Opposition slams Tories over climate stances

Updated Tue. Dec. 4 2007 12:33 PM ET

Bill Doskoch, CTV.ca News

All three opposition parties used Monday's question period to hammer away at the Conservative government's positions on climate change on the eve of the Bali talks.

They focused on:

• a Foreign Affairs Canada memo that warned of the consequences of not trying to hold the global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius;
• and the Tory strategy of calling for all major emitters to sign on to a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

More than 180 nations are gathering in Bali, Indonesia to begin negotiating the Kyoto successor treaty.

"When faced with the worst ecological threat to humanity, why does the prime minister ignore the science?" asked Liberal Leader Stephane Dion.

Environment Minister John Baird accused the Liberals of inaction during their time in government and promised a 20 per cent cut in emissions by 2020.

However, the Tories don't use the Kyoto baseline year of 1990; they use 2006. Climate analysts say it will take until 2020 to achieve Canada's Kyoto target of a six per cent cut below 1990 levels by 2012.

Several groups have said the Tory plan likely won't work.

"Everybody said the minister will not reach his target, and he knows that," Dion responded, which led to shouting from the Conservative backbenchers.

Binding targets

Deputy Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff attacked the Tories' negotiating stance of no carbon reduction targets unless binding targets are assigned to every country.

"But that's like saying, 'I won't recycle unless everyone does'," he said.

"What kind of Canada have we become when that passes for international leadership?"

Baird said the government is committed to binding targets, "but we need other countries to act too."

Developing countries were protected from making cuts under Kyoto, primarily because most emissions currently in the atmosphere came from industrialized countries. But they were expected to start shouldering some of the burden in the follow-up treaty.

The scientific consensus that has emerged is that the global temperature rise should be held to two degrees Celsius to stave off the worst effects of climate change. That means holding the carbon dioxide-equivalent in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million.

Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe said according to the memo, the Conservatives seem to think a two-degree target is scientifically uncertain and will reject such a target at Bali.

"Doesn't the government realize that once again, it doesn't understand climate change and is being lax?" he said.

Baird said rich countries like Canada and large emitters like China, the U.S. and India must all take action.

Canadians and Americans were responsible for about 20 tonnes of carbon emissions per person in 2004, while the average Chinese citizen was responsible for 3.8 tonnes. India, another fast-developing economy, was responsible for 1.2 tonnes of emissions per person in 2005, according to the latest United Nations Human Development Index report.

However, with China's booming economy and population of 1.3 billion, it will likely pass the United States as the world's biggest total emitter this year.

"Canada's losing its credibility," NDP Leader Jack Layton said, blaming both the Liberals and Conservatives.

"Will Canada take a position take a position in Bali that it's going to honour its obligations under Kyoto, will it accept the penalties imposed and will it insist that the big polluters here - oil and gas companies - pay their fair share?"

Baird said he can't take responsibility for the failures of the previous government.

Source : http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071203/qp_climate_071203/20071204?hub=Politics

U.S. plans to join climate negotiations, but resists emissions cuts

By Michael Casey

The Associated Press

Dec 4, 2007

BALI, Indonesia — U.S. delegates at the U.N. climate conference insisted Monday that they would not be a “roadblock” to a new international agreement aimed at reducing potentially catastrophic greenhouse gases.

But Washington refused to endorse mandatory emissions cuts, which are seen by many governmental delegations at the meeting as crucial for reining in rising temperatures.

Faced with melting polar ice and worsening droughts, delegates from nearly 190 nations opened the conference with pleas for a new climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. That deal required the 36 signatories to cut emissions by 5 percent.

A key goal of the conference will be to draw in a skeptical United States, now the sole industrial power that has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, citing fears that it would hurt the U.S. economy because cuts aren’t required of China and India.

“We’re not here to be a roadblock,” Harlan Watson, a top U.S. climate negotiator, told reporters. “We’re committed to a successful conclusion, and we’re going to work very constructively to make that happen.”

The Americans, however, were forced to repeatedly defend their refusal to embrace emission caps after Australia’s new prime minister signed papers Monday to ratify the 1997 Kyoto agreement — reversing the decision of his nation’s previous, conservative government.

Delegates in Bali erupted in applause when Australia’s representative, Howard Bamsey, told the session that his country was jumping on board.

Still, the United Nations acknowledged that no pact can be effective without the Americans, and the European Union said it expected the U.S. delegation to play a constructive role in the days to come.

Conference leaders urged delegates to move quickly to launch negotiations on a climate agreement that many hope will be completed by 2009.

