EARTH MEANDERS
Paying nations to be green diverts attention from necessary resolute actions based upon what is right and sufficient to minimize climate change
Earth Meanders,
http://earthmeanders.blogspot.com/ By Dr. Glen Barry November 12th, 2007
I have been an obstinate supporter of the Kyoto process; whose weaknesses, including non-universal participation and inadequate emission targets, are well known. Short of revolution, I do not believe alternative international political processes exist at this late date to enable nations to cooperatively and successfully reduce emissions. Kyoto and a possible successor beginning to be negotiated now in Bali provide the basis and mechanisms for binding emission cuts that can be tightened.
I do not see how emissions can be cut by the necessary amount
(> 80%) in the requisite period of time (ASAP, for sure by
2050) other than through difficult international negotiations. If Kyoto were abandoned, any successor international negotiating process would be equally hobbled by competing political and economic interests, and decades more wasted.
This assumes a certain level of goodwill and commitment to address the climate crisis through adequate solutions exists on the part of all parties. Sadly, this may be lacking, as there are serious deficiencies in policies being promoted at Bali.
This essay discusses how increasingly the international climate focus has become financial trickery rather than achieving shared, binding and adequate commitments to reduce emissions. The climate conference in Bali appears to be mostly about money and growth and development and not about meeting the needs of the Earth, ecosystems and most vulnerable citizens.
The Bali meetings seem far more interested in establishing markets for carbon and rainforests than committing to climate policy that is truthful and scientifically merited. Yes, there is some fine rhetoric from the United Nations, Europe and (gulp) Australia regarding the extent of the crisis and need for urgent actions as a solution. Yet a sad denial permeates the negotiations, as an emphasis upon growth -- including building new carbon reduction and rainforest protection markets -- shrouds the need to respect the biosphere's limits.
Huge and misguided efforts are going into creating the illusion that climate and rainforests can be saved even as we continue their destruction to grow our economies, population and consumption. There are many things that must be done to protect the environment that do not contribute to national development and do not make money for the elites.
Rainforests and their species, and of course an operable atmosphere, have value and a right to exist other than for carbon profits. Their protection is about way more than money.
The focus of the Kyoto process has gone from establishing binding commitments to reduce emissions to making money from looking like you are doing so. Very few leaders appear willing to push for binding emission targets as their priority because it is the just and necessary thing to do. Policies receive national support only if it benefits narrow definitions of their economic interests. This by definition is lack of leadership, as failure means global ecological collapse and an end to economies and society.
Doesn’t anybody do anything anymore because it is the right thing? Both rich and poor nations want to eat their cake and have it too – to continue polluting and cutting while being paid for not doing so, or doing it more carefully. What is next? Paying nations to not go to war? Not wage genocide? Educate and provide health care to their citizens?
Cutting carbon is a requirement for survival of the Earth, humanity and all creatures -- this should be payment enough. The whole effort to craft international climate change policy, and recent efforts to attach rainforest protection to the issue, is beginning to look more like a business opportunity and less like setting limits upon the human endeavor in order to maintain natural global ecosystem processes; thus ensuring a just, equitable human future.
There are moral and ecological obligations to protect all rainforests and end all fossil fuel emissions that go well beyond getting paid to do so. Rainforest and climate policy making should not primarily and foremost be about making money. Harnessing markets and providing business incentives may be part of the strategy for addressing these climate and other global eco-crises, but it cannot be the main focus if it is to be successful.
As long as economic growth is the measure of humanity meeting its aspirations, as long as fossil fuels are burned rather than left in the ground, as long as cutting ancient rainforests for any reason is seen as desirable, there is no hope for the Earth. Some element of policy to maintain a livable biosphere is going to have to be for non-monetary reasons, because it is right and necessary to do so. This implies shared sacrifice at the national and personal levels.
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Hoodwinked in Bali on Carbon Credits
Daphne Wysham writes for The Nation: "When money is on the table, there can be plenty to fight about. And right now there is a hefty wad of cash being dangled before governments and NGOs that comes with a catch: accept carbon trading as the deal or get nothing at all. Even so-called adaptation funding, arguably the largest piece of the pie, if done correctly, is being proffered to cash-poor countries--but only as a percentage of the carbon-trading budget. The message: accept carbon trading or your poor will starve."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121307N.shtml
Bitter Divisions Exposed at Climate Talks
Thomas Fuller and Elisabeth Rosenthal, writing for The New York Times, report, "Amid growing frustration with the United States in deadlocked negotiations at a United Nations conference on global warming, the European Union threatened Thursday to boycott separate talks proposed by the Bush administration in Hawaii next month."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121307D.shtml
Biofuels Scarce on Bali Menu
Marwaan Macan-Markar reports for Inter Press Service that "Green groups hoping that the social and environmental cost of biofuels would get an airing at the United Nations climate change conference here are a disappointed lot."
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/121407EC.shtml
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Al Gore Lambasts US Climate Obstructions
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/13/5810/
U.S. and Canada obstruct Bali talks
http://therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=694&thisview=item
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Climate Deal Runs Straight Into Trouble With US
Shaun Tandon, Agence France-Presse, reports: "A hard-fought deal fixing a 2009 deadline for a new treaty to tackle global warming ran straight into trouble Sunday with the United States voicing 'serious concerns' over its provisions."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121607F.shtml
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Tragic Truth from Bali
by Andrew Light, Grist
The U.S. could have showed the world that we are serious about climate change. Instead, we drew an unnecessary line in the Bali sand.
http://ga3.org/ct/Ep20pgF18Y_w/
From TomPaine.com
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We've Been Suckered Again by the US. So Far the Bali Deal Is Worse than Kyoto
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/17/5859/
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US Pours Cold Water on Bali Optimism
John Vidal, The Guardian UK, reports: "The US backtracked yesterday on the climate change agreement reached after marathon talks in Bali, saying it had 'serious concerns' about the new global consensus and that developing countries had to do far more if there was to be any pact in two years' time."
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/121707EA.shtml
The Bali Meeting, and the Lessons Learned
Tom Athanasiou of Grist writes: "It's important, this time, to draw conclusions, and to do so publicly. Because Bali has taken us - barely and painfully - over a line and into a new and even more difficult level in the climate game we'll be playing for the rest of our lives. In fact, it's not too much to say that, with the realizations of the last year and their culmination at the 13th Conference of Parties, the game has, finally, belatedly, begun in earnest."
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/121807EA.shtml
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Who cares if the world drowns?
http://therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=722&thisview=item
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=carbon+trading
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=biofuels
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Glen+Barry
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Al+Gore
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Daphne+Wysham
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Marwaan+Macan-Markar
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Monbiot
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=John+Vidal
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Tom+Athanasiou
