Their comments after EU ambassadors met in Brussels confirmed the 27-nation bloc’s commitment to unilateral target carbon dioxide emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels over the next decade.

Some EU countries such as Poland, Italy, Cyprus and Malta had opposed making the more ambitious conditional offer because of concerns that it would be too costly for industry.

“Italy and Poland said at the meeting that they were concerned but they wouldn’t stand in the way,” an EU envoy said.

Before United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Copenhagen in December, the EU offered to deepen its cuts to 30 percent of 1990 levels if other rich countries made similar efforts.

Ambassadors agreed the EU should sign up to the accord with the 20 percent cuts in a letter to be sent to the U.N. on Thursday, but that the 30 percent conditional offer should still be made, even if the conditions behind it are far from being met.

The meeting in the Danish capital ended without agreement on binding cuts to climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions, leaving countries until January 31 to submit their own plans.

Experts say the total cuts offered there by rich countries amount to no more than 18 percent and fall far short of the 25-40 percent that U.N. scientists outline as necessary to avert dangerous climate change.

The world is on track for temperatures to rise to 3.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century, which would bring catastrophic melting of ice sheets and rising seas, some scientists say.

Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands were among the countries that defended the 30 percent offer.

“The UK remains committed to the conditional offer of 30 percent to stay on the table to ensure that we do not lose the momentum that has been generated over the last few months,” said an official from Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Source Reuters

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The ongoing uncertainty is rooted in the EU’s offer to the Copenhagen climate summit of a 30% emissions cut.

But this was dependent on “comparable effort” from other big polluters.

Observers say there is a world of difference between the upper and lower targets – but Europe still hasn’t decided how high to aim.

The EU’s figure of 30% translates to 42% in the UK.

Along with other countries that signed the “Copenhagen Accord” it faces a deadline of 31 January to come up with final numbers and plans for reducing emissions.

The final decision will affect the whole economy of the EU, from business investment strategies to households’ fuel bills – and many major firms are demanding clarity on the steepness of the path ahead.

But the UN climate body, the UNFCCC, has acknowledged the uncertainty by re-categorising January 31st as a “soft” deadline not a “firm” deadline.

Three factors are likely to be influencing the EU’s hesitant position:

• Some European nations don’t want to expose their industries to higher energy prices if competitors are unaffected – Poland and Italy have been vocal on this
• There’s an argument for the EU continuing to hold a bargaining chip until the US has passed its Climate Bill (if, indeed it manages to pass a bill).
• The EU deliberately didn’t define what “comparable effort” by other big polluters might mean, in order to allow negotiating space… and in several ways the negotiations over Copenhagen have not properly finished.

Greens are pushing for the EU to adopt the 30% target immediately. They believe it will lead to a profitable low-carbon economy, creating jobs and encouraging new technologies in Europe.

Impossible demands?

The climate economist Lord Stern supports this view, along with the governments in the UK and France. The UK Environmental Audit Committee went further this week and urged the government to adopt a 42% target irrespective of EU action.

The CBI fears that an EU unilateral 30% cut may be premature – opening opportunities for low-carbon firms but having a detrimental impact on energy-intensive manufacturers. Other sectors of European industry are also very nervous about competitiveness.

The German government said in Copenhagen that other big polluters should offer more, but confirmed that Germany itself would adopt a unilateral 40% target.

A source in the European Commission told me they were not yet convinced that conditions for the 30% mark had been reached.

The UK government fears that any conditions demanded by the EU on the US and Russia may prove impossible to meet – leaving the world with emissions cuts much lower than the safety threshold demanded by official science advisers.

Japan’s offer of a 25% cut by 2020 at Copenhagen was also conditional but following that meeting a government spokesman told reporters the offer would stand.

But Australian policy is severely challenged following the defeat of climate legislation in their upper house, so their promises on climate may be hard to meet.

Global problem

The EU is really looking towards the US, where the climate bill is under fire in the Senate and has become even more difficult following the loss of the Massachusetts Democratic seat.

Commentators in the US say the bill will realistically need to be passed by June in some form as America moves towards mid-term elections.

If the US fails to pass a bill, will the EU shrug its shoulders and go ahead with its 30% cut? We can’t yet say.

In the meantime, many of the world’s businesses are looking on in frustration at this multinational game of climate poker. Business wants to be told exactly where it stands on climate policy. But it looks as if clarity will be hard to find.