Source : http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=30969&sid=1&fid=1

CLIMATE CHANGE: Washington in the Crosshairs

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Dec 4 (IPS) - The U.S. government of President George W. Bush is heading for a rough ride during a major international conference about the planet's future that began this week on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

The most visible pressure is expected to come from environmental groups assembled at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which runs from Dec. 3-14. The activists' choice to single out Washington was made easier on the first day of the summit, with an announcement by Australia's newly-elected government that it was breaking ranks with the United States and joining nations that had ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

''Friends of the Earth and other NGO (non-governmental organisation) activists in Bali will highlight the complete isolation of the Bush administration,'' said Elizabeth Bast, international policy analyst for the U.S. office of Friends of the Earth, a global environmental lobby group. ''The administration is standing alone, not only from the rest of the world as the sole country failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but also from the American people, who are increasingly calling for dramatic and binding (greenhouse gas) emission reductions.''

''Instead of fully engaging with the U.N. process, the administration is focusing its efforts on creating other processes,'' she added in an e-mail interview from Nusa Dua, the conference venue. ''The administration's intransigence should not be allowed to stand in the way.''

The emerging domestic divide between the Bush administration's rigid views on climate change and the rest of the United States was highlighted in a report released by the National Environmental Trust (NET), a Washington D.C.-based environmental lobby group, on the eve of the Bali meeting.

''Serious proposals to limit greenhouse gas emissions are gaining momentum in the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency must promulgate greenhouse gas regulations,'' notes the study, 'Taking Responsibility'.

That Washington has not budged on the international front was clear during the opening day of the U.N. conference, which has attracted some 10,000 government officials, delegates from international organisations, private sector representatives and activists. There was hardly a hint that the U.S. government was expected to bridge the divide on the crucial issue of greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions spelled out in the Kyoto Protocol.

The Bush administration has refused to ratify the protocol due to language that calls on 36 industrialised countries to impose mandatory cuts on GhGs, which have contributed to global warming. The target set was a five percent cut below the 1990 GhG emission rates by 2012.

Washington favours voluntary cuts on emissions, despite the U.S. being a leading emitter of these heat-trapping gases that are expected to wreck havoc across the planet in coming years. All 27 member nations of the European Union, on the other hand, have embraced the binding commitments of the protocol and have introduced plans to cut GhG emissions by 20 percent by 2020.

''The administration is hoping to package its old voluntary policies by bringing some new faces to Bali to sell them,'' Angela Anderson, director of NET's climate programme, said in an e-mail interview from Nusa Dua. ''They are proposing ideas that were wisely rejected at (the 1992 U.N. summit in) Rio (de Janeiro) as unworkable.''

''The U.S. claims it wants to be constructive, so we hope that they continue to participate in the UNFCCC discussions on adaptation and deforestation and stay out of the discussion of (GhG) emissions ranges that is taking place among the Kyoto signatories,'' she added. ''The U.S. should be held responsible for trying to derail the mitigation discussion if that's what they do.''

The UNFCCC, which was signed by 192 countries at the Rio summit, called for voluntary goals to curb the emission of GhGs as a way to mitigate the earth's rising temperature. But lack of progress on this front prompted the need, five years later, for the Kyoto Protocol, which set specific limits on GhG emission reductions and singled out the industrialised nations to take the lead in this.

The Bali summit is expected to secure commitments to cut GhGs after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. U.N. officials hope that negotiations for the post-Kyoto agreement will take two years to finalise, thus giving countries sufficient time to ratify the agreement for a smooth transition.

This challenge was highlighted by Rachmat Witoelar, Indonesia's environment minister and the president of the current conference, on the opening day.

''The scientific debate has been conclusively laid to rest by the latest scientific findings from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): climate change is unequivocal and accelerating,'' he said. ''Whilst the launch of negotiations and a clear deadline of 2009 to end the negotiations would constitute a breakthrough, anything short of that would constitute a failure.''

In their report, the global network of scientists who are members of the IPCC warned that the level of GhGs emitted into the atmosphere must stabilise by 2015 and then start declining to avoid an environmental catastrophe. Failure, they added, would lead to the deaths of millions of people, mostly in the developing world, from extreme climate conditions ranging from a rise in sea levels to natural disasters and droughts.

Little wonder, then, why environmentalists fear Washington's position in Bali may put a brake on the negotiations and help make the grim forecast of the IPCC a reality.

''All nations have a vital self-interest in getting the next round (of the protocol) going, and they shouldn't let the same old story from the U.S. be an excuse for a weak start to the post 2012 negotiations,'' said Anderson of NET. (END/2007)

Source : http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40342

"Political will" needed to change climate

Officials stressed the need for "political will" to stem the impact of global warming as the United Nations Climate Change Conference got underway on the Indonesian island of Bali on 3 December.

