Greenpeace activists display a banner atop the rail station in Poznan, Poland, which is across the street from where UN climate talks are being held. (AFP photo/Remigiusz Sikora)
Optimism fading for Poland climate talks
By Eoin O'Carroll | 12.11.08
Hopes of laying a solid foundation for a post-Kyoto climate pact in 2009 are diminishing, as representatives from 189 nations gathered in Poznań, Poland, squabble over financing methods.
Delegates met for the two-week COP14 talks held in the western Polish industrial city hope to set the stage for a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocols, which expire in 2012. The details of the new climate pact are set to be agreed upon in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
But the current talks, which close Friday, are proceeding more slowly than expected, casting into doubt hopes of a comprehensive climate treaty next year: “We’re working under a very tight timeline,” said UN climate chief Yvo de Boer, according to Bloomberg’s Alex Morales. “I don’t think where we are now it is going to be feasible to develop a fully elaborated, long-term response to climate change in Copenhagen.”
Even if the resulting deal from Poznań lacks specifics, says Mr. de Boer, it could still give participants something to work with. “My sense is that we should be careful not to reach too far and achieve nothing,” de Boer told Bloomberg. “What we need to reach in Copenhagen is clarity on the key political issues so that everything after Copenhagen is settling the details and not negotiating fundamentals.”
The haves and the want-to-haves
At the heart of much of the disagreement is that perennial struggle between rich and poor. Developing countries want industrialized countries – whose populations are responsible the lion’s share of greenhouse emissions – to lead the way by making the steepest reductions in emissions. They also want money and technology to help them make their own emissions cuts and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
According to the Guardian, in Britain, European Union officials have proposed making an 80 percent to 95 percent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2050 in exchange for developing countries’ reducing their emissions by 15 percent to 30 percent over the next decade. They have not yet heard a reaction, but Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that the developed world is unlikely to be impressed by the offer, which does not mandate any short-term cuts for rich countries.
“Unless the developed world comes up with strong, clear targets for 2020 themselves,” Dr. Pachauri told the Guardian, “I think it is unlikely the developing world will commit itself to reductions.”
According to Reuters, the United Nations will ask developed countries to contribute $1 billion for urgent projects in the poorest countries to help them adapt to floods, droughts, crop failures, and other impacts of global warming. So far, rich countries have committed only $172 million, with Germany, Denmark, Britain, and the Netherlands kicking in the most. The United States has yet to contribute any money.
Another Reuters story notes that the Chinese government, which is proposing that industrialized countries give 1 percent of their national wealth annually to help poor countries with adaptation and clean-energy development, is accusing rich countries of planning “a great escape” out of committing to specific emissions targets by dragging their feet in climate talks.
A divided Europe
The rift between rich and poor states is even playing out within the EU, which is holding its own climate talks this week in Brussels. As the Guardian notes, poorer countries in the east are asking for subsidies to help them develop clean technologies, which would be paid for by auctioning off permits that allow firms to produce a certain amount of greenhouse emissions. But western European countries, led by Germany, fear that requiring polluters to pay will endanger jobs.
The EU has long been in the forefront of drafting ambitious climate legislation, but some say that the 27-member union could cede this trail-blazing status if it fails to reach an agreement, with disastrous results for the planet. Agence France-Presse quotes two such observers:
“You can see the US and China moving [on climate change]. We will destroy or undermine that movement if we go flaky in Europe now,” leading economist Nicholas Stern, author of a landmark 2006 report on climate change, said in Poznan on Tuesday.
German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters on Wednesday that the EU risked losing its vanguard role and giving the impression it was “no longer serious” on climate change if no deal was struck in Brussels.
No silver bullets
Adding to the deepening pessimism in Poznań is a new survey showing a waning belief that alternative energy can avert catastrophic climate change. As reported in the Guardian, the survey, which was given to 1,000 senior government officials, heads of advocacy groups, and business executives in 115 countries, found drops in support for wind, solar, hydrogen, and biofuels as compared to last year.
Delegates in Poznań have also dropped plans to support technology in the developing world that captures carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and stores them underground. Such “carbon capture and sequestration” technology has not yet been demonstrated on a large scale, but is crucial if poor countries are to continue burning coal without wrecking the climate. As the Wall Street Journal’s eco-blogger, Keith Johnson, points out:
Any attempt to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide has to tackle the coal problem. But to make clean coal a reality, the power industry must invest billions of dollars and years of research to overcome all kinds of lingering technological and economic hurdles.
