One of my all-time favorite albums, and thematically right on target.  Tony Duhig and Jon Field were the core of Jade Warrior, a studio band that threw away all the cliches of ‘fusion’ in the 1970s and recorded a series of sublime tracks with an astoundingly wide musical reach, high levels of musicianship and a balance between indulgence and depth.

In the UK Guardian:

UN climate chief: US carbon cuts could spark ‘revolution’

The head of the UN body charged with leading the fight against climate change has conceded that Barack Obama will face a “revolution” if he commits the US to the deep carbon cuts that scientists and campaigners say are needed.

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said domestic political constraints made it impossible for the US president to announce ambitious short-term climate targets similar to those set by Europe. And he questioned the value of a new global climate deal without such a US pledge…

Obama has said the US will work to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Europe has pledged to cut them by 20-30% on 1990 levels by 2020. The IPCC says developed nations should aim for 25-40% cuts by then to avoid dangerous climate change.

Speaking on the fringes of a high-level scientific conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Pachauri told the Guardian: “He [Obama] is not going to say by 2020 I’m going to reduce emissions by 30%. He’ll have a revolution on his hands. He has to do it step by step.”

Dr. Pachauri just landed himself a new directorate at Yale, by the way, so his future is secure.  He’ll keep his positions at IPCC and TERI too.  So good on him, he seems to be a valiant spokesman for climate science and capable of keeping a breakneck pace of appearances.

But he is not a climate negotiator, and that is the realm we are now in squarely.  While Todd Stern’s remarks a week ago at the WRI confab were a bit acerbic on the question of the US targets — he reaffirmed the Obama position of 1990 levels by 2020, well short of what any reading of the climate science requires — he also underscored the political difficulty in even getting that through Congress.

We are going to see a prolonged period of anxiety about this ought-is gap.  The world is swinging from euphoria about President Obama’s inauguration and undoubtedly top-notch appointments related to climate, including Todd Stern, to woe over the political moment in Congress.  Neither view is really reflective of the reality.  It is a long year, well, 9 months, to Copenhagen, and while Obama and his team have set a low target we have not yet gotten a measure of their political heft.

The history of these matters is that pushing major agendas through Congress is a long and difficult effort, but that presidential pressure makes a big difference.  He can’t do it on his own.  But somewhere between the diffidence of Todd Stern and the alarm of Rajendra Pachauri lies an achievable 2020 commitment for US emissions that can actually be agreed to in Copenhagen and in the US Senate, and I’m willing to bet it’s below 1990 levels, maybe just 10% below, because going as far as we can won’t lose any votes compared to where it is at 1990 levels.

Now, saying it’s politically achievable is not the same as predicting this will happen.  But I think at least 10% below 1990 from domestic reductions is within reach politically — without softening that up with a bunch of cheap but unreliable offsets.  In addition, we need a second tier of commitments having to do with  providing funding, technology transfer and capacity building to developing countries.  Not enough to break the bank in a country that spends $15 billion on St. Valentine’s Day and another $3.2 billion on St. Patrick’s Day… but enough to make a huge difference for countries faced with a need to provide basic protection for vulnerable coastal populations threatened by increased tropical storms and other effects of climate change, and funding to develop while decarbonizing.

I’ll get back to Todd Stern’s remarks at the WRI event, which amount to an outline of the US preliminary negotiating stance for the road to Copenhagen.  But for the moment, his focus on a “viable path” to deep reductions by mid-century is correct.  The problem is, his idea that if we don’t get deep reductions now, we can do it later, is just not going to work.

The solution again lies in going as deep as we can, and building the first tier of cooperative action with developing countries, in this next decade.  It might not be all of what we ought to do according to the science, but it is within reach.

That is true enough, but there are other channels as well, so it’s going to be like a main highway to Copenhagen plus some connecting roads.