The joint meeting of the 192 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 177 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol are expected to prepare the ground for a new deal on climate change to be put in place after 2012.

This is when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, a commitment made in 1997 by 36 industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least five percent against a 1990 baseline, expires.

Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have warned that if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut by at least 30 percent in the next 10 to 15 years, global temperatures would increase by two degrees Celsius, which will destroy 30 to 40 percent of all known species, and bring bigger, fiercer and more frequent heat waves, floods and droughts.

"A large part of the solution is available to us today; what we need is political will," said Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary at a press briefing on 2 December in Bali. "The big question for me is: 'Ministers, what is your political answer to what the scientific community is telling you so very clearly?'"

IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri told IRIN, "I am generally optimistic, but you need political leaders who will take the initiative."

The conference kicked off on a positive note with the newly elected Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on 3 December, leaving the United States, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, isolated as the only industrialised country that has not signed. The US objected because the Kyoto Protocol excluded China and India, two of the world's fastest growing economies.

Lengthy applause greeted news of Australia's ratification, which de Boer hailed as "very significant political decision" and said it reflected appreciation for the courage shown by Australia in dramatically shifting its position and engaging more strongly with the international community on climate change, which boded well for the country's future role in the negotiations.

"Each country must take its fair share of responsibility for tackling the problem in the second commitment period [post 2012]," said Shane Rattenbury, Political Director of Greenpeace International. "The biggest single barrier to that is the role the US administration has played in wrecking the climate negotiations, but we cannot wait for the US administration; the EU and others must lead, because we just cannot afford to wait."

At the press briefing De Boer noted a number of recent positive political developments: the European Union has announced a commitment to reduce emissions by 20 percent by 2020; the G8 has called for negotiations on a future climate deal to be concluded by 2009, when the next meeting of all parties to the UNFCCC takes place in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Indonesian Environment Minister and President of the conference, Rachmat Witoelar, commented in his opening remarks on 3 December that while "the launch of negotiations and a clear deadline of 2009 to end the negotiations would constitute a breakthrough, anything short of that would constitute a failure."

Other issues

There are four main "blocks" on the conference agenda: mitigation (action to limit or reduce emissions); adaptation (putting in place a strategy to help developing countries adapt to the impacts of climate change); technology (helping countries limit or reduce emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change by supplying technology; financial support to help developing countries act on mitigation and adaptation.

Other important issues include deforestation, recognised as a key driver of climate change that accounts for up to 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. The aim is to launch pilot projects in developing countries that will enhance their capacity to reduce emissions from deforestation.

The Clean Development Mechanism, one of three mechanisms in the Kyoto Protocol that offer rich countries the choice of reducing emissions at home or in developing countries, with benefits for both parties.

"Action in the North is needed to fuel clean growth in the South," de Boer said in his opening address on 3 December. "While it is clear that we will need to continue using fossil fuels for some time to come, we can't afford conventional technologies to continue to keep a grip on the world."

Source : http://www.afriquenligne.fr/news/daily-news/%22political-will%22-needed-to-change-climate-2007120412740/

New Nonpartisan Coalition Launches Presidential Climate Action Plan

Comprehensive Global Warming Blueprint for New Administration's First 100
 Days Challenges All Presidential Candidates to Adopt Bold Climate Change
                                 Platform

   DENVER, Dec. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A team of experts led by the
University of Colorado today released a detailed plan for the next
President of the United States to assert bold leadership on global warming
within 100 days of taking office.

   The document, called the Presidential Climate Action Plan or PCAP, is
the most comprehensive -- and in many respects, the boldest -- plan for
national climate action yet put forth to the American people and the
presidential candidates.

   "As most Americans now realize, global climate change is very real,"
said retired U.S. Sen. Gary Hart, co-chair of the PCAP National Advisory
Committee. "It is caused largely by the fossil fuels we burn for energy.
The national discussion today is not about if we should reduce greenhouse
gas emissions; it is about how much and how fast."

   "PCAP is the first action agenda that focuses clearly on those first
days of the new Administration, when the people of the United States and
the world will be watching for signs of substantive U.S. leadership," Hart
said.

   The project team has contacted each of the presidential candidates with
an offer to brief them on PCAP, Hart said. "This is a nonpartisan project
and a nonpartisan plan," he said. "Climate change is an economic issue, a
national security issue, a public health issue and an environmental issue.
It should not be a political issue."

