Posted by cdchase on December 10, 2009 | 2 Comments
While negotiations in Copenhagen in open session and behind closed doors struggled with difficult conflicts, my first choice for the quote of day is this excerpt from President Obama’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech which I hope inspires everyone at COP15 to rise above their politics and seek common ground.
“…a just peace includes not only civil and political rights — it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.
It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can’t aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.
And that’s why helping farmers feed their own people — or nations educate their children and care for the sick — is not mere charity. It’s also why the world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, more famine, more mass displacement — all of which will fuel more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists and environmental activists who call for swift and forceful action — it’s military leaders in my own country and others who understand our common security hangs in the balance.
Agreements among nations. Strong institutions. Support for human rights. Investments in development. All these are vital ingredients…. And yet, I do not believe that we will have the will, the determination, the staying power, to complete this work without something more — and that’s the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there’s something irreducible that we all share.”
It is appalling to witness the long lists at COP15 of damages both happening and foreseen – from the acidification of the oceans to the desertification of lands; from the loss of biodiversity to the melting of the Arctic. What is it we cannot understand when we hear these problems? How can we keep dithering over the costs as the costs continue to mount? Is it because the suffering and lives lost are not perceived to be our own?
It seems obvious that we have lost touch with not just our moral imaginations – but with the interconnectedness of life on earth itself.
Which brings me to my second choice for quote of the day:
“Tug on anything at all and you’ll find it connected to everything else in the universe.” John Muir
Posted by cdchase on December 10, 2009 | No Comments
We’re told that China, India and South Africa (and others) oppose stronger climate change emissions reductions (the lower target of 350ppm being proposed by scientists and more threatened nations) because they feel that meeting it would retard their economic development.
But ya gotta wonder – how much would serious climate change retard things? Do they not even ask that question. When you are addicted to one path, it’s hard to change to another without seeing it as a total loss. What they fail to consider is, first, it ain’t gonna happen the way they think and, second, the replacement clean-energy economy should be even better (think energy independence, new technologies and innovations).
There is no question that economic growth would simply take a different path – an even more productive path for everyone – and essentially, if you believe in chemistry – the only path open without massive economic dislocations for all involved.
It’s understandable when the OPEC countries oppose such changes, but to oppose doing the right things as a threat to economic growth is a foolish chimera. One can only conclude that these countries don’t really believe the in the consequences of what the chemistry is telling us.
Posted by cdchase on December 10, 2009 | No Comments
Little did I know that my trip to Paris Disneyland on a whim last week would turn out to be such excellent preparation for COP-15! It’s no accident that the incessantly cheery (some would say creepy) It’s a Small World venue is located in Fantasyland. With it’s happy face “audioanimatronic” dolls miming to a 1960s feel good jingle, it didn’t help that the DJs at Disney had incorporated bad xmas music into the mix and added a few Santa hats on to the robots. They never miss a chance to guild any fake lily in sight.
Much better preparation was found in “Alice’s Maze” – a relatively low-tech walk through “This Way” and “That Way” and “Go Back” with the infamous Cheshire Cat looking down on the proceedings with his sometimes nasty all-knowing-but-I’m-not-telling grin.
Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, I am in total sympathy with those who look at United Nations processes with hopelessness, or even disdain. The idea that all nations can agree on anything is impossibly hopeful. To expect them to address a global crisis like climate change seems too much to ask.
If I owned sea level property, I’d move. I can also understand those who support compromises in the name of progress. At some level, any progress is something, even if that something is out of synch with the hard chemistry of climate change and what would really be needed to address it.
Why for instance would Saudi Arabia and other oil-dependent tribes support anything that undermines their wealth and power? Science is not their strong suit. The island nations who face sinking under the seas are playing for their own survival while the usual powers-that-be seem manifestly unsympathetic. After all, they have politics-at-home to deal with.
Tiny Tuvalu (known in UN parlance as a small island state) cannot think in terms of adaptation but sees its very survival at stake. (Adaptation is the current buzz response to those who see we’re not going to make the changes needed to reduce our emissions sufficiently).
Tuvalu and the other small island nations are insisting on a deal that reflects what the science says about the situation we are in and the effort that must be made. Many of them support a 1.5 degree C global warming limit and 350 ppm of greenhouse gases, while the negotiations by the status quo would be lucky to achieve a 2 degree C warming (if everyone actually did their part). (The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 385.2 parts per million in 2008 and still rising rapidly – up 2 parts per million in one year.)
But Saudi Arabia, backed by China, India, all of OPEC and a few others opposed them. The developed countries (US, EU, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) remained silent. Formal proceedings have been suspended and emergency behind-the-scenes wrangling is going on in earnest.
Posted by cdchase on December 10, 2009 | No Comments
“Will the deal be a good enough deal? They are heading toward doing something and no one who is party to is it going to want to say it’s a bad deal, even if it is.”
Background
Momentum is building for a deal – Obama’s attendance raises the pressure to complete something. But will it be a good enough deal? Whatever is done, they won’t say it’s a bad deal. But that’s the concern on the floor today where negotiations have been suspended except for private efforts by the Secretariat to pull the parties back to the official table.
Private drafts of possible outcomes assessing the level of greenwashing are circulating along with what to do if the deal isn’t “good enough.”
As readers may know, the science is telling us we need to do more while the politics is careening toward whatever can be got. I don’t see the US talking about how much is really enough because too many in the Senate don’t even think there’s any problem. A Republican delegation is headed here to make waves about how this is really a scam to get US taxpayers to foot the bill. Meanwhile, the physics of climate change does not negotiate at all. Silly humans.
cdc from COP15
Posted by admin on December 10, 2009 | No Comments
We arrived yesterday… unfortunately, Carolyn has caught a cold, which is slowing up down some. However, this evening we did go to the Bella Center, where the conference is taking place, and picked up our (Sierra Club/NGO) badge. We attended the daily Sierra Club briefing, and visited the exhibit area. You can see photos of the exhibits here:
Not a lot to report about the conference proceedings for the day… the proceeding were suspended for much of the day over a political dispute. Still a lot of uncertainty over whether the conference will produce great results, nothing at all, or something between.
Chris