It’s precisely the lack of clarity that drives the UK government to continue to push for a legally-binding global deal in Mexico in December.

Sceptics point out that big developing countries have already offered their climate policies voluntarily and wonder what is the point of pursuing a legally-binding deal when there are no real sanctions for deal-breakers.

The British government believes a deal would help ensure that countries stick by their targets, adhere to the rules and subscribe to the firmest possible contract to tackle a quintessentially global problem.

Source BBC News

Small island states and poor African nations vulnerable to climate impacts laid out demands for a legally-binding deal tougher than the Kyoto Protocol.

This was opposed by richer developing states such as China, which fear tougher action would curb their growth.

Tuvalu demanded – and got – a suspension of negotiations until the issue could be resolved.

The split within the developing country bloc is highly unusual, as it tends to speak with a united voice.

After talks resumed in the afternoon, the Tuvalu delegation walked out when it appeared that the issue might be sidelined.

Private discussions will now continue behind the scenes among a small group of concerned countries.

Tuvalu’s negotiator Ian Fry made clear that his country could accept nothing less than full discussion of its proposal for a new legal protocol, which was submitted to the UN climate convention six months ago.

“My prime minister and many other heads of state have the clear intention of coming to Copenhagen to sign on to a legally binding deal,” Mr Fry said.

“Tuvalu is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change, and our future rests on the outcome of this meeting.”

The call was backed by other members of the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), including the Cook Islands, Barbados and Fiji, and by some poor African countries including Sierra Leone, Senegal and Cape Verde.

Several re-iterated the demand of small island developing states that the rise in the global average temperature be limited to 1.5C, and greenhouse gas concentrations stabilised at 350 parts per million (ppm) rather than the 450ppm favoured by developed countries and some major developing nations.

Developing split

Fast-growing economies such as China, India and South Africa oppose the lower target of 350ppm because they feel that meeting it would retard economic development.

Here, they also opposed Tuvalu’s call for a new legally-binding protocol to run alongside the existing Kyoto Protocol, arguing that the existing convention and Kyoto agreement are tough enough.

“The main task of this (conference) is to adapt an agreed outcome from the Bali Action Plan [agreed in 2007] and we should very much focus on that,” said China’s lead negotiator Su Wei.

“We have a very valid system to combat climate change.”

But the existing agreement is not tough enough for the smaller, more vulnerable members with more to lose from rising sea levels and less to lose in terms of the economic constraints of a tough treaty.

China’s negotiator Su Wei told the conference that his country, and the other emerging economies, did care about the problems of small island states; but Jerome Esebei Temengil from Palau’s delegation gave a different view.

“We’re dying here, were drowning; and some of us know that they don’t really care, because we have to beg them,” he told BBC News.

“Actions speak louder than words. If they really do care, please have a little listen to us.”

Great divide?

Some observers suggested the session marked a major development in the politics of the climate convention, with small countries prepared to stand up to more powerful neighbours.

“This is the first time we’ve seen the island nations make such a splash,” said Malini Mehra of the India-based Centre for Social Markets.

“The AOSIS call for a new protocol and the way it was denounced by Saudi Arabia, China, and India show that the G77 has now come asunder and the island nations are leading,” she told BBC News

“As they must – they have seized the high moral ground.”

During the same session, China – and other countries – re-iterated calls for industrialised nations to pledge bigger cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions.

But that has been a familiar call here; the rift between members of the formerly solid developing country bloc is a much less common happening, and may indicate that hopes held out by some countries of signing only a political commitment here may not be enough to placate the poorest and most vulnerable nations.

China has protested against an incident which prevented a top diplomat from entering the vast Bella Center where the conference is underway. Mr Wei told the meeting he is “extremely unhappy” that a Chinese minister was barred from entry on three consecutive days.

He said the unnamed minister has been trying to enter since Monday but failed despite having two security badges made out. Both badges were confiscated by security guards on Wednesday morning.

Source BBC News

Gordon Brown is pushing European leaders to commit to deeper cuts in carbon emissions in an attempt to seal a global deal, he revealed as representatives of 192 countries began negotiations at the climate change summit in Copenhagen.

