Son of Kyoto: Copenhagen ll

Ghislaine wrote:

George Victor wrote:

 

With the world teetering on the edge of accepting the scientific evidence for the need for changes in lifestyle to come to terms with climate change caused by their lifestyle, are we at the point of being able to demand a reatreat to the hermitage? You are on the leading edge of something, Ghislaine. Not sure what.

 

That is why I changed my lifestyle. Why do these so-called "champions of change" not believe the evidence enough to change their lifestyles?? Who is demanding a retreat? Certainly not me. As well, how are globetrotting rich-people who say one thing and do another supposed to convince the unenlightened to change their lifestyles?

[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6736517...

Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges [/url]

Here's a visual of some of those factoids:

I think Canada should apply for developing country status. We don't make anything except for CO2.

am trying to find the actual text of what Tuvalu proposed, there are lots of second-hand reports, stating items eg. Tuvalu, an island being drowned in rising sea levels from global warming, wants the actual cap to focus on a temperature limit of 2.7 degrees rather than 2.0, and wants a new protocol in addition to Kyoto- which is insufficient. 

The only item i could find was this, which happily named 'Non Market Mechanisms".

http://landbunadur.is/landbunadur/wgrala.nsf/Attachment/LandUse_Ian_Fry/$file/LandUse_Ian_Fry.pdf

if anyone can find, or copy texts on what Tuvalu or others are specifically proposing, it would be more helpful than a zillion articles and blogs on the different opinions of a zillion pundits.

thanks.

Good for Soros to give the finger to Canada the USA, the UK, Germany, etc for trying to rip off the poorer nations. Finally someone telling it like it is.

Soros: Finance gap could 'wreck' climate talks

Mr. Soros said the $10-billion-a-year short-term plan is "more than nothing, but not much, it's not sufficient."

He suggested climate financing be boosted with some $100-billion in Special Drawing Rights, the artificial "currency" of the International Monetary Fund, formulated as a basket of major currency values and held in reserve for lending in financial emergencies.

In response to the recent global financial crisis, the IMF created more than $200-billion in new Special Drawing Rights. But Mr. Soros noted that the Obama administration had difficulty getting U.S. approval for that through the U.S. Congress.

He had found "quite widespread support" from other governments, but "other countries are reluctant to do something that is uncomfortable for the United States," Mr. Soros said.

On Wednesday, the U.S. and China exchanged barbs at the Copenhagen climate talks, underscoring the abiding suspicion between the world's two largest carbon polluters about the sincerity of their pledges to control emissions.

U.S. chief negotiator Todd Stern urged China - now the world's biggest polluter - to "stand behind" its promise to slow the growth of the country's carbon output and make the declaration part of the Copenhagen agreement.

China rejected that demand, and renewed its criticism of the U.S. for failing to meet its 17-year-old commitment to provide financial aid to developing countries and to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases warming the Earth.

"What they should do is some deep soul-searching," said Yu Qingtai, China's chief climate negotiator.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/soros-finance-gap-could-wreck-...

Real world politics at Copenhagen

http://www.straight.com/article-274198/vancouver/gwynne-dyer-real-world-...

 http://medias.lemonde.fr//mmpub/edt/doc/20091210/1278666_2b8e_thebeijing...

apparently says, according to today's article "Duel of Drafts" http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2926

'reductions should be made "mainly through domestic measures" and not through the purchase of so-called "offsets" outside their borders in developing countries.'

I haven't read this draft, prepared by China, Brazil, India, South Africa in November.

It sounds better than the leaked Danish draft, if it in fact does steer away from market-based offset purchases.

But it's difficult to compare this draft when there is still no sign online of the Tuvalu option in writing (and neither at guardian.)

---

I am now looking at the linked draft at the top of this post, written by South Africa, Brazil, India and China in November, and there are some very good words on page three. 

a) "Both the implementation of actions and the provision of technology, financing, and capacity building support shall be subject to measurement, reporting and verification in accordance with relevant rules and procedures established by the Conference of Parties."

note to self- those 'relevant rules and procedures' will be very important to see.

b) "The implementation of these actions will be subject to auditing, supervision and assessment respectively conducted by developing countries themselves in accordance with their national rules and procedures, taking into account any guidelines the COP may elaborate and the result shall be made publicly availably for full transparency."

note to self- only 'the result' made available for scrutiny? 

c) "Emission reductions generated from mitigation actions referred to in subparagraph five(a) above shall not be used to offset quantified emission reduction targets undertaken by Annex 1 Parties [ie. rich countries] to the Convention." 

