Renew On Line (UK) 28

Extracts from the Sept-Oct 2000 edition of Renew
These extracts only represent about 25% of it

Climate Change

Greens say Kyoto is Threatened

The leading industrialised nations are undermining the effectiveness of the Kyoto agreement to combat global climate change, according to an international coalition of environmental organisations and sections of the Climate Action Network around the world. They say that the world's most industrialised nations are looking for loopholes to allow emissions to increase by 15-20%. The green groups single out the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand as the main culprits.

Roda Verheyen of Friends of the Earth said:

"Too many industrialised countries are protecting their selfish interests rather than acting to prevent a climate catastrophe which will hit the whole globe. The situation is becoming desperate. This is why so many environmental organisations have joined together to issue this warning. We must act now before it is too late."

According to Bill Hare of Greenpeace "These Governments are trying to create the impression that they are moving ahead on climate policies while in reality, in the smoke-filled backrooms of these negotiations, they are systematically attempting to shred every last bit of environmental integrity from the Kyoto Protocol."

Jennifer Morgan of WWF warned "If governments don't pull the helm over, the Kyoto Protocol is headed for the rocks."

The environmental movement wants the Kyoto Protocol to meet its stated purpose to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a first step to avoid dangerous climate change. But loopholes in the rules could permit the worst polluters including USA, Japan, Australia, Canada and New Zealand to continue increasing emissions, and avoid domestic action. One big loopholes is the rules on forestry activities. Canada, Japan, Australia, USA, New Zealand, Sweden and France want rules which would encourage the chopping down of old-growth forests, replacing them with new plantations from which they can claim pollution credits. The treaty allows countries to meet their targets by trading pollution ‘rights’, via projects in each other's countries and by relying on forests to soak up carbon pollution from the air. The greens say, Governments now appear determined to stretch this flexibility to breaking point.

Environmental groups also want to prevent Canada, Japan, France, Australia, the USA, New Zealand and the UK from having nuclear power accepted as eligible for support under the Clean Development Mechanism. Fortunately, despite objections by the UK and France, the EU recently adopted a policy which, in effect (although not explicitly) excludes nuclear power (and also, initially at least, carbon sinks) from the CDM: ‘COP-6 should adopt a positive list of safe, environmentally sound eligible projects based on renewable energy sources, energy efficiency improvements and demand side management in the fields of energy and transport’. But this may not be enough when it comes to COP-6 in Nov., when the pro-nuclear lobby will be out in force.

Costs of climate change

With rainfall in the UK likely to rise by 10% (20% in Scotland) by 2080, and erratic storms likely to be on the increase, the UK seems set for more problems with flooding as a result of Climate Change- quite apart from the gradual process of sea level rise. However, strengthening coastal and river flood defences to withstand climate changes could cost £1. 2 billion over the next half century for England and Wales, according to a preliminary report commissioned by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The costs of providing current protection levels of flood protection around England and Wales could increase by three or four times from £120 million per annum to £400-600 million per annum - or £1.2 billion over 50 years.

Other costs would be incurred in order to deal with impacts on water resources, buildings and infrastructure, and wildlife habitats. For example designing new buildings and infrastructure, such as the electricity supply network, to withstand climate changes, could add ‘one to five per cent’ to current construction costs.

Launching the new report DTER Minister Michael Meacher said that "the most pressing areas are those with long planning horizons such as river and coastal defence, transport networks and buildings".

In terms of problems with sea level rise, vulnerable areas include:

On to COP-6 .. and COP 7, 8

Meanwhile, the focus in the Climate Change debate will soon be shifting to the Hague, where COP-6, the next gathering of the Conference of Parties to the UN Climate Change negotiations will take place. COP-6 in November really is the crunch meeting, at which the issues so far postponed will have to be faced, or else the whole Kyoto Protocol ('KP’ to those in the know!) will falter.

The current unofficial aim seem to be to try to get ratification before the ‘Rio plus 10' Earth Summit in 2002. However, even if COP-6 goes well and ratification follows on schedule, there still seems to be some way to go before any practical results will emerge. According to a paper presented to the recent WEC e-conference, by a spokesman from the UN Climate Change secretariat (UNFCCC) in Bonn, the overall time frames look like this, rendered in almost impenetrable bureauspeak:

Source: Dow Jones Newswires