Former Vice-President Al Gore
accepts Nobel Peace Prize - sometimes thought to
be "tilting at windmills" (shown above);
BRITISH
STUDY; Climate change
on the move - in all directions (itself, policy and
others we haven't
considered yet). Protesting
polar
bear (l.) and one family (r.)
not yet "polarized" by global warming!
ALL AROUND THE WORLD: I-BBC on Climate Change - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/6528979.stm
Wading Into New
York City’s Future
NYTIMES GREEN BLOG
By MIREYA NAVARRO
August 26, 2011, 6:06 pm
Better get used to it. More frequent and intense storms are what
studies and New York City’s own panel on climate change have predicted
for the city as average temperatures and sea levels rise over the next
decades.
By midcentury, city officials say, New York City’s average temperature
is projected to increase three to five degrees Fahrenheit and sea
levels are expected to rise by more than two feet. By the end of the
century, they say, New York City may feel more like North Carolina.
Hurricane Irene is a reminder of the city’s vulnerabilities, but some
environmental groups say the good news is that the city is taking steps
to prepare.
“We consider New York City to be one of the leaders nationally,” said
Ben Chou, a water policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense
Council in Washington. “They are already looking at how climate change
is going to impact the city.”
The N.R.D.C. this month released a report summarizing water-related
threats to a dozen cities around the country. Most face increased
flooding and problems like shoreline erosion and saltwater intrusion
into sources of drinking water. The report recommends that cities
undertake full assessments of the risks now so they can start
protecting their water resources and taking other necessary measures to
prepare.
New York City has already convened a panel on climate change and an
adaptation task force. It has also begun investing in environmental
techniques to capture and retain storm water and is moving critical
equipment in city buildings to higher elevations— like pump motors and
circuit breakers at the Rockaway Wastewater Treatment Plant in Queens.
--------------
August 26, 2011, 2:35 pm
Climate Change and the Texas Drought |
Scientists are always reluctant to pin any single weather event on
climate change, and the Texas drought is no exception. They point to La
Niña, an intermittent Pacific Ocean phenomenon that affects
storms, as the immediate cause, our colleague Kate Galbraith of the
Texas Tribune reports.
“We can’t say with certainty whether this particular drought is in and
of itself a product of climate change,” said David Brown, a regional
official with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
However, Dr. Brown added, these kinds of droughts will have effects
that are “even more extreme” in the future, given a warming and drying
regional climate.
China has been coping with power shortages
since
March, because of coal supply problems and drought
Shanghai to ration electricity due to power shortage
By
Chris Hogg BBC News, Shanghai
20 June 2011 Last updated at 01:58 ET
Offices and shopping malls in the Chinese city of Shanghai will be
urged to close their doors on the hottest days of the year this
summer. The power rationing is necessary due to the country's
shortage
of electricity.
The electricity grid serving China's financial hub does not have the
capacity to meet peak demand the authorities say. China has been
coping with power shortages since March, because of coal supply
problems and a drought. When the mercury in the thermometer hits
37C
(98.5F) - not that unusual in summer here in Shanghai - power rationing
will get under way.
Some 24,000 businesses - mainly factories and other industrial plants -
will face mandatory power cuts.
But this year, in what the Chinese newspapers are describing as an
unprecedented move, 3,000 non-industrial businesses - mainly shopping
malls and office blocks - will be asked to close their doors too.
When
power is running out, households are the priority for the authorities
here. The shops and offices will not be forced to close but they
will
be encouraged to do so.
So far the reaction from those likely to be affected has not been that
positive. The problem is that coal prices surged earlier in the
year,
making generating electricity less profitable. About 80% of
the power
produced for the electricity grid in China comes from coal-fired power
stations. A drought here has also cut the amount of power
available
from hydro-electric facilities as water levels in reservoirs have
fallen.
The heavy rain of recent days that has caused severe flooding in some
parts of the country is reported to have restored water levels at some
of those plants, easing the situation somewhat but not solving the
problem.
It is thought likely there will be power shortages in at least 10
provinces as demand surges on the hottest days this summer.
Tweaking the climate to save it: Who
decides?
YAHOO
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
Sun Apr 3, 8:21 am ET
CHICHELEY, England – To the quiet green solitude of an English country
estate they retreated, to think the unthinkable.
Scientists of earth, sea and sky, scholars of law, politics and
philosophy: In three intense days cloistered behind Chicheley Hall's
old brick walls, four dozen thinkers pondered the planet's fate as it
grows warmer, weighed the idea of reflecting the sun to cool the
atmosphere and debated the question of who would make the decision to
interfere with nature to try to save the planet. The unknown
risks of "geoengineering" — in this case, tweaking Earth's climate by
dimming the skies — left many uneasy.
"If we could experiment with the atmosphere and literally play God,
it's very tempting to a scientist," said Kenyan earth scientist Richard
Odingo. "But I worry."
Arrayed against that worry is the worry that global warming — in 20
years? 50 years? — may abruptly upend the world we know, by melting
much of Greenland into the sea, by shifting India's life-giving
monsoon, by killing off marine life. If climate engineering
research isn't done now, climatologists say, the
world will face grim choices in an emergency. "If we don't understand
the implications and we reach a crisis point and deploy geoengineering
with only a modicum of information, we really will be playing Russian
roulette," said Steven Hamburg, a U.S. Environmental Defense Fund
scientist.
The question's urgency has grown as nations have failed, in years of
talks, to agree on a binding long-term deal to rein in their carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the
U.N.-sponsored science network, foresees temperatures rising as much as
6.4 degrees Celsius (11.5 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, swelling the
seas and disrupting the climate patterns that nurtured human
civilization.
Science committees of the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress
urged their governments last year to look at immediately undertaking
climate engineering research — to have a "Plan B" ready, as the British
panel put it, in case the diplomatic logjam persists.
Britain's national science academy, the Royal Society, subsequently
organized the Chicheley Hall conference with Hamburg's EDF and the
association of developing-world science academies. From six continents,
they invited a blue-ribbon cross-section of atmospheric physicists,
oceanographers, geochemists, environmentalists, international lawyers,
psychologists, policy experts and others, to discuss how the world
should oversee such unprecedented — and unsettling — research.
An Associated Press reporter was invited to sit in on their
discussions, generally off the record, as they met in large and small
groups in plush wood-paneled rooms, in conference halls, or outdoors
among the manicured trees and formal gardens of this 300-year-old Royal
Society property 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of London, a
secluded spot where Britain's Special Operations Executive trained for
secret missions in World War II.
Provoking and parrying each other over questions never before raised in
human history, the conferees were sensitive to how the outside world
might react.
"There's the `slippery slope' view that as soon as you start to do this
research, you say it's OK to think about things you shouldn't be
thinking about," said Steve Rayner, co-director of Oxford University's
geoengineering program. Many geoengineering techniques they have
thought about look either impractical or ineffective.
Painting rooftops white to reflect the sun's heat is a feeble gesture.
Blanketing deserts with a reflective material is logistically
challenging and a likely environmental threat. Launching giant mirrors
into space orbit is exorbitantly expensive. On the other hand,
fertilizing the ocean with iron to grow CO2-eating
plankton has shown some workability, and Massachusetts' prestigious
Woods Hole research center is planning the biggest such experiment.
Marine clouds are another route: Scientists at the U.S. National Center
for Atmospheric Research in Colorado are designing a test of
brightening ocean clouds with sea-salt particles to reflect the sun.
Those techniques are necessarily limited in scale, however, and unable
to alter planet-wide warming. Only one idea has emerged with that
potential.
"By most accounts, the leading contender is stratospheric aerosol
particles," said climatologist John Shepherd of Britain's Southampton
University.
The particles would be sun-reflecting sulfates spewed into the lower
stratosphere from aircraft, balloons or other devices — much like the
sulfur dioxide emitted by the eruption of the Philippines' Mount
Pinatubo in 1991, estimated to have cooled the world by 0.5 degrees C
(0.9 degrees F) for a year or so.
Engineers from the University of Bristol, England, plan to test the
feasibility of feeding sulfates into the atmosphere via a
kilometers-long (miles-long) hose attached to a tethered balloon.
Shepherd and others stressed that any sun-blocking "SRM" technique —
for solar radiation management — would have to be accompanied by sharp
reductions in carbon dioxide emissions on the ground and some form of
carbon dioxide removal, preferably via a chemical-mechanical process
not yet perfected, to suck the gas out of the air and neutralize it.
Otherwise, they point out, the stratospheric sulfate layer would have
to be built up indefinitely, to counter the growing greenhouse effect
of accumulating carbon dioxide. And if that SRM operation shut down for
any reason, temperatures on Earth would shoot upward. The
technique has other downsides: The sulfates would likely damage the
ozone layer shielding Earth from damaging ultraviolet rays; they don't
stop atmospheric carbon dioxide from acidifying the oceans; and sudden
cooling of the Earth would itself alter climate patterns in unknown
ways.