There are other words in this draft, eg. on the need to eliminate barriers to goods and services from developing countries.

On financing, "The Global Climate Fund shall consist of specialized funds or funding windows for mitigation, adaptation, technology transfer and capacity building."  "The Fund shall be governed by an Executive Board of equitable representation from the Parties and follow the principles of openess, transparency, easy access and effectiveness".  "The reformed Global Environment Facility shall be designated as the operating entity of the Fund allowing multilateral development banks a supplementary role to play."

The draft goes on to specify participation in the ongoing Working Group, to continue 'without delay', for june '10 reporting and that a non-Annex 1 rep rotate as chair/vice-chair along with an Annex 1 rep.

Then there are Amendments to Annex B including a chart quantifying emission limitations or reductions commitments of various countries.

nb. the four authoring countries of this draft are noticeably absent from this chart.

Definitely the Get-Rid-of-Offsets piece should be adopted from this draft, and the auditing-of-implementation piece, so any monies don't disappear into the electronic financial abyss.

A question remains though, if implementing countries use private sector financiers or infrastructure corporations or insurers in partnership in their projects, at present these corporations operate globally, will these private sector partners allow their financial books to be examined?  Currently under existing 'free trade' rules along with privacy provisions, the private sector can hide money.

This draft says it will "appropriately address issues of intellectual property right" in relation to removing barriers to technology transfer, top of page five.  It's not clear exactly what the draft means- if 'appropriately addressing' means going along with existing WTO and other provisions that allow global profiteers to play around with much of their money, then no thanks.

If on the other hand this draft is proposing substantial change and actual financial auditing of implementing financiers and infrastructure corporations, then it represents a good step.

Other elements need to be considered, and taken or fixed, eg, on who should be included in the chart, making sure the emission reduction targets reflect what is necessary, and, if int'l development banks are involved, even 'supplementally', are they going to enforce their bad old conditions- including more 'free trade' finance?

still wondering what the Tuvalu people said too, exactly.

[url=http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16477]Is There Any Margin for Hypocrisy and Deceit?[/url]

Quote:

At a time when there is a unanimous demand on the part of scientific circles to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by no less than 30 per cent of the levels attained in 1990, the United States is only offering to reduce 17 per cent of what it emitted in 2005, which hardly accounts for 5 per cent of the minimum that Science demands from all the inhabitants of this planet by the year 2020. The United States consumes twice as much per inhabitant than Europe, and its emissions exceed those of China, despite its 1.338 billion inhabitants. An inhabitant of the society that consumes the most, emits tens of times more CO2 per capita that a citizen from a poor country of the Third World.

In only thirty more years, the no less than 9 billion human beings that will inhabit the planet will require that the carbon dioxide volumes emitted into the atmosphere be reduced to no less than 80 per cent of the 1990 levels. Such figures are being bitterly understood by an increasing number of leaders of rich countries. But the hierarchy that leads the most powerful and rich country in the planet, the United States, comforts itself by asserting that such predictions are scientific inventions. 

Everybody knows that in Copenhagen, countries will, at best, agree on continuing discussions so that an agreement could be reached among the more than 200 States and institutions that should discuss about the commitments, among them, a very important one: which will be the rich countries that will contribute to the development and energy saving of the poorest countries and how much resources will they give?

Is there any margin for hypocrisy and deceit? Fidel Castro Ruz

I read the guardian today, and the linked newest Copenhagen draft.

An article at the guardian said Brown and Sarkozy proposed a Tobin Tax (on speculative finance) to pay for efforts of developing countries to move to clean energy.  That sounds nice, but the UK/French leaders linked their proposal to also 'auctioning off' developed countries emissions.  That's another word for carbon market, turning the climate crisis into a financial boondoggle.

The latest UN draft [http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/11/copenhagen-draft-text] was good in that on page three,  developed countries were to solve their emissions domestically. But then at point thirty they allow mitigation "including opportunities to use markets".  not good.

