus only on that," he said.
Developing nations were worried that more immediate issues -- such aid to help them
cope with droughts, floods and rising seas -- could "be forgotten in all the excitement
about the future," he said.
Outside the Bali conference centre on Tuesday, a group of environmentalists gave a mock
swimming lesson to delegates, saying that rising seas could swamp low-lying tropical
islands such as Bali unless they acted.
Climate Change Meeting Adds to Emissions
By Robin McDowell
The Associated Press
December 4, 2007
Never before have so many people converged to try to save the planet from global
warming, with more than 10,000 jetting into this Indonesian resort island, from
government ministers to Nobel laureates to drought-stricken farmers.
But critics say they are contributing to the very problem they aim to solve.
"Nobody denies this is an important event, but huge numbers of people are going, and
their emissions are probably going to be greater than a small African country," said Chris
Goodall, author of the book "How to Live a Low-Carbon Life."
Interest in climate change is at an all-time high after former Vice President Al Gore and a
team of U.N. scientists won the Nobel Peace Prize for highlighting the dangers of rising
temperatures, melting polar ice, worsening droughts and floods, and lengthening heat
waves.
Two big climate conferences have been held in less than a month, both in idyllic, farflung, holiday destinations _ first Valencia, Spain, and now Bali. They were preceded by
96
dozens of smaller gatherings. In Bangkok, Paris, Vienna, Washington, New York and
Sydney, in Rio de Janeiro, Anchorage, Helsinki and the Indian Ocean island of Kurumba.
The pace is only expected to pick up, prompting some to ask if the issue is creating a
"cure" industry as various groups claim a stake in efforts to curb global warming.
No, says Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Climate Change Conference.
"Wherever you held it, people would still have to travel to get there," he said. "The
question is, perhaps: Do you need to do it at all? My answer to that is yes."
"If you don't put the U.S., the big developing countries, the European Union around the
table to craft a solution together, nothing will happen and then the prophecy of scientists
in terms of rising emissions and its consequences will become a reality," de Boer said.
The U.N. estimates 47,000 tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants will be pumped
into the atmosphere during the 12-day conference in Bali, mostly from plane flights but
also from waste and electricity used by air conditioners at five-star hotels lining palmfringed beaches.
If correct, Goodall said, that is equivalent to what a Western city of 1.5 million people,
like Marseilles, France, would emit in a day.
But he believes the real figure will be twice that, more like 100,000 tons, close to what
the African country of Chad churns out in a year.
Organizers said they are doing everything possible to offset the effects.
Host Indonesia, which has one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world, averaging
300 football fields an hour, said it had planted 79 million trees across the archipelago
nation in the last few weeks.
"Our aim is not just to make this a carbon neutral event, but a positive one," Environment
Minister Rachmat Witoelar said.
In largely symbolic gestures, 200 bright yellow mountain bikes are being offered to
participants so they can pedal around the heavily guarded conference site, and recycled
paper is being used for the reams of documents being handed out. Bins separating plastic
and paper dot hallways _ a rare sight in a country where formal recycling is virtually
nonexistent.
Yet SUVs, taxis and other cars sit in long lines at the gates to the site, spewing out
exhaust as they wait to get through security checkpoints.
Side trips, from scuba diving to shopping, are being offered at hotels. Indonesia's tourism
ministry hopes to showcase its remaining forests, island jewels and bustling metropolises
by providing expense-paid junkets.
97
Optimists hope the meeting will inaugurate a two-year process of intensified negotiations
on a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and required signatories to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels.
But no one expects concrete results here, with closed-door talks expected to be a battle
over language and nuance, including whether emission reductions should be voluntary or
mandatory and whether developing nations should have the same restrictions as industrial
countries.
"We don't need talk, talk, talk," said Ursula Rakova, 43, of Papua New Guinea's Carteret
islands, describing how the rising sea has destroyed once-fertile farmland on her island of
Huene and split the land mass in two.
"For us to move, we need money to purchase land, build schools, build medical clinics,"
said Rakova, who along with other farmers and fishermen were ferried by boat, bus and
plane to the Bali gathering. "Our situation is before us. We need something tangible."
In all, 190 countries are represented.