"These scenarios create winners and losers," said Shepherd, lead author
of a pivotal 2009 Royal Society study of geoengineering. "Who is going
to decide?"
Many here worried that someone, some group, some government would
decide on its own to conduct large-scale atmospheric experiments,
raising global concerns — and resentment if it's the U.S. that acts,
since it has done the least among industrial nations to cut greenhouse
emissions. They fear some in America might push for going straight to
"Plan B," rather than doing the hard work of emissions
reductions. In addition, "one of the challenges is identifying
intentions, one of
which could be offensive military use," said Indian development
specialist Arunabha Ghosh.
Experts point out, for example, that cloud experimentation or localized
solar "dimming" could — intentionally or unintentionally — cause
droughts or floods in neighboring areas, arousing suspicions and
international disputes.
"In some plausible but unfortunate future you could have shooting wars
between your country and mine over proposals on what to do on climate
change,' said the University of Michigan's Ted Parson, an environmental
policy expert.
The conferees worried, too, that a "geoengineering industrial complex"
might emerge, pushing to profit from deployment of its technology. And
Australian economist-ethicist Clive Hamilton saw other go-it-alone
threats — "cowboys" and "scientific heroes."
"I'm queasy about some billionaire with a messiah complex having a
major role in geoengineering research," Hamilton said.
All discussions led to the central theme of how to oversee
research. Many environmentalists categorically oppose intentional
fiddling with
Earth's atmosphere, or at least insist that such important decisions
rest in the hands of the U.N., since every nation on Earth has a stake
in the skies above.
But at the meeting in March, Chicheley Hall experts largely assumed
that a coalition of scientifically capable nations, led by the U.S. and
Britain, would arise to organize "sunshade" or other engineering
research, perhaps inviting China, India, Brazil and others to join in a
G20-style "club" of major powers.
Then, the conferees said, an independent panel of experts would have to
be formed to review the risks of proposed experiments, and give
go-aheads — for research, not deployment, which would be a step
awaiting fateful debates down the road. Like Isaac Newton and
Charles Darwin, John Shepherd is a fellow of the
venerable Royal Society, but one facing a world those scientific
pioneers could not have imagined.
"I am not enthusiastic about these ideas," Shepherd told his Chicheley
Hall colleagues. But like many here he felt the world has no choice but
to investigate. "You would have a risk-risk calculation to make."
Some are also making a political calculation. If research shows
the stratospheric pollutants would reverse global
warming, unhappy people "would realize the alternative to reducing
emissions is blocking out the sun," Hamilton observed. "We might never
see blue sky again."
If, on the other hand, the results are negative, or the risks too high,
and global warming's impact becomes increasingly obvious, people will
see "you have no Plan B," said EDF's Hamburg — no alternative to
slashing use of fossil fuels. Either way, popular support should
grow for cutting emissions. At least that's the hope. But hope
wasn't the order of the day in
Chicheley Hall as Shepherd wrapped up his briefing and a troubled
Odingo silenced the room.
"We have a lot of thinking to do," the Kenyan told the others. "I don't
know how many of us can sleep well tonight."
THREATS TO WATER SUPPLY:
DEVELOPMENT=ENGINEERED SOLUTIONS
Without engineering (left) and with engineered water supply protections
(right). Sub-Sahara Africa is different from the rest of the world -
its water issues worsen with engineering. Original 1959 study of
NYC water supply system - from the American Geographical Society - click here.
From "About Town" files - water
supply in NYC as we know it.
Water map shows billions at risk of
'water insecurity'
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
29 September 2010 Last updated at 13:01 ET
About 80% of the world's population lives in areas where the fresh
water supply is not secure, according to a new global analysis.
Researchers compiled a composite index of "water threats" that includes
issues such as scarcity and pollution. The most severe threat
category encompasses 3.4 billion people.
Writing in the journal Nature, they say that in western countries,
conserving water for people through reservoirs and dams works for
people, but not nature. They urge developing countries not to
follow the same path. Instead, they say governments should to
invest in water management strategies that combine infrastructure with
"natural" options such as safeguarding watersheds, wetlands and flood
plains.
The analysis is a global snapshot, and the research team suggests more
people are likely to encounter more severe stress on their water supply
in the coming decades, as the climate changes and the human population
continues to grow. They have taken data on a variety of different
threats, used models of threats where data is scarce, and used expert
assessment to combine the various individual threats into a composite
index.
The result is a map that plots the composite threat to human water
security and to biodiversity in squares 50km by 50km (30 miles by 30
miles) across the world.
Changing pictures
"What we've done is to take a very dispassionate look at the facts on
the ground - what is going on with respect to humanity's water security
and what the infrastructure that's been thrown at this problem does to
the natural world," said study leader Charles Vorosmarty from the City
College of New York.
"What we're able to outline is a planet-wide pattern of threat, despite
the trillions of dollars worth of engineering palliatives that have
totally reconfigured the threat landscape."
Those "trillions of dollars" are represented by the dams, canals,
aqueducts, and pipelines that have been used throughout the developed
world to safeguard drinking water supplies. Their impact on the
global picture is striking.
Looking at the "raw threats" to people's water security - the "natural"
picture - much of western Europe and North America appears to be under
high stress. However, when the impact of the infrastructure that
distributes and conserves water is added in - the "managed" picture -
most of the serious threat disappears from these regions.
Africa, however, moves in the opposite direction.
"The problem is, we know that a large proportion of the world's
population cannot afford these investments," said Peter McIntyre from
the University of Wisconsin, another of the researchers involved.
"In fact we show them benefiting less than a billion people, so we're
already excluding a large majority of the world's population," he told
BBC News.
"But even in rich parts of the world, it's not a sensible way to
proceed. We could continue to build more dams and exploit deeper and
deeper aquifers; but even if you can afford it, it's not a
cost-effective way of doing things."
According to this analysis, and others, the way water has been managed
in the west has left a significant legacy of issues for nature.
Whereas Western Europe and the US emerge from this analysis with good
scores on water stress facing their citizens, wildlife there that
depends on water is much less secure, it concludes.
Concrete realities
One concept advocated by development organisations nowadays is
integrated water management, where the needs of all users are taken
into account and where natural features are integrated with human
engineering. One widely-cited example concerns the watersheds
that supply New York, in the Catskill Mountains and elsewhere around
the city. Water from these areas historically needed no filtering.
That threatened to change in the 1990s, due to agricultural pollution
and other issues. The city invested in a programme of land
protection and conservation; this has maintained quality, and is
calculated to have been cheaper than the alternative of building
treatment works.
Mark Smith, head of the water programme at the International Union for
the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) who was not involved in the current
study, said this sort of approach was beginning to take hold in the
developing world, though "the concrete and steel model remains the
default".
"One example is the Barotse Floodplain in Zambia, where there was a
proposal for draining the wetland and developing an irrigation scheme
to replace the wetlands," he related.
"Some analysis was then done that showed the economic benefits of the
irrigation scheme would have been less than the benefits currently
delivered by the wetland in terms of fisheries, agriculture around the
flood plain, water supply, water quality and so on.
"So it's not a question of saying 'No we don't need any concrete
infrastructure' - what we need are portfolios of built infrastructure
and natural environment that can address the needs of development, and
the ecosystem needs of people and biodiversity."
Dollars short
This analysis is likely to come in for some scrutiny, not least because
it does contain an element of subjectivity in terms of how the various
threats to water security are weighted and combined.
Dam in Zambia Developing countries are urged to think carefully about
"concrete and steel" solutions
Nevertheless, Mark Smith hailed it as a "potentially powerful
synthesis" of existing knowledge; while Gary Jones, chief executive of
the eWater Co-operative Research Centre in Canberra, commented: "It's a
very important and timely global analysis of the joint threats of
declining water security for humans and biodiversity loss for rivers.
"This study, for the first time, brings all our knowledge together
under one global model of water security and aquatic biodiversity loss."
For the team itself, it is a first attempt - a "placeholder", or
baseline - and they anticipate improvements as more accurate data
emerges, not least from regions such as Africa that are traditionally
data-scarce. Already, they say, it provides a powerful indicator
that governments and international institutions need to take water
issues more seriously. For developed countries and the Bric group
- Brazil, Russia, India and China - alone, "$800bn per year will be
required by 2015 to cover investments in water infrastructure, a target
likely to go unmet," they conclude.
For poorer countries, the outlook is considerably more bleak, they say.
"In reality this is a snapshot of the world about five or 10 years ago,
because that's the data that's coming on line now," said Dr McIntyre.
"It's not about the future, but we would argue people should be even
more worried if you start to account for climate change and population
growth.
"Climate change is going to affect the amount of water that comes in as
precipitation; and if you overlay that on an already stressed
population, we're rolling the dice."
