Tuvalu is a small Pacific Island state whose very survival is seriously threatened by rising sea levels.
Tuvalu takes centre stage as talks stall
and
Tuvalu walks out after being blocked
“Tuvalu has caused quite a stir at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen with the island's representative pleading with delegates to come up with a legally binding agreement, then in an unprecedented move stormed-out, closing the session until the afternoon.
Tuvalu has caused quite a stir at the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen with the island's representative pleading with delegates to come up with a legally binding agreement, then in an unprecedented move stormed-out, closing the session until the afternoon.”
Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
Thursday, December 10, 2009
SMH: 2010 set to be hottest yet, Australians should prepare for heatwaves
Scientists tip 2010 as hottest yet
DEBORAH SMITH
December 11, 2009
THE past six months have been Australia's warmest winter-spring period on record and it is likely next year will set global temperature records.
Scientists predict that, whatever the outcome at Copenhagen, Australia must adapt to unprecedented heatwaves ...
Every decade in Australia for the past 70 years had been getting warmer, and this decade has been the globe's warmest so far.
full article
DEBORAH SMITH
December 11, 2009
THE past six months have been Australia's warmest winter-spring period on record and it is likely next year will set global temperature records.
Scientists predict that, whatever the outcome at Copenhagen, Australia must adapt to unprecedented heatwaves ...
Every decade in Australia for the past 70 years had been getting warmer, and this decade has been the globe's warmest so far.
full article
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Last decade the hottest on record
Like the climate scientist guy said: “actually frightening”.
Did I mention Hugo Chavez's call for an International To Save All Life on Planet Earth?
Past decade the warmest since records began in 1850
DEBORAH SMITH SCIENCE EDITOR
December 9, 2009
THIS year has been the third-hottest on record in Australia, and is ranked as the fifth-warmest globally.
A report by the World Meteorological Organisation, published last night, concluded that the decade from 2000 to 2009 was the warmest since instrumental climate records began in 1850.
In 2009, only the United States and Canada experienced conditions that were cooler than average. ''Given the current figures, large parts of southern Asia and central Africa are likely to have their warmest year on record,'' the report said.
Published as world leaders gathered in Copenhagen to consider climate change, it highlights extreme weather conditions around the globe this year, including three ''exceptional heatwaves'' in Australia, China's worst drought in 50 years and the wettest October in the US in 115 years.
Andy Pitman, co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, said this year should have been a cool year because of low solar activity and a recent La Nina weather event. ''The fact it ranked in the top 5 since 1850 is actually frightening,'' he said.
This year's heatwaves in NSW, Victoria and South Australia also did not bode well for next year, Professor Pitman said.
Full article: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/past-decade-the-warmest-since-records-began-in-1850-20091208-khqv.html
Did I mention Hugo Chavez's call for an International To Save All Life on Planet Earth?
Past decade the warmest since records began in 1850
DEBORAH SMITH SCIENCE EDITOR
December 9, 2009
THIS year has been the third-hottest on record in Australia, and is ranked as the fifth-warmest globally.
A report by the World Meteorological Organisation, published last night, concluded that the decade from 2000 to 2009 was the warmest since instrumental climate records began in 1850.
In 2009, only the United States and Canada experienced conditions that were cooler than average. ''Given the current figures, large parts of southern Asia and central Africa are likely to have their warmest year on record,'' the report said.
Published as world leaders gathered in Copenhagen to consider climate change, it highlights extreme weather conditions around the globe this year, including three ''exceptional heatwaves'' in Australia, China's worst drought in 50 years and the wettest October in the US in 115 years.
Andy Pitman, co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, said this year should have been a cool year because of low solar activity and a recent La Nina weather event. ''The fact it ranked in the top 5 since 1850 is actually frightening,'' he said.
This year's heatwaves in NSW, Victoria and South Australia also did not bode well for next year, Professor Pitman said.
Full article: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/past-decade-the-warmest-since-records-began-in-1850-20091208-khqv.html
Secret rich nations’ plan leak sparks Third World fury — Copenhagen being reduced to rubble
In the lead up to the Copenhagen talks, poor nations had expressed their anger and frustration at the rich nations over the rich nations plans to refuse to agree to serious, binding cuts in their emissions and for compensation for poor nations over climate change effects.