US in transition
Also hampering progress on the talks is the US’s current political limbo. America is officially being represented by the soon-to-be-departed Bush administration, which has consistently rejected mandatory emissions caps. President-elect Barack Obama is not attending, despite pleas from environmentalists that he do so, although senators John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts and Amy Klobuchar (D) of Minnesota – both early Obama supporters – are part of the US delegation.
The presidential transition period has slowed the talks, some observers say. The International Herald Tribune quotes one environmentalist who says that delegates are holding out:
“It has affected the meeting in a fairly significant way,” said Gus Silva-Chavez, a policy expert at the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington, who has been observing the closed negotiations. “A lot of people think: ‘this is not the time to put our cards on the table. Let’s wait for the new administration. Why agree to anything now?’ “
A kick in the pants
United Nations Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon has shown frustration with the delegates, telling the BBC that the world is going through “unprecedented multiple crises starting from global financial crisis, food crisis, and also climate-change crisis”:
<< Environmentalists send their wish list to Obama | Main“If we take action today it may not be too late. But if we take action tomorrow, we may have to regret it for not only us, but for coming generations and even for planet Earth.”
Comments
2. MCKILL | 12.11.08
This whole effort assumes, erroneously, that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, like water vapor, are the cause of global warming rather than solar activity. The basis for the effort is political rather scientific.
3. Dennis Markatos-Soriano | 12.11.08
Thankfully, emissions are falling now without political leaders slowing the process down. US emissions are set to fall ~2.5% in 2008 and further in ‘09. Even China has falling emissions as their industrial output is dropping this quarter. See details at: http://www.setenergy.org
Hopefully, by late 2009, we will understand a path to economic recovery and everyone is in a more comfortable position to commit to greenhouse gas cuts into the future.
Onwards to sustainability,
Dennis
4. Jill | 12.11.08
You’re not listening. As McKill in Post No. 2 gently pointed out, the whole issue is moot. It is unbelievable that people are so hoodwinked over this political scam, even when the huge majority of world scientists are themselves dissenting over the manmade-global-warming bunk. If only people would research the facts before they throw themselves into worldwide regulatory suppression.
5. Doug | 12.11.08
Meanwhile, global temperatures have been falling for the last decade. It snowed in Houston, Texas yesterday and it’s not even winter yet.
All this has everything to do with the transfer of wealth, and precious little to do with the climate, which we can’t control in any event.
6. ken | 12.11.08
Ha! The “science” which is the basis for the entire Greenhouse gas movement is full of holes. The delegates to this conference know that support is fading, not for economic reasons but because it’s rife with fraud.
Eventually average Joe public will realize that there is no future environmental catastrophe, and they have been hoodwinked. It has cost them billions and they will demand their pound of flesh.
The truth will set you free.
7. Matt | 12.11.08
Jill, I totally agree. The global warming bunko is outrageous. Everyone can tell that Science, Nature, and Geophysical Review Letters are just tabloid rags fronting for fat cat environmentalists. For REAL scientific news you need to turn to neutral and credible sources like oil company PR agencies, talk radio, and Republican bloggers.
8. joe | 12.11.08
Bush was the bad guy. He was a unifying force because everyone was against him. Once he is gone everyone will no longer have a common enemy. So they
will all turn on each other and nothing will ever get done.
9. Bill | 12.11.08
Wow. I had no idea that CSM readers were so ignorant. People actually still doubt that humans are the source of global warming? It is like taking a time machine back to the 50’s. I guess if people are willing to sit in church and be told fantasies about god then they are willing to be believe anything.
Have you heard the one about the guy in the red suit? He flies all over the world in one night giving people gifts… in a sled pulled by flying reindeer!
10. Bill | 12.11.08
Wow. I had no idea that CSM readers were so ignorant. People actually still doubt that humans are the source of global warming? It is like taking a time machine back to the 50’s. I guess if people are willing to sit in church and be told fantasies about god then they are willing to be believe anything.
Have you heard the one about the guy in the red suit? He flies all over the world in one night giving people gifts… in a sled pulled by flying reindeer!
11. Rod | 12.11.08
Stories like this illuminate the one overarching fact about the climate change issue: it is a political issue first and foremost. The hard-left in Europe and elsewhere has gravitated to Big Corporate Environmentalism as the last/best hope for wealth redistribution and anti-capitalist policy adoption.
The only hope Big Eco has is to coerce people to adopt THEIR view of a ‘better’ world by force; pointing the government gun at their heads. Without a big stick to beat nations (and ultimately individuals) into line they have no hope of implementing their policies.