U.N. Climate Chief Resigns
NYTIMES
By JOHN M. BRODER
February 19, 2010
WASHINGTON — Yvo de Boer, the stolid Dutch bureaucrat who led the
international climate change negotiations over four tumultuous years,
is resigning his post as of July 1, the United Nations said on Thursday.
In a statement announcing his departure, Mr. de Boer expressed
disappointment that the December climate change conference of nearly
200 nations in Copenhagen had failed to produce an enforceable
agreement to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that climate
scientists say are contributing to the warming of the planet.
He also said that governmental negotiations could provide a framework
for action on climate, but that the solutions must come from the
businesses that produce and consume the fuels that add to global
warming.
“Copenhagen did not provide us with a clear agreement in legal terms,
but the political commitment and sense of direction toward a
low-emissions world are overwhelming,” said Mr. de Boer, whose formal
title is executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change. “This calls for new partnerships with the business
sector, and I now have the chance to help make this happen.”
Mr. de Boer, 55, will join the consulting group KPMG as global adviser
on climate and sustainability and will also work in academia, his
office said.
Those who worked with Mr. de Boer were not completely surprised by his
resignation. He was known to be exhausted and frustrated by the task of
trying to bring together developed and developing nations with widely
divergent interests to address a global problem that he believed
threatened the planet’s health. But the timing was somewhat unexpected.
Mr. de Boer will be leaving his post a few months before nations meet
again under United Nations auspices in Cancún, Mexico, to try to
move toward an enforceable global climate treaty.
The Copenhagen conference left all the parties frustrated, and none
more so than Mr. de Boer, who had traveled incessantly for four years
trying to prod nations to produce a treaty by the end of 2009. In an
interview with The Associated Press in Amsterdam on Thursday, he said
that the high point of his tenure was the agreement in Bali at the end
of 2007 under which nations agreed to a December 2009 deadline to
produce a worldwide treaty on global warming.
That treaty was to have been signed at Copenhagen, which produced
instead a much weaker political agreement after nearly two weeks of
bitter and largely fruitless argument.
Mr. de Boer highlighted the concrete achievements of the Copenhagen
meeting, a statement by the parties that global temperatures should
rise no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and
pledges by nearly 100 nations to take steps to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by 2020.
“Countries responsible for 80 percent of energy-related CO2 emissions
have submitted national plans and targets to address the climate
change,” he said. “This underlines their commitment to meet the
challenge of climate change and work toward an agreed outcome in
Cancun.”
Before joining the United Nations climate secretariat, Mr. de Boer was
deputy director general of the Dutch environment ministry, vice
chairman of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development
and an adviser to the World Bank and the Chinese government.
His successor is expected to be named in the next few months.
Read of Jane Lubchenco - click
here and then again on the photo once you get there!
Allies abandon
U.S. at climate confab
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
John Zaracostas
Originally published 04:45 a.m., September 15, 2009, updated
05:54 a.m., September 15, 2009
GENEVA | Western nations that spent the past several years slamming the
Bush administration for not doing enough to deal with climate change
were conspicuously absent from a recent global climate conference.
The Obama administration sent a large entourage to the third World
Climate Conference in Geneva earlier this month, trumpeting the return
of the United States to the climate change debate.
But representatives from Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and
Australia were nowhere to be found. The European Commission, the
executive arm of the 27-member European Union, also failed to send a
commissioner.
In contrast, the United States sent a 41-member delegation, led by
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco,
with representatives from eight agencies, the White House and Capitol
Hill. They succeeded in fending off last-minute demands for Western
concessions to developing nations, and their diplomatic footwork helped
secure the establishment of a global framework for climate services
that all nations will need if a carbon-reduction agreement is reached
later this year.
But with three months to go before delegates convene in Copenhagen for
a U.N.-sponsored conference to establish a path toward the global
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, diplomats say it is not clear
whether the United States will be able to rally the support of its
allies in the impending showdown with emerging nations such as China
and India. The absence of so many key European nations was
disturbing to European diplomats who did show up. "EU member states are
divided and unsure," said one ambassador, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity.
Another top European envoy suggested that several countries are
unwilling to make any commitments until they see what happens at the
December conference. The negotiations on how to cut greenhouse
gas emissions have been threatened from the start by complex disputes
between industrialized and developing nations over how to cut emissions
without derailing economic growth.
The European Union proposed last week to offer up to $21.8 billion a
year in aid to encourage developing countries to participate in a
climate change agreement. But environmentalists blasted the offer as
woefully inadequate, noting that the burden on the poorest countries
will almost certainly be far higher than that.
A U.N. study has found that developing nations would need to invest
$500 billion to $600 billion annually if they are to continue rapid
economic development while reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and
other greenhouse gases that may contribute to climate change.
Fearing that a global deal is in danger, five European foreign
ministers announced Thursday that they were taking a whirlwind tour of
foreign capitals to raise awareness of the dangers of climate change.
"Time is now short and the need is urgent," British Foreign Minister
David Miliband said at Copenhagen University.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said time is running out to reach an
agreement.
"We need cooperation, not competition," he told reporters at the Geneva
climate conference. "It is important to act on what science tells us."
He said serious issues need to be settled in Copenhagen. Chief among
them is finding a way to provide financial and technological support to
help developing countries slow the growth of their emissions, he said.
"I urge developed countries to act on more ambitious targets," Mr. Ban
said.
The U.N. chief acknowledged that political will for an agreement was
still lacking, but urged world leaders to overcome their differences.
Ms. Lubchenco told delegates in Geneva that President Obama "is
unwavering in his commitment" to get a deal at Copenhagen. But some
Europeans at the conference expressed doubt that the United States
would offer anything substantial to developing nations.
About 2,000 scientists, specialists and high-level policymakers from
more than 150 countries took part in the five-day Geneva conference,
which ended Sept. 4.
A task force was given 12 months to set up a framework that aims "to
strengthen production, availability, delivery and application of
science-based climate prediction and services." Organizers said they
hope to have a climate services plan fully implemented by mid-2011.
Artificial trees could be used in areas where carbon emissions
are high; algae units could be designed into new buildings or
retrofitted to old ones; The captured carbon dioxide could be stored in
empty north sea oil wells
'Artificial trees'
to cut carbon
By Judith Burns
Science and environment reporter,
BBC News
Page last updated at 00:33 GMT, Thursday, 27 August 2009 01:33 UK
Engineers say a forest of 100,000
"artificial trees" could be deployed within 10 to 20 years to help soak
up the world's carbon emissions. The trees are among three
geo-engineering ideas highlighted as practical in a new report.
The
authors from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers say that without
geo-engineering it will be impossible to avoid dangerous climate
change. The report includes a 100-year roadmap to "decarbonise" the
global economy.
No silver bullet
Launching
the report, lead author Dr Tim Fox said geo-engineering should not be
viewed as a "silver bullet" that could combat climate change in
isolation.
He told BBC News it should be used in conjunction
with efforts to reduce carbon emissions and to adapt to the effects of
climate change.
Many climate scientists calculate that the
world has only a few decades to reduce emissions before there is so
much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that a dangerous rise in global
temperature is inevitable. The authors of this report say that
geo-engineering of the type they
propose should be used on a short-term basis to buy the world time, but
in the long term it is vital to reduce emissions.
They define
two types of geo-engineering. Nem Vaughan of University of East Anglia
said: "The first category attempts to cool the planet by reflecting
some of the sunlight away. The problem with this is that it just masks
the problem."
"The other type of geo-engineering is to remove carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere and store it."
Hundreds of options
The
team studied hundreds of different options but have put forward just
three as being practical and feasible using current technology.
A key factor in choosing the three was that they should be
low-carbon technologies rather than adding to the problem. Dr
Fox told BBC News: "Artificial trees are already at the prototype stage
and are very advanced in their design in terms of their automation and
in the components that would be used.
"They could, within a relatively short duration, be moved
forward into mass production and deployment."
The trees would work on the principle of capturing carbon
dioxide from the air through a filter. The
CO2 would then be removed from the filter and stored. The report calls
for the technology to be developed in conjunction with carbon storage
infrastructure.
Dr Fox said the prototype artificial tree was about the same
size as
a shipping container and could remove thousands of times more carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere than an equivalent sized real tree.
Another
of the team's preferred methods of capturing carbon is to install what
they term "algae based photobioreactors" on buildings. These would be
transparent containers containing algae which would remove carbon
dioxide from the air during photosynthesis.
The third option focuses on the reduction of incoming solar
radiation by reflecting sunlight back into space. The report says the
simplest way of doing this is for buildings to have reflective roofs.
The
authors stress that all of these options will require more research and
have called for the UK government to invest 10 million pounds in
analysis of the effectiveness, risks and costs of geo-engineering.
Dr
Fox said: "We very much believe that the practical geo-engineering that
we are proposing should be implemented and could be very much part of
our landscape within the next 10 to 20 years."