I’m going to leave out significant details here; this is just to lay out the basic playing table for the UN process, which is still not widely understood.  First, the two big pieces:

1. UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, often called the “Convention Track” or just “the Convention”). This is the framework agreement set up at the Environment Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro that went into effect in 1994 and has been signed by 192 countries including the US. It is a permanent, binding treaty.
2. Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC (usually called Kyoto, the “Kyoto Track” or “the Protocol”), is an extension of the UNFCCC ratified by 181 countries but not the US. It is also a permanent, binding treaty.

The Kyoto Protocol is misunderstood, and the errors are almost universal.  To be clear: Kyoto does not end in 2012.

The first commitment period (CP1) for greenhouse emissions reductions countries listed in Annex B of the KP (usually referred to as Annex I from a very similar list in the Convention) runs from 2008 to 2012. Additional commitment periods have always been expected, so that is a major part of the negotiations effort from now through Copenhagen.

However, it is very important to understand that Kyoto is not simply commitments; it is a very wide-ranging implementation agreement that includes:

• Management of the three flexibility mechanisms (“flex mex”): international emissions trading, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI).
• Measurement and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions.
• Development of national emission reduction plans and programs.
• Exchange of scientific and technical data.
• Additional research.
• Providing for finance and technology transfer from developed countries to developing countries to assist in emissions reporting, planning, mitigation and adaptation.

The last point is particularly important to the Copenhagen negotiations, as I will discuss extensively in future comments.

Legal distinctions and different list of ratifying countries in the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol increases the complexity of the process, but there are good reasons why this was done which I will also go into later.

For the moment there are two important things to understand:

1. The Convention does not do much directly on its own; it is set up so that protocols (note the plural) carry forward the actual work. That means that Kyoto may not be the only protocol — something that may play an unexpected role this year. (For those who already know about it, I will have more to say about that South Africa proposal later, too!)
2. Nations meet separately in a legal sense at the end of each year in the Convention Track (the “Conference of the Parties” or “COP”) and the Kyoto Track (the “Conference of the Parties Serving as the Meeting of the Parties” or “CMP” or “COP/MOP”). But they are still mostly the same — Kyoto is just a subset of the Convention. But not having the US in Kyoto creates significant political complexity.

So why all the fuss about Copenhagen? When Kyoto went into force in 2005, it was clear that a revision would be needed soon to put a second Commitment Period in place starting in 2013. This will maintain momentum for emissions reductions and avoid a big disruption to the carbon markets.

Because of the time it takes to get approval for a treaty amendment, the annual conference in December 2009 was widely viewed as the best time to get a deal. And so that was decided at Bali in the December 2007, and meanwhile Denmark landed the designation as host country.

The commitment periods are not the only part of Kyoto under revision.  The Bali Action Plan adds a number of other topics and expands the Copenhagen process to a full revision including specific new focuses on adaptation, tech transfer, finance and tropical forestry.

An own goal is when you kick the ball into your own net, scoring one for the other side and demoralizing the whole stadium. Aussie rules football, which has its own arcana, takes this a step further:

As a legitimate defensive play, an Australian football defender may concede an “own score.” Such a score, referred to as a rushed behind and statistically credited to no player (scoresheets will simply include the tally of rushed behinds), results in the opposition team earning one point.

A defending player will choose to concede a rushed behind when the risk of the opposition scoring a goal (worth six points) is high. The team which concedes the rushed behind then retains possession of the ball, kicking in as normal.

The outline of the proposal is summarized in a Reuters article. Some key points:

• Long-term goal of 5-15 percent reduction in carbon emissions from 2000 levels by 2020, equating to per capita cuts of 27-34 percent.
• The 15 percent target is contingent on a global agreement to make a similar reduction.
• Broad coverage, including power generators, transport and oil and gas production, though agriculture to be excluded until at least 2015.
• Government to compensate for any rise in fuel prices arising from new policy. Airline industry will have to pay higher price, though could be eligible for other forms of compensation.
• Energy-intensive, exporting industries to receive free permits equal to between 60 and 90 percent of requirements, depending on a sensitivity ratio…
• Industries likely to receive 90 percent free permits include makers of aluminium, cement, iron and steel, lime and silicon; those to receive 60 percent free permits include makers of alumina, petroleum and liquefied natural gas.
• Coal-fired power stations to receive direct assistance worth A$3.9 billion in free permits over five years, subject to a review aimed at preventing generators from making any windfall profits from any sale of permits.