The interesting historical question to me is where the line is where people and their governments say ‘Sorry. Not gonna comply.’ A massive global recession certainly moves that line closer to the present day.
12. Big D | 12.11.08
Wow! I am inpressed at the number of people who are finally realizing that human impact on the earths climate is minimal. Solar activity and volcanic activity can impact climate nore in an instant, than mankind has during our entire existence. That does not mean that we should not try to be less impactful and conserve, reduce and reuse.
But, if the concept of cap and trade ever really takes hold, it will turn out to be the largest government fraud in world history. All you have to do is “follow the money”. Who is promoting it? & Who will benefit from it?
13. paul | 12.11.08
greenpeace is staging protests that the talks should focus on stopping climate change, or else we all die…and they think its true.
the governments are just talking about how they can make money off of this because they don’t know whether climate change is deadly or not but hey don’t seem to care.
where are the “green”peace activists that want to save the green (money) that is being wasted on these meetings if there are people who truly believe that climate change is not an issue.
personally i’m not decided where i stand. probably somewhere in the middle. annoyed with the squabbling about policy, and extreme fear that we are fed everyday, but at the same time if we did something something for the environment it would do us all good in the long run. however, i don’t think anything will get done. when politicians try to implement new radical new things they also say to think of the children and of the future. what world our children will live in. the problem is, since climate change talks have started, those children have turned into adults and had their own children…and nothing has changed whatsoever. i could probably keep writing about this but i think i’ll stop right there.
14. well | 12.11.08
Poor countries should do whatever it needs to improve the life of their people and economy. Do not let the eco-nazis dictate who can live a first world lifestyle and who must live in huts and caves, pedal to pump water from wells and not use motor pumps, live a semi-cave man lifestyle and be paid by west to offset western carbon output (aka become welfare queens) .
They used to say give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day , teach a man how to catch a fish you will feed him for a lifetime. Eco-nazis will tell the third world do not spoil the environment trying to fish we will give you the fish. Insulting to those countries and absolutely pathetic..
15. yaa | 12.11.08
Global warming is happening no doubt, but it has happened many times before - as has global cooling. It is sheer arrogance to believe that we can do anything to prevent it. It is time to adapt to the inevitable and stop all the green ‘little Hitlers’ using the topic to gain power over us. Creating a new industry for themselves riding on the coatils of a naturally occuring phenomena. Consider many of the things being done for ‘green’ reasons . Now with this carbon trading formula they effectively plan to make hay for themselves while the “Sun Shines”.
16. CW | 12.12.08
I’m with Bill on this one (comment no. 10). I can’t believe you are all so cynical over the purpose of these Climate Change talks. There will always be people (and governments) trying to make a quick buck or take the easy way out. Fortunately there are also companies and individuals in this world prepared to do their bit and this is usually based on initiatives put forward by their governments. And where do you think these policies and initiatives come from? Events like the Climate Change Talks in Poznan of course.
17. Mike Higgins | 12.12.08
If you are a honest seeker of truth regarding the science behind global climate change, you will want to read this fascinating new report. It is complete with charts and references to peer-reviewed studies – well worth your time!
http://nzclimatescience.net/images/PDFs/rmcknockknock.pdf
You will understand many things that may now seem confusing…
18. Eoin | 12.12.08
Glad to have you back Mike. The absence of comments from you over the past 10 days had me worried that you’d stopped reading.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
2. Papa Mike’s Blog » Blog Archive » China Wants US & West to Give 1% of Annual Wealth to Fight Global Warming | 12.11.08
3. Poznan Climate Conference Seeks Consensus on Emissions Reductions, Climate Policy | The Hot Spring.com | 12.11.08
4. Poznan Climate Conference Seeks Consensus on Emissions Reductions, Climate Policy | CafeSentido.com | 12.11.08
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1. Tom Purcell | 12.11.08
These delegations need to stop talking about saving the planet and start talking about saving their own people. The people in wealthy countries are going broke, and the poor countries’ people are dying of diseases and civil unrest.
If these leaders commit nations’ money and resources to simply reducing carbon as a means to appease this environmental pop-culture green attitude while people suffer and go broke, then those leaders won’t be leaders for long.
I say the wealthiest 10% of nations should commit money to research and let the poor countries simply try to right their ailing communities. If they got to burn coal to get power into places without it, then let them.
Face it, as-is there is no real solutions on the table in developing countries other than off-setting carbon emmissions by planting some trees. Nothing really helpful will come out of these meetings until research gets the full backing by first world countries who have the resources.