For about two weeks, starting from next Monday, the world will be locked into another session of negotiations on how to tackle climate change. The conference, to be held in Cancun, Mexico, has drawn less excitement than its predecessor held in Copenhagen, Denmark, a year ago.

The excitement of Copenhagen was partly driven by the false information that circulated that the Kyoto Protocol was ending at that meeting. Though there were serious, but failed efforts, made at that conference to lay the protocol to rest, its first period actually ends in 2012, while a second commitment period will be entered into as soon as the first period elapses.

But why would anyone want to kill the protocol and why should it be sustained? The Kyoto Protocol is seen by some as the only legally binding instrument to which the industrialised and highly polluting nations can be made to commit to cutting emissions at source. From this perspective, when countries fight to abolish the protocol, they are simply trying to avoid making any real commitment to tackling climate change.

One problem with the workings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the ongoing negotiations is that it bases a chunk of its reasoning and framings on the market logic. This follows the path created by the mindset that has built a vicious paradigm of disaster capitalism, in which tragedy is seen as opportunity for profit. What do we mean by this?

Rather than take steps to curtail emissions of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming, some people are busy devising ways of making every item of nature a commodity placed at the altar of the market. Through this, everything is being assigned a value and many others are privatised in addition.

What makes this offensive is firstly that you cannot place a price on nature, on life. Secondly, speculators are hyping the utility of the carbon market as a means of fighting climate change. Some of the ways this manifests is through the carbon offsetting projects by which polluters in the industrialised countries continue to pollute, on the calculation that their emissions are being compensated for elsewhere.

As Friends of the Earth International stated in a recent media advisory, “Carbon trading does not lead to real emissions reductions. It is a dangerous distraction from real action to address the structural causes of climate change, such as over-consumption. Developed countries should radically cut their carbon emissions through real change at home, not by buying offsets from other countries. Carbon offsetting has no benefits for the climate or for developing countries - it only benefits developed countries, private investors, and major polluters who want to continue business as usual.”

Cancun will obviously be crawling with carbon speculators and traders, as was the case in Copenhagen. And they have good reasons to be there. They will be there because policy makers on both sides of the divide see benefits in the schemes, even though the so-called benefits are pecuniary and are actually harmful to Mother Earth. But as far as the money enters the pockets of some poor countries, the rich countries can go on polluting, having paid their “penance.”

Not just money alone

The world appears deaf to the need for real actions to curb climate change, and the focus remains on money. In fact, while many of the items of the Cancun agenda have stalled, with regard to reduction of carbon emissions in the industralised nations, there is no shortage of proposals on how carbon markets can be brought in to give appearance of action.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) is one of such schemes in the scheme. Quick progress is being made on REDD and already, talks are advancing on other variants of the scheme. Indigenous and forest community people are opposed to REDD and object to its implementation, as attention is being focused on forests merely as carbon stocks for mercantile purposes. Significantly, many see REDD as not seeking to stop deforestation, but merely to reduce it.

It is also argued that that any reduced deforestation may not be sustained, as deforesters may just shift to another forest or zone to continue with their activities. In other words, REDD is a pretty fiction that may pump money into the pockets of some countries and corporations, but will marginalise forest peoples and will not help to fight climate change. The attraction, as critics have said, is that if this mechanism is linked to the carbon market, it will allow developed countries pay money to REDD-projects that preserve forests in developing countries, and in return receive carbon credits - buying the right to pollute.

There will also be strident rejection of any role at all for the World Bank in the climate finance architecture that may be devised in Cancun.

The atmosphere is set for a somber, winding series of negotiations. However, social movements and other civil society groups are set to push up the voices of the people, as already broadly articulated in the Peoples Agreement, reached at the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth held in April 2010 at Cochabamba, Bolivia.

The environmental justice movement that took first serious steps in Copenhagen is sure to take firmer steps on the streets of Cancun and in thousands of Cancuns being planned for a multitude of locations around the world.

The message in Cancun, if we must expect motions towards real actions to tackle climate change, is that governments must pay attention to what the people are saying, to the real challenges faced by vulnerable peoples around the world, and not lend their ears to carbon speculators. (By Nnimmo Bassey)

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Source: next

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Although it was cut short by unfortunate circumstances relating to volcanic eruptions in Yogyakarta, President Barack Obama’s visit to Indonesia left an important message about the future of Indonesia’s sustainable development.

During his less than 24-hour stay in Indonesia, President Obama managed to get two of his main talking points across. The first one was about the relationship between the US and the Muslim world and the second about the economic partnership between Indonesia and the US.

The first point is purely aesthetic but ineffectual in nature. Although Indonesia is the most populous Muslim-majority country in the world, it is located far from the epicenter of the issue in Palestine and has absolutely no political influence on any Middle East peace talks.

Even the most radical Muslims living in Kandahar, Gaza, or Islamabad could care less if the West suddenly decided to send a missile to Indonesia while the radical part of Indonesian Muslims sadly would jump into a war if something were to happen to the Dome of Rock.

Obama’s second point of calling for increased trade between Indonesia and the US is more relevant considering the struggle between China and the US to gain more influence over Indonesia’s developing economy as reported by Noritmitsu Onishi in The New York Times on Nov. 10.

Since the failed communist coup of 1965, coupled with the local antagonistic tendencies against the Chinese minority, Indonesia has managed to keep trade with China to a minimum. However as China continues to grow economically, increased Chinese influence over Indonesia is inevitable. Apparently less than a day before Obama’s visit, Beijing had agreed to pour US$6.6 billion in investment into Indonesia’s infrastructure development.