Poor nations are bearing the brunt of the already all-too-real effects of climate change, caused overwhelmingly by the industrial development of the rich countries.
The summit barely started before the actions of the rich nations blew it up. Anger of the poor nations has exploded over a leaked text of an agreement worked beforehand by a cabal of rich nations (known as the “circle of commitment” and including Australia) that lets rich nations off the hook and spits in the face of Third World demands.
The greed of the great (First World-based) corporate interests, and the slavish commitment to those interests of rich nation governments, is more than sickening: it is threatening the potential for life on this planet to continue.
This is exactly why I support so wholeheartedly Hugo Chavez’s call for an International to Save the Planet.
* * *
(Taken from Climateandcapitalism.com)
Leaked Document Shows Rich Nations Plan Climate Coup in Copenhagen
December 8, 2009
Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN’s negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol
by John Vidal
The Guardian, December 8, 2009
The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations.
The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.
The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as “the circle of commitment” – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalized this week.
The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol’s principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act.
The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol — the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.
The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as “a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks.”
A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:
* Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
* Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called “the most vulnerable”;
* Weaken the UN’s role in handling climate finance;
* Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.
Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.
“It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process,” said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.
Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: “This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up.
“It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed.”
Hill continued: “It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN.
“That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints in developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks.”
* * *
The Sydney Morning Herald noted, meanwhile: “Drafted by the Danish Government after talks with the so-called ‘circle of commitment’, including Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the document said global emissions should peak by the end of the next decade but did not include any emissions targets for 2020 or specific proposals for the creation of a green fund to help the most vulnerable ...
“it prompted a furious rebuke to rich nations from China. In a surreal press conference in a cramped room next to the Chinese delegation office, chief negotiator Su Wei claimed he was unaware of the leaked Danish proposal that had hijacked the mood of the convention centre while attacking the European Union, Japan and the US for claiming they were acting on climate change while doing very little.
In a detailed analysis of the flaws of rich nations’ 2020 targets, he said Europe had already done more to limit emissions under the flawed Kyoto Protocol than it proposed to do under a Copenhagen pact, Japan’s proposed 25 per cent cut was meaningless because it had set conditions that would never be met and the US had promised a ‘remarkable and notable’ emissions target but proposed only a provisional 1 per cent cut below 1990 levels.
“‘I’m not very good at English, but I doubt whether just a 1 per cent reduction can be described as remarkable or notable,’ he said.
“He said the $US10 billion annual green fund, that has won wide support at the conference and is included in the draft Danish agreement, worked out to just $2 per person across the planet - not enough to buy a coffee in Copenhagen, or a coffin.
“‘Climate change is a life and death issue,’ he said.”
The key to this, as has been the key for so much of human progress in recent centuries, is the actions of ordinary people. We are many and they are few, and all that.
It is true if you look at how trade union rights and universal suffrage were won, abominations like apartheid defeated, civil rights for a wide range of sectors secured in country after country, etc etc etc.
Therefore, the real action at Copenhagen will be occurring on the streets outside it.
In the lead-up, these two articles have just been posted to Green Left Weekly
Britain: Massive climate protest demands real deal at Copenhagen
Canada: Protests condemn climate crimes
Poor nations are bearing the brunt of the already all-too-real effects of climate change, caused overwhelmingly by the industrial development of the rich countries.
The summit barely started before the actions of the rich nations blew it up. Anger of the poor nations has exploded over a leaked text of an agreement worked beforehand by a cabal of rich nations (known as the “circle of commitment” and including Australia) that lets rich nations off the hook and spits in the face of Third World demands.
The greed of the great (First World-based) corporate interests, and the slavish commitment to those interests of rich nation governments, is more than sickening: it is threatening the potential for life on this planet to continue.
This is exactly why I support so wholeheartedly Hugo Chavez’s call for an International to Save the Planet.