Climate
fixes 'pose drought risk'
By Judith Burns
Science reporter, BBC News
Page last updated at 17:03 GMT, Friday, 7 August 2009 18:03 UK
Attempts to control the climate might
change precipitation, say researchers. Giant mirrors reflect
solar radiation back into space
The use of geo-engineering to slow global warming may
increase the risk of drought, according to a paper in Science journal.
Methods put forward include reflecting solar radiation back into space
using giant mirrors or aerosol particles. But the authors warn that
such attempts to control the climate could also cause major changes in
precipitation.
They want the effect on rainfall to be assessed before any
action is taken.
Gabriele
Hegerl of the Grant Institute at University of Edinburgh and Susan
Solomon of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at
Boulder, Colorado, write that "if geo-engineering studies focus too
heavily on warming, critical risks associated with such possible
"cures" will not be evaluated appropriately".
They argue that
climate change is about much more than changes in temperature. So using
temperature alone to monitor the effects of geo-engineering could be
dangerous.
Underestimating effects
They cite the
powerful effects on rainfall of volcanic eruptions which also prevent
solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface, albeit by throwing up
dust rather than reflecting the radiation back into space.
For example in 1991, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo not only
reduced global temperatures but also led to increases in drought. The
pair correlated 20th Century weather records with data for the increase
in greenhouse gases and dates for major volcanic eruptions. This
revealed that greenhouse emissions tend to slightly increase
rainfall in the short term but also showed that reduction in rainfall
in the months following a major volcanic eruption is far more dramatic.
The authors note that current climate models tend to
underestimate the effects on precipitation of both greenhouse gases and
of volcanic eruptions.
The article warns that geo-engineering
of this type, combined with the effects of global warming could produce
reductions in regional rainfall that could rival those of past major
droughts, leading to winners and losers among the human population and
possible conflicts over water.
They conclude: "optimism about a
geo-engineered 'easy way out' should be tempered by examination of
currently observed climate changes."
CLIMATE CHANGE AS A POLITICAL FORCE
DESERTIFICATION: Potable
water a future weapon...flood is its opposite (Katrina)?
Remember this B movie?
Climate Change
Seen as Threat to U.S. Security
NYTIMES
By JOHN M. BRODER
August 9, 2009
WASHINGTON — The changing global climate will pose profound strategic
challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect
of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms,
drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence
analysts say.
Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist
movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at
the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are
taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate
change.
Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next
20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa,
the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of
food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by
climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or
military response.
An exercise last December at the National Defense University, an
educational institute that is overseen by the military, explored the
potential impact of a destructive flood in Bangladesh that sent
hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into neighboring India,
touching off religious conflict, the spread of contagious diseases and
vast damage to infrastructure. “It gets real complicated real quickly,”
said Amanda J. Dory, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for
strategy, who is working with a Pentagon group assigned to incorporate
climate change into national security strategy planning.
Much of the public and political debate on global warming has focused
on finding substitutes for fossil fuels, reducing emissions that
contribute to greenhouse gases and furthering negotiations toward an
international climate treaty — not potential security challenges.
But a growing number of policy makers say that the world’s rising
temperatures, surging seas and melting glaciers are a direct threat to
the national interest.
If the United States does not lead the world in reducing fossil-fuel
consumption and thus emissions of global warming gases, proponents of
this view say, a series of global environmental, social, political and
possibly military crises loom that the nation will urgently have to
address.
This argument could prove a fulcrum for debate in the Senate next month
when it takes up climate and energy legislation passed in June by the
House. Lawmakers leading the debate before Congress are only now
beginning to make the national security argument for approving the
legislation. Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who
is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a leading
advocate for the climate legislation, said he hoped to sway Senate
skeptics by pressing that issue to pass a meaningful bill.
Mr. Kerry said he did not know whether he would succeed but had spoken
with 30 undecided senators on the matter. He did not identify
those senators, but the list of undecided includes many from coal and
manufacturing states and from the South and Southeast, which will face
the sharpest energy price increases from any carbon emissions control
program.
“I’ve been making this argument for a number of years,” Mr. Kerry said,
“but it has not been a focus because a lot of people had not connected
the dots.” He said he had urged President Obama to make the case, too.
Mr. Kerry said the continuing conflict in southern Sudan, which has
killed and displaced tens of thousands of people, is a result of
drought and expansion of deserts in the north. “That is going to be
repeated many times over and on a much larger scale,” he said.
The Department of Defense’s assessment of the security issue came about
after prodding by Congress to include climate issues in its strategic
plans — specifically, in 2008 budget authorizations by Hillary Rodham
Clinton and John W. Warner, then senators. The department’s climate
modeling is based on sophisticated Navy and Air Force weather programs
and other government climate research programs at NASA and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Pentagon and the State Department have studied issues arising from
dependence on foreign sources of energy for years but are only now
considering the effects of global warming in their long-term planning
documents. The Pentagon will include a climate section in the
Quadrennial Defense Review, due in February; the State Department will
address the issue in its new Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development
Review.
“The sense that climate change poses security and geopolitical
challenges is central to the thinking of the State Department and the
climate office,” said Peter Ogden, chief of staff to Todd Stern, the
State Department’s top climate negotiator.
Although military and intelligence planners have been aware of the
challenge posed by climate changes for some years, the Obama
administration has made it a central policy focus.
A changing climate presents a range of challenges for the military.
Many of its critical installations are vulnerable to rising seas and
storm surges. In Florida, Homestead Air Force Base was essentially
destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and Hurricane Ivan badly damaged
Naval Air Station Pensacola in 2004. Military planners are studying
ways to protect the major naval stations in Norfolk, Va., and San Diego
from climate-induced rising seas and severe storms.
Another vulnerable installation is Diego Garcia, an atoll in the Indian
Ocean that serves as a logistics hub for American and British forces in
the Middle East and sits a few feet above sea level.
Arctic melting also presents new problems for the military. The
shrinking of the ice cap, which is proceeding faster than anticipated
only a few years ago, opens a shipping channel that must be defended
and undersea resources that are already the focus of international
competition.
Ms. Dory, who has held senior Pentagon posts since the Clinton
administration, said she had seen a “sea change” in the military’s
thinking about climate change in the past year. “These issues now have
to be included and wrestled with” in drafting national security
strategy, she said.
The National Intelligence Council, which produces government-wide
intelligence analyses, finished the first assessment of the national
security implications of climate change just last year.
It concluded that climate change by itself would have significant
geopolitical impacts around the world and would contribute to a host of
problems, including poverty, environmental degradation and the
weakening of national governments. The assessment warned that the
storms, droughts and food shortages that might result from a warming
planet in coming decades would create numerous relief emergencies.
“The demands of these potential humanitarian responses may
significantly tax U.S. military transportation and support force
structures, resulting in a strained readiness posture and decreased
strategic depth for combat operations,” the report said.
The intelligence community is preparing a series of reports on the
impacts of climate change on individual countries like China and India,
a study of alternative fuels and a look at how major power relations
could be strained by a changing climate.
“We will pay for this one way or another,” Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a
retired Marine and the former head of the Central Command, wrote
recently in a report he prepared as a member of a military advisory
board on energy and climate at CNA, a private group that does research
for the Navy. “We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today,
and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind.
“Or we will pay the price later in military terms,” he warned. “And
that will involve human lives.”
CASE makes it case...
Energy secretary idea pushed
DAY
By Patricia Daddona
Published on 1/23/2009
Hartford - A state energy secretary could help Connecticut and its
agencies develop clear renewable and clean energy plans and policy,
according to a new study released Thursday.
The study, prepared over the past six months by the Connecticut Academy
of Science and Engineering, was presented to legislative committees at
the Legislative Office Building. If embraced, the study could be
implemented through legislation, said Richard H. Strauss, the CASE
executive director.
Link to the
study
Members of the committees on Energy & Technology, Environment,
Government Administration and Elections voiced a mix of skepticism and
support for the proposal, with some decrying the fact that several
previous attempts to focus policy-making in an energy department have
failed, and others voicing suspicion over the possibility of adding
another layer of bureaucracy.
Enabling legislation authorized the study and appointed CASE to conduct
it through the state's Clean Energy Fund on behalf of the Renewable
Energy Investment Board.
Citing a duplication of effort among state agencies and a need for more
focus and clarity, Strauss said that a Connecticut Energy Office headed
up by a secretary of energy could be established within, but
independent of, the state Office of Policy & Management. The
secretary would report directly to the governor, enable “two-way
communication” and serve as what Strauss later suggested would be a
“point man,” something the state is lacking now.
The energy secretary would also serve as a “guide,” with existing
agencies like the state Department of Public Utility Control retaining
independent regulatory authority, he said.
Also leading a new energy office would be a state energy coordinating
council and a state energy stakeholders advisory group.