Australian climate campaigners are understandably angry — perhaps shocked is a better word. The proposal essentially means the Rudd government is proposing no momentum beyond its requirements for the first commitment period of 2008-2012 under the Kyoto Protocol (which, absurdly enough, already allows an 8% increase above 1990 levels, thanks to a special deal cut by the take-no-prisoners stance of former PM John Howard at Kyoto in 1997; yet at the moment Australia is 26% above 1990 levels based on emissions, and 10% above if land use, land use change and forestry is netted out based on the flawed Kyoto LULUCF method). Instead, the Rudd proposal puts an exceptionally weak target on the table for 2020 and sugars it over with a lot of talk about carbon intensity per capita.

The emphasis on per capita goes along with the government’s obsession with “national circumstances” — that Australian population will grow in coming years but Europe’s will not. But the atmosphere does not heat up in proportion to the number of people on the planet, it heats up according to the total emissions we produce. And Australia, near the top of the league tables in national emissions per capita, has farther to go than most.

Following on last week’s backstepping by the heads of government in the EU on their climate package, and the announcement by the new New Zealand National government of a review (almost certainly to be a significant downscaling) of the NZ Emissions Trading System and other climate policies following its victory in the October elections, this amounts to considerable backsliding among the majority of the industrialized countries that must step up strongly in 2009 to gain a Copenhagen agreement.

The Australian proposal includes nearly every bad idea in the climate policy toolbox: giveaways to the most polluting industries, price caps on the carbon market (a surefire way to guarantee gaming, reduced innovation levels and shortfalls in emissions reductions), and a free pass to energy-intensive trade exposed industries that is not finely tuned but instead broad as a kangaroo [1] hop.

Our good Aussie mates at CANA (Climate Action Network Australia) said in response, “This is not a White Paper on climate change in Australia, this is a White Flag. The Australian government appears to have all but given up on avoiding dangerous climate change.”

Don Henry, executive director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, noted, “A weak target to cut emissions by just 5–15 per cent by 2020 will not position Australia to save the Reef, Kakadu or the Australian Alps … ACF is deeply concerned about the billions of taxpayers’ dollars that this scheme plans to hand directly to the big polluters, with virtually no strings attached.  This could herald a new era of pollution protectionism.”

There was great hope for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Federal Labor when they overturned John Howard just over a year ago, but so far the government has played a very defensive game. Can it recover from this rushed behind play?  Setting a bar so low does not bode well for the final adopted policy and puts Australia, with a searing drought threatening food production in the southeast, and the Great Barrier Reef, one of the world’s great natural wonders, under severe deterioration, in poor shape for the next pivotal year of climate work.

[1] Note that the kangaroo is in climate terms a noble species indeed, as it does not emit methane the way other ruminants do.

Despite having a herbivorous diet similar to ruminants such as cattle which release large quantities of methane through exhaling and eructation, kangaroos release virtually none. The hydrogen byproduct of fermentation is instead converted into acetate, which is then used to provide further energy. Scientists are interested in the possibility of transferring the bacteria responsible from kangaroos to cattle, since the greenhouse gas effect of methane is 23 times greater than that of carbon dioxide.

Perhaps the Rudd government will take a hint from the kangaroo and switch to producing useful plans rather than radiative forcing emissions.

Mostly these plenaries are the occasion for formalities, courtesies (thank yous to the host country, in this case Poland) and high-minded speeches about the importance of addressing climate change, mixed in with a little home country log-rolling and once in a while real substance.

The general state of the meeting is:

On process, the COP (Convention) and the CMP (Kyoto) will accomplish the basic and relatively routine steps of setting up work programs for 2009, electing chairs for the two ad-hoc working groups, and giving them at least the minimum level of mandate and instructions to bring back recommendations, negotiating text and so on.

On content, the meeting has basically not moved much forward from Bali, although a lot of useful discussion has occurred. Final decisions will come late tonight or perhaps on Saturday, but most of the pieces are already in place.

