U.S. Prevails on Climate Draft, Ban says

The U.N. chief asserts that the text emanating from the Bali summit won't include specific targets for lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

NUSA DUA, INDONESIA, Dec. 13th. LA Times-- As the United Nations climate conference here was drawing to its conclusion, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday acknowledged that the United States' goal of deleting specific emission reduction guidelines from a draft agreement had succeeded. "Realistically, it may be too ambitious if delegations would be expected to be able to agree on targets of greenhouse gas emission reductions" here in Bali, he told reporters. "Practically speaking, this will have to be negotiated down the road." The Bali meeting was convened to draw up a "road map" for negotiations on a new treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire in 2012. An early draft of the guidelines called for industrialized countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions 25% to 40% below 1990 levels by 2020, but the Bush administration has resisted the inclusion of any targets. Chief U.S. negotiator Harlan L. Watson reiterated that position Wednesday. "The reality in this business is that once numbers appear in the text, it prejudges the outcome and will tend to drive the negotiations in one direction," he said.

Another contentious section of the draft called for global emissions to peak in 10 to 15 years and be reduced to at least half of 2000 levels by 2050, proposed requirements that have been vigorously opposed by China and India. Both countries' emissions have more than doubled since 1990, and both want only voluntary standards for developing nations. "If we want to take a voluntary approach for 70% of the world's emissions, I think that is just a nonstarter, it doesn't work," said John Baird, Canada's environment minister. He argued that if wealthy countries were the only ones to accept emissions targets, pollution would simply be shifted to developing nations. "We can close a steel mill today in Canada. But if we just import the steel from China, what will we have accomplished? Absolutely nothing," he said. China's climate change ambassador, Yu Qingtai, said his country might eventually be willing to adopt caps, but only if it received major technology assistance from Western nations for developing cleaner energy processes. Such assistance has not been forthcoming, he added. Indian representatives also called for technical assistance and said their nation's economy was too immature and fragile for them to accept emission caps. "We are not ripe enough to make any binding commitments. We are a developing country," said N.N. Meena, junior environment minister.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who flew in to Bali on Wednesday after accepting his share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo this week for his contributions to the fight against global warming, said the United States was deliberately impeding progress here. "The position of the administration in the U.S. right now appears to be to try to block any progress in Bali. I hope that will change," he said. He did offer some optimism. "I know from experience," he said, "that when breakthroughs do occur, they usually happen in the last 48 hours."

Australia had a partial shift in its position Wednesday. The country has long argued against adopting the Kyoto treaty, which calls for 36 industrialized nations to reduce their emissions 5% below 1990 levels by 2012 -- in part because its emissions have grown by 26% since 1990. But on Wednesday, newly elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd presented ratification papers for the treaty to Ban, eliciting a long round of applause from the delegates. Australia's signature leaves the U.S. as the only major industrialized country not to have ratified the protocol. In his talk, Rudd chided the United States, whose emissions have risen more than 16% since 1990. "We expect all developed nations -- those within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol and those outside that framework -- to embrace comparable efforts in order to bring about the global outcomes the world now expects of us."
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Act Now or See 'Unrecognizable' Earth:

The Star.com Nov. 18th: Without urgent, aggressive steps to stop greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will cause devastating heat waves, floods, starvation and disease, says a report written by the world's top climate scientists and endorsed by 140 nations yesterday. Environment Minister John Baird immediately welcomed the document, from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "Canada, like the rest of the world, needs to take immediate action," he said in a written statement. But critics said the minister and the rest of the Conservative government still pay lip service to the problem while promoting a plan that would make it worse. "The government is acting to protect industry and its shareholders instead of the planet and future generations," said John Bennett, of Ottawa-based Climate for Change.

Impacts have already begun, declares a 23-page summary of thousands of pages of scientific evidence. Without action, human activity could lead to "abrupt and irreversible changes" that make Earth unrecognizable. As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, while residents of Asia's megacities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding. The new report is the fourth and final statement this year from the panel – the roughly 2,000 scientists who assess research on the rapid increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere. It draws conclusions from the previous three documents and sets the stage for next month's UN conference in Bali, Indonesia, where governments are supposed to resolve how to set targets for emission cuts after 2012, when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends. Climate change imperils "the most precious treasures of our planet,"

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said in Valencia, Spain, where, in five days of often-tense negotiations, governments haggled over the summary's wording. Ban urged the United States and China – the two biggest greenhouse gas sources – to do more. Panel reports, issued every five years for the past two decades, tend to be conservative. This one, though, is stark and urgent. "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late," said Rajendra Pachauri, a scientist and economist who heads the IPCC. "What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.'' Yvo de Boer, the UN's top climate change official, said what's new is the clarity of the scientific message, adding that, while the report isn't binding, "The politicians have no excuse not to act." "The timing of this report couldn't be better," Baird said in his statement. "Canada has been a leader in bringing the world together... and we will continue that work in Bali." But critics said his plan – which rejects absolute emission caps – would let Canada's greenhouse emissions grow with the economy. The panel says emissions must fall at least 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 to prevent catastrophic impacts. Canada's target is a 20 per cent cut below 2006 levels by 2020 – which if achieved would still leave us slightly above our 1990 total. But many say the Conservatives' proposals aren't capable of hitting even that weak target. "The government is not acting on the science," said Matthew Bramley, of the Pembina Institute. "They're trumpeting bogus targets as if they're meaningful," said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. "I'd believe John Baird if he came out with a plan that includes things like a carbon tax and a moratorium on growth in (Alberta's) tar sands."
By Peter Gorrie
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Poor Nations Need Incentives to Cut Emissions

New York Sept. 25th: Rich countries must cut their “unacceptably high” greenhouse gas emissions and provide incentives for poorer nations to follow suit, the United Nations secretary-general told a meeting of more than 80 heads of state and government on climate change on Monday. Ban Ki-moon said industrialised countries must show more leadership on the issue. “It has been 10 years since the Kyoto protocol was adopted. Yet most industrialised country emissions are still rising and their per capita emissions remain unacceptably high.” He said that poor countries, rather than being given the strict emissions reduction targets meted out to the developed world under the current Kyoto protocol, should be given “incentives to act without sacrificing economic growth or poverty eduction”.

