16 December 2015, The Guardian, Climate change deal: five reasons to be glad, five to be gloomy. Will the deal agreed in Paris be enough to save the planet? Emissions cuts and investment are promised, but legal responsibilities are thin on the ground. Read More here
Yearly Archives: 2015
15 December 2015, The Conversation, How emissions trading at Paris climate talks has set us up for failure. The Paris Agreement has mostly been greeted with enthusiasm, though it contains at least one obvious flaw. Few seem to have noticed that the main tool mooted for keeping us within the 2℃ global warming target is a massive expansion of carbon trading, including offsetting, which allows the market exchange of credits between companies and nations to achieve an overall emissions reduction. That’s despite plenty of evidence that markets haven’t worked well enough, or quickly enough, to actually keep the planet safe. The debate over whether to include carbon markets in the final agreement came right to the wire. Some left-leaning Latin American countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia vehemently opposed any mention, while the EU, Brazil, and New Zealand, among other countries, pushed hard for their inclusion – with support from the World Bank, the IMF and many business groups. Play with words What we have ended up with is some murky semantics. Though terms such as “carbon trading”, “carbon pricing”, “carbon offsetting” and “carbon markets” don’t appear anywhere in the text, the agreement is littered with references to a whole range of new and expanded market-based tools. Article 6 refers to “voluntary cooperation” between countries in the implementation of their emissions targets “to allow for higher ambition in their mitigation and adaptation actions”. If that’s not exactly plain speak, then wait for how carbon trading is referred to as “internationally transferred mitigation outcomes”. The same Article also provides for an entirely new, UN-controlled international market mechanism. All countries will be able to trade carbon with each other, helping each to achieve their national targets for emissions cuts. While trading between companies, countries or blocs of countries is done on a voluntary basis, the new mechanism, dubbed the Sustainable Development Mechanism (SDM), will be set up to succeed the existing Joint Implementation and Clean Development Mechanism, providing for a massive expansion of carbon trading and offsetting while setting some basic standards. Read More here
15 December 2015, New Internationalist, COP21 agreed to a climate-changed world. ….. The scaffold on which the entire COP21 hung was the infamous intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs). While the COP itself notes that the figures submitted by countries do not on the aggregate point a way to cooling the planet, it nevertheless stayed the cause of this clearly wrong path. The INDCs, if implemented, will lead to a temperature increase of over 3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, wiping out communities of people and sparking unpredictable repercussions. The Agreement recognizes that INDCs will also be achieved through removal of greenhouse gases – through sinks and offsets, for example. Thus, the path of the INDCs taken by the COP is an irredeemable self-inflicted injury that subverts real efforts to tackle the climate menace. Applauding the COP for being a success because for the first time all nations have indicated commitment to tackle climate change on the basis of the INDCs indicates a total disregard of climate science and equity as epitomized by this pathway. Read more here
15 December 2015, YALE Climate Connections, More Glum News on Arctic Warming. Arctic’s trailing climate indicators are seen as the leading indicators for climate elsewhere on Earth. News from the Arctic hasn’t gotten any better in the 10 years since NOAA began producing an annual Arctic Report Card, and this year’s collection of results and essays is no exception. NOAA released its latest report December 15 at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. “The Arctic is warming twice as fast as other parts of the planet,” said Rick Spinrad, NOAA chief scientist, adding “what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic.” The average Arctic temperature change, 2.3 degrees F (1.3 degrees C) above average, continues to outpace change in the rest of the world, a phenomenon known as “Arctic amplification.” Since the beginning of the 20th century, Arctic warming is now a hefty 5.4 degrees F (3.0 degrees C), leading to significant changes to the region. “One could argue that the trailing indicators in the Arctic are the leading indicators for the rest of the climate,” Spinrad said. Two items from the report, which was written by 72 authors from 11 different countries, were highlighted here: a mysterious browning of Arctic tundra, and the impact of change on walruses. “Greenness” – a measure of photosynthetic activity by satellites — has been declining since 2001 (see Figure below), with a sharp drop-off in the past two to four years, running counter to the notion that more carbon dioxide is unequivocally good for plant life. “We don’t have an answer yet” to the declining greenness, said Howard Epstein, a scientist from the University of Virginia. “A drop in greenness for any given year isn’t alarming, or even two years in a row.” But four years makes for a noticeable trend. Read more here