Am I going mad, or are climate politics becoming as weird as the weather itself? Based on developments over the last week, I'd say the latter.
Less than a month before the annual climate conference begins in Durban, confusing signals from a series of international meetings make it harder to distinguish between the leaders and the laggards. And as scientists are poised to release their latest worrisome findings on the state of the climate, it's worth repeating that leadership is needed now more than ever.
Let's start with the science. Following on the heels of the recent study confirming the IPCC's findings on temperature trends, a new report from the IPCC on extreme weather was leaked to the press last week. As an AP journalist described it, "The report paints a wild future for a world already weary of weather catastrophes costing billions of dollars." NBC Nightly News ran a sobering and solid piece that sums up the science on extreme weather.
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The IPCC report also shows, however, that experiencing wild weather and surviving it are two different propositions, and the difference boils down to resiliency. Sadly, it is the poorest countries and communities which are least resilient. Take Grenada for instance: hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 wiped out its agriculture, and then a record drought in 2010 damaged its fisheries, tourism and agriculture. As a consequence the country is struggling for economic survival, with 30% unemployment.
So what are vulnerable countries like Grenada doing about it? Bracing themselves for one thing, and working to build resilience. But their efforts aren't purely focused on local defenses. Since 1989 the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) has been battling for climate action, and its 1994 proposed treaty was a model for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. More recently, AOSIS under the leadership of Grenada helped get over 100 of the most vulnerable countries to support a global goal of holding warming below 1.5°C. In 2009, with concern mounting, the Climate Vulnerable Forum was initiated, calling for 1.5° and limiting atmospheric concentrations of CO2 to 350 ppm. The draft declaration for their next meeting (Dhaka, Bangladesh 13-14 November) was posted last week and was inspiring in its ambition:
We are resolved, as vulnerable states, to demonstrate moral leadership by committing to a low-carbon development path on a voluntary basis within the limitations of our respective capabilities, which are to a large extent externally determined by the availability of appropriate financial and technological support and call on all other nations to follow the moral leadership.
From the world's richest countries, however, we are seeing immoral leadership when it comes to climate change. The G20 wrapped up its annual meeting in Cannes last week, and this was the best they could come up with:
We discussed the World Bank-IMF-OECD-Regional Development Banks report on climate finance and call for continued work taking into account the objectives, provisions and principles of the UNFCCC by international financial institutions and the relevant UN organizations. We ask our Finance Ministers to report to us at our next Summit on progress made on climate finance.
As for fossil fuel subsidies they simply reaffirmed their 2009 commitment "to rationalise and phase-out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption..." -- a commitment that has had little impact over the past two years. Does anyone want to take bets on how many years they will continue to call for action, while doing very little in practice?
Some of the biggest, richest developing countries have their own club, known as BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China). They met last week and put the onus of responsibility for securing progress on a global agreement squarely on the shoulders of those who were responsible for creating the problem in the first place. They rightly called on parties to the Kyoto Protocol to sign up to a second round of deeper emissions reduction commitments, called for the non-Kyoto developed countries -- read the USA -- to make substantial reductions, and on developed countries to honor their financial commitments, amongst other things.
But they lost some of the moral high ground, however, by failing to ratchet up their own ambition and by taking a pot shot at the European Union's efforts to reduce rapidly growing emissions from aviation. They called for developing countries to be exempted from Europe's scheme on the basis of the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities." As if anyone who can afford to take a transcontinental flight is too poor to pay the extra costs on a one-way ticket , estimated at between $1.40 and $8.60!
On November 2, the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization bowed to the demands of 26 countries, including the US, Japan, and Russia as well as BASIC countries such as Brazil, China and India, and called on Europe to exempt international airlines from the plan. Thankfully, the EU respectfully declined though it remains to be seen whether the EU will side with the leaders or the laggards when it comes to the future of Kyoto.
