dezembro 17, 2009
550 ppm?
by Naomi Klein
On the ninth day of the Copenhagen climate summit, Africa was sacrificed. The position of the G77 negotiating bloc, including African states, had been clear: a 2C increase in average global temperatures translates into a 3–3.5C increase in Africa. That means, according to the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, "an additional 55 million people could be at risk from hunger", and "water stress could affect between 350 and 600 million more people".
Archbishop Desmond Tutu puts it like this: "We are facing impending disaster on a monstrous scale … A global goal of about 2C is to condemn Africa to incineration and no modern development."
At the start of these negotiations the mere notion of delay was environmental heresy. But now many are seeing the value of slowing down and getting it right. Most significant, after describing what 2C would mean for Africa, Archbishop Tutu pronounced that it is "better to have no deal than to have a bad deal". That may well be the best we can hope for in Copenhagen. It would be a political disaster for some heads of state – but it could be one last chance to avert the real disaster for everyone else.
3ºC
UN secretariat initial draft shows gap of up to 4.2 gigatonnes of CO2 between present pledges and cuts required to limit rise to 2C
A confidential UN analysis obtained by the Guardian reveals that the emissions cuts offered so far at the Copenhagen climate change summit will lead to global temperatures rising by an average of 3C.
The analysis seriously undermines the statements by governments that they are aiming to limit emissions to a level ensuring no more than a 2C temperature rise over the next century, and indicates that the last 24 hours of negotiations will be extremely challenging.
A rise of 3C would mean up to 170 million more people suffering severe coastal floods and 550 million more at risk of hunger, according to the 2006 Stern economic review of climate change for the UK government - as well as leaving up to 50% of species facing extinction. Even a rise of 2C would lead to sharp decline in tropical crop yields, more flooding and droughts.
Greenpeace campaigner Joss Garman said: "This is an explosive document that shows the numbers on the table at the moment would lead to nothing less than climate breakdown and an extraordinarily dangerous situation for humanity. The UN is admitting in private that the pledges made by world leaders would lead to a 3C rise in temperatures. The science shows that could lead to the collapse of the Amazon rainforest, crippling water shortages across South America and Australia and the near-extinction of tropical coral reefs, and that's just the start of it."
BREAKING: Leaked UN Climate Text Confirms What We've Been Saying (AKA The Real ClimateGate)
A leaked copy of an official UN assessment just emerged from the talks--it says quite clearly that the proposals now on the table will yield temperature increases of at least 3 degrees Celsius. This is what the Climate Interactive folks have been saying all along, news that's been reflected on the front of our website. But now the UN is saying it, and they're adding--in one of the classic examples of bureaucratic understatement of all time, that the estimated temperature rise of 3 degrees “will reduce significantly the probability to stay within a temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius.” You think?
The analysis concluded that without much stronger action to cut emissions both before and after 2020, “global emissions will remain on an unsustainable pathway that could lead to concentrations equal or above 550 p.p.m. [parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air] with the related temperature” rising 3 degrees Celsius, or 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. That is far above the thresholds for dangerous warming being debated at the meeting and accepted in recent statements by the major economies of the world.
COP15: 36 hours left
Negociações estão praticamente paradas - 16/12/2009
Foi um dia para esquecer em Copenhaga. Um dia praticamente perdido, quando faltam apenas 48 horas para o fim da conferência da ONU que deverá definir o próximo passo internacional contra as alterações climáticas. Ao princípio da noite, as negociações estavam praticamente paradas, em consequência de entraves levantados ao longo do dia.
Logo de manhã, as notícias já não eram boas. Representantes de 192 países tinham estado reunidos a noite toda para tentar desbloquear os principais pontos de conflito para decisões centrais em Copenhaga. Mas sem resultado. Nada estava decidido sobre o essencial: novas metas de redução de emissões de CO2 para os países desenvolvidos, acções para limitar o crescimento de emissões dos países em desenvolvimento, financiamento às nações mais pobres, o futuro do Protocolo de Quioto.
Sem avanços, a presidente da conferência, a dinamarquesa Connie Hedegaard, tentou dar um passo à frente e anunciou que proporia novos textos para serem discutidos. Ao invés de progresso, a iniciativa resultou em bloqueio.
A succession of world leaders, including Gordon Brown, are due to address the summit today as troubled negotiations for a climate deal are on the brink of collapse. Meanwhile, angry activists outside the conference venue ponder their next move - Follow live updates
16 Dez: Reclaim the Power
video guardianDanish police arrest 260 people after a day of mass protest where 4,000 campaigners marched on the Bella centre and activists inside staged a noisy walkout
Protests involving thousands of people today inside and outside the Bella conference centre hosting UN climate talks in Copenhagen have passed off without major incident.
About 4,000 campaigners marched on the Bella centre in an attempt to stage a "people's assembly" inside the summit, but were stopped by police. At least 260 protesters have been detained following clashes outside the Bella centre, said the Danish police spokesman, Per Larsen.
Tim Jones, policy officer for anti-poverty campaigners the World Development Movement, said: "Today thousands of people sought to create a people's assembly to get voices heard offering real solutions to the climate crisis. The people's assembly was stopped by police who committed unprovoked violence on both protesters and official delegates to the UN negotiations.
Security measures stepped up around city as thousands of demonstrators set off for mass invasion of Bella centre
Danish police today arrested 230 people at various points around Copenhagen, where world leaders and officials are meeting for UN climate talks.
The news came as thousands of protesters set out in Copenhagen this morning in a bid to take over the conference centre where the talks are taking place. The organisers of the mass "Reclaim Power" march, the Climate Justice Action and Climate Justice Now! (CJN) networks of campaigners, said they hope to enter the Bella centre today, where NGOs and activist groups were struggling to gain entry this morning, to hold a "people's assembly" in protest at the direction the talks are taking.