The United States is sending more than 100 delegates and all 27 countries of the
European Union are flying in national teams, with Germany bringing 70 people and
France 50. Many of them are just observers with no formal role.
Non-governmental organizations also are attending, from groups advocating the rights of
indigenous people to those seeking to protect rapidly dwindling forests. Groups like
Oxfam and CARE, which provide food and other humanitarian aid for the hungry, also
are here.
And there are those with something to sell, including technology to produce pure
drinking water and businesses ready to capitalize on future carbon trading markets.
Some say the size of the gathering doesn't matter.
"I look at it from a very simple point of view," said Achim Steiner, executive director of
the U.N. Environmental Program.
"It may sound like a lot of people, but you have to look at the issues, the number of
countries involved, the number of people affected. Global warming is literally everyone's
business."
Climate Fund Falls Far Short
The Associated Press
December 4, 2007
98
Victims of climate change, real and potential, appealed Tuesday for a vast increase in
international aid to protect them from and compensate them for rising seas, crop-killing
drought and other likely impacts of global warming.
''We cannot wait. We need to do something now,'' said climatologist Rizaldi Boer of
Indonesia, some of whose farmers are already suffering from unusual dry spells blamed
on climate change.
The ''Adaptation Fund,'' being developed under U.N. climate agreements to enable poorer
countries to adjust to a warmer world, has thus far drawn a mere $67 million for a task
the World Bank estimates will cost tens of billions of dollars a year.
The almost 190 nations assembled here for the annual U.N. climate conference are taking
up the fund's future among other issues on an agenda aimed chiefly at launching a twoyear negotiating process to seal a deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires
in 2012.
That 175-nation accord requires 36 industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
a key source of global warming, by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The
United States is the only industrial nation that has rejected Kyoto.
The European Union and others are seeking a post-Kyoto agreement that would mandate
much deeper reductions by industrial nations -- including, they hope, the U.S. -- in carbon
dioxide and other such emissions from power plants, factories, vehicles and other
sources.
Many here also want to see China and other major emerging economies take steps to
curtail the increase in their emissions. The two weeks of talks promise to be difficult,
with success far from guaranteed.
Operation, control and funding of the Adaptation Fund has been debated for years at
these meetings of U.N. climate treaty parties.
The U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, told reporters Tuesday he hoped it was possible
that this meeting would finally make the fund operational, ''so that perhaps in as little as a
year before real resources for adaptation can begin to flow to developing countries.''
The fund is expected to finance climate-change projects ranging from sea walls to guard
against expanding oceans, to improved water supplies for drought areas, to training in
new agricultural techniques.
All acknowledge, however, that the available money is relatively paltry.
The fund is financed by a 2 percent levy on revenues generated by the Clean
Development Mechanism, the program whereby industrial nations pay for ''carbon
credits'' produced by emissions-reduction projects in the developing world -- credits then
counted against reduction targets at home.
99
Those levies thus far are ''tiny compared to the need,'' said Kate Raworth, a senior
researcher with the Oxfam International aid group.
Oxfam and other advocacy groups favor a broadening of Adaptation Fund revenue
sources, perhaps to include aviation taxes or direct taxes on all fossil-fuel use.
''The money should come from the countries most responsible and most capable,''
Raworth said, listing the United States, the European Union, Japan, Australia and
Canada.
An Oxfam news conference was joined by a representative of the people of Papua New
Guinea's Carteret Islands, in the far western Pacific, believed to be among the world's
first ''climate refugees.''
As seas expand from warming and from the runoff of melting land ice, higher and higher
tides are eating away at tiny places like the Carterets, a sandy atoll of a half-dozen
islands.
Its 3,000 people, no longer able to grow taro, their staple crop, are preparing to abandon
the islands over the next several years, resettling on designated land on nearby
Bougainville island.
The islanders have a relocation appropriation of 2 million kina in local currency
($800,000), but to move 600 families that ''doesn't go a long way,'' said their
representative, Ursula Rakova.
''We still need more money, from people like America,'' she said.
Later Tuesday, a small group from Kiribati, a central Pacific island nation, entertained
conference attendees with a subdued, traditional ''canoe dance,'' and then delivered a stark
and up-to-date message in a video and first-person accounts about the threats to their tiny
country.
