Tag: Kyoto

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Dear Canada

Submitted by rvoorhaar on November 29, 2012 - 12:57am

Do you remember last year? We do. ECO desperately hoped the hallway rumours of a Kyoto withdrawal weren’t true, but the second your Minister left the fine city of Durban, he confirmed your reckless abandonment of the only legally binding climate treaty we have. Little birds from around the world are telling ECO that this promise-breaking probably has something to do with those vast pits of tar sands you are so hooked on, the same ones that are undermining all of your domestic climate goals.

ECO knows you are still technically allowed in the Kyoto room, but please don’t touch that microphone. When you jumped ship on the first KP term as it hit the home stretch, you drowned what little credibility you had left. As a matter of principle you should sit silently in the back like the bad kid in the class who has been told to be quiet until they learn how to behave. There are well-intentioned Parties in the room that are trying to move forward to solve the climate crisis, so please just back off.

You don’t want Kyoto and we suspect, as a result, it doesn’t want you.

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Fossil bounty for backtracking Canada and New Zealand

Submitted by MBrockley on November 28, 2012 - 10:21am

The First Place Fossil is awarded to Canada, who has capped support rather than emissions. Newsflash! This just in from the Canadian Environment Minister! Developing countries need to just take a deep breath and wait until we have an all-in global deal before they should expect any support from Canada to move towards a clean energy future through the Green Climate Fund. In talking to reporters yesterday, Canada’s