Humanity 0 Stupidity 1

In the end our lovely politicians just couldn’t do it. To many vested interests, to many cares about economic woes, to much hot air, too much posturing, too much talking, and now the promise of the UK’s Copenhagen climate change conference lies broken and discarded in the dust.

Those wise men and women (yes, I am a tad cynical today) did manage to come to some sort of vague agreement on committing to the broad ambition of keeping global temperature rises below 2 degrees Celsius, but as there are no mechanisms in place to achieve carbon emission cuts, this is worthless: The ‘good news’: There is a promise to provide up to $30 billion to poorer nations to cope with climate change and a ‘goal’ of $100 billion per year for poorer nations to adapt to climate change and adopt clean energy technology: There is funding to enable forest nations protect  trees from loggers and farmers;  The provisions of the Kyoto Protocol are preserved.  Now the ‘bad news’: There are no targets for greenhouse gas emissions; there is no legally binding treaty and no deadline for a legally binding treaty to cut carbon emissions: and there are no guarantees of where the climate change funding will come from.  However it is hoped that a new meeting in Mexico in December 2010 will seal a legally binding treaty.  

This is what John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace, had to say: “Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with guilty men and women fleeing to the airport. It seems there are too few politicians in the world capable of looking beyond the horizon of their own narrow self interest, let alone caring much for the millions of people facing the threat of climate change”.

Copenhagen splits start to appear

A senior Chinese advisor has said that the country should not be expected to reduce it’s greenhouse gas emissions because this would compromise it’s economic growth. Speaking at the launch of a new report on China’s prospects for low carbon growth, Dai Yande, the Deputy Chief of the Energy Research Institute made it clear that developing nations should not be forced to compromise economic growth because of climate change targets. With the Copenhagen UN summit on climate change fast approaching, China is clearly signalling that it is the developed world that needs to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions – as it is nations like the USA, members the European Economic Community, Japan and Australia who consume 80% of the world’s resources and create 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.  A co-author of the Report, Professor He Jiankum said that China faced huge obstacles in moving to a low carbon future because it was still developing – and said that “there are a huge number of cities to be built. They will consume a large amount of steel and cement. This means that emissions will not be reduced for some time”.  With massive investments needed for sustainable power sources such as solar and wind power, current projections show that China will increase greenhouse gas emissions to a peak some time in 2030-2035.

India will be key player at Copenhagen conference, says Miliband

http://www.earth-stream.com/Earth/Back-to-the-Future/2020-to-2029/India-will-be-key-player-at-Copenhagen -conference-says-Miliband_18_212_711_202210.html

 

Delhi throws down green gauntlet to US by announcing carbon cuts

http://timesonline.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx

 

Mermaid who faces failure

By Ben Webster – The Times 18^th Septenber 2009

The clock ticks are Copenhagen gets closer

As UN General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon warns that vital climate change negotiations have stalled, record label The:Hours have announced that they are recording and launching a ‘musical petition’ as part of the ‘tck tck tck’ campaign for climate justice, aiming for a positive outcome from the UN Copenhagen summit this December.The classic 1987 Midnight Oil track ‘Beds Are Burning’ is being re-recorded by a cast of 55 music stars as part of the musical campaign on climate change – and you can check the snippet here – www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmytmG9ZE2M. The Copenhagen summit is widely thought to be the last chance to come to a meaningful solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change on a global level and it seems that Europe and the USA have fundamental disagreements over the structure of the new international treaty that is meant to be agreed in Copenhagen - with Europe wanting to build on the Kyoto Treaty on climate change – and the US wanting to build a new framework – potentially to protect US interests. With the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warning that greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2015 if we are to avoid a 2% plus change in the climate (and therefor reach the ‘tipping point’ of irreversible climate change) leaving  the matter unresolved is simply not an option. Ban told the Guardian “we are deeply concerned that the negotiations are not making much headway. It is absolutely and  crucially important for leaders to demonstrate their political will, leadership, and give a clear political guidelines to negotiators. They should be responsible for the future of this entire humanity”. 

 

And what are they doing – they are arguing …. and the clock is tck, tck, tcking,  

 

See http://www.youtube.com/user/time4climatejustice

Beds are Burning factoids

Former Midnight Oil frontman and now Australian Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says he will not join the 55 celebrities including Simon le Bon in reprising one of Midnight Oil’s greatest hits in the name of climate change. Garrett confirmed he and the band did collaborate with the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum on a revamp of Beds Are Burning, but will not take part in the recording. “The band were obviously aware of it and were happy to contribute to [the song] being reworked,” a spokesman for Mr Garrett said. Celebrities featured include Duran Duran, French Piaf actress Marion Cotillard, Senegalese star Youssou N’dour, heavy metal band Scorpions and Chinese singer Khalil Fong.

The song is a political song about giving native Australian lands back to the Pintupi, who were among the very last people to come in from the desert. These ‘last contact’ people began moving from the Gibson Desert settlements and missions in the 1930s. More were forcibly moved during the 1950s and 1960s to the Papunya settlement. In 1981 they left to return to their own country and established the Kintore Community. It is now a thriving little community with a population of about 400.

Beds are Burning, the first track from Midnight Oil’s 1987 Diesel and Dust album reached #1 in the South African charts, #3 in Holland’s Top 40, #5 in France’s Top 50, number #6 in the UK charts and #17 in the UK Billboard Hot 100.

European Commissioner pushes for Copenhagen action

Sitting on the dock of the bay, watching the planet drift away

The EU Environment Commissioner, Stavros Dimas, has warned of the urgency of tackling climate change, saying that global leaders have one more chance to keep us out of the danger zone when they meet to thrash out a new international climate agreement in Copenhagen later this year. Speaking at the European Policy Centre on Thursday, Mr Dimas reiterated that without deep cuts to carbon emissions, global warming is likely to pass the all-important 2C° cut off point by the middle of the century – 2C° above pre-industrial levels is widely accepted as the level of warming that will lead to unmanageable levels of catastrophic climate change. Average global temperatures are currently around 0.8C° above pre-industrial levels. Mr Dimas said that “The window of opportunity for avoiding dangerous climate change is closing fast” adding that “the Copenhagen agreement is almost certainly the world’s last chance to put global emissions onto a trajectory that can keep us out of the danger zone” and saying that “We know that failure to prevent dangerous climate change will cost far more than taking the necessary action – between 5% and a staggering 20% or more of global annual GDP in the long run, according to Lord Stern’s seminal study.” The Commissioner acknowledged that the difficult economic climate made up-front spending on carbon reduction a bitter pill to swallow but argued that the cost of inaction would be even less palatable saying “Far from being a reason to neglect the fight against climate change the economic recession – and the stimulus measures needed to counter it – have turned out to be a golden opportunity to accelerate investment in building the low-carbon economy that is needed to bring climate change under control”.