''We can move inland, but where can we move to?'' asked schoolteacher Tangaroa
Arobati, explaining that his islands in places are just 100 yards wide.
''We can build solid sea walls,'' he said. ''But where do we get the money?''
Climate change extravaganza: 10,000 participants add to greenhouse
gas burden, critics say
By Robin McDowell
The Associated Press
December 4, 2007
Never before have so many people converged to try to save the planet from global
warming, with more than 10,000 jetting into this Indonesian resort island, from
government ministers to Nobel laureates to drought-stricken farmers.
100
But critics say they are contributing to the very problem they aim to solve.
"Nobody denies this is an important event, but huge numbers of people are going, and
their emissions are probably going to be greater than a small African country," said Chris
Goodall, author of the book "How to Live a Low-Carbon Life."
Interest in climate change is at an all-time high after former Vice President Al Gore and a
team of U.N. scientists won the Nobel Peace Prize for highlighting the dangers of rising
temperatures, melting polar ice, worsening droughts and floods, and lengthening heat
waves.
Two big climate conferences have been held in less than a month, both in idyllic, farflung, holiday destinations first Valencia, Spain, and now Bali. They were preceded by
dozens of smaller gatherings. In Bangkok, Paris, Vienna, Washington, New York and
Sydney, in Rio de Janeiro, Anchorage, Helsinki and the Indian Ocean island of Kurumba.
The pace is only expected to pick up, prompting some to ask if the issue is creating a
"cure" industry as various groups claim a stake in efforts to curb global warming.
No, says Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Climate Change Conference.
"Wherever you held it, people would still have to travel to get there," he said. "The
question is, perhaps: Do you need to do it at all? My answer to that is yes."
"If you don't put the U.S., the big developing countries, the European Union around the
table to craft a solution together, nothing will happen and then the prophecy of scientists
in terms of rising emissions and its consequences will become a reality," de Boer said.
The U.N. estimates 47,000 tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants will be pumped
into the atmosphere during the 12-day conference in Bali, mostly from plane flights but
also from waste and electricity used by air conditioners at five-star hotels lining palmfringed beaches.
If correct, Goodall said, that is equivalent to what a Western city of 1.5 million people,
like Marseilles, France, would emit in a day.
But he believes the real figure will be twice that, more like 100,000 tons, close to what
the African country of Chad churns out in a year.
Organizers said they are doing everything possible to offset the effects.
Host Indonesia, which has one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world, averaging
300 football fields an hour, said it had planted 79 million trees across the archipelago
nation in the last few weeks.
101
"Our aim is not just to make this a carbon neutral event, but a positive one," Environment
Minister Rachmat Witoelar said.
In largely symbolic gestures, 200 bright yellow mountain bikes are being offered to
participants so they can pedal around the heavily guarded conference site, and recycled
paper is being used for the reams of documents being handed out. Bins separating plastic
and paper dot hallways a rare sight in a country where formal recycling is virtually
nonexistent.
Yet SUVs, taxis and other cars sit in long lines at the gates to the site, spewing out
exhaust as they wait to get through security checkpoints.
Side trips, from scuba diving to shopping, are being offered at hotels. Indonesia's tourism
ministry hopes to showcase its remaining forests, island jewels and bustling metropolises
by providing expense-paid junkets.
Optimists hope the meeting will inaugurate a two-year process of intensified negotiations
on a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and required signatories to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels.
But no one expects concrete results here, with closed-door talks expected to be a battle
over language and nuance, including whether emission reductions should be voluntary or
mandatory and whether developing nations should have the same restrictions as industrial
countries.
"We don't need talk, talk, talk," said Ursula Rakova, 43, of Papua New Guinea's Carteret
islands, describing how the rising sea has destroyed once-fertile farmland on her island of
Huene and split the land mass in two.
"For us to move, we need money to purchase land, build schools, build medical clinics,"
said Rakova, who along with other farmers and fishermen were ferried by boat, bus and
plane to the Bali gathering. "Our situation is before us. We need something tangible."
In all, 190 countries are represented.
The United States is sending more than 100 delegates and all 27 countries of the
European Union are flying in national teams, with Germany bringing 70 people and
France 50. Many of them are just observers with no formal role.