Meanwhile back at the Triple C Ranch (aka the Convention on Climate Change), the political heat is increasing in the run-up to Durban. The Environment Minister of Grenada, on behalf of AOSIS, set the cat amongst the pigeons last week with a press release calling out Japan and Russia as "reckless and irresponsible" for working to delay the adoption of a legally binding agreement until 2018-2020. The graph I posted a few weeks ago shows why this is a very bad idea, and perhaps explains why Grenada would risk naming and shaming an important donor country.
The BBC suggests, however, that maneuvering by Japan and Russia may only be the tip of a hidden iceberg: "Behind the scenes, there are concerns that some major developing countries are seeking to blame the West for failure to progress partly in order to conceal their own desire to stave off carbon curbs. 'The US, China and India are in cahoots over this,' said one experienced observer of the UN process."
So to connect the dots between the events of last week: As scientists prepare to issue their latest warning on the consequences of business as usual, several industrialized countries threaten to derail efforts to get a legally binding climate agreement. The most vulnerable countries claim the moral high ground, while developing country powerhouses send conflicting and worrisome signals.
Those who believe in climate justice may well start to wonder which side is up. I for one will try to keep my bearings in Durban by applying a simple moral litmus test: what impact will any given stance have on the world's most vulnerable people and ecosystems? In my view, allowing global temperature to rise to a level at which we may not survive, with the poorest and most vulnerable communities as the first casualties, would be the greatest climate injustice of all.
Follow Kelly Rigg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kellyrigg
Lots of inane conspiracy theory though.
As time goes by, more and more of us will be pressing these demands of nature by the way we spend our money and by changes in our lifestyles. Capital will respond to this as the chance to profit from a demand in commercial sectors is irresistible. Conversely, the commercial sectors that are responsible for the big lies and the big pollution will perish, despite all their sales efforts.
If you want to meet the person who will be responsible for changing the climate, for better or worse, go to the nearest mirror and take a look.
Funnily enough, the solutions to the global financial crisis are in moving to a sustainable economy, with a short term economic boom driven by development of new energy generation technologies. The end result though, must be a steady state economy.
The problem of thinking in the world, is that this economic downturn is just another downturn to be dealt with by stimulating more job creation and more consumption. In fact the problems are much deeper than that. Even if the economy could be temporarily revived, it would come up against the far more costly results of unmitigated climate change sooner or later.
The choice is stark. Adapt to the new realities imposed on us by climate change, or see the collapse of our civilisation, and the possible extinction of the species as a whole.
For what it's worth, I have come to believe that the human species is, collectively, experiencing a kind of suicidal insanity. No other answer makes sense to me in the face of our staggering nonchalance in the face of impending extinction.
Thanks anyway.
The effects of this adolescence are seen in the manner in which we individually refuse to face de/ath, and culturally in the cinema, a place where James Dean is forever young...a rebel without a cause...
The spectacle of endless youth mirrors the spectacle of endless abundance. And we forget daily that we are finite. Only by embracing our finitude and the reality it imposes will we succeed in overcoming the adolescent stage.
I have lost hope that this is possible. Which is why I hope we reach information singularity sooner rather than later.
The IPCC doesn't have climate units at the Met office or the CRU - another lie. The CRU data sets actually show less warming than other datasets, but even the deniers own financed research shows that the CRU, and other datasets used by the IPCC have the story right, and the Earth is unquestionably warming in an extremely worrying way, and in accordance with the rises in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
The European's economy will undoubtedly benefit from the development of alternative energy generation, and reduction of reliance on fossil fuels.
Your whole post is a tissue of lies, and I'm pretty sure you know that.
We should gradually shift the tax burden from work and investment to fossil carbon production and import. Or we can impose a rising price on fossil carbon and use exactly that money to give everyone a monthly Climate Insurance Dividend check. (Difference is semantic).
So, the fossil carbon fee is collected at domestic production (because this is the simplest (cheapest) way to collect). It is also collected on fossil carbon imports, and on imported goods with significant fossil-carbon-energy content. This would be totally legal under trade law, because we'd be imposing the same fee domestically.