The Connecticut Energy Advisory Board and the Governor's Steering
Committee on Climate Change would be integrated into the new council,
according to Strauss. As such, the changes would not impose major costs
on the state's budget or impose an extra layer of bureaucracy in state
government, he said.
According to the academy, an energy secretary and office would create a
“new energy leadership structure” that would address comprehensive
policy across all energy sectors, from electricity and heating and
cooling to transportation and climate change.
The academy studied other states' bureaucratic structures and costs and
found that California spends about $400 million on energy issues, and
about half of that on renewable energy. Oregon spends about $65
million, and about $12 million of that on renewable energy.
State Rep. Vickie Nardello, D-Prospect, the chairperson of the energy
committee, thanked the academy for “spurring us on today to get going.”
She also asked the academy to break out the ratepayer costs involved in
instituting a Connecticut Energy Office.
”If you really want to do this,” she said to fellow lawmakers, “we will
find a way.”
“We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to
burn it in ways that destroy the planet...Every bit of
that’s got to change"
Gore Calls for U.S. to Use Renewable Energy
by 2018
NYTIMES
By DAVID STOUT
Published: July 18, 2008
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday that
Americans must abandon fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the
sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of electric
power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature
comforts.
“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at
risk,” Mr. Gore said in a speech to an energy conference here. “The
future of human civilization is at stake.”
Mr. Gore called for the kind of concerted national effort that enabled
Americans to walk on the moon 39 years ago this month, just eight years
after President John F. Kennedy famously embraced that goal. He said
the goal of producing all of the nation’s electricity from “renewable
energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources” within 10 years is not
some farfetched vision, although he said it would require fundamental
changes in political thinking and personal expectations.
“This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative,” Mr. Gore said
in remarks prepared for the conference. “It represents a challenge to
all Americans, in every walk of life — to our political leaders,
entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.”
Although Mr. Gore has made global warming and energy conservation his
signature issues, winning a Nobel Prize for his efforts, his speech on
Thursday argued that the reasons for renouncing fossil fuels go far
beyond concern for the climate. In it, he cited
military-intelligence studies warning of “dangerous national security
implications” tied to climate change, including the possibility of
“hundreds of millions of climate refugees” causing instability around
the world, and said the United States is dangerously vulnerable because
of its reliance on foreign oil.
Doubtless aware that his remarks would be met with skepticism, or even
ridicule, in some quarters, Mr. Gore insisted in his speech that the
goal of carbon-free power is not only achievable but practical, and
that businesses would embrace it once they saw that it made fundamental
economic sense. Mr. Gore said the most important policy change in
the transformation would be taxes on carbon dioxide production, with an
accompanying reduction in payroll taxes. “We should tax what we burn,
not what we earn,” his prepared remarks said.
The former vice president said in his speech that he could not recall a
worse confluence of problems facing the country: higher gasoline
prices, jobs being “outsourced,” the home mortgage industry in turmoil.
“Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan
appears to be getting worse,” he said.
By calling for new political leadership and speaking disdainfully of
“defenders of the status quo,” Mr. Gore was hurling a dart at the man
who defeated him for the presidency in 2000, George W. Bush. Critics of
Mr. Bush say that his policies are too often colored by his background
in the oil business. A crucial shortcoming in the country’s
political leadership is a failure to view interlocking problems as
basically one problem that is “deeply ironic in its simplicity,” Mr.
Gore said, namely “our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels.”
“We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to
burn it in ways that destroy the planet,” Mr. Gore said. “Every bit of
that’s got to change.”
And it can change, he said, citing some scientists’ estimates that
enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth in 40 minutes to
meet the world’s energy needs for a year, and that the winds that blow
across the Midwest every day could meet the country’s daily electricity
needs. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive
Democratic candidate for president, immediately praised Mr. Gore’s
speech. “For decades, Al Gore has challenged the skeptics in Washington
on climate change and awakened the conscience of a nation to the
urgency of this threat,” Mr. Obama said.
A shift away from fossil fuels would make the United States a leader
instead of a sometime rebel on energy and conservation issues
worldwide, Mr. Gore said. Nor, he said, would the hard work of people
who toil on oil rigs and deep in the earth be for naught. “We should
guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner
displaced by impacts on the coal industry,” he said by way of example.
“Every single one of them.”
“Of course, there are those who will tell us that this can’t be done,”
he conceded. “But even those who reap the profits of the carbon age
have to recognize the inevitability of its demise. As one OPEC oil
minister observed, ‘The Stone Age didn’t end because of a shortage of
stones.’ ”
Gore
Calls For Urgent Action On Climate Change
DAY
By Sarah Lyall , New York Times News Service
Published on 12/11/2007
Oslo, Norway — He has said it again and again, with increasing urgency,
to anyone who will listen. And on Monday, former Vice President Al Gore
used the occasion of his 2007 Nobel Peace Prize lecture here to tell
the world in powerful, stark language: Climate change is a “real,
rising, imminent and universal” threat to the future of the Earth.
Saying that “our world is spinning out of kilter” and that “the very
web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed,” Gore warned
that “we, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency — a
threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous
and destructive potential even as we gather here.” But, he added,
“there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this
crisis and avoid the worst — not all — of its consequences, if we act
boldly, decisively and quickly.”
The ceremony marking the 2007 prize, given to Gore and to the U.N.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, comes as representatives of
the world's governments are meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali to
negotiate a new international agreement on reducing greenhouse gas
emissions. The new treaty would replace the Kyoto protocol, which
expires in 2012.
At the ceremony in Oslo's City Hall, Gore called on the negotiators to
establish a universal global cap on emissions and to ratify and enact a
new treaty by the beginning of 2010, two years early. And he singled
out the United States and China — the world's largest emitters of
carbon dioxide — for failing to meet their obligations in mitigating
emissions. They should “stop using each other's behavior as an excuse
for stalemate,” he said.
In his speech, Gore said his loss in the bitter 2000 presidential
election had forced him to “read my own political obituary in a
judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken, if not premature.” But
the “unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift,” he
added — the chance to focus on the environment.
The documentary about Gore's climate-awareness campaign, “An
Inconvenient Truth,” won an Academy Award, but its conclusions were
dismissed as exaggerated and alarmist by his political opponents. He
has repeatedly said that while he has no plans to re-enter politics, he
has not ruled out the possibility.
Firms
find green in being green
CT POST
THOMAS WAGNER Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 08/17/2007 06:45:52 PM EDT
LONDON — Big business fears that the fight against climate change will
cost billions are now giving way to a different view: green can be the
color of money.
The United States, Europe and Japan are locked in a frantic race to
cash in on the exploding business of saving the planet. London has
become the center for the multibillion-dollar market in carbon
emissions, attracting investors who trade CO2 allowances.
Silicon Valley is leading the way in attracting venture capital for
green technologies, which shows signs of mirroring the dot-com boom —
and critics say eventual bust — of the 1990s. And Japan's Toyota has
sold more than a million Prius hybrid models, its cutting-edge
eco-friendly car.
Like all markets, the clean energy industry faces risks.
A sustained fall in the world's steep oil prices could make investment
in alternatives to fossil fuels seem less attractive.
More important, to sustain business' new attraction to clean energy,
governments must maintain, or even step up, efforts to cut carbon
emissions. Toward that end, a major U.N. meeting will be held in Bali,
Indonesia, in December aimed at reaching a new global climate pact to
succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
But for now, the battle against global warming continues to offer
investors an unusual chance to be idealistic and greedy at the same
time.
"Everybody is jumping on the bandwagon," said Milo Sjardin, a senior
associate at New Energy Finance, a research
house in London on the world's clean energy and carbon markets.
The City of London financial district has taken the lead in making
billions from the management of CO2 emissions, one of the
fastest-growing segments in financial services.
The carbon market was created after Europe signed the 1997 Kyoto
agreement on curbing greenhouse gases. In 2005, European governments
started capping the amounts of carbon dioxide industries could emit,
while letting them buy and sell CO2 emission allowances.
The cap-and-trade system encourages factories and industries to cut
emissions by giving them "pollution permits." If they produce less
greenhouse gases than the total of their permits, they can sell the
surplus certificates — also known as credits — to companies that find
them cheaper than cutting their own emissions.
That created the fast-growing carbon markets, where certificates are
bought and sold like a commodity. It also includes investments in
projects that help to generate additional credits.
About $30.4 billion of allowances were traded last year, representing
1.6 billion tons of CO2, double the volume of 2005, said Point Carbon,
a company of market analysts based in Norway.
New Energy Finance estimates $33.8 billion carbon credits will be
needed to meet targets under the Kyoto Accord and the European
Emissions-Trading Scheme by 2012.
Britain has emerged as the clear leader in carbon fund management, with
72 percent of private carbon funds and 50 percent of all carbon funds
being managed out of London, New Energy Finance said.