Non-governmental organizations also are attending, from groups advocating the rights of
indigenous people to those seeking to protect rapidly dwindling forests. Groups like
Oxfam and CARE, which provide food and other humanitarian aid for the hungry, also
are here.
And there are those with something to sell, including technology to produce pure
drinking water and businesses ready to capitalize on future carbon trading markets.
102
Some say the size of the gathering doesn't matter.
"I look at it from a very simple point of view," said Achim Steiner, executive director of
the U.N. Environmental Program.
"It may sound like a lot of people, but you have to look at the issues, the number of
countries involved, the number of people affected. Global warming is literally everyone's
business."
A U.S. vow on warming; Nation won't be a 'roadblock,' delegates say at
conference, but they rule out mandatory cuts
Newsday (New York)
December 4, 2007 Tuesday
BALI, Indonesia - American delegates at the UN climate conference insisted yesterday
they would not be a "roadblock" to a new international agreement aimed at reducing
potentially catastrophic greenhouse gases.
But Washington refused to endorse mandatory emissions cuts, which are seen by many
governmental delegations at the meeting as crucial for reining in rising temperatures.
Faced with melting polar ice and worsening droughts, delegates from nearly 190 nations
opened the two-week conference with pleas for a new climate pact to replace the Kyoto
Protocol, which expires in 2012. That deal required the 36 signatories to cut emissions by
5 percent.
A key goal of the conference will be to draw in a skeptical United States, now the sole
industrial power that has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, citing fears it would hurt
the U.S. economy because cuts aren't required of rising economies like those in China
and India.
"We're not here to be a roadblock," Harlan L. Watson, a top U.S. climate negotiator, told
reporters. "We're committed to a successful conclusion, and we're going to work very
constructively to make that happen."
The Americans, however, were forced repeatedly to defend their refusal to embrace
emission caps after Australia's new prime minister signed papers yesterday to ratify the
1997 Kyoto agreement - reversing the decision of his nation's previous, conservative
government.
Delegates in Bali erupted in applause when Australia's representative, Howard Bamsey,
told the session that his country was jumping on board.
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Still, the United Nations acknowledged that no pact can be effective without the
Americans, and the European Union said it expected the U.S. delegation to play a
constructive role in the days to come.
"There is no doubt that the U.S. has to play a key role in the post-2012 agreement," said
Artur Runge-Metzger, the EU's climate chief. "I think what the rest of the world would
like to see is a credible effort, a credible commitment from the side of the U.S. to
resolving this major challenge." Conference leaders urged delegates to move quickly to
launch negotiations on a climate agreement that many hope will be completed by 2009.
Among the most contentious issues are whether emission cuts should be mandatory and
how much up-and-coming economies like China and India should have to rein in their
skyrocketing emissions.
Also on the table are efforts to curb deforestation and help for the world's poorest
countries to adapt to a worsening climate.
"The eyes of the world are upon you. There is a huge responsibility for Bali to deliver,"
said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the conference. "The world now expects a
quantum leap forward."
Planet's fate hinges on our choices
By John Kerry
The Boston Globe
December 4, 2007
WHILE LEADERS across the globe study the tea leaves of last week's Middle East
peace conference in Annapolis, diplomats are meeting half a world away with the
potential to be just as critical to our future and our security. Delegates from nearly every
country in the world are arriving in Bali, Indonesia, to start work on a new international
climate-change treaty. These negotiations mark the beginning of a process that may well
hold in the balance the survival of our planet as we know it, not to mention the long-term
safety of coastal cities like Boston.
During the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin wrote, "We must all hang together,
or assuredly we shall all hang separately." Today, the nations of the world face a similar
choice: Either we finally commit ourselves to a collective global effort to combat climate
change, or we resign ourselves to watching humanity pollute our way toward calamity.
This week, Senator Barbara Boxer and I are leading a Senate delegation to Bali. We have
been on the front lines of the battle to change America's domestic policies on energy and
emissions. But unless we simultaneously engage the developing world in an effort to
address greenhouse gas emissions, our best efforts at home could be swallowed whole by
a surge of new emissions overseas.
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Never before in human history has half the world industrialized at the same time. In the
decades ahead, many of the 3 billion people living in China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and
Indonesia will begin driving cars, consuming ever greater quantities of energy and
resources, and building the factories and power plants to sustain those habits.