The prime minister told the Guardian he hoped the EU would agree to cut its output of greenhouse gases by 30% on 1990 levels by 2020 – a cut 10 percentage points deeper than Europe is currently offering. So far, the EU has said it will cut by 30% only if an ambitious global deal is reached.

Brown said: “We’ve got to make countries recognise that they have to be as ambitious as they say they want to be. It’s not enough to say ‘I may do this, I might do this, possibly I’ll do this’. I want to create a situation in which the European Union is persuaded to go to 30%.”

Any move to increase Europe’s emissions reduction target would be fiercely resisted by eastern European countries as well as Italy and Austria, who have opposed deeper cuts.

An increase in the European pledge would mean the UK would have to achieve a cut of 42% by 2020, compared with the current British target of 34%. Because the UK is already racing to build renewable energy as fast as it can, the additional cuts would probably require measures such as road charging, increased fuel taxes and tougher emissions standards for cars.

Source Guardian UK

So what are some of the numbers and how do they stack up?

Here are the top six contributors on 2007 figures.

Coming in at number one on the greenhouse hot list is China

Total emissions                                     6.1b tonnes 

Population                                            1,327 million

Share of the world population               20%

Share of the world CO2                       21%

Per Capita CO2                                   4.6 tonnes

Emissions by sector

Power              50%

Transport         7%

Industry            28%

Buildings           6%

Other               9%

At number two we have the United States

Total emissions                                     5.7b tonnes

Population                                            306 million

Share of the world population               5%

Share of the world CO2                       20%

Per Capita CO2                                   18.7 tonnes

Emissions by sector

Power              43%

Transport         31%

Industry            8%

Buildings           9%

Other               8%

At number three is the European Union

Total emissions                                     3.9b tonnes

Population                                            496 million

Share of the world population               7%

Share of the world CO2                       13%

Per Capita CO2                                   7.8 tonnes

Emissions by sector

Power              37%

Transport         25%

Industry            13%

Buildings           15%

Other               10%

In fourth place we have the Russian Federation

Total emissions                                     1.6b tonnes

Population                                            142 million

Share of the world population               2%

Share of the world CO2                       5%

Per Capita CO2                                   11.1 tonnes

Emissions by sector

Power              55%

Transport         15%

Industry            12%

Buildings           9%

Other               9%

Coming in at fifth is India

Total emissions                                     1.3b tonnes

Population                                            1,123 million

Share of the world population               17%

Share of the world CO2                       5%

Per Capita CO2                                   1.2 tonnes

Emissions by sector

Power              56%

Transport         9%

Industry            18%

Buildings           8%

Other               8%

Picking up position number six is Japan

Total emissions                                     1.2b tonnes

Population                                            128 million

Share of the world population               2%

Share of the world CO2                       4%

Per Capita CO2                                   9.6 tonnes

Emissions by sector

Power              41%

Transport         19%

Industry            20%

Buildings           12%

Other               7%

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Danish government for its generous invitation to host this fifteenth United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and the enormous commitment and work it has shown to make it a success. The time for climate action is now, at Copenhagen. Source UN

But just days before the opening of the United Nations-sponsored meeting, the Europeans have been largely pushed to the sidelines, watching as the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, seek to set the rules of the game.

“That’s of course the unfortunate situation for Copenhagen,” said Jo Leinen, a German member of the European Parliament who is leading the chamber’s delegation to the conference that is intended to follow up on the soon-to-expire Kyoto Protocol. “It’s turning into a bit of a ping-pong match between China and the United States, with each just looking at the other,” he said.

Europeans say they have gone further than anybody else in moving toward a low-carbon economy that could serve as a model for the rest of the world. But the bloc’s ability to exercise global influence through progressive standards and moral leadership, rather than through superpower status, is facing a key test.

“The E.U. frankly doesn’t have the political clout to determine the outcome at Copenhagen,” said Peter Haas, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The E.U. still has much at stake in Copenhagen, however. It is facing huge pressure, Mr. Haas added, to “keep the prospects of a global deal alive so that European business leaders and voters believe they are on track to take advantage of green technology markets of the future.”

Click the link to Read More on this from the New York Times ……

Please note:
This article is for information purposes only. The Greenhouse Neutral Foundation does not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any information provided.