The United States, which rejected the Kyoto agreement, has never
adopted a federal system of controls for carbon-dioxide emissions,
although California has binding targets to cut CO2 emissions and other
states are expected to follow.
America, however, has emerged as the world leader in developing clean
energy technologies. It involves a wide range of sectors,
including wind, solar, biofuels, biomass (organic material to produce
power and heat), energy efficiency technology, hydrogen and fuel cells,
and tidal power.
"General Electric has been a leader in the campaign to develop new
clean technologies that allows one to save energy and make money at the
same time," said Dr. Andrew Dlugolecki, head of Andlug Consulting, a
strategic consultancy on climate change and the financial sector based
in Perth, Scotland.
He said oil companies, carmakers and power generators are increasing
their investments in renewables and biofuels.
Silicon Valley venture capitalists also are rushing into the business,
hoping to design revolutionary technologies, drive down prices and
defeat energy business giants, said Dlugolecki.
Some entrepreneurs are seeking technological and scientific innovations
to produce alternatives to oil and coal, while others hope to find ways
of using those fuels in cleaner and more efficient ways. Other
investors are pouring money into wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower
as countries such as China and more than 20 states in America require a
certain portion of energy sold to come from renewable sources.
A recent survey of investors found many of them are turning green.
Deloitte Touche's 2006 "Global Venture Capital Survey" in the Americas,
the Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa found that for a
second year in a row respondents selected energy/environment as the
sector most likely to see the highest increase in investment focus.
That also has led to a word of caution for investors.
"There's a lot of money chasing not so many ideas, so the prices are
going up fast, raising some concern that this activity by venture
capitalists and hedge funds could produce the next dot-com bust," said
Dlugolecki.
New Energy Finance, which tracks all investment flows in the clean
energy market, said 1,250 capital and private equity funds were
investing in companies involved in the market in 2006. In that
year, $4 billion in investment originated in the Americas, mostly the
United States, compared to $1.6 billion for Europe, the Middle East and
Africa.
The investment in the clean energy market also doubled from 2005 to
2006 in the Americas, while remaining about the same in Europe, the
Middle East and Africa, New Energy Finance said.
However, when it comes to initial public offerings for clean energy
companies in 2006, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, turned the
tables, producing a total value of $4.8 billion, compared to $2 billion
in the Americas, said New Energy Finance.
One reason is clean energy IPOs appear to favor London because AIM —
the Alternative Investment Market submarket of the London Stock
Exchange — allows smaller companies to float shares with a more
flexible regulatory system than is applicable to the main market and
Wall Street.
B R E A K I N
G N E W S
White House unveils climate change strategy
May 31, 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
The White House unveiled a long-term strategy on climate change on
Thursday, with plans to gather the countries that emit the most
greenhouse gases and to cut tariff barriers to sharing environmental
technology.
Coming a week before a meeting of the world's richest nations in
Germany at which global warming will be a key issue, the U.S. strategy
calls for consensus on long-term goals for reducing the greenhouse
gases that spur global warming, but not before the end of 2008, a
senior White House official said.
The official, speaking before President George W. Bush's official
announcement, denied it was timed to coincide with next week's Group of
Eight meeting. Bush has been under pressure from European allies to
give ground on climate change.
In negotiations before the summit, Washington rejected setting targets
to reduce greenhouse gases, championed by other participants.
"We're announcing now because we're ready," the official said, speaking
on condition of anonymity.
The plan calls for eliminating tariff barriers within six months,
freeing up the distribution of new environmentally friendly technology,
the official said.
The gathering of the biggest greenhouse gas countries -- those that
spew a combined 80 percent of the world's emissions -- should take
place in the United States this fall, the official said.
The meeting will likely include the G8 developed countries,
fast-developing China and India, and Brazil, Australia, South Africa,
Mexico, South Korea and Russia, according to the official.
Page last updated at 22:04
GMT, Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Copenhagen climate summit
undone by 'arrogance'
|
By Richard Black,
Environment correspondent, BBC News
|
Western nations failed to understand how
China works, says Lord Stern
|
The "disappointing" outcome of December's
climate summit was largely down to "arrogance" on the part of rich
countries, according to Lord Stern.
The economist told BBC News that the US and EU nations had
not understood well enough the concerns of poorer nations.
But, he said, the summit had led to a number of countries
outlining what they were prepared to do to curb emissions.
Seventy-three countries have now signed up to the non-binding
Copenhagen Accord, the summit's outcome document.
The weak nature of the document led many to condemn the
summit as a failure; but Lord Stern said that view was mistaken.
"The fact of Copenhagen and the setting of the deadline two
years previously at Bali did concentrate minds, and it did lead... to
quite specific plans from countries that hadn't set them out before,"
he said.
 |
 The reality is different
from half a year ago 
Gro Harlem Brundtland
UN special envoy on climate change
|
"So this process has itself been a key part of countries
stating what their intentions on emissions reductions are - countries
that had not stated them before, including China and the US.
"So that was a product of the UNFCCC (UN climate convention)
process that we should respect."
The former World Bank chief economist and author of the
influential 2006 review into the economics of climate change was
speaking to BBC News following a lecture at the London School of
Economics (LSE), where he now chairs the Grantham Research Institute on
Climate Change and the Environment.
During the lecture, he compared the atmosphere at the
Copenhagen summit to student politics in the 1960s - "chaotic, wearing,
tiring, disappointing" - and said it was one in which countries had
little room for real negotiating.
However, he said, it was vital to stick with the UN process,
whatever its frustrations.
Twin tracks
Having failed to agree a treaty to supplant or supplement the
Kyoto Protocol, and having failed to set a timetable for agreeing such
a treaty, opinions are inevitably split on how countries seeking
stronger curbs on greenhouse gas emissions should move forward.
|
It could have been much
better handled by the rich countries
|
Speaking in Brussels, Gro Harlem Brundtland - the UN's
special envoy on climate change - suggested there would now be a
twin-track approach, with some of the important discussions taking
place outside the UNFCCC umbrella.
She also acknowledged that the talks had proved much more
problematical than some governments - particularly in the EU - had
anticipated.
"They got the message that it was much more complicated than
[they had believed], and that they have to work with Brazil and China
and others, not only in the broad framework of UN negotiations but also
more directly and pragmatically," she said.
"The reality is different from half a year ago."
Lord Stern agreed that what he described as the
"disappointing" outcome of the Copenhagen talks was largely down to
rich nations' failure to understand developing world positions and
concerns.
"[There was] less arrogance than in previous years - we have,
I think, moved beyond the G8 world to the G20 world where more
countries are involved - but [there was] still arrogance and it could
have been much better handled by the rich countries," he said.
The EU limited its room for manoeuvre, he said, because too
many of the leading political figures wanted to demonstrate that they
were leading.
Brass from pockets
The most concrete part of the Copenhagen Accord is an
agreement that richer countries should raise funds to help poorer
nations adapt to climate impacts and "green" their economies.
Lord Stern is a member of the group set up by UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to advise on how to raise $100bn
(£66bn) per year by 2020 using various "innovative mechanisms"
that could include taxes on international aviation and banking
transactions.
But the immediate objective, he suggested, was to enact the
short-term promise of providing $30bn over the period 2010-12 from the
public purses of western nations.
If that money did not start to move fairly quickly, he said,
that would further erode trust among developing countries.
Speaking in Brussels during a meeting with EU leaders,
Mexico's environment secretary Juan Rafael Elvira endorsed the point.
"The developing world needs to see clear signals to have
something in their hands at Cancun," he said.
The Mexican coastal city will host this year's UNFCCC summit.
"The developing countries want to see this money unblocked;
the island nations especially are waiting for this funding," said Mr
Elvira.
How and where these funds are to be disbursed has yet to be
decided.
Mass migrations and war: Dire climate
scenario
DAY
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
Posted on Feb 21, 3:00 PM EST
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) -- If we don't deal with climate change
decisively, "what we're talking about then is extended world war," the
eminent economist said.
His audience Saturday, small and elite, had been stranded here by bad
weather and were talking climate. They couldn't do much about the one,
but the other was squarely in their hands. And so, Lord Nicholas Stern
was telling them, was the potential for mass migrations setting off
mass conflict.
"Somehow we have to explain to people just how worrying that
is," the British economic thinker said.
Stern, author of a major British government report detailing the cost
of climate change, was one of a select group of two dozen - environment
ministers, climate negotiators and experts from 16 nations - scheduled
to fly to Antarctica to learn firsthand how global warming might melt
its ice into the sea, raising ocean levels worldwide.
Their midnight flight was scrubbed on Friday and Saturday because of
high winds on the southernmost continent, 3,000 miles from here. While
waiting at their Cape Town hotel for the gusts to ease down south,
chief sponsor Erik Solheim, Norway's environment minister, improvised
with group exchanges over coffee and wine about the future of the
planet.