America must step up and lead in the best traditions of our foreign policy. Otherwise, the
world will not mobilize to stop catastrophic climate change in time. Today, American
inaction has been used both as an excuse and a green light for all the world's polluters to
continue behavior that will ultimately threaten life on Earth.
In 1992, I was part of the Senate delegation to the Rio Earth Summit. Each year since
1992, the science has become more certain. Across the world scientists and political
leaders - except, too often, ours - have spoken out and acted decisively. Only the United
States stands out as a holdout for inaction.
That is why our most important goal in Bali is to send a clear message to the world that
America is finally serious about fixing climate change. We should take a leadership role
in developing a "Bali mandate" for negotiations toward a truly global agreement, not one
that leaves the world's largest emitter of the past and the largest emitters of the future
outside the system. That's what doomed the Kyoto Protocol and helped send the world on
a collision course with a catastrophe of our own making.
I can't emphasize enough how much things have changed since then. We've all seen
attitudes shift dramatically here at home. What is less well known is that today a country
like China recognizes its vital interest in curbing emissions. China, home to 16 of the
world's 20 most polluted cities, plans a 20 percent cut in energy intensity by 2010. Next
year, China's fleet-wide fuel efficiency will be 36.7 miles per gallon - higher than the
Senate's proposed target for 2020. There's a caricature out there that China won't listen conveniently used by posturing politicians here at home who themselves refuse to listen
to science - but the reality is that a diplomatic breakthrough may be within reach.
The only fair and realistic basis for a solution that satisfies both the developed and
developing worlds is shared but differentiated responsibility. The United States and other
industrialized nations must accept mandatory caps. China and other developing countries
will have to make their own significant contributions - not in the same form as ours, but
perhaps a reduction per unit of GDP growth or sector-based caps. Down the road, China,
India, Brazil, Mexico, and other developing nations will have to lower absolute
emissions. But today we must put developing countries on a path to lowering emissions
without impeding their economic growth.
In Bali and beyond, America must also commit to a massive new campaign aimed at
fostering green development - stoking green innovations and helping billions of people to
adopt them. At the heart of that effort must be new technologies that capture and
sequester the carbon emissions caused by burning coal. Today the Chinese are building
one coal-fired power plant per week, each of which will continue polluting for decades to
come. We should also create an internationally-funded research consortium and reduce
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tariffs on green producers overseas. We can reward countries that meet emissions
standards and help US companies to sell green products overseas.
Our response to climate change is a test of America's leadership in the 21st century. We
need a new environmental diplomacy - a commitment to make the fight against global
warming an integral part of our foreign relations and our national security strategy.
Lincoln called America "the last, best hope of earth." Those words are still true, so let's
stop being the denier of global warming that endangers the Earth. Let's not just hope for
progress in Bali, let's make it happen.
One more try on climate change
The Toronto Star
December 4, 2007
Why do I get the idea that the UN Conference on Climate Change in Bali is bound to
fail? Why does this idea make me feel ashamed to be a Canadian with regard to our lack
of leadership in the face of a world emergency? Our government believes in "aspirational
targets." I also have a few of my own "aspirational targets" - to win the lottery, to become
a famous mystery novelist, and to see Canada take concrete steps to deal with the climate
crisis.
The last one is only aspirational because it will never happen with the current
government. The comment has been made that there can be no agreement at Bali if the
Americans are not on board.
I have news. The Americans will not be on board. Neither will the Canadians. The people
of both countries are on board and want action, but somehow we don't count, even though
we and our children will have to live with the effects of non-action.
I can only hope that we take a cue from the recent Australian election and elect someone
to come up with real, achievable targets before it is too late.
Janet Lee, Brampton
While there may be holes in the science, global warming presents an opportunity to clean
up the environment not just from greenhouse gases like CO2 but also from conventional
pollutants. Ontario has some of the worst air quality in Canada.
Ontario has spent more than $2.5 billion on CO2-free wind farms. Had Ontario spent
$1.6 billion on anti-pollution equipment for coal plants, it would have prevented $12
billion in health and environmental damages, including 3,850 premature deaths since
2000.