Rabble has an article from the Indigenous Environmental Network [http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/joshua-kahn-russell/2009/12/indigeno... on a call for a moratorium on new fossil fuel and nuke exploration and development, and no carbon market.  Bingo.

Another rabble article by the Youth delegation [http://www.rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/josee-madeia/2009/12/cop15-day-5-foc... noted Naomi Klein's comment that it was the Least Developed Nations who were being placed in the role at Copenhagen of being the ones responsible to mitigate the climate mess, through financing.

This perspective reminded me of negotiations a few years ago around water laws.  There was tremendous hype, papers being written, conferences held, and the core sticklers that could not be touched were clauses related to trade.  It seemed as though the entire process was manufactured to force NGOs to the negotiating table, so they could get trapped into signing compromise deals that, in the context of other trade legislation, in fact provided loopholes that allowed water to be diverted south.

Some NGOs get funding to 'work on' legislation, to 'improve' it.  But in the give and take which happens at tables, compromise is inevitable.  So all the profiteers have to do is hold out on their one or two key mechanism clauses, and they win.  Meanwhile everyone gets in a tizzy over all the other elements in a draft text.

The bottom line at Copenhagen is to make sure any clauses referring to 'market', 'auction', 'offsets', likely even 'financing' don't get in to the final text, because these elements will trigger existing trade deals.

The last item, on financing, represents a real problem because there are developing country and developed country delegates, and NGOs, who very much want a deal that deals with money.

Ideally of course everyone at Copenhagen would be fighting just as hard to get rid of the WTO and existing trade deals.  But since the first FTA and NAFTA that has not been the case.  Environmental groups split on whether to eg. support NAFTA and get an environmental side agreement, or fight NAFTA in its entirety.  Because of the split we got NAFTA and a side agreement, which in hindsight has been worse than useless for the environment.

So now we are at another similar point.  Do we go with a Copenhagen deal that includes trade language, or do we fight that kind of deal.

The Indigenous Environmental Network statement included a call for 'just transition' to clean energy and jobs, but I'm not sure if this means public financing.  If financing is from a public source and goes to a public recipient and public infrastructure implementor, without intervening private players, then we have a chance of avoiding the trade deals and of getting real transparency.  Meera's article at rabble on public water systems in Uruguay reminded me of this element.

It is heartening to see that Indigenous and Youth delegations in Copenhagen, and many others, are clear on what needs to happen.

what is going on today in financial markets isn't primarily growth of physical constructs, it's growth of electronic 0's and 1's.

there is a disconnect.

those 0's and 1's still have power to do all kinds of things, and in some ways are reducing the growth of physical industrialization, in this country anyway.  those who have control of the 0's and 1's could, if they wanted, spend it all on art, music, the problem is at the point of intersection, when the whimsical control of 0's and 1's pushes the growth of some sectors in a way that removes basic rights and resources for life, from others.

It's the control of the financial 0's and 1's that is the central problem.

Another excellent article by Johann Hari: [URL=http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-har... of the rich world are enacting a giant fraud[/URL].

It is appalling that these folks treat these negotiations like a typical trade talk, as if they are negotiating tariffs on bananas. What do the politicians and bureaucrats expect us to do? Throw stones? Smash windows?

Bubbles of the Future?

Carbon sequestration is a promising potential way to reduce climate change, but many environmentalists aren't supporting it.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/224385

Fidel wrote:

[url=http://www.thestar.com/news/sciencetech/environment/copenhagensummit/art... Martin says blame the Americans[/url]

 

Apparently if it wasn't for the Liberals selling the environment to Exxon-Imperial and other transnationals, then the Liberals might have been able to honour Kyoto obligations to the rest of the world that the Liberals agreed to.

I read this earlier today and it really caught my imagination. I mean, let's examine what Martin said:

Quote:

The United States should shoulder some of the "burden" for Canadian greenhouse gas emissions as the chief recipient of energy from Alberta's oilsands, former prime minister Paul Martin says.