Under the EU’s agreement about how to divide up the cuts that would spell a UK reduction of 42% by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.
Lord Stern described this as “challenging but possible”.
He said it would put the UK at the forefront of a low-carbon “industrial revolution”.
The EU has promised to increase its proposed 20% cut to 30% if there is a strong agreement at next week’s climate conference in Copenhagen – described by Lord Stern as the most important international gathering since World War II.
He said that China and the US had already made concrete offers for the meeting, so the EU should increase the pressure with an ambitious target.
He said that would mean investing between 1% and 2% of national wealth into creating a low-carbon economy, and suggested that the UK government should put extra taxes on high-emitting sectors like aviation and shipping to raise more cash to fund the low-carbon revolution.
But the latest analysis from his team suggests that even the strongest agreement likely at Copenhagen would give the world only a “50-50 chance” of avoiding a level of emissions that the majority of scientists believe could cause catastrophic and irreversible effects.
Falling short
Lord Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, explained that to avoid emissions levels associated with a 2C rise, greenhouse gases needed to drop from 47 billion tonnes in 2010 to about 44 billion tonnes in 2020.
They would then need to plunge to much less than 20 billion tonnes in 2050. He said pledges from nations so far fell short of the 2020 target by about two billion tonnes.

Click the link to Read More on this article from BBC News……

Please note:
This article is for information purposes only. The Greenhouse Neutral Foundation does not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any information provided.

Absolutely. It is possible – if we give politicians a cold, hard slap in the face. The fraudulence of the Copenhagen approach – “goals” for emission reductions, “offsets” that render ironclad goals almost meaningless, the ineffectual “cap-and-trade” mechanism – must be exposed. We must rebel against such politics as usual.

Science reveals that climate is close to tipping points. It is a dead certainty that continued high emissions will create a chaotic dynamic situation for young people, with deteriorating climate conditions out of their control.

Science also reveals what is needed to stabilise atmospheric composition and climate. Geophysical data on the carbon amounts in oil, gas and coal show that the problem is solvable, if we phase out global coal emissions within 20 years and prohibit emissions from unconventional fossil fuels such as tar sands and oil shale.

Such constraints on fossil fuels would cause carbon dioxide emissions to decline 60% by mid-century or even more if policies make it uneconomic to go after every last drop of oil.

Improved forestry and agricultural practices could then bring atmospheric carbon dioxide back to 350 ppm (parts per million) or less, as required for a stable climate.

Governments going to Copenhagen claim to have such goals for 2050, which they will achieve with the “cap-and-trade” mechanism. They are lying through their teeth.

Unless they order Russia to leave its gas in the ground and Saudi Arabia to leave its oil in the ground (which nobody has proposed), they must phase out coal and prohibit unconventional fossil fuels.

Instead, the United States signed an agreement with Canada for a pipeline to carry oil squeezed from tar sands. Australia is building port facilities for large increases in coal export. Coal-to-oil factories are being built. Coal-fired power plants are being constructed worldwide. Governments are stating emission goals that they know are lies – or, if we want to be generous, they do not understand the geophysics and are kidding themselves.

Is it feasible to phase out coal and avoid use of unconventional fossil fuels? Yes, but only if governments face up to the truth: as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, their use will continue and even increase on a global basis.

Fossil fuels are cheapest because they are not made to pay for their effects on human health, the environment and future climate.

Governments must place a uniform rising price on carbon, collected at the fossil fuel source – the mine or port of entry. The fee should be given to the public in toto, as a uniform dividend, payroll tax deduction or both. Such a tax is progressive – the dividend exceeds added energy costs for 60% of the public.

Fee and dividend stimulates the economy, providing the public with the means to adjust lifestyles and energy infrastructure.

Fee and dividend can begin with the countries now considering cap and trade. Other countries will either agree to a carbon fee or have duties placed on their products that are made with fossil fuels.

As the carbon price rises, most coal, tar sands and oil shale will be left in the ground. The marketplace will determine the roles of energy efficiency, renewable energy and nuclear power in our clean energy future.

Cap and trade with offsets, in contrast, is astoundingly ineffective. Global emissions rose rapidly in response to Kyoto, as expected, because fossil fuels remained the cheapest energy.

Cap and trade is an inefficient compromise, paying off numerous special interests. It must be replaced with an honest approach, raising the price of carbon emissions and leaving the dirtiest fossil fuels in the ground.

Are we going to stand up and give global politicians a hard slap in the face, to make them face the truth? It will take a lot of us – probably in the streets. Or are we going to let them continue to kid themselves and us and cheat our children and grandchildren?