   "It is critical that all of the presidential candidates address not
only what they will do about global warming, but when they will do it,"
said noted green industrialist Ray Anderson, the founder and chairman of
Interface Inc. of Atlanta, and co-chair of the PCAP Advisory Committee with
Hart. "The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change is only the latest warning that we must act quickly to slow and
reverse the nation's greenhouse gas emissions."

   PCAP's project team, led by former U.S. Department of Energy official
William Becker, is headquartered at the University of Colorado Denver
School of Public Affairs. The project is funded with grants from
foundations and individuals.

   Among the organizations contributing substantial research for the plan
were the Center for Energy and Environmental Security at the University of
Colorado Boulder Law School; the Center for Neighborhood Technology in
Chicago; the Alliance to Save Energy in Washington, D.C.; and Natural
Capitalism Solutions Inc. in Boulder. The project also drew on action items
proposed during five expert summits organized by Becker and the Johnson
Foundation over the past two years.

   The PCAP document maintains that climate action and greater energy
independence are two critical steps toward the larger goal of building a
new U.S. economy that works in the 21st Century.

   "We need a new economy that delivers security, opportunity and
stewardship," Anderson said. "PCAP offers the beginning of a unifying
vision of how to achieve lasting security, new economic opportunity and
stewardship of the Earth."

   Also participating in the announcement was Prof. David Orr, a noted
environmental author, the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of
Environmental Studies at Oberlin College in Ohio, and the person who
proposed the PCAP project.

   "A growing number of candidates and organizations are putting out
terrific, innovative plans to stop global warming," Orr noted. "We hope
this plan sets a higher standard and a clearer agenda for what the federal
government can and must do. We also hope it will set the stage for greater
collaboration among the many groups working on climate policy. It will be
important to offer the 44th President a climate action agenda that he or
she knows has broad support."

   PCAP consists of more than 300 specific recommendations for changes in
federal policies, programs and laws, across more than 13 topical areas --
including energy policy, national security, economic development, natural
resource stewardship, public health, transportation and local adaptation.
The body of proposals is designed to ignite innovation, mobilize national
action, focus federal resources on slowing and reversing global warming,
and put the United States back in the forefront of world environmental
leadership

   Becker said the plan issued today will be updated and improved over the
next several months as new science, policy ideas and Congressional action
emerge. The final PCAP will be provided to the candidates and the public in
September 2008.

   Meantime, the University will release several additional documents in
months to come, including a legal analysis of the president's authorities
to act without further Congressional approval.



   PCAP calls for:

   -- Reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2020 and
      90 percent by 2050, compared to 2010
   -- Raising car and truck fuel economy to 50 mpg by 2020 and 200 mpg by
      2050
   -- Establishing a cap-and-auction system to set a market-driven price on
      carbon emissions and using the revenues to help those least able to
      cope with climate change
   -- Achieving carbon-neutrality in all new buildings by 2030
   -- Immediately ending federal subsidies for fossil and nuclear energy and
      redirecting other "perverse" subsidies that encourage the emission of
      greenhouse gases, using the funds to increase research on low- and
      no-carbon fuels
   -- Dramatically reducing U.S. oil consumption toward the goal of virtually
      eliminating oil imports by mid-century, with the objective of
      preventing international conflicts and terrorism
   -- Making the federal government a carbon-neutral enterprise
   -- Creating a rural renaissance as farms and rural communities become the
      nation's principal energy supplier
   -- Dramatically increasing federal funds to weatherize the homes of
      low-income families
   -- Providing $1 billion in "golden carrot" innovation awards over five
      years to encourage technology breakthroughs
   -- Allocating $1 billion yearly to states and localities that adopt
      policies that help the nation meet its carbon-reduction and
      energy-security goals
   -- Setting national goals for renewable energy use and energy efficiency
   -- Restoring federal funding for earth sciences and improving research on
      the likely local impacts of global warming
   -- Appointing  America's most talented and knowledgeable climate change
      experts to key positions in the federal government
   -- Reforming international development and trade policy to stop
      subsidizing carbon-intensive energy, in favor of investments in energy
      efficiency and clean energy projects in developing nations
   -- Creating millions of new green jobs economy wide, and establishing a
      program of voluntary training and service for disadvantaged young
      people.

   The full Presidential Climate Action Plan can be found on the project's
web site (http://www.climateactionproject.com), along with a number of
other resources designed to help the presidential candidates build their
platforms on climate change. Those resources include a directory of many of
the nation's top climate science and policy experts, a searchable data base
of more than 1,000 policy options, and a collection of white papers and
studies.