Gordon Brown, prime minister, did not attend the meeting as it clashed with the Labour party conference. But Hilary Benn, secretary of state for the environment, used it to urge the US to reverse its opposition to binding targets to cut emissions. “[Tackling climate change] means all of us, including the largest economy in the world, the US, taking on binding emissions reduction targets. It is inconceivable that dangerous climate change can be avoided without this happening.” His words marked a change in tone for the UK in its approach towards the US on environmental issues. Tony Blair preferred to use his relationship with George W. Bush to press him privately to soften his stance on climate change.

Mr Bush was not at Monday’s meeting, but did attend a dinner that followed. He is holding a separate meeting on climate change with the world’s 16 biggest emitting countries later this week in Washington. The US is unlikely to commit to targets to reduce its emissions. Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs, told the Financial Times the US supported a “long-term global goal” for reducing emissions, but that shorter-term goals should be set at a national level. The US has not proposed a specific target for emissions cuts. Ms Dobriansky said the White House would discuss in Washington later this week what such a goal should be.

Mr Ban called on Monday’s meeting, the biggest gathering of heads of state and government to talk about the problem, to agree the broad principles of tackling climate change ahead of a UN conference in Bali in December at which negotiations will begin on a successor to the Kyoto treaty, the main provisions of which expire in 2012. Although government representatives meet each year to discuss the Kyoto protocol, progress on agreeing to action on climate change has been slow. Many observers say part of the problem is that only environment ministers and their officials attend such meetings, rather than heads of government or more senior ministers. Mr Ban’s meeting was intended to break this deadlock by persuading heads of state and government of the need for international action in the hope that they would empower their environment ministers to make more progress in Bali.

Deal agreed to eliminate global warming gas

An environmental agreement was signed at the weekend by a host of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters. The agreement was an extension to the Montreal Protocol, a landmark treaty signed 20 years ago that was intended to stem the destruction of the earth’s protective ozone layer by the use of certain chemicals. The agreement accelerated the phasing out of compounds known as HCFCs. These are used in refrigeration and other technologies as substitutes for other chemicals that destroy the ozone layer, but have the unfortunate side effect of warming the planet even more effectively than carbon dioxide. Phasing out HCFCs is much less controversial than cutting emissions of carbon dioxide because the technology to do so is readily available, whereas reducing carbon requires fundamental changes to the way we produce energy. HCFCs, though very potent greenhouse gases, make up only a small proportion of overall greenhouse gas emissions.
By Fiona Harvey Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. 2007
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UN Seeks Measures to Combat Climate Change Crises

Vienna Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Rising sea levels are likely to prompt mass migrations accompanied by conflicts and sanitary crises, requiring urgent planning to guarantee food and other essentials, a UN conference on climate change heard. Funds of $67 billion annually in 2030 "may represent the lower bound of the amount actually required" to help people in developing countries adapt to climate change, the United Nations said in a report to the meeting in Vienna. Money is needed to ensure access to food supplies, healthcare and infrastructure. "These issues are certainly going to be a factor", said the senior climate negotiator for the U.S. State Department, Harlan Watson, late yesterday. "Climate change can exacerbate already underlying tensions".

About 1,000 diplomats, scientists and business leaders from 150 countries are attending the Vienna Climate Change Talks organized by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. More than 1 billion hectares (2.5 billion acres) of land worldwide, equivalent to the size of Canada, has been damaged by human activity, according to an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe report published in January. Rising sea levels, the spread of tropical diseases and frequent storms are likely to result from a warmer climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in April.
The U.S. and U.K. militaries are taking note. Risk of Wa: "Expanding populations around the world are already placing a strain on scarce resources", U.K. Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup said in a June speech in London. "Climate change will make this competition more acute and history is replete with cases of resource competition that have rapidly descended into armed conflict". Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention, credited the U.K. with pushing climate change to the forefront of European Union policy considerations. The EU agreed in June to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent, from 1990 levels, in the next four decades. The IPCC on Feb. 2 said temperatures have risen by 0.76 degrees Celsius (1.37 Fahrenheit) since the 19th century, and will rise by another 1.1 to 6.4 degrees this century. Global warming is "very likely" caused by human activities, such as emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, according to the panel. The panel said 75 million to 250 million more people in Africa will be exposed to water shortages and rain-dependent agricultural yields could fall by 50 percent by 2020; the cost of adapting to changes brought on by global warming could be as much as 10 percent of economic output. Persistent Conflict: U.S. security experts are gearing up for an era of "persistent conflict", Army Chief of Staff George Casey told the National Press Club in Washington on Aug. 14. Climate change raises the risk, he said. "We live close to a very large number of countries that will be vulnerable to climate change as sea levels rise", said New Zealand's climate change ambassador, Adrian Macey, in an interview. "Future population shifts caused by climate change need to be explored further". Developing countries like Indonesia, with 250 million people spread over hundreds of islands, would like to see discussions about population shifts brought into treaty negotiations, Deputy Environment Minister Masnellyarti Hilman said. "We're already experiencing the problems of eroding coastlines and flooding", Hilman said, noting that talks will continue when the UN's climate change panel meets in Bali in December. Formal negotiations are due then on a treaty to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that will replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. The Vienna talks, which began Aug. 27, end tomorrow.
By Jonathan Tirone and Mathew Carr
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