Intergenerational inequity is a moral issue. Just as when Abraham Lincoln faced slavery and when Winston Churchill faced Nazism, the time for compromises and half-measures is over. Can we find a leader who understands the core issue and will lead?

James Hansen is director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. His latest book is Storms of My Grandchildren.

Ann Daniels: It’s too late for the Arctic, but it’s not yet too late for us

As a mother of four, I have to believe that we can and will cut global carbon emissions. For 12 years, I have been travelling and working in the polar regions, mainly on the Arctic Ocean.

Over this time, I have completed six expeditions on the Arctic sea ice, sledge-hauling more than 1,500 miles and spending more than 223 days in temperatures well below zero.

During my time “up north”, I have witnessed the change in the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean and experienced more extreme temperatures and unexpected storms.

I have recently returned from the Catlin Arctic Surveycorrect (2009), a scientific expedition to measure the thickness of the ice.

Again, we witnessed a very dynamic and moving sea ice. Our scientific advisers had told us we would encounter older, thicker ice, but the average was relatively thin, at just 1.77m, suggesting it was new ice formed only the previous autumn.

The Arctic sea ice could disappear in the summer some time between 2013 and 2040 and the consequences of this will be catastrophic not only for the indigenous flora and fauna but for weather patterns globally.

Climate change is happening – I have witnessed it first hand – and we simply must do something about it.

We are all looking to the Copenhagen climate change summit to provide the solution, but while it’s imperative that the world’s leaders show the way, it’s up to all of us to take an active interest and to become involved in trying to find a solution.

If we are to have any hope, we need to start now by taking responsibility and trying to reduce our own carbon footprint and give Mother Nature a helping hand.

Do we have hope? I really think we do. We may be too late to halt the melting of the Arctic sea ice but we are not too late to maintain a liveable climate and Earth.

People are now more aware of the damaging impact carbon emissions have on the world and care enough to act.

Ann Daniels is an explorer

Caroline Lucas: Reductions should not be imposed on poor countries

I think there is – but it will take a lot more than hollow promises and handshakes. We need much stronger public pressure and far greater political leadership than we’ve seen to date.

To have even a 50/50 chance of keeping global temperature rise below two degrees centigrade, industrialised countries need to adopt binding targets to reduce emissions by at least 40% by 2020, based on 1990 levels. These reductions should be made domestically – not outsourced to poorer countries. Significant funding for developing countries also needs to be on the table.

In addition to setting ambitious emissions reduction targets, governments need to facilitate a culture shift and recognise that investing in options to polluting and finite fossil fuels will actually benefit society and the economy, as well as the environment. We also need to change the way we communicate about climate change by painting a much more compelling picture of a healthier, more positive, zero-carbon society.

Politicians must make it easier for people to reduce emissions, through easily achievable initiatives such as smart electricity meters. A nationwide programme of energy efficiency, with warm homes at its heart, could also make a significant impact. There is still hope for achieving – at the very least – clear foundations for a global deal at Copenhagen which finally brings the US on board and stays true to the principles of Kyoto: binding emissions reduction targets, uniform accounting rules, strong compliance mechanisms and common but differentiated responsibility – recognising different historical contributions to the climate crisis. President Obama’s attendance indicates that momentum is finally beginning to build.

But perhaps what would make the biggest difference would be a recognition that the impact of climate chaos is likely to be greater than any military threat we have ever faced and therefore demands a commensurate degree of urgency and political will.

Caroline Lucas MEP is leader of the British Green party

President Mohamed Nasheed Despite our predicament, I’m optimistic

The Maldives doesn’t look like the front line in a battle. There are no trenches, barbed wire fences or tank traps. The vistas that greet travellers are quite the opposite: Robinson Crusoe islands of swaying palms and snow-soft sand, shimmering azure waters and coral reefs teeming with tropical life.

The Maldives is, nevertheless, a front line state in the climate change battle. My office is just a metre and a half above the sea, which is also the average height of most of our islands. Even modest sea level rises threaten most of the country.

It is, perhaps, our position as a front-line state that enables us to view the climate threat with greater clarity. Rich countries have pledged to halt temperature rises to two degrees and the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide to 450 parts per million (ppm). However, less than one degree of warming has unleashed unprecedented climate change, including dramatic polar ice and glacier melt, the spread of mosquito-born diseases and more erratic weather patterns.

