The Durban conundrum

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

A new division line has marked the ongoing negotiations on climate change at the UN conference in Durban. India and Brazil surprised everybody when they joined the camp of the developed nations who want to postpone the tough ecological measures. These countries insist that the real negotiations for reaching a global and legally binding agreement on the issue should commence no earlier than 2015. The other camp includes EU and a number of vulnerable countries, especially island nations. They want immediate negotiations and a global contract in 2015 at the latest.

Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, the foreign minister of South Africa who is chairwoman of the summit, opened the event saying that Durban'11 has one goal: "To ensure a safe future for the coming generations". This sounds nice, but in reality, finding a solution that would satisfy all interests turns out impossible at this point. EU insists for a road-map including a deadline for fulfilling the agreement, but this could confuse the delegates on the conference because there are too many variables to be accounted for. EU is presently contributing with 11% of the global greenhouse emissions and often likes to emphasise on its goals to further limit the amount of greenhouse gases. But the Europeans could hardly find any followers in this initiative. Japan, Russia and Canada are refusing to make additional commitments to the Kyoto protocol (which will expire next year by the way).

This road map that the Europeans keep talking about is supposed to include all bigger economies and put all emissions under a global regulation. EU wants this to be agreed on by the end of 2015, and the plan to be implemented not later than 2020. But most developing countries are reluctant to tie themselves to firm ecological commitments. Their interest is to extend the commitments of the wealthier countries as the main polluters, who they believe should respectively be the key contributors. They are prepared to accept such a plan, even if Japan, Russia and Canada opt to stay out of it. Until recently the poorer countries deemed the EU 2020 plan a convenient way to postpone the resolute decisions, but with the approaching of 2015 they are having second thoughts.

The only constant in the equation is the US position. Washington hinted that they do not like the European plan. The main US negotiator Todd Stern said that it's too hasty to make any commitments in any legal form whatsoever about a possible climate agreement, before its contents could be thoroughly investigated. The position of the US, who refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol, is that no binding agreements should be signed, unless all big greenhouse contributors are included. And they aren't.

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of four of the BRICS countries (Brazil, South Africa, China and India) said that the Kyoto protocol is "a cornerstone in the climate negotiations", and extending it into a second term of commitments is essentially the top priority of this summit, and the main criterion if the Durban conference would have any success at all. The US clearly disagrees.

The island nations are particularly worried by the latest developments. After a year of record increase of greenhouse emissions, followed by the highest ocean temperatures on record (yes, the link is from Fox News), the pressure from the largest carbon polluters to postpone the adoption of solutions is clashing with the undeniable evidence that immediate actions are long overdue.

Meanwhile many experts and scientists keep warning of the adverse consequences of rapid climate change - extreme weather that will eventually cost more for recovery as the time passes. A couple of weeks ago the IEA announced that the now existing energy policies will not allow to prevent the warming with 2'C compared to pre-industrial times, as was in fact the agreement on the previous world summit in Cancun last year.

The latest data of the World Meteorological Organisation show that the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere reached record levels in 2010. The UN Environment Preservation program indicates that the current commitments for limiting the emissions would only achieve half of the necessary decrease of 12 gigatons of CO2 until 2020, which is far from sufficient to have an effect.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments (which by the way are considered by some as too optimistic), forecast that the heat waves, droughts and floods and other natural disasters caused by rapid climate change will be getting more frequent in the next years. You would have thought that all this data, and the string of cataclysms during the last two years should have made the governments of the major economies look more seriously and ambitiously on the necessity for curbing their carbon emissions, the way they did with aerosols, but it seems that the various economic interests are still too strong to allow them to find a common ground on what is promising to become "The" main global issue very soon.

Comments

[telemann.livejournal.com]

It's pretty dire.

The U.S. Dept of Energy released a report indicating that total C02 output world wide increased by six percent within one year, setting a record. The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago. In 2007 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its last large report on global warming, it used different scenarios for carbon dioxide pollution and said the rate of warming would be based on the rate of pollution. Boden said the latest figures put global emissions higher than the worst case projections from the climate panel. Those forecast global temperatures rising between 4 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century with the best estimate at 7.5 degrees. "It's a big jump," said Tom Boden, director of the Energy Department's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at Oak Ridge National Lab. "From an emissions standpoint, the global financial crisis seems to be over." Boden said that in 2010 people were traveling, and manufacturing was back up worldwide, spurring the use of fossil fuels, the chief contributor of man-made climate change.

source. (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57317968/monster-greenhouse-gas-levels-seen/)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Can't help but recall the parable about the frog who's sitting in a pot of water and the temperature is gradually increasing. The frog never notices how it got boiled.

That's just a parable of course, and the frog could eventually jump out of the pot. But we can't.

[malakh-abaddon.livejournal.com]

Oh we can. Problem is as we are boiling away... "its a little warm in the pool. Bah its normal." It is not that we cannot get out, we just do not want to.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I mean we can't leave the planet. For now.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

It's also false, the frog sure as fuck can feel itself boiling, it just can't get out of the pot.

[lions-wings.livejournal.com]

Many can afford denial.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Why can't it? There's presumably no lid on it.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Were any animals harmed in the creation of this post?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

extreme weather that will eventually cost more for recovery as the time passes

As the saying goes, "Cheap decisions make for expensive results, eventually".

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Not only would it be a huge stone hanging on the neck of almost every economy, but climate change is now considered a major threat for national security (http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/fbeinecke/fox_news_may_not_think_so_but.html) by the CIA and the Pentagon, not to mention how catastrophic it could be (http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/25-03-2010/112732-climate_russia-0/) for countries like Russia. These are prerequisites for serious geopolitical tensions, as seen in the Middle East.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

We're fucked. So long Kiribati, we barely knew thee.

[lions-wings.livejournal.com]

Oh, man.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

This is Manhattan, New York. The red areas are the most threatened, plus the yellow ones.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

The links only support parts of the narrative that I am making, for those who are interested about details or where I am coming from - they are not an obligatory read. As I explained, the purpose of this conference is to agree on the necessity for a common road-map, i.e. a step by step plan for curbing the greenhouse gas output. The real plan has to be worked out until 2015, with concrete figures and deadlines that the signatories will agree to try to meet. The purpose of the Durban conference is to agree that such a plan should be worked on, not to work this plan. That would be the purpose of a subsequent meeting, if it is ever decided that this should be done.

The BRICS countries also want to add one more agenda to this summit - the extension of the Kyoto protocol for another term, which may not be the best solution but it would be at least some basis to step on until the road-map is worked out.

I'm aware how complicated this may sound, all those meetings, negotiations, agreements... But there is just no other way, with all those countries, each with their economic interests. Balance is very hard to achieve.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

I agree. The powerful have to lead by example, not only because they are the most influential but because they have the levers to influence others and really make a difference. The problem is that it is exactly the powerful who are the most reluctant to do anything on the matter, they seem to be willing to postpone indefinitely and hope that the problem would somehow solve itself. This is why nothing gets achieved on all these conferences.

Setting clear goals and deadlines has worked before, like in the case with aerosols and the thinning of the ozone layer.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

There is an alternative to the types of energy production that have a too large carbon output, too. It is expensive, yes, but do bear with me.

I think this problem will not get postponed indefinitely. Not after the cost of recovery from natural disasters begins to outweigh the cost of energy reform. But then of course it would be a done deal and it would be a fact that we will have to be dealing with, as opposed to doing something about it preemptively. In a way it is already an irreversible process. The question is how soon will governments get the point.