"International diplomacy is all about personal relations," Solheim
said. "The more people know each other, the less likely there will be
misunderstandings."
Understandings will be vital in this "year of climate," as the world's
nations and their negotiators count down toward a U.N. climate
conference in Copenhagen in December, target date for concluding a
grand new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol - the 1997 agreement,
expiring in 2012, to reduce carbon dioxide and other global-warming
emissions by industrial nations. Solheim drew together key
players for the planned brief visit to Norway's Troll Research Station
in East Antarctica.
Trying on polar outfits for size on Friday were China's chief climate
negotiator Xie Zhenhua, veteran U.S. climate envoy Dan Reifsnyder, and
environment ministers Hilary Benn of Britain and Carlos Minc Baumfeld
of Brazil. Later, at dinner, the heavyweights heard from smaller
or poorer nations about the trials they face as warming disrupts
climate, turns some regions drier, threatens food production in poor
African nations.
Jose Endundo, environment minister of Congo, said he recently visited
huge Lake Victoria in nearby Uganda, at 80,000 square kilometers
(31,000 square miles) a vital source for the Nile River, and learned
the lake level had dropped 3 meters (10 feet) in the past six years - a
loss blamed in part on warmer temperatures and diminishing rains.
In the face of such threats, "the rich countries have to give us a
helping hand," the African minister said.
But it was Stern, former chief World Bank economist, who on Saturday
laid out a case to his stranded companions in sobering PowerPoint
detail.
If the world's nations act responsibly, Stern said, they will achieve
"zero-carbon" electricity production and zero-carbon road transport by
2050 - by replacing coal power plants with wind, solar or other energy
sources that emit no carbon dioxide, and fossil fuel-burning vehicles
with cars running on electric or other "clean" energy.
Then warming could be contained to a 2-degree-Celsius
(3.4-degree-Fahrenheit) rise this century, he said.
But if negotiators falter, if emissions reductions are not made soon
and deep, the severe climate shifts and sea-level rises projected by
scientists would be "disastrous."
It would "transform where people can live," Stern said. "People would
move on a massive scale. Hundreds of millions, probably billions of
people would have to move if you talk about 4-, 5-, 6-degree increases"
- 7 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. And that would mean extended global
conflict, "because there's no way the world can handle that kind of
population move in the time period in which it would take place."
Melting ice, rising seas, dwindling lakes and war - the stranded
ministers had a lot to consider. But many worried, too, that the
current global economic crisis will keep governments from transforming
carbon-dependent economies just now. For them, Stern offered a vision
of working today on energy-efficient economies that would be more
"sustainable" in the future.
"The unemployed builders of Europe should be insulating all the houses
of Europe," he said.
After he spoke, Norwegian organizers announced that the forecast looked
good for Stern and the rest to fly south on Sunday to further ponder
the future while meeting with scientists in the forbidding vastness of
Antarctica.
STERN
REVIEW: The Economics of Climate Change
Executive Summary
The scientific
evidence is now overwhelming: climate change presents very serious
global risks, and it demands an urgent global response. This
independent Review was commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
reporting to both the Chancellor and to the Prime Minister, as a
contribution to assessing the evidence and building understanding of
the economics of climate change.
The Review first examines the evidence on the economic impacts of
climate change itself, and explores the economics of stabilising
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The second half of the Review
considers the complex policy challenges involved in managing the
transition to a low-carbon economy and in ensuring that
societies can adapt to the consequences of climate change that can no
longer be avoided.
The Review takes an international perspective. Climate change is global
in its causes and consequences, and international collective action
will be critical in driving an effective, efficient and equitable
response on the scale required. This response will require deeper
international co-operation in many areas - most notably in creating
price signals and markets for carbon, spurring technology research,
development and deployment, and promoting adaptation, particularly for
developing countries.
Climate change presents a unique challenge for economics: it is the
greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen. The economic
analysis must therefore be
global, deal with long time horizons, have the economics of risk and
uncertainty at centre stage, and examine the possibility of major,
non-marginal change. To meet
these requirements, the Review draws on ideas and techniques from most
of the important areas of economics, including many recent advances.
The benefits of strong, early action
on climate change outweigh the costs
The effects of our actions now on future changes in the climate
have long lead times. What we do now can have only a limited
effect on the climate over the next 40 or 50
years. On the other hand what we do in the next 10 or 20 years can have
a profound effect on the climate in the second half of this century and
in the next.
No-one can predict the consequences of climate change with complete
certainty; but we now know enough to understand the risks. Mitigation -
taking strong action to
reduce emissions - must be viewed as an investment, a cost incurred now
and in the coming few decades to avoid the risks of very severe
consequences in the future. If
these investments are made wisely, the costs will be manageable, and
there will be a wide range of opportunities for growth and development
along the way. For this to
work well, policy must promote sound market signals, overcome market
failures and have equity and risk mitigation at its core. That
essentially is the conceptual
framework of this Review.
The Review considers the economic costs of the impacts of climate
change, and the costs and benefits of action to reduce the emissions of
greenhouse gases (GHGs)
that cause it, in three different ways:
• Using disaggregated techniques, in other words considering the
physical impacts of climate change on the economy, on human life and on
the STERN REVIEW: The Economics of Climate Change environment, and
examining the resource costs of different technologies and strategies
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
• Using economic models, including integrated assessment models that
estimate the economic impacts of climate change, and macro-economic
models that represent the costs and effects of the transition to
low-carbon energy systems for the economy as a whole;
• Using comparisons of the current level and future trajectories of the
‘social cost of carbon’ (the cost of impacts associated with an
additional unit of greenhouse gas emissions) with the marginal
abatement cost (the costs associated with incremental reductions in
units of emissions).
From all of these perspectives, the evidence gathered by the Review
leads to a simple conclusion: the benefits of strong, early action
considerably outweigh the costs.
The evidence shows that ignoring climate change will eventually damage
economic growth. Our actions over the coming few decades could create
risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in
this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated
with the great wars and the economic depression of
the first half of the 20th century. And it will be difficult or
impossible to reverse these changes. Tackling climate change is the
pro-growth strategy for the longer term, and
it can be done in a way that does not cap the aspirations for growth of
rich or poor countries. The earlier effective action is taken, the less
costly it will be.
At the same time, given that climate change is happening, measures to
help people adapt to it are essential. And the less mitigation we do
now, the greater the difficulty
of continuing to adapt in future.
***
Climate change fight 'can't wait'
International battle
ahead
The world cannot afford to wait before tackling climate change,
the UK prime minister has warned. A report by economist Sir
Nicholas Stern suggests that global warming could shrink the global
economy by 20%.
But taking action now would cost just 1% of global gross domestic
product, the 700-page study says. Tony Blair said the Stern
Review showed that scientific evidence of
global warming was "overwhelming" and its consequences "disastrous".
International response
The review coincides with the release of new data by the United Nations
showing an upward trend in emission of greenhouse gases - a development
for which Sir Nicholas said that rich countries must shoulder most of
the responsibility.
Graph: How new CO2 targets could curb emissions
And Chancellor Gordon Brown promised the UK would lead the
international response to tackle climate change.
Environment Secretary David Miliband said the Queen's Speech would now
feature a climate bill to establish an independent Carbon Committee to
"work with government to reduce emissions over time and across the
economy".
The report says that without action, up to 200 million people could
become refugees as their homes are hit by drought or flood.
"Whilst there is much more we need to understand - both in science and
economics - we know enough now to be clear about the magnitude of the
risks, the timescale for action and how to act effectively," Sir
Nicholas said.
"That's why I'm optimistic - having done this review - that we have the
time and knowledge to act. But only if we act internationally, strongly
and urgently."
Mr Blair said the consequences for the planet of inaction were
"literally disastrous".
"This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many
years ahead, but in our lifetime," he said.
"Investment now will pay us back many times in the future, not just
environmentally but economically as well."
"For every £1 invested now we can save £5, or possibly
more, by acting now.
"We can't wait the five years it took to negotiate Kyoto - we simply
don't have the time. We accept we have to go further (than Kyoto)."
Large risks
Sir Nicholas, a former chief economist of the World Bank, told BBC
Radio 4's Today programme: "Unless it's international, we will not make
the reductions on the scale which will be required."
He went on: "What we have shown is the magnitude of these risks is very
large and has to be taken into account in the kind of investments the
world makes today and the consumption patterns it has."
The Stern Review forecasts that 1% of global gross domestic product
(GDP) must be spent on tackling climate change immediately. It
warns that if no action is taken:
Floods from rising sea levels could displace up to 100 million people
Melting glaciers could cause water shortages for 1 in 6 of the world's
population
Wildlife will be harmed; at worst up to 40% of species could become
extinct
Droughts may create tens or even hundreds of millions of "climate
refugees"
Clear objectives
The study is the first major contribution to the global warming
debate by an economist, rather than an environmental scientist.