* * *
(Taken from Climateandcapitalism.com)
Leaked Document Shows Rich Nations Plan Climate Coup in Copenhagen
December 8, 2009
Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN’s negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol
by John Vidal
The Guardian, December 8, 2009
The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations.
The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.
The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as “the circle of commitment” – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalized this week.
The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol’s principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act.
The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol — the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.
The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as “a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks.”
A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:
* Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
* Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called “the most vulnerable”;
* Weaken the UN’s role in handling climate finance;
* Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.
Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.
“It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process,” said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.
Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: “This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up.
“It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed.”
Hill continued: “It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN.
“That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints in developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks.”
* * *
The Sydney Morning Herald noted, meanwhile: “Drafted by the Danish Government after talks with the so-called ‘circle of commitment’, including Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the document said global emissions should peak by the end of the next decade but did not include any emissions targets for 2020 or specific proposals for the creation of a green fund to help the most vulnerable ...
“it prompted a furious rebuke to rich nations from China. In a surreal press conference in a cramped room next to the Chinese delegation office, chief negotiator Su Wei claimed he was unaware of the leaked Danish proposal that had hijacked the mood of the convention centre while attacking the European Union, Japan and the US for claiming they were acting on climate change while doing very little.
In a detailed analysis of the flaws of rich nations’ 2020 targets, he said Europe had already done more to limit emissions under the flawed Kyoto Protocol than it proposed to do under a Copenhagen pact, Japan’s proposed 25 per cent cut was meaningless because it had set conditions that would never be met and the US had promised a ‘remarkable and notable’ emissions target but proposed only a provisional 1 per cent cut below 1990 levels.
“‘I’m not very good at English, but I doubt whether just a 1 per cent reduction can be described as remarkable or notable,’ he said.
“He said the $US10 billion annual green fund, that has won wide support at the conference and is included in the draft Danish agreement, worked out to just $2 per person across the planet - not enough to buy a coffee in Copenhagen, or a coffin.
“‘Climate change is a life and death issue,’ he said.”
The key to this, as has been the key for so much of human progress in recent centuries, is the actions of ordinary people. We are many and they are few, and all that.
It is true if you look at how trade union rights and universal suffrage were won, abominations like apartheid defeated, civil rights for a wide range of sectors secured in country after country, etc etc etc.
Therefore, the real action at Copenhagen will be occurring on the streets outside it.
In the lead-up, these two articles have just been posted to Green Left Weekly
Britain: Massive climate protest demands real deal at Copenhagen
Canada: Protests condemn climate crimes
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Oz climate report: 250,000 coastal homes at risk of flooding
The federal government’s own report from November on the threat of climate change, “Climate Change Risks to Australia”, finds disturbing results.
Unfortunately, the government’s response is to seek to introduce an emissions trading scheme that gives hand outs to big business and lets them continue polluting — while increasing the power bills for ordinary people. (See the history of cap and trade below)
The ABC.net.au report on the finds including the following points.
* * *
ELIZABETH JACKSON: Up to 250,000 homes around Australia will be inundated by the end of this century. Ports will disappear, airports will be submerged, and up to $63 billion worth of residential property will go.
That's the alarming finding of the most comprehensive climate report card to date.
...
SARAH CLARKE: By using the latest projections on rising sea levels of up to 1.1 metres by the turn of the century, combined with increasing number of extreme weather events, scientists say no property by the sea is safe.
...
SARAH CLARKE: The cost of losing these homes by the sea is estimated at between $40 and $63 billion.
And those properties within 110 metres of the soft shorelines don't escape either. This report warns they'll be exposed to flooding, wild wind events, higher storm surges and erosion, all of which put them at risk. And 39,000 homes have been identified.
...
One hundred and twenty ports are within 200 metres of the Australian coastline, as well as five power stations, three water treatment plants and 1,800 bridges.
Sydney and Brisbane airports are built on low-lying areas and if this report is correct, they'll be more like ports.
* * *
Somewhat serious.
Too serious to be left to the likes of climate denier Tony Abbott, or, for that matter, climate pretender Kevin Rudd — for whom the entire emissions trading bill is just a clever way to seek to split the Liberals, while putting on a face of taking the climate seriously.