Top climatologists, such as James Hansen, now warn atmospheric CO2 must be reduced to 350 ppm, if global catastrophe is to be averted. We’re already at 387 ppm. The sort of action necessary to return to 350 is radical: the world needs to quit coal by 2030 and immediately halt tropical deforestation. Fortunately, if we act now, we possess the time, technology and finances needed to solve the crisis.

The Maldives aims to show the way by becoming carbon neutral in 10 years. Since announcing the policy in this newspaper in March, we have signed three agreements with international energy firms to build wind farms. At a recent summit in the Maldives, 10 other developing, front-line states also made a commitment to greening their economies, as their contribution to achieving carbon neutrality.

I believe countries that green their economies today will be tomorrow’s winners. These pioneers will save money currently burnt on fossil fuels. They will corner the green markets of the future. Carbon-neutral nations will also have a louder moral voice on the world stage. The only thing holding some countries back is a lack of political will.

I remain, nevertheless, a climate optimist. I believe in humanity and place great faith in the power of people to force change. From the Quit India campaign, to the civil rights movement, to the struggle for democracy in my country: when people mobilise en masse, barriers to change can be removed. We need a similar movement for the climate crisis.

Thankfully, as demonstrated by campaigns such as 10:10 and 350.org, people are already mobilising. It is my belief that in countries where politicians drag their feet, voters will insist on faster action. That way, we can transform our economies, defeat this enemy and bequeath our children a brighter world; richer and more exuberant than the one we inherited.

Mohamed Nasheed is the president of the Republic of Maldives

Dr Benny Peiser: Politicians face scepticism as warming slows

As we get closer to the Copenhagen conference, the chances of a Kyoto-style treaty with legally binding emissions targets is now close to zero. On the issue of global CO2 emission cuts, the gap between the stances of the developed and the developing nations remains as wide as ever.

Nevertheless, the summit is likely to produce a political agreement. It will, most likely, contain fine words and lofty promises, including the pledge that any future warming – should warming commence again at some point in the future – will be limited to no more than a moderate rise of two degrees centigrade. And as always with conferences of this nature, the Copenhagen agreement will be hailed as a historic breakthrough in the fight to save the planet.

In reality, however, the global economic crisis has effectively rendered costly emission reduction policies untenable. Voters are increasingly hostile to green taxes and higher energy prices. The intriguing fact that the global warming trend of the late 20th-century appears to have come to a halt for the time being has led to growing public scepticism about claims of impending climate catastrophe.

In view of what increasingly looks like an unbridgeable stalemate and after years of inflamed global warming alarm, we are beginning to see a period of sobering up, where national interests and economic priorities are overriding environmental concerns and utopian proposals. It seems reasonable to conclude that the diplomatic impasse cannot be overcome in Copenhagen or, indeed, anytime soon. Global CO2 emissions, as a result, will continue to rise inexorably.

What is needed in these circumstances is a calm deceleration strategy that will cool future climate negotiations.

Such a deliberate slow-down could help to lower the political temperature and turn negotiations into routine events, thereby shedding much of their media hype and agitation. It will be crucial for governments around the world to come up with fresh ideas that can lower unrealistic expectations of a quick fix and can manage to direct the permanent climate stalemate for many years to come.

Dr Benny Peiser in director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation

Yang Ailun: It’s in the world’s interest for China not to fail

Without doubt the answer is yes. Greenpeace China is not alone in saying this. The window of opportunity is closing, but it isn’t closed yet.

In China, there are many reasons for optimism. Five years ago, Greenpeace campaigned to get the Chinese government to introduce its first national renewable energy target. In 2005, a target was set for China to have 10% of its energy coming from renewable energy sources by 2010 and 15% by 2020.

The sense I got then was of a government politely nodding its head, waiting to be convinced that renewable energy was worth the effort.

The evidence is now convincing. The deployment of wind energy, for example, is happening so quickly. Over the last four years, the wind power market in China has grown by more than 100% annually and we are expecting another growth in excess of 100% this year. China planned to install 30GW of wind power by 2020 as part of the renewable energy target. Now the government and the wind industry are talking about 100GW of wind by 2020. Every hour, two wind turbines are being made in China.