Mr Brown, who commissioned the report, has also recruited former US
Vice-President Al Gore as an environment adviser.
Reactions to the Stern Review
"In the 20th century our national economic ambitions were the twin
objectives of achieving stable economic growth and full employment," Mr
Brown said. "Now in the 21st century our new objectives are
clear, they are threefold: growth, full employment and environmental
care."
He said the green challenge was also an opportunity "for new markets,
for new jobs, new technologies, new exports where companies,
universities and social enterprises in Britain can lead the world".
"And then there is the greatest opportunity of all, the prize of
securing and safeguarding the planet for our generations to
come." Mr Brown called for a long-term framework of a worldwide
carbon market
that would lead to "a low-carbon global economy". Among his plans are:
Reducing European-wide emissions by 30% by 2020, and at least 60% by
2050
By 2010, having 5% of all UK vehicles running on biofuels
Creating an independent environmental authority to work with the
government
Establishing trade links with Brazil, Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica
to ensure sustainable forestry
Working with China on clean coal technologies
The review was welcomed by groups including the European Commission
and business group the CBI. "Provided we act with sufficient
speed, we will not have to make a
choice between averting climate change and promoting growth and
investment," said CBI head Richard Lambert. Pia Hansen, of the
European Commission, said the report "clearly makes a case for action".
"Climate change is not a problem that Europe can afford to put into the
'too difficult' pile," she said.
"It is not an option to wait and see, and we must act now."
The
proposal in full
In visual
format: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/30_10_06_slides.pdf
At-a-glance: The Stern Review
The world has to act now on climate change or face devastating
economic consequences, according to a report compiled by Sir Nicholas
Stern for the UK government.
Here are the key points of the review written by the former chief
economist of the World Bank.
TEMPERATURE
Carbon emissions have already pushed up global temperatures by half a
degree Celsius
If no action is taken on emissions, there is more than a 75% chance of
global temperatures rising between two and three degrees Celsius over
the next 50 years
There is a 50% chance that average global temperatures could rise by
five degrees Celsius
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Melting glaciers will increase flood risk
Crop yields will decline, particularly in Africa
Rising sea levels could leave 200 million people permanently displaced
Up to 40% of species could face extinction
There will be more examples of extreme weather patterns
ECONOMIC IMPACT
Extreme weather could reduce global gross domestic product (GDP) by up
to 1%
A two to three degrees Celsius rise in temperatures could reduce global
economic output by 3%
If temperatures rise by five degrees Celsius, up to 10% of global
output could be lost. The poorest countries would lose more than 10% of
their output
In the worst case scenario global consumption per head would fall 20%
To stabilise at manageable levels, emissions would need to stabilise in
the next 20 years and fall between 1% and 3% after that. This would
cost 1% of GDP
OPTIONS FOR CHANGE
Reduce consumer demand for heavily polluting goods and services
Make global energy supply more efficient
Act on non-energy emissions - preventing further deforestation would go
a long way towards alleviating this source of carbon emissions
Promote cleaner energy and transport technology, with non-fossil fuels
accounting for 60% of energy output by 2050
GOVERNMENT RESPONSE
Create a global market for carbon pricing
Extend the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EETS) globally, bringing
in countries such as the US, India and China
Set new target for EETS to reduce carbon emissions by 30% by 2020 and
60% by 2050
Pass a bill to enshrine carbon reduction targets and create a new
independent body to monitor progress
Create a new commission to spearhead British company investment in
green technology, with the aim of creating 100,000 new jobs
Former US vice-president Al Gore will advise the government on the
issue
Work with the World Bank and other financial institutions to create a
$20bn fund to help poor countries adjust to climate change challenges
Work with Brazil, Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica to promote
sustainable forestry and prevent deforestation
Funds For Energy
Research Declining; With global warming, greater need is seen
By New York Times News
Service, Andrew Revkin
Published on
10/30/2006
Denver — Cheers fit for a revival meeting swept a hotel ballroom as
1,800 entrepreneurs and experts watched a PowerPoint presentation of
the most promising technologies for limiting global warming: solar
power, wind, ethanol and other farmed fuels, energy-efficient buildings
and fuel-sipping cars.
“Houston,” Charles F. Kutscher, chairman of the Solar 2006 conference,
concluded in a twist on the line from Apollo 13, “we have a solution!”
Hold the applause. For all the enthusiasm about alternatives to coal
and oil, the challenge of limiting emissions of carbon dioxide, which
traps heat, will be immense in a world likely to add 2.5 billion people
by midcentury, a host of other experts say. Moreover, most of those
people will live in countries like China and India, which are just
beginning to enjoy an electrified, air-conditioned mobile society.
The challenge is all the more daunting because research into energy
technologies by both government and industry has not been rising, but
rather falling.
In the United States, annual federal spending for all energy research
and development — not just the research aimed at climate-friendly
technologies — is less than half what it was a quarter-century ago. It
has sunk to $3 billion a year in the current budget from an
inflation-adjusted peak of $7.7 billion in 1979, according to several
different studies.
President Bush has sought an increase to $4.2 billion for 2007, but
that would still be a small fraction of what most climate and energy
experts say would be needed.
Federal spending on medical research, by contrast, has nearly
quadrupled, to $28 billion annually, since 1979. Military research has
increased 260 percent, and at more than $75 billion a year is 20 times
the amount spent on energy research.
Britain, for one, has sounded a loud alarm about the need for prompt
action on the climate issue, including more research. A report
commissioned by the government and scheduled to be released Monday
paints a vivid scene of what the world could look like late this
century unless substantial measures are taken to cut carbon dioxide
emissions: coastal flooding and a shortage of drinking water could turn
200 million people into refugees, with poor nations suffering the most.
The report, prepared by a British government economist, Nicholas Stern,
calls for spending to be doubled worldwide on research into low-carbon
technologies.
But internationally, government energy research trends are little
different from those in the United States. Japan is the only economic
power that increased research spending in recent decades, with growth
focused on efficiency and solar technology, according to the
International Energy Agency.
In the private sector, various studies show that energy companies have
a long tradition of eschewing long-term technology quests because of
the lack of short-term payoffs.
Still, more than four dozen scientists, economists, engineers and
entrepreneurs interviewed by The New York Times said that unless the
search for abundant non-polluting energy sources and systems becomes
far more aggressive, the world will probably face dangerous warming and
international strife as nations with growing energy demands compete for
increasingly inadequate resources.
Most of these experts also say existing energy alternatives and
improvements in energy efficiency are simply not enough.
“We cannot come close to stabilizing temperatures” unless humans, by
the end of the century, stop adding more CO2 to the atmosphere than it
can absorb, said W. David Montgomery of Charles River Associates, a
consulting group, “and that will be an economic impossibility without a
major R&D investment.”
A sustained push is needed not just to refine, test and deploy known
low-carbon technologies, but also to find “energy technologies that
don't have a name yet,” said James A. Edmonds, a chief scientist at the
Joint Global Change Research Institute of the University of Maryland
and the Energy Department.
At the same time, many energy experts and economists agree on another
daunting point: to make any resulting “alternative” energy options the
new norm will require attaching a significant cost to the carbon
emissions from coal, oil and gas.
“A price incentive stirs people to look at a thousand different
things,” said Henry D. Jacoby, a climate and energy expert at MIT.
For now, a carbon cap or tax is opposed by Bush, most American
lawmakers and many industries. And there are scant signs of consensus
on a long-term successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the first treaty
obligating participating industrial countries to cut warming emissions.
(The United States has not ratified the pact.)
The next round of talks on Kyoto and an underlying voluntary treaty
will take place next month in Nairobi, Kenya.
Environmental campaigners, focused on promptly establishing binding
limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases, have tended to play down
the need for big investments seeking energy breakthroughs. At the end
of “An Inconvenient Truth,” former Vice President Al Gore's documentary
film on climate change, he concluded: “We already know everything we
need to know to effectively address this problem.”
While applauding Gore's enthusiasm, many energy experts said this
stance was counterproductive because there was no way, given global
growth in energy demand, that existing technology could avert a
doubling or more of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide in
this century.
In recent speeches, Gore has adjusted his stance, saying that existing
technology is sufficient to start on the path to a stable climate.
Other researchers say the chances of success are so low, unless
something breaks the societal impasse, that any technology quest should
also include work on increasing the resilience to climate extremes —
through actions like developing more drought-tolerant crops — as well
as last-ditch climate fixes, like testing ways to block some incoming
sunlight to counter warming.
Without big reductions in emissions, the midrange projections of most
scenarios envision a rise of 4 degrees or so in this century, four
times the warming in the last 100 years. That could, among other
effects, produce a disruptive mix of intensified flooding and withering
droughts in the world's prime agricultural regions.
Slides by Great Britain study:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/30_10_06_slides.pdf
Presentation in full:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/30_10_06_exec_sum.pdf