In the bitter cold outside the Bella centre where the conference is being held, a group of around 60 people including indigenous groups, mainstream environment groups and journalist and activist Naomi Klein were protesting about NGOs being excluded from the conference centre. They had been met by police who warned that they may be arrested, although there has not been any violence. Klein said of the handling of the protests that, "Denmark is losing its reputation for being a good world citizen."
These are shocking images of police brutality from outside the Bella Center where the UN climate talks seem to be fracturing just hours before over 100 heads of state are scheduled to arrive to debate a climate deal. It’s all the more striking to see the faces of some of our friends and co-workers in this video from CNN (it can’t embed, but please do watch, it is striking footage)
The Danish police have escalated their attempts to criminalise and harass activists from the group Climate Justice Action in tactics described as “desperate and self-interested.”
The group is an international coalition of grass-roots organisations, representing the voices of those marginalised from the UN process from the start of these negotiations, including indigenous rights activists, farmers movements and environmentalists.
16 Dez: inside Bella Center
Security intensifies ahead of mass action to invade summit as 115 world leaders arrive for high-level talks
Friends of the Earth international, Avaaz, TckTckTck and other mainstream environment coalition groups were refused entry to the Copenhagen conference centre this morning, without being given any reason.
The Bella centre is the focal point for climate activists who are aiming to invade the summit today. Around the city, some 150 arrests have been made this morning as part of an intensification of security to keep the lid on actions in the conference centre as the first of 115 world leaders arrives in Copenhagen amid the major protests.
In a separate development, hundreds of non-government groups are to be individually banned from the centre or have their numbers slashed from tomorrow to make way for world leaders. Only 1,000 people from civil society will be allowed in to the conference hall tomorrow, and 90 on Friday.
Democracy Now: cobertura Reclaim the Power
video democracy now
Climate Crackdown: UN Bars Friends of the Earth and Other Environmental Groups from Climate Talks
The crackdown around the UN climate talks in Copenhagen is intensifying. Earlier today the United Nations suspended several mainstream environmental groups and barred members from re-entering the conference. Organizations targeted include Friends of the Earth, Tck Tck Tck, Avaaz, World Vision and Via Campesina. Democracy Now! caught up with Nnimmo Bassey, the prominent Nigerian environmentalist, just as he was being removed by security from the conference.
Police Pepper Spray, Arrest Protesters Marching on UN Climate Summit as Hundreds Inside Stage Walkout
In Copenhagen, thousands of protesters marched toward the UN climate summit on Wednesday with the stated goal of transforming the talks into a People’s Assembly and to call for climate justice. Police made over 200 arrests. Meanwhile, inside the Bella Center, hundreds of people staged a walkout to try and meet the marchers outside but were met with a heavy police response.
COP15: os últimos dias
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/climate/2009/12/update3_days_left_1.html
Actually, not everybody has the same cards. The Least Developed Countries, the poorest of the poor, and the Association of Small Island States, also mostly poor, have less cards to play than the rich industrialized countries. They also cheat less to be honest. Their emissions are so small they can offer little in the way of mitigation. They come asking for help to adapt as weather patterns change, storms grow and seas rise. They are being offered a tiny fraction of what economists say they will need. It might even be the only card they have to play is to pack up and leave, refusing to sign on to a national suicide pact.
To gain some influence in the talks, they are aligned with a large group of developing countries that goes by the name of the G77. Other than the poorest countries, this group includes what have become known as the BASIC countries. Those letters (kind of) stand for the names of the biggest of the emerging economies: Brazil, South Africa, India and China. These countries have emissions profiles that are distinctive for a combination of four factors. They represent a significant portion of current global emissions and a large portion of future emissions growth, but they do not represent a significant proportion of historic emissions and their per capita emissions levels are far below the developed world. Each of these countries has made significant pledges to slow the growth of their emissions, but refuse to set absolute limits on growth for economies that includes hundreds of millions of people that still live below income levels of two dollars per day.
There is one last block of G77 countries. They are largely oil producers led by Saudi Arabia. For the most part, they are here to stop anything from happening to the oil industry.
First among developed countries is the European Union. The EU is perhaps the most transparent group here. But their pledge of 20% reduction from 1990 levels is not what it seems. The EU moves as a bloc of countries and includes Eastern European countries that had high post-Soviet emissions in 1990. Many of those countries are significantly below those levels now, allowing other EU countries higher emissions while still claiming overall reductions.
After the EU, comes a group of developed countries called the Umbrella Group, including Japan, Russia, Canada, Australia. These countries are a mixed bag. Canada is horrible and claims it is horrible because the U.S. is horrible. Russia is sitting on a load of hot air. That is the term for the emissions credits based on those higher 1990 levels that I talked about earlier. Russia can claim to reduce emissions about 40% below 1990 levels while nonetheless actually increasing emissions and selling that hot air to polluting countries.
This brings me to the U.S. We are now proposing to reduce emissions a miserable 3-4% below 1990 levels. We have put no solid financing numbers on the table to help developing countries mitigate their emissions or adapt to the climate problem we helped create.
So it is easy to see why I say there is almost no reason to be encouraged. ALMOST no reason. Let me point out the cracks of light. First, other than the elites that run the show here, the world largely supports strong action on an international climate deal. The hundred thousand or so in the streets here on Saturday were just one example.
President Obama could come here and unlock a deal that is fair, ambitious and legally binding. He could instruct negotiators to stop creating loopholes and blocking honest progress. He could commit to go beyond the weak levels proposed in the current bills before Congress. He could pledge to raise funds to help the world’s most vulnerable adapt to a problem that was created by our American lifestyles of consumption. He could sign up to a deal that has real consequences for the failure to meet commitments.
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