Let’s go through the four “pillars” of the UN climate process:

Mitigation. Other than the EU, key developed countries did not put serious emission reduction targets on the table. In fact, the active avoidance of this key element by Canada, Japan, Australia and Russia filled the political gap left by the the EU (wrangling at this hour in Brussels over their climate package) and the US (waiting the advent of the Obama administration next year).

As a result, the key AWG-KP text simply copies in the two relevant paragraphs from its Bali decision a year ago. This avoided an even worse fate as it was rumored that Russia — which wants out of Annex I so bad it has started writing letters to Father Frost/Santa Claus in his rapidly melting North Pole workshop — was making noises about blocking even the Bali language.

Adaptation. This is supposed to be the meeting where the Adaptation Fund, which gets money from a 2% levy on CDM projects, gets in gear, but there has been endless wrangling over every little detail and a weak outcome is expected.

Technology Transfer. Still embroiled in a standoff between high-tech and industrial interests in the developed nations and a growing number of developing countries who see tech transfer as a way to accelerate low-carbon development.

Finance. This is emerging as a major issue but still has not developed full engagement. In particular, there is little response from Annex I to the G77+China framework proposal tabled in Accra.

While Poznań was never expected to be a meeting where major decisions would be made, the lack of substantive progress is frustrating but not fatal to the Bali-Copenhagen process.

Al Gore gave one of his better pep talks this afternoon to an overflowing plenary hall. Worth watching. I was sitting with the 350.org gang when he suggested that it is time to give serious consideration to a 350-ppm long term global target for emissions. This is a major endorsement and got a sustained round of applause. And Bill McKibben and I did a fist-bump afterwards…

More when I know more.

This is not entirely surprising; word leaked out several weeks ago that the UN had made arrangements in case this was needed.  After all two of the last three COPs (Montreal 2005 and Bali 2007) went into overtime.

The reason for this is that progress in the AWG-KP (Ad-Hoc Working Group-Kyoto Protocol, the “Kyoto track”) has stalled out.  This is not entirely unusual in the process but the sticking point is not a set of secondary points, as is often the case, but rather a central point: whether the body will agree to an overall “aspirational” target at this point (eventually to become a kind of negotiating constraint) of a 25% to 40% reduction in Annex I (developed country) emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.

While from the US perspective this may seem a bit far-fetched — the US after all is 16% above 1990 levels right now, although that will fall a bit in the recession — the EU in particular is as a group on track for their Kyoto 2012 reductions and even the higher range of 25-40% is within their reach if they pull together and try hard.

The 25-40 range has been around for a while.  It is not, as some in Australian government seem to feel,  something the enviros came up with.  It is derived from the IPCC reports as a middle range for reductions necessary to have a reasonable chance of avoiding dangerous climate change by keeping emissions down to about 450 ppm and global average temperature increases around 2 deg C.  (I’ll post something longer about the technical context later).  Suffice it to say it has been a rough consensus for the last couple years among climate scientists, environmental groups and some leading countries — many of which think the science now points to even deeper cuts.

But many countries aren’t willing for various reasons to either admit that the 25-40 range is needed or applicable to them specifically.  And that is one of the reasons that the AWG-KP has stalled out.  Reasonably OK language in the draft decision text floating around yesterday was in square brackets (the usual way to identify precise language that has a strong constituency from some parties but is still in some flux based on at least generalized concern if not outright opposition from others).  But that has now been removed and replaced by approximately the language from the Bali AWG-KP decision a year ago:

16. The AWG also recalled that its work should be guided by a shared vision of the challenge set by the ultimate objective of the Convention based on the principles and other relevant provisions of the Convention and its Kyoto Protocol. It noted the usefulness of the ranges referred to in the contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the IPCC and that this report indicates that global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) need to peak in the next 10–15 years and be reduced to very low levels, well below half of levels in 2000 by the middle of the twenty-first century in order to stabilize their concentrations in the atmosphere at the lowest levels assessed by the IPCC to date in its scenarios. Hence the urgency to address climate change. At the first part of its fourth session, the AWG recognized that the contribution of Working Group III to the AR4 indicates that achieving the lowest levels assessed by the IPCC to date and its corresponding potential damage limitation would require Annex I Parties as a group to reduce emissions in a range of 25–40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, through means that may be available to these Parties to reach their emission reduction targets.