Under Kyoto, European countries gave themselves plenty of extra emission credits when
they set up the market for CO2 trading. Consumers paid for credits on their utility bills.
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Because too many credits were handed out, the bottom fell out of the carbon trading
market. Speculators now stand to make hefty profits.
The "magic of the market" was supposed to promote investment in new technology to
save the planet. Most of us are willing to pay our fair share of the costs to reduce
pollution. But carbon trading has been a waste of precious time and achieved little.
Being Canadian doesn't mean we have to be chumps and let the get-rich-quick Kyoto
hucksters stick us with a bill with little to show for it.
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RONA MEDIA UPDATE
ENVIRONMENT IN THE NEWS
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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ENVIRONMENT NEWS FROM THE
UN DAILY NEWS
4 December, 2007
At UN Climate Change Conference, group on cooperative action plan set up
4 December - The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali is off to an
“encouraging start,” a senior UN official dealing with the issue has said, citing the
decision by participating countries to establish a group that will determine the key
elements of a long-term cooperative plan of action to address climate
change.
The group, which will be open to all 192 countries of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), will present its decisions on the launch of negotiations on a
post-2012 climate change regime to the ministers who will meet during the second week
of the conference. The current regime, called the Kyoto
Protocol, expires that year.
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said the establishment of the
group was an “encouraging signal” which puts in motion a mechanism to reach an
agreement in Bali.
He explained that the group would decide which topics will be the subject of negotiations
and when those negotiations would be completed. Discussions in the group will be led by
Australia and South Africa.
Countries also agreed today on a mechanism that could speed the transfer of technology
that developing countries see as essential for addressing climate change. While the issue
has been considered in the past in talks under the Climate Change
treaty, States will now discuss concrete concerns on how to make it happen.
The decision came as concerns were raised by developing countries that attention in Bali
was too focused on a future agreement that would enter into force in 2013, while previous
commitments to assist developing countries under the existing
Convention and Protocol had been largely forgotten.
Discussions to address deforestation also advanced today. Kishan Kumar-Singh, the
Chair of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, the UN body in
which talks and negotiations on the issue are conducted, said there was
agreement that methodologies and tools for estimating emissions must be developed or
made available and that pilot projects on deforestation should be launched in developing
countries.
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Mr. Kumar-Singh said forests play a key role in addressing climate change as they absorb
carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. Between 1990 and 2005, 13
million hectares disappeared every year due to deforestation. He
said deforestation was the second largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and
causes up to 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas.
New UN-backed report spotlights how communities are adapting to climate change
4 December - As negotiators meet in Bali, Indonesia to frame a legally binding regime on
international responses to climate change, a new United Nations-backed report was
released today on how communities spanning the globe are coping with the problem.
The new study by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Environment
Facility (GEF) includes results from case studies ranging from food security in the Sahel,
pastoralists in Mongolia, rice farmers in the lower Mekong basin and artisanal fishing
communities in South America.
Vulnerable communities and nations can draw on examples of ‘climate proofing’ the
report – entitled “Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change” –
provides to quickly respond to the challenges posed by global warming.
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner pointed out that 2007 was the year in which
science has demonstrated that climate change is unequivocally occurring.
But “one of the big missing links has been adaptation, both in terms of adaptive strategies
and in terms of resources for vulnerable communities,” he added.
“This assessment, involv ing experts across the developed and developing world, lays a
solid and much needed foundation –
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ENVIRONMENT NEWS FROM THE
S.G’s SPOKESMAN DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
04 December, 2007
**Climate Change
We have an update on the UN Climate Change Conference taking place in Bali,
Indonesia. Framework Convention Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer is hailing as an
“encouraging signal” the creation by Member States of a contact group, which will
prepare a decision on the launch of negotiations on a post-2012 climate change regime
for consideration at next week’s high-level segment. As you know, the SecretaryGeneral will be there.
Participants have also agreed on a mechanism that could speed the transfer of technology
that developing countries consider essential for addressing climate change. Discussions
also moved forward today on deforestation, which is estimated to cause up to 20 per cent
of greenhouse gas emissions.
We have more information upstairs on this, and also on a report launched today by the
UN Environment Programme and the Global Environment Facility, on ways vulnerable
communities and countries can “climate proof” their economies in the years to come.
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