I thought, holy shit! Between Martin and Naomi Klein we have a total solution. She argues for the concept of a climate debt: 

The case for climate debt begins like most discussions of climate change: with the science. Before the Industrial Revolution, the density of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere-the key cause of global warming-was about 280 parts per million. Today, it has reached 387 ppm-far above safe limits-and it's still rising. Developed countries, which represent less than 20 percent of the world's population, have emitted almost 75 percent of all greenhouse-gas pollution that is now destabilizing the climate. (The U.S. alone, which comprises barely five percent of the global population, contributes 25 percent of all carbon emissions.) And while developing countries like China and India have also begun to spew large amounts of carbon dioxide, the reasoning goes, they are not equally responsible for the cost of the cleanup, because they have contributed only a small fraction of the 200 years of cumulative pollution that has caused the crisis.

So Klein argues we, the West, are responsible for the carbon already in the atmosphere as we put it there. Now a person of no less import than former PM Paul Martin argues, indirectly, we, the West, are responsible for the lion's share of all new and existing carbon being generated as we, the West, are the chiel recipient of the minerals, processing, goods, and agriculture being extracted, produced, and grown in the global economy.

Dig deep. It's time to pay our fair share.

I imagine we'll pay with what's left of our social programs after Paul Martin and Shawinigan strangler gutted them. We always pay, and the banks and foreign creditors know that we'll pay. They know that Canadians and Americans aren't going anywhere. We're good for it. We'll pay to prop-up "capitalism" like we've paid to prop-up state-financial capitalism using socialist methods. Big time.

Its interesting that the "tarsands" of western Canada are the left's premier erogenous zone while they babble about 'equality' for others.

No mention of global heavy oil standards that include other heavy oil extraction sites such as Venezuela or California, just an emotion-driven rant against western Canada.

Love it!

Whoever did this should get the Order of Canada.

Environment Canada hit by 'damn clever'
climate stunt

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/bureau-blog/environment-canada-hit-...

Who cares?

The whole thing is a charade anyways.

Maybe Copenhagen should fail

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/12/11/f-vp-jackson.html

[url=http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=845#more-845]Copenhagen: People vs. Polluters[/url]

[quote]Thus, the best that can be hoped for in Copenhagen is a partial, piecemeal plan that's implemented only when it's far too late to avoid climate catastrophe. Which is why James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University and one of the world's leading climate scientists, has said that the collapse of the talks as the best possible outcome.

It's impossible for even supposedly environmentally conscious governments to develop and implement a real plan. To do so would require acknowledgement of the deep systemic problems that go to the very root of the entire social system-and a reorientation of social priorities toward workers, peasants and farmers and the earth we depend on.

That's why it's not viable to win ecological or climate justice without social justice. The inequality and exploitation that lies at the heart of capitalism ravages humans and the planet in the interests of a tiny minority hell-bent on reshaping the planet in the service of profit. To be a climate justice activist therefore necessarily makes you a social justice activist in equal measure.

In any case, the negotiations in Copenhagen are already in danger of collapsing under the weight of their own contradictions. The hope is that protesters outside the meeting rooms can help drag the whole mess down-so we can start focusing on real solutions instead.

The Tar Sands ... are Canada's MORDOR.

It's about time we made the dirty dozen list.

The world's 12 largest GHG emitters

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/12/14/f-climate-dirty-dozen.html

Jobs will always have a higher priority than the environment.

Tories may be close to mood of populace on climate change

'Environment Canada' prank e-mail kept focus on Canada as a climate-change laggard, but country is recovering from recession and deficits

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Tories+close+mood+populace+climat...

350

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/dec/15/bill-mckibben

hsfreethinkers wrote:

There's no excuse for the tar sands fiasco. The stuff should have been, and should be, left in the ground. Sorry that makes Alberta poorer. Tough $@"%. Alberta better be paying to clean up the mess they are making. I bet the environmental cleanup costs are higher than the corporate profits. All in all, the tar sands are a big waste of time.

More rhetoric from an uninformed emotion-driven sheep. This sort of drivel is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Targeting one industrial site out of thousands is easily seen for the factless manipulation it is by the majority of Canadians.

'Activists' are much more concerned with using climate change for political and ideological grandstanding than they are with creating solution in a collaborative effort.

Several technological strategies are in the process of making bitumen extraction less energy intensive and less intrusive than open pit mining.

Irrational Alberta bashing ignores that east coast expatriate workers and Ontario manufacturing are major beneficiaries of oilsands extraction while the public weal is greatly enhanced by tax revenue streams.