There is nothing particular wrong about this language, although it has a number of hedges due to the little demands of this party and that which cause specialists concern.  The problem is, acknowledgement is not commitment.  And if we walk out of Poznań at the end of the week with nothing more than the same acknowledgement as at Bali a year ago, and a meager handful of mostly insufficient targets nominated by a scattering of Annex I parties, we are really pulling close to a serious stall in the negotiations.

The EU is in some disarray.  Its  ministers meet in Brussels tomorrow and Friday on the “climate package.”   High-level meetings with Sarkozy (France, the current EU president), Brown (UK), Merkel (Germany), Tusk (Poland) and others in the last few days indicate the EU won’t pull back from its overall position of a 20% reduction by 2020 and 30% if a global agreement with similar reductions from other countries is reached.  But the EU position internally is severely weakened by fighting among countries over free carbon allowances for the coal and other heavy industries, and even by personal fighting between national leaders.

Ahead of this week’s European Council meeting in Brussels the Prime Minister and the President are full of courtesy for each other. Mr Tusk says he will make his plane available to Mr Kaczyński. The only problem is the Presidential Palace’s unexpectedly numerous representation.

Both the President and the Prime Minister are going to the EU summit starting in Brussels today. ‘This is not a normal or desirable situation. The President oversteps his authority. The competence dispute has still not been solved. But if Mr President insists on going, the PM has decided for the sake of peace and quiet that Lech Kaczyński will go to this summit,’ says Slawomir Nowak, Mr Tusk’s senior political aide.

Aside from silly chair games, the problem is that 20% is below the 25% lower end of the range in the UN process, and the 30% at this point is more of a notional target since few other countries are talking about serious emission cuts below 1990 levels at the meeting yet.

The US is a special case (I’ll write about the “red white and blue box” another time).  Obama’s stated objective of reducing to 1990 levels by 2020 is indeed laudable because it means we will peak and reduce emissions within the coming decade, but many of us believe we can go further.  That aside, having the US come fully back into the UN process at least at that level would be interpreted in Europe, I think, as sufficient grounds to move to an EU commitment  level of 30%, well within the 25-40 range.   But that hasn’t happened yet.

Secondarily, Japan, Canada, Australia and Russia, now joined this week by the new National government of New Zealand (which seems to support 25-40 but at the price of wide latitude on forestry credits) are all holding back on serious proposals for their own commitments in the AWG-KP.

Australia and New Zealand in particular are hiding behind a fog of indirection about needing to specify “national circumstances” (Oz) or “proxies” (Kiwis) in order to come to some kind of vague understanding about targets.  But the point is that each country puts their own notional targets on the table based on, as they say in UN parlance, “all relevant factors,” so this can only be seen as a delaying tactic.

With Brian Harper’s victory over the Canadian constitution last week, parliament was suspended and the incipient revolt that would have put a coalition government in place and probably resulted in a volte-face on Canada’s position here has been forestalled until late January (although it’s still possible Harper can cut a deal to stay in office for at least a little while longer).  But despite a new minister for the environment file, Jim Prentice, Canada is again playing a negative role in the COP.

Russia is also positioning as an obstacle, though that is a familiar stance and they have backed away often in the past when it suits them.

Suffice it to say the environmental NGOs are putting on a major media push to highlight this and get the 25-40 range back in the crucial AWG-KP text.  In Australia, joined by Al Gore and UK Prime Minister Brown, the Climate Action Network is getting headway in turning around media attention to the “lack of ambition and direction” in Australia’s position here in Poznan, and my friend Tony Mohr is quoted as saying Oz is stuck in “groundhog day.” At the same time there is a big effort to push back against the Australia and other key delegations from backing away from even the modest forward progress of the earlier AWG-KP text.