Source : http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/12-04-2007/0004716557&EDATE=

Financial Services Firms Should Grasp Emerging Opportunities from Climate Change, While Preparing for Long-Term Threats to Value

New report on climate change released by Oliver Wyman and its Senior Advisory Board

NEW YORK & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--This new report by strategy consultants Oliver Wyman does not opine on climate change per se. It assumes the consensus scientific view on climate change and maps out the implications for financial services.

Financial institutions should act now to respond to changing demand due to climate change, whilst protecting themselves against the longer term erosion of value. The report also highlights the opportunity the industry faces to play a leadership role and contribute to the growing risk management needs of companies, governments and individuals as the world adapts to climate change. It stresses that the multiple unknown impacts of climate change on financial firms will be driven as much by customer perception and public policy decisions as by environmental change or weather events.

Oliver Wyman believes that the industry is uniquely well positioned to cope with climate change, due to its risk expertise and capital mobility. Financial institutions’ ability to hedge business risks for themselves and customers, develop new products quickly, and invest in new markets means that the sector is well placed for most scenarios, with new climate change related opportunities already apparent and growing.

The report examines the likely effects across the financial services sector:

• Corporate/institutional banking and asset management will see the strongest upsides, with new carbon markets, growing demand for hedging innovation to manage energy prices and changing weather patterns, and clean tech financing and advisory revenues (potentially attracting $225bn of new investment a year by 2016).
• Insurance faces the greatest threats, and could suffer up to $150bn of annual weather-related losses by 2030, with risk pricing anomalies as underwriters adjust and necessary premium rises possibly depressed by regulation or high levels of competition.
• The “green” banking market is currently tiny, but “green” could increasingly influence consumer choice of retail bank over time.

Longer term, climate change will increase the chance of defaults, and asset value decline in credit portfolios. Financial institutions will have to spot, in the absence of robust data and with changes in historic risk/return characteristics, anomalies in achievable risk premium, and thus decide where to compete aggressively and where to increase margin and collateral requirements.

In addition, the very factors that make the financial sector resilient to climate change – its global nature and its mobile capital – also mean it is susceptible to threats that can’t be mitigated. The economic impact of temperature rises and tough greenhouse gas abatement measures will gradually outstrip the opportunities, and could lead to a loss of over $530bn in industry revenues (compared to a non-climate change adjusted base case) by 2030.

Some of the largest institutions have in place integrated approaches covering strategic positioning, product development, operational processes, and stakeholder relations, but for many firms climate change remains below the radar. Over time, the mixed effects of climate change could lead to significant divergence in firms’ performance, and Oliver Wyman outlines five recommendations for institutions aiming to outperform:

1. Re-appraise the firm’s portfolio, stress testing its geographic and business exposure to climate risk. Firms may need to re-prioritise regional markets and business lines according to their likelihood of being net beneficiaries or casualties, while monitoring regulation, emerging liability issues, technological change, and increasing public activism.

2. Innovate to capture the increased appetite for climate change related financial products, and exploit arbitrage opportunities between different markets. The consumer market is largely untapped, and there is considerable scope for insurance innovation in emerging markets. The unpredictable implications of climate change necessitate rapid innovation which is highly responsive to changing market conditions.

3. Develop the brand - consumers and new recruits will be attracted by a sense of shared values in markets where financial institutions are virtually indistinguishable, loyalty is low, and climate change concern is high. In many regions there is still scope for firms to seize the role of the green financial institution. But while firms may suffer by being slow to market their eco awareness, they must also be alert for climate change fatigue and “green wash” accusations, recognizing that green branding will soon become a hygiene factor.

4. Deliver effective “climate change governance” - financial institutions must instill a coherent stance at firm level, ensuring that a growing capability is both utilised across the organisation and matched by internal performance. Firms need structures whereby climate risk and opportunities are reported on and used to inform strategy and products, and measures are taken to reduce emissions from infrastructure and travel.

5. Collaborate with governments, NGOs, customers and competitors - the complexity of climate change means that the biggest financial firms should work collaboratively in ways that strengthen not only their individual reputations, but also that of the industry as a whole. Industry leaders should actively work to influence policy solutions to climate change that best leverage the power of capital markets for the common good, helping advise governments to steer away from unilateral policies that could create significant moral hazard and thereby latent costs for taxpayers.

Co-author of the report, David Knipe, said: “Many financial firms still have much to do on climate change. They should be focusing as much on the opportunities now opening up as on protecting themselves against the erosion of value. As an immediate priority, firms should be stress-testing their portfolios, intelligently strengthening their green credentials, and developing new products to anticipate changing customer demand. Financial firms have much to contribute to global society in our collective response to climate change, and their ability at the same time to create value from the opportunities and threats will depend on how they deftly they respond to the changing business environment.”

Source : http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071204006055&newsLang=en