Message from Poznan: Time for Mass Mobilization to Stop Global Warming Emissions

It's going to take a lot more than the bureaucratic and chaotic process I watched in Poznan over the past two weeks for us to cut global warming emissions as deeply and quickly as scientists say is necessary.

I am not the only one who feels this way. Bill McKibben of 350.org, Al Gore, Dr. James Hansen, and most recently the Alliance of Small Island Nations (AOSIS) are all calling for deeper cuts in emissions and for public actions to turn things around. The path to a global deal in Copenhagen, just one year from now, will not be successful unless we have a louder, and more visible, bottom-up push for change. It's time to get serious about mass mobilization.

The United Nations Convention on Climate Change held in Poznan, Poland from December 1-12 did make a few baby steps forward. In the end, the European Union upheld its commitment to cut carbon dioxide emissions 20% by 2020 and developing countries such as South Africa, Mexico and South Korea put forward constructive proposals to reduce their global warming emissions. Progress was made in discussions of an Adaptation Fund to help developing nations and especially island nations adjust to the immediate impacts of climate change. The Europeans for the first time said they would look seriously at the financing proposals of the developing nations represented by the G77. The Danes did an excellent job of keeping all negotiating tracks moving and the convention resulted in a clear timetable of extensive meetings between now and next December when a new treaty is supposed to be completed. At the same time, heads of state from the 27 members of the European Union met in Brussels to discuss the fiscal crisis and climate talks in Poznan. In the end, the European Union's 27 leaders endorsed a plan for a 20% cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.

But the good news stops there.

Under the accord reached by the EU heads of state, industrial sectors such as cement, steel and chemicals will receive free carbon emission permits at least up to 2020. This concession was pushed by Germany, the country formerly seen as the continent's climate champion. In a cap and auction scheme, companies must pay to pollute by purchasing global warming pollution permits through an auction. Unfortunately, these huge industries will be given free permits. Poland also pushed hard to exempt their dirty coal plants and electric power sector. They will be partly exempt from paying for permits between 2013 and 2020. The European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, was quoted in the Financial Times as admitting that the terms of the accord created the risk of windfall profits for some of the EU's biggest polluters. According to several sources, including leaders from the wind industry with whom I spoke directly, lobbying by the coal, cement, steel and fossil fuel companies was furious, relentless and ultimately overwhelming in the context of the European fiscal meltdown. According to a senior EU Commission official quoted in the Financial Times, "about 90% of European manufacturers would qualify for free carbon permits under the package." In addition to these fundamental shortcomings, there was little progress on the REDD structure with lack of agreement on how to design a program for reducing deforestation and protecting forests.

This deal won't result in adequate CO2 reductions in the time we have. The last minute demands of the power plant and industrial sectors are a likely predictor of what we can expect in the States as groups battle for a strong climate bill in Congress. Lets face it, the U.S. fossil fuel lobby makes the European coal companies look like wimps.

So what to do? I don't think we'll get meaningful policy in Washington, D.C. or in Copenhagen without a more fundamental shaking of the system. We must try new strategies and magnify the public demand for transformational rather than incremental change. The politics of climate policy and international negotiations are mired down but the science of climate change is red hot. A growing number of experts and governments insist we must adopt a target of 350 ppm or 1.5 degrees C as the threshold for safe emissions. Right now atmospheric concentrations of CO2 stand at 387 parts per million, increasing by about 2 parts per million each year. We need a more fundamental and fast turn away from fossil fuel.

Here's what you can do right now to push for transformational change:

- Become a Climate Precinct Captain and take things into your own hands by organizing locally: local.1sky.org. We've developed an online tool to facilitate a constant offline drumbeat of action in every Congressional district across the country. Once you sign up for the tool, get at least ten neighbors and friends to get involved with the 1Sky campaign. E-mail [e-mail] with questions.

- Join us at the largest climate convergence in history -- Power Shift '09 -- or consider sponsoring someone else to attend. We need 10,000 people in Washington, D.C. screaming for change.

- Organize a 350 action for October 24, 2009 by signing on to 350.org and making sure that the world hears us loud and clear before next year's Copenhagen summit.

This is not a time to just take advice from those of us in DC. It is time for every rabble rousing, child-loving, planet protecting person to get clear that we will not be okay unless we disrupt business as usual.

Comments

[dobermanmacleod]

"I know of no realistic person who thinks carbon dioxide emissions are going to do anything but grow. Most European countries are not meeting their emissions goals, and of the ones that have, it's because their economies are collapsing. In the United States, this notion that we're going to reduce our emissions by 80 percent is pure fantasy." --Pete Geddes, Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, 2 April 2008
Furthermore, any carbon diet strategy would be dependent upon clean coal:
"The vast majority of new power stations in China and India will be coal-fired; not "may be coal-fired"; will be. So developing carbon capture and storage technology is not optional, it is literally of the essence." --"Breaking the Climate Deadlock," Tony Blair, June 26, 2008
But, Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon dioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide -- a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. "Beware of the scale," he stressed."
In other words, it is doubtful that even the unrealistic cuts President elect Obama committed to support in the campaign will significantly slow global warming.
"The alternative (to geoengineering) is the acceptance of a massive natural cull of humanity..." --Dr James Lovelock, August 2008

[RichardTreadgold]

You say: "help developing nations and especially island nations adjust to the immediate impacts of climate change."
What impacts do you refer to? Scientific monitoring by satellite and other means show no recent climate changes beyond natural variability. Sea levels have dropped in the last two years; average global atmospheric temperatures have dropped in the last 18 months; before that, they were virtually stable back to the end of 2001; global polar sea ice extent has increased (a little) over the last 29 years, it has not reduced; storms have not increased in frequency or strength.
What other "impacts" could there be?
In addition to these simple observations to the contrary, there is no evidence that increasing CO2 could have any effect on any of these factors, so why damage our industrial and commercial capacity by requiring a crippling decrease in production?
If global temperatures are not rising, what harm could man-made CO2 be causing? This question must be answered before committing to ruinous hobbling of our productive capacity.
Cheers,
Richard Treadgold, Convenor, Climate Conversation Group.