Having the second-largest rain forest resources in the world, the development of land use in Indonesia will be important in the global effort against climate change. This is why scientists all over the world “facepalmed” when they saw Indonesia’s asinine and ironic efforts to make more bio-fuel out of palm oil plantations by cutting down more rain forest.

The policy releases more net greenhouse gasses from deforestation and carbon release from organic rich peat lands than it saves through emissions reductions, and in the process has disastrously catapulted Indonesia to third largest CO2 emitter behind China and the US.

The US energy cap-and-trade bill might never be able to pass the US House let alone the Senate, but the Obama administration could still retain some integrity in the next IPCC climate convention if they make up for their lack of domestic progress by helping Indonesia and other developing countries carry out more sustainable economic developments.

Then all international pressure during the convention can be diverted to China, forcing them to do something about their carbon emissions. This policy would also considerably help the US fight China’s growing dominance on global economy because it would limit China’s influence over the strategically resource-rich region of Southeast Asia.

Sadly, neither Obama nor Yudhoyono emphasized these climate change and energy policy issues during their press conferences. This is understandable though as natural selection has never favored hindsight and people usually prefer a short-term rather than long-term solution.

Moreover, considering the heavily polarized state of American politics coupled with the growing anger and frustration channeled by the Republican Party for its own gain, domestic progress in the right direction is unlikely to happen.

Therefore the jury is out on Indonesia. The Southeast Asian country must take the initiative and come up with its own proposals for the United States. Because of the emerging global economy, no country can afford to wall off their trade and become a truly “independent” country.

There is no such thing as “resisting colonization from the West,” and as for Indonesia the choice is either to work with the Western world toward a more sustainable environment and higher quality albeit more expensive infrastructure or work with emerging China for cheaper but less sustainable and lower quality development. (By Michael N. Dyonisius)

The writer is an Indonesian student at Boston University majoring in environmental science.

Source: The Jakarta Post

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Water shortages as a result of rising temperatures will not do as much damage as feared, evidence from ancient trees suggests

It is generally acknowledged that a warming world will harm the world's forests. Higher temperatures mean water becomes more scarce, spelling death for plants – or perhaps not always.

According to a study of ancient rainforests, trees may be hardier than previously thought. Carlos Jaramillo, a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), examined pollen from ancient plants trapped in rocks in Colombia and Venezuela. "There are many climactic models today suggesting that … if the temperature increases in the tropics by a couple of degrees, most of the forest is going to be extinct," he said. "What we found was the opposite to what we were expecting: we didn't find any extinction event [in plants] associated with the increase in temperature, we didn't find that the precipitation decreased."

In a study published todayin Science, Jaramillo and his team studied pollen grains and other biological indicators of plant life embedded in rocks formed around 56m years ago, during an abrupt period of warming called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. CO2 levels had doubled in 10,000 years and the world was warmer by 3C-5C for 200,000 years.

Contrary to expectations, he found that forests bloomed with diversity. New species of plants, including those from the passionflower and chocolate families, evolved quicker as others became extinct. The study also shows moisture levels did not decrease significantly during the warm period. "It was totally unexpected," Jaramillo said of the findings.

Klaus Winter of the STRI added: "It is remarkable that there is so much concern about the effects of greenhouse conditions on tropical forests. However, these horror scenarios probably have some validity if increased temperatures lead to more frequent or severe drought as some of the current predictions suggest."

Last year, researchers at the Met Office Hadley Centre reported that a 2C rise above pre-industrial levels, widely considered the best-case scenario, would still see 20-40% of the Amazon die off within 100 years. A 3C rise would see 75% of the forest destroyed by drought in the next century, while a 4C rise would kill 85%.

Jaramillo found that the plants he studied seemed to become more efficient with their water use when it became more scarce. But he also cautioned that future risks for the world's plant species did not end with climate change. Human action would continue to determine the fate of the world's forests, he said.

"What the fossil record is showing is that plants have already the genetic variability to cope with high temperature and high levels of CO2.

"Rather than global warming, the [trouble] for tropical plants is deforestation. The fossil record shows that, when you don't have humans around, the plants can deal with high temperatures and CO2." (By Alok Jha)

Source: Guardian.co.uk

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(Reuters) - Less than 10 percent of the articles written about last year's Copenhagen climate summit dealt primarily with the science of climate change, a study showed on Monday.

Based on analysis of 400 articles written about the December 2009 summit, the authors of the report for Oxford University's Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) called for a re-think of reporting on future such conferences.

Author James Painter concluded that "science was under-reported" as the essential backdrop to the drama when about 120 world leaders met in Copenhagen but failed to agree a binding treaty to slow climate change.

Much coverage from Copenhagen instead focused on hacked e-mails from a British university that some skeptics took as evidence of efforts by scientists to ignore dissenting views. The scientists involved have since been cleared of wrongdoing.

"We need more discussion between scientists, journalists and policy-makers on how to keep highly significant, slow-burn issues like climate change interesting and engaging to different audiences around the world," Painter wrote.

Of 12 countries studied, Brazil and India gave the summit the most space in print media, followed by Australia and Britain. At the other end of the scale, Nigeria, Russia and Egypt gave the least coverage.

Painter said one way to improve the reporting on climate change was to provide more media staff to help scientists. He said environmental group Greenpeace had 20 media staff in Copenhagen against 12 media staff from 250 universities. The U.N. panel of climate scientists has one media officer.

Among other suggestions was more frontline reporting about the impacts of climate change, along with more imaginative use of new media.

Findings by a U.N. panel of scientists in 2007 that global warming is very likely man-made have been the main driver for action to curb emissions blamed for raising temperatures and causing more floods, droughts, heat waves and rising sea levels.

This year's U.N. talks -- of environment ministers rather than world leaders -- will be in Mexico from November 29-December 10. (Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: Reuters

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