Poznan looks like a rather pleasant city to visit. That’s handy, because there’s a fair chance that Penny Wong and the rest of the Australian delegation might have some time on their hands. As The Guardian notes in this handy Q&A, the negotiations are in somewhat of a holding pattern while George W. Bush waddles off the damn stage:
So what will happen at Poznan?
Perhaps not much. Countries will be unwilling to commit to anything until they have seen how the new US administration are likely to act on climate. Insiders say that means little genuine progress on agreeing new carbon cuts can be expected until the middle of next year.
Even given that, however, the behaviour of the Australian government in the lead-up to the conference has been worrying.
As this ABC News article states:
The Federal Government has gone back on its plan to present a 2020 emissions reduction target to UN climate talks in Poland later this month.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong will lead an Australian delegation to the talks in the Polish city of Poznan next week to begin work on a new global climate deal.
Senator Wong previously said the Government intended to announce a mid-term target before the negotiations.
Of course, getting a read on what’s actually going on in international negotiations is like trying to read ground tea leaves. But it’s not exactly the act of a government that’s getting ready to announce serious carbon reduction targets loudly and proudly to the world. The Greens have given the government a serve on this. It doesn’t seem the kind of strategy you’d expect from people really trying to get a good deal: as Peter Wood noted in this earlier thread, pre-commitments to strong reductions, not sitting there with our poker face on, is probably the best way to encourage other countries to come on board and overcome what Garnaut so accurately described as a diabolical policy problem.
The crunch time is coming; we’ll soon get to see whether the government really is serious about doing anything on the issue. Let’s cross our fingers – and, if you’re feeling inclined, contact some Labor MPs and remind them that one of the major things that got them elected was promising to act on climate change.
No chance that these people might stop junketing about and do all this by video conference?
Apart from the fact that video conference would have a lower carbon footprint, there might be a good chance that more people could participate.
There are various estimates of how much information is communicated by words, and how much by actions, but flying to these conferences (actions) by climate experts send out probably just as many messages as their papers (words) – and they seem to be quite different messages.
Lots of fodder for the skeptics at the very least.
Good point. I’ll contact mine and remind them that one of the major things that got them elected was promising to manage the economy competently.
Craig: feel free.
But frankly, if I were the electoral officer who reads your email, I’d suggest forwarding it on to a Mr. George W. Bush, a Mr. Henry Paulson, and possibly a Mr. Ben Bernanke.
If you’re going to blame politicians for “mismanaging the economy”, I’d be looking at those three. Maybe throw in Phil Gramm, the Senator for unregulated US banks.
Alternatively, email any politician who thinks “managing the economy” means sticking your head in the sand about anything that smacks of environmentalism.
Oops.
Robert, if I was that way inclined, I’d be thinking more along the lines of Barney Frank, Maxine Waters; Gregory Meeks; Artur Davis; and finally, with his own small contribution, Barry “ACORN” Obama. And then Barney Frank again just because he’s such an egregious, lying imbecile. If you think this crisis doesn’t pre-date Bush, then you haven’t been following events closely enough.
And just because it’s already a crisis, doesn’t mean it can’t be made worse by penalising economic activity.
Dr Martin Parkinson, the head of the Department of Climate Change, gave a speech at ANU last week. I wasn’t able to make it, but the text is here. He states:
What is less realistic about the CPRS scenario’s is that they assume all Annex I countries make the same emissions reductions. So Australia, with per capita emissions of over 25 tonnes CO2-e per person reduces its emissions by the same percentage as somewhere like France, with less than 10 tonnes CO2-e per person.
It seems very likely that Australia did not announce its targets before Poznan even though it promised to (a very unusual move), because they will be very low. Why will they be low? Partially because both the Garnaut scenario’s and the CPRS scenario’s make unrealistic assumptions about what low per-capita emitters will accept from Australia. Why do they do this? In the case of the CPRS scenarios, it is almost probably because a 60% reduction by 2050 is Australian government policy. The only way that this target could be made consistent with 550 ppm or less is if other countries take on more of the burden of emissions reductions.
The 60% target is seriously undermining our climate policy. It is doing it to such an extent that Australia is not fulfilling promises internationally (to reveal targets before Poznan). This makes Australia look stupid and undermines its negotiating position.
Marks (No.1)
“Lots of fodder for the skeptics at the very least.”
Speaking as a supporter of the SIM theory, well, the hypocrisy of the AGW religion will draw attention, but in all honesty this is expected behavior.
If ecohysterics, charlatans and spivs spend so much effort in creating a gravy train, you expect such leeches to ride it to the hilt. It’s all about the money they can scam while the scare lasts, after all. And this one is entering terminal phase now, not much time left to scoop up the cash.
MarkL
canberra
For the sake of the planet, timing in the past few years has not been good. I’m a bit of a stuck gramophone record on this, but here it is again.
The cut-off for papers to be considered in framing the 4th IPCC report was about June 2006. The report itself came out in parts from February till November 2007. Recent significant work by James Hansen and others missed the cut-off point. So as the UN worthies gathered in Bali in December 2007 James Hansen was giving briefing at The American Geophysical Union meeting that we should be targeting 350 ppm. Studying paleoclimate records Hansen found that
Currently CO2 levels are about 387 ppm. If you add the CO2 equivalence of other greenhouse gases and subtract the net effect of aerosols you get roughly the same figure, perhaps a bit less at 375 ppm. The bottom line as Hansen told Congress is that
Hansen’s contention is that the effects of global warming are already unacceptable. Apart from the commitment to future sea level rise there is the continuing extermination of species, the expansion of arid subtropical zones poleward (already 250 miles), the recession of mountain glaciers and the threat to summer freshwater supplies and increasing ocean acidification, a threat to coral reefs (home to one third of species in the sea) and all ocean life dependent on carbonate shells and skeletons.