In order to get out of having us estimate the fossil energy content of their goods, and collect the import fee, other nations would be forced to impose an equal fossil carbon fee inside their own countries. This is an efficient, free market based solution, which is also a global solution.
The drought driven famine in the Horn of Africa is so tragic, yet they hardly cover it in the MSM.
This is how it will play out. The fortunate will remain ignorant of the suffering of the unfortunate... allowing us to do nothing until it strikes home. It will be too late then.
Our world leaders are letting this happen. Do they know something we don't? Like it's already too late?
Canada signed on to Kyoto, which was said to be legally-binding, yet has done nothing to meet that commitment. Since the first commitment cost nothing, I suppose it would not cost anything so sign on to a second round of deeper emissions reduction commitments.
Don't expect Canada to begin actually doing anything significant until probably 2020. Under the current regime, ideology trumps science and there is no room in that ideology for backing off on tar sands and other oil and gas development.
Sorry.
lol
The nations utilities would collect the repayments on the monthly utility bills and send the difference between savings and usage directly to the U.S. Treasury. This would be based on historical and current usage. The utility would charge a small fee for handling each months transaction. Property owners would be required to do an energy audit, submit a retrofit plan with a cost estimate and what the payback period is. They would send the estimate directly to the utility. The utility would then forward the approval and loan request directly to the Treasury.
The loans would be available for LED lighting, geothermal heating and cooling, energy star appliances, insulation, weatherizations, thermal windows and vampire energy prevention devices.
There are two numbers to keep in mind: 3ºC and 6ºC. The former is the amount global temperatures will rise in the short term if CO2 doubles. The latter is the amount global temperatures will rise in the long term if CO2 doubles (Hansen et al. 2008: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Hansen_etal.pdf). The relationship between rising CO2 levels, radiative forcing and temperature are given by the formulas:
ΔF = 5.35 W/m^2(ln(C/Co)) where ΔF = the change in radiative forcing, C = current CO2 concentration (ppmv), Co = original CO2 concentration (ppmv)
and
ΔT = λ(ΔF), where ΔT = change in average global temperature and λ = climate sensitivity (ºC/W/m^2), given by the formula λ = ΔT/ΔF. For 3ºC sensitivity, λ = 3ºC/(5.35 W/m^2 * ln(C/Co) = 3ºC/(5.35 W/m^2 * ln(2)) = 0.809 ºC/W/m^2. For 6ºC sensitivity, λ = 1.618 ºC/W/m^2
At current levels of CO2 (393 ppmv), we would expect short-term warming to be
ΔF = 5.35 W/m^2 (ln(393 ppmv/280 ppmv)) = 1.814 W/m^2
ΔT = 0.809*1.814 = 1.461ºC above pre-Industrial levels. Given that we've only warmed 0.83ºC since 1880, we would continue to warm by another 0.63ºC even if all CO2 emissions stopped today.
Long-term warming IF CO2 concentrations remained the same as today would be (ΔF is the same as above):
ΔT = 1.618*1.814 = 2.935ºC, roughly in line with the temperatures of the Miocene, the last time CO2 levels were as high as today (Tripati et al. 2009: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5958/1394.short) and a time when sea levels were at least 25 m higher than today.
What changes could we expect from a world 3ºC warmer? Just look at the changes that have already occurred with 0.83ºC warming: Species migrating toward the poles (Chen et al. 2011: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/1024), heat-stress killing Amazon rainforest trees (Toomey et al. 2011: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011GL049041.shtml), record lows for Arctic sea ice (http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/), increased heat waves (Rahmstorf and Coumou 2011: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/10/18/1101766108.abstract), sea level rise (Kemp et al. 2011: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/06/13/1015619108.abstract), etc. Quite simply, the effects of climate change are already being measured around the world and are projected to get worse, even if we somehow stabilized CO2 levels at 393 ppmv (unlikely, given the recent jump in CO2 emissions). And yet our political leaders are paralyzed in the face of the problem, in some cases unable to even admit that the problem even exists. Disgusting.