These small scrums are just a constant occurrence in the big climate game, and highlight the leading role of the EU in keeping forward momentum, which now in its absence we see so well.

Things may or may not turn out better in Brussels than it now seems. If the climate package emerges more or less intact on Friday, then we may see a more positive result as the UN climate meeting moves toward what now looks like a strong possibility of yet another overtime day on Saturday.

In any event, Greenpeace decided that as long as they were here in Poland it was time for a field outing.

Subject: Greenpeace takes action on coal power station near Poznan
Sent: 2 Dec 2008 09:12

Dear all,

I’ve stepped away from the UN climate talks and joined up with our climb team here in poland to get a first-hand view of the biggest driver of climate change – coal.

14 of us climbed a smoke stack this morning at a massive coal power station 1.5 hours from poznan, near our climate rescue station camp.

The sheer scale of this place is huge – trains bring coal in from the huge open mine next to the rescue station, and two of the five smoke stacks including the one we are on are burning it, belching a toxic stew of gases including the one posing the greatest threat to the planet – carbon dioxide.

The scale of this place mirrors the sheer scale of tackling climate change, especially in a place like poland where more than 90% of electricity comes from coal.

But if anyone doubts that solutions to climate change are possible, then the 17knot gusts of wind that are gently swaying the platform I am perched on should be enough evidence as to the power of wind. If only Poland would harness it.

At his opening speech at the UNFCCC negotiations yesterday Polish prime minister Donald Tusk played lip service to climate change, and recently committed some financial help for renewable energy. But this is far too little, and not the energy revolution we need to see. And meanwhile Mr. Tusk’s government continues to undermine EU efforts to put a strong package of climate measures in place. If he succeeds, then Europe will fail, UN climate talks in Poznan could falter, and catastrophic climate change will loom closer.

We will stay up here for the next days until we get some clarity that Poland and the world is serious about climate change.

Regards, gavin & the greenpeace climb team

View from the top

I got a subsequent note from Gavin Edwards with the pic above: “There’s more blogs on greenpeace.org as well, and feel free to take a pic from there too.  I’ve attached one of me here, but there are much better ones on our website somewhere.  We’re all out of jail now – see you in poznan.”

This was the case on Monday when Tuvalu spoke in the plenary session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG – KP 6 (part 2)) 1st meeting.  Which you can call KP-AWG and impress your friends and get cool with the cool kids.

Tuvalu was the Ellice part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in the south Pacific when it was in the British Empire.  Tuvalu gained independence in 1978 and has gone on to become a country with 12,000 people, an annual GDP of $15 million, and by one of those flukes that rewards the unsuspecting, was given a two-letter country abbreviation of TV by international standards bodies (US is US, Germany is DE, China is CN).

And hey presto, you guessed it, Tuvalu is the home therefore to the .tv domain on the Internet, which has netted them some fairly good money (although from my net background, another area of experience I won’t talk about much on this web log, the story is a bit more complicated).

Tuvalu is also now gaining the perhaps undue recognition of “world’s most vulnerable nation to climate change.”  With sea level rise and increasing pressure from storms, Tuvaluans are facing the obliteration of their land after two millenia of continuous occupation, within a couple decades.  Maybe sooner.    The Cox newspapers ran a good little article about this last year.

At the meeting on Monday, Tuvalu was speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), one of the recognized groups of countries in the UN system (some of the others are the G77+China, which most AOSIS members also belong to, the Environmental Integrity Group, the Umbrella Group and so on).  AOSIS has long been one of the strongest voices for climate change, because small island states are among the most immediately vulnerable to global warming from sea level rise and rapid and unmanageable shifts in land habitat under climate stress.

AOSIS could be grim and bitter, but they long ago decided that strong reasonableness was the best public foot to put forward.  So the statement by Ian Fry, the Australian scientist who serves as Tuvalu’s environment department, got right to the heart of things and dispensed with all the usual UNjargon.  You can watch it starting at 21:55 of the video from the UN site (only viewable with Internet Explorer for me, sorry about that).  It’s the best intervention I heard all week.