Yet more and more people want proper action — even in the blue-ribbon seat of Higgins, as safe Liberal as can be, climate activist and academic Clive Hamilton won more than 35% of the vote running for the Greens.
The media spun this as ringing endorsement for Abbott as new Liberal leader, yet in both Higgins and Bradfield (safe Liberal seats), the Greens outdid Labor’s vote in those seats in 200.7
Unfortunately, the government’s response is to seek to introduce an emissions trading scheme that gives hand outs to big business and lets them continue polluting — while increasing the power bills for ordinary people. (See the history of cap and trade below)
The ABC.net.au report on the finds including the following points.
* * *
ELIZABETH JACKSON: Up to 250,000 homes around Australia will be inundated by the end of this century. Ports will disappear, airports will be submerged, and up to $63 billion worth of residential property will go.
That's the alarming finding of the most comprehensive climate report card to date.
...
SARAH CLARKE: By using the latest projections on rising sea levels of up to 1.1 metres by the turn of the century, combined with increasing number of extreme weather events, scientists say no property by the sea is safe.
...
SARAH CLARKE: The cost of losing these homes by the sea is estimated at between $40 and $63 billion.
And those properties within 110 metres of the soft shorelines don't escape either. This report warns they'll be exposed to flooding, wild wind events, higher storm surges and erosion, all of which put them at risk. And 39,000 homes have been identified.
...
One hundred and twenty ports are within 200 metres of the Australian coastline, as well as five power stations, three water treatment plants and 1,800 bridges.
Sydney and Brisbane airports are built on low-lying areas and if this report is correct, they'll be more like ports.
* * *
Somewhat serious.
Too serious to be left to the likes of climate denier Tony Abbott, or, for that matter, climate pretender Kevin Rudd — for whom the entire emissions trading bill is just a clever way to seek to split the Liberals, while putting on a face of taking the climate seriously.
Yet more and more people want proper action — even in the blue-ribbon seat of Higgins, as safe Liberal as can be, climate activist and academic Clive Hamilton won more than 35% of the vote running for the Greens.
The media spun this as ringing endorsement for Abbott as new Liberal leader, yet in both Higgins and Bradfield (safe Liberal seats), the Greens outdid Labor’s vote in those seats in 200.7
Saturday, December 5, 2009
The story of cap and trade: a short video on the reality of emissions trading
Some strange, disturbing and frankly ridiculous political games and fights that have dominated Oz politics over the last couple of weeks or so.
The debate in the Liberal Party over climate change and the Rudd government’s emissions trading bill was accurately described by Green Left Weekly’s Simon Butler as a fight between the climate deniers and the climate pretenders.
Therefore I am glad that the first post on my blog is this short video explaining why emissions trading is not serious climate action.
Here is the spiel, followed by the video:
“The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill.
“Host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street financiers at the heart of this scheme and reveals the ‘devils in the details’ in current cap and trade proposals: free permits to big polluters, fake offsets and distraction from what’s really required to tackle the climate crisis.
“If you’ve heard about Cap & Trade, but aren’t sure how it works (or who benefits), this is the film is for you.”
For more information, and to see Leonard’s earlier, great short video The Story of Stuff, click here.
The debate in the Liberal Party over climate change and the Rudd government’s emissions trading bill was accurately described by Green Left Weekly’s Simon Butler as a fight between the climate deniers and the climate pretenders.
Therefore I am glad that the first post on my blog is this short video explaining why emissions trading is not serious climate action.
Here is the spiel, followed by the video:
“The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill.
“Host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street financiers at the heart of this scheme and reveals the ‘devils in the details’ in current cap and trade proposals: free permits to big polluters, fake offsets and distraction from what’s really required to tackle the climate crisis.
“If you’ve heard about Cap & Trade, but aren’t sure how it works (or who benefits), this is the film is for you.”
The Story of Cap & Trade from Story of Stuff Project on Vimeo.
For more information, and to see Leonard’s earlier, great short video The Story of Stuff, click here.
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