So unless the representatives gathering at Poznan focus on grappling with the real problem it may be better if they decide nothing that will tend to lock us into “a recipe for global disaster”.
They may well focus on such things as whether their starting base should be 1990 or 2000 and whether cuts should be calculated in absolute terms or per capita. Or what should be done about rainforests. On Counterpoint the other day we were told that Australia is heading for a population of 42 million by 2050, so these issues have considerable significance. I suspect it’s one reason why Wong and the Ruddster are holding back a bit.
“Apart from the fact that video conference would have a lower carbon footprint, there might be a good chance that more people could participate.”
Videoconferencing is good when face-to-face meetings aren’t possible and for pre-meeting preparations. It’s simply not a replacement for getting all the stakeholders and their support staff together in the one place.
d
Yes Brian, we are in the midst of a climate emergency, but the lag effect means it is taking some time for global temperatures and sea levels to rise. However, it now appears that they will, as Hansen predicts.
So rather than 450ppm or 550ppm or stabilising at 387ppm, we need to agressively decarbonise to get back to climate safe levels of around 280ppm.
Rudd, Garnuat, Wong, Turnbull et al are all a country mile from this. It appears that appeasing industry is still the main game in town. Bring in a CPRS that merely allocates rather than reduces carbon emissions. Keep chopping down forests, keep driving those thirsty cars and building those freeways, tunnels, desalination plants and coal fired power stations.
It seems we won’t get any real political action until we go past the point of no return. Politics is doomed to be reactive rather than proactive.
Yes, contact your local MPs, and you could send every
href=”http://www.climateemergencynetwork.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=83&Itemid=84″>federal minister a letter too, like this one [link], as I have recently done.
What ever happened to Australia’s “leadership position” on climate change? All we have done is ratify Kyoto years too late, plan a weak an ineffective ETS, and goof around with ineffective politically compromised reviews (Garnaut).
Oops, list of federal ministers, email address (or form) and postal address is [here]
On Lateline on Monday night, the Executive Editor of the Economist, Daniel Franklin touched on Copenhagen 2009 and “targets”:
I wonder if it might be more effective to have a meeting that didn’t get hung up on arguing about “ambitious targets” and “per capita emissions” but which simply focused on environmental problems and how to deal with them?
I’ve been reading some of the submissions by Parties to the AWG-LCA on the UNFCCC website. Submissions from the US dated 30 September are still there…which is interesting. They ask good questions e.g. what are “developed” and “developing” countries, and queries about “measurable”, “reportable” and “verifiable” emissions. (Google: UNFCCC and click on red button in left column AWG-LCA). I wonder if the US position will really be much different now anyway? Congress still has to be dealt with. (Google: Europeans concerned about US climate commitment).
Perhaps the Norwegians could take a lead in negotiations? Reading some of their submissions to AWG-LCA it looks like they’re also locked into discussing “targets” which is a bit of a drag. (Google: UNFCCC / AWG-LCA, as above). But I do like the Norwegians – after all, they are a shining example of a country that is simply getting on with addressing environmental problems…now… For example they are contributing 1% of gross national income (NOK 26.2 billion) to international development in 2009. The Norwegian government notes that it is “giving priority to the rainforest, education and women’s rights and gender equality in the international development budget”. As per my comments about “population growth” and “empowering women” etc on the Modelling says: do a deal, and make it a good one LP thread and other LP threads, it sounds like the Norwegians might be on the ball about what needs to be done. (Google: Major increase for rainforest, women and education)
There’s also a submission from Brazil mostly about deforestation, but also with reference to “historical responsibility” for emissions directed towards developed countries. I didn’t see any mention about historical or future responsibility for population growth in developing countries though… (Ref: Google: UNFCCC / AWG-LCA, as above).
I wonder if the topic of global population growth impact on the environment will be discussed in Poznań?
Note: I’ve been reprimanded for “behaviour that triggers the spaminator” so I’m not including links, just references to type into Google. Saves on doing all that tedious formatting anyway.
The UNFCCC website notes:
Ironic eh? It just demonstrates how difficult it is to actually walk the talk…
Darryl @ 10.
Well, of course that is the reason that most skeptics pooh-pooh renewables.
Neither will ever ever happen if we don’t make a start on it.
Next point is that if that were the only area where the non-verbal communication of so called believers in AGW was different to the written/verbal communication, then your point might have some more weight.
However, the number of people who don’t use public transport, or produce little carbon emitters etc when they could do more of the first and less of the second is legion. So this failure to try to minimise conferencing is just part of a pattern imo.
By all means, people can fly off to conferences and sabbaticals, have a couple of kids, drive round in the motor deity, water twice a week and observe earth hour once a year – I just don’t feel that is consistent with a real belief in AGW, more a desire to be fashionable, or perhaps to assuage their conscience for using large amounts of the earth’s resources that succeeding generations will desperately need.
“Yes, yes, I know that these hydrocarbons could produce pharmaceuticals, and essential artefacts such as housing materials for future generations, but I need to burn it off driving my car to work…you don’t expect me to walk a kilometer and wait fifteen minutes do you???? After all, I did turn off the lights for earth hour last year – I really do believe in AGW, honest. Sheesh!!”
Joseph Romm at Climate Progress believes that Obama will not be able to get a cap and trade climate bill through Congress before the Copenhagen talks in December 2009, and that agreeing to a Copenhagen protocol would make passing such a bill harder:
He thinks that “Obama should try to delay Copenhagen until after there is a U.S. climate bill.”
Evidently they’d need 67 votes in the Senate to ratify Copenhagen. Romm’s evidence of how difficult that might be is given here.