More solar water-heating systems have been installed in China than the rest of the world put together. And in the last three years, more coal-fired power stations have been closed down than the total electricity capacity of Australia.

A clean energy revolution is taking place in China. The government is behind this because they know it creates jobs, it creates energy security, it reduces China’s pollution issues as well as its addiction to coal, and it moves all of us away from climate disaster.

But yet China is still the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal, the single biggest cause of climate change. It must, along with every other nation, plan a development path that takes us away from coal, rather than entrenches us further.

Coming from a culture with a history of 5,000 years, I have an appropriate Chinese quote: “Deep doubt, deep wisdom; small doubts, small wisdom.” Doubt and uncertainty compel us to deeper wisdom and bigger actions. It is clear that China realises it is in its own interest to become a clean energy superpower. And it is also in the world’s interest for China not to fail, as the ramifications of failure will affect all of us.

Yang Ailun is head of climate and energy for Greenpeace China

Joss Garman: It all hinges on Europe

It happened before the Rio Earth Summit and also before Kyoto. Now it’s that time again. The most powerful governments in the world are aggressively playing down expectations before Copenhagen, so that if they fail, their populations expected it. On the other hand if they succeed in agreeing something, their voters will cheer.

The reality is that there’s a deal there to get but the success of Copenhagen now hinges on Europe. It’s all too convenient for the Europeans to point at China, and at America’s failures, because it distracts from the reality that our own carbon targets are so pathetic. It’s embarrassing that Europe’s 2020 goal is so weak that the EU would need to deliberately slow Europe’s reductions not to meet it.

In a report out this week, numbers crunched by the McKinsey consultancy show that developing countries are collectively offering a greater reduction in their emissions than the industrialised countries that caused climate crisis and have the greatest ability to pay to solve it.

Poorer countries such as Brazil have boldly offered to cuts their emissions by almost 40%. China, often blamed for not going further, has also put forward plans surpassing the US. President Hu Jintao has already adopted car efficiency standards that Barack Obama only hopes to achieve for the US in 2016. Hu has also signed China up to get 15% of its energy from clean renewable sources by 2020, once again surpassing the US.

If Europe were to promise to cut its emissions by 30% before Copenhagen, it would be a show of good faith and of its expectations for a successful outcome. This would start to redress the imbalance of the poorer countries doing more of the work and would also move the EU closer to the 40% cut that the science says is necessary.

It’s been 12 years since the Kyoto protocol was signed and two years since work began on Copenhagen. If Europe’s leaders fail to close the gap between the science and the politics and seal the deal, we’ll all know it was their fault.

Joss Garman is an environmental activist and blogger at leftfootforward.org

Jessy Tolkan: Only bold action can save us

The road to Copenhagen has been an emotional roller coaster.

Would the United States have passed meaningful legislation by the time of the summit? Would President Obama attend? Would the meeting produce a binding global deal? Would the numbers meet what science requires?

We finally have some important answers. Legislation is more likely to happen in the spring. Obama will attend, although a binding deal is unlikely. And the US has proposed a 17% cut in emissions from 2005 levels by 2020, 30% by 2025, 42% by 2030 and 83% by 2050.

While some may feel the forecast for Copenhagen is not strong enough, we do have a workable base on which to build. For that, we should be optimistic and creatively moving forward.

Compared with US policy over the past 10 years, Obama’s commitment to confronting climate and energy issues is significantly more promising than what we experienced under the Bush administration. The summit is a tremendous opportunity to press upon him and his team the need to be more aggressive. To that extent, Copenhagen can be what we make of it.

The framework is still malleable. The carbon reduction targets outlined by the US are below what science tells us is necessary to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of global climate change. However, legislation is pending, and Obama’s figures are still subject to adjustment. The leaders of the youth climate movement and beyond are committed to asserting the need for bold action that circumstances necessitate.

The Obama administration has been understandably preoccupied with healthcare but is clearly making climate and energy its next priority. The world might have hoped for solutions in December but we will have to regroup in the spring. Fortunately, the Obama administration is sending signals that it is serious and committed to stopping harmful pollution and building a clean energy economy.

We in the US must work hard to pass a bill domestically that puts a cap on carbon that will allow the US to sign a globally binding agreement as soon as possible.

Jessy Tolkan is executive director of the Energy Action Coalition

SOURCE Guardian UK