USA « Climate Equity

Four months after the climate summit in Cancun endet with a a series of „Cancun Agreements“, this week, negotiators in Bangkok/Thailand continue to push for an international climate compact.  It is not only the nuclear meltdown in Japan, following the devastating earthquake and tsunami there, which attracts political and media attention instead of the Bangkok talks.  A UN negotiation fatigue, starting with the politically controversial Copenhagen Accord, has not yet dissipated, despite the partial success in Cancun – which agreed to worry about the really contentious issues, like the legal status of a follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, later.  Many have lost faith that the UNFCCC is the right venue to engender substantial process in the international climate talks.  ClimatEquity talked with Hans Verolme, an advisor to many of the civil society organizations organized in Climate Action Network International, who is participating in the Bangkok negotiations this week.

ClimatEquity (CE): In Cancun, there was a spirit of optimism expressed by many government negotiators and civil society representatitives. Is any of this spirit still palpable in Bangkok?  

Hans Verolme (HV): While the hangover from Copenhagen may have lifted in Cancun, it is my view that the Cancun Agreements were to some extent merely a translation of the Copenhagen Accord into the UNFCCC negotiating text. They also represented an acknowledgement by the world’s governments of their lack of political courage to translate a rather vague, rhetorical ambition to prevent dangerous warming into a fair and binding agreement. The existence of this large (some 10 gigatonnes!) gap between ambition and action is now central to the NGO work here. This sobering but realistic assessment also leads many NGOs to focus on very concrete issues such as how to deliver technology and finance support.

Overall, civil society (and donor) interest in these negotiations has dropped significantly. Where in the run up to Copenhagen the meeting rooms were too small to handle the throngs of activists and the streets of Bangkok were full of protesters, all that remains is a small core of NGO representatives, often members of Climate Action Network with longstanding expertise in these negotiations. Unfortunately the growing climate movement is not felt here. (more…)

On the road from Copenhagen to Cancun, climate negotiators from around the world will meet in Tianjin, China, from October 4th to October 9th for a last round of negotiations prior to the next COP in Mexico at the end of November.

ClimatEquity asks Chinese climate expert Yu Jie, who has participated in UNFCCC negotiations and COPs since 2004, about her expectations for Tianjin and Cancun.

CLIMATEQUITY: What do you expect will happen during the UNFCCC talks in Tianjin? Will we see any progress? Will climate finance be one area where there might be some high expectation for Tianjin and Cancun? What is the Chinese position on climate financing resources?

YU JIE: At the last session in August in Bonn, the parties in the working group on long term cooperative action (AWG LCA) finally agreed on the new chair’s text to work on. Currently, this text with 70 pages will have to be cut down to more manageable size, although it will be an extremely though job to remove hundreds of brackets, particularly when the thread to connect these pieces is missing. This missing thread is strong political will which in reality, seems to have been sapped by the domestic legislative process in the United States. Therefore, I agree with the view that climate finance could be an area where a substantial result in Cancun seems possible. Tianjin will then be one of the stops to build consensus towards Cancun.

The Chinese government holds the same position as the G77 on finance, but in contrast to many developing countries, it is pretty neutral on issues related to finance such as the debate who should govern a Global Green Fund. On providing resources for financing, China thinks they should come from a global carbon tax, rather than from carbon market proceeds.  (more…)

I know you know that your and my individual eating habits have a big influence on the global commons that is our climate, not to mention our waistlines. Eating locally produced food, preferably vegetarian, is better for the climate than foodstuff shipped, flown or trucked over wide distances — although there are some finer notes about the development contributions for poor countries involved in the food miles debate that should at least be honestly acknowledged. And it keeps us healthier and fitter, too.

So the climate connection is obvious (too much food, wrongly produced, too many food miles) when I tell you that in the United States alone, by 2020 some 75 % percent of the adult population are expected to be overweight and obese (meaning, those folks are not just chubby like the average middle aged person living in the United States, such as myself, but extremely overweight). All that extra food is adding up to tons of emissions overweight, too.

But did you know that the economic cost to the United States for that collective belly fat – in lost productivity because of shortened life-spans, more illnesses and thus increased health care costs — already is at least at 1 percent of the United States gross domestic product (GDP) and expected to rise?  A new OECD study says so.

Now, that caught my eye and should catch yours, if you are concerned with fighting climate change: not only is the fattest OECD country also the biggest climate polluter in the industrialized country club, but the trajectories for both GHG emissions and belly girth in the United States specifically and the wider OECD world in general are trending seemingly unstoppable upwards — and with it the costs…. (more…)

On Monday, the climate negotiations go into their next round toward the COP 16 in Cancun, when UNFCCC delegates come together in Bonn.  But the hopes of those expecting a boon in talks for a 2012 post-Kyoto climate regime are likely to be busted.  Already before the meeting starts, it seems certain that the results will be minimal — at best. Turnout of negotiators, in the midst of vacation season, is expected to be low.  Even lower are observers’ expectations: Basically, the only joint approach currently thinkable is one blockading further progress in emissions cuts, in which the industrialized countries and the largest emerging market countries operating as BASIC group (Brazil, India, China and South Africa) seem to be, sadly, in agreement…. 

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The real innovative climate financing resource that everybody is looking for might have a name. It could be Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, George Soros or Oprah Winfrey. Forget about carbon taxes, airline levies and cruise line surcharges which a UN High Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing – including billionaire George Soros —  is currently mulling over in an increasingly desperate search to find new finance sources to pay for mitigation and adaptation effort in developing countries. They are controversial and politically hard to implement.  For the real feel-good and quick solution, the 20-member expert panel should look no further than, lets say Seattle, Omaha or New York. 

Especially now that both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are appealing to their fellow US billionnaires to follow their lead and to donate at least half of their wealth for good causes. It could be done with a simple stroke of a pen (or keyboard, nowadays). In fact, this is probably exactly how those enormous fortunes have ballooned in the age of unfettered financial speculation…

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Source: http://kerry.senate.gov

After months of haggling, praying, fearing, hoping, threatening and cajoling, the Senate version of a comprehensive climate and energy bill was finally released just yesterday by US Senators Joe Liebermann (an Independent from Connecticut) and John Kerry (a Democrat from Massachusetts).  The draft bill — no doubt close to the outer limit of the politically feasible in the current US domestic political climate and carefully calibrated to reconcile many diverging domestic views and competing lobbies — is nevertheless a disappointment, particularly for those hoping for a significant commitment of the United States to contribute to international adaptation efforts.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U04UOwkX2r4[/youtube]

Aptly named the American Power Act (APA), the 987-page behemoth only in a short section and one subtitle in few words mentions international adaptation and instead underscores national interests over international cooperation. Indeed, a 4-page summary of the main sponsors reads more like a glossy sales brochure intend on convincing the American voter that the far-reaching climate and energy legislation proposal will benefit the American consumer, secure American leadership in global climate policy, increase American energy independence and overall ensure the continuation of the American way of life — no word about American responsibility (if one believes in the polluter-pays-principle) to help those people and countries most severely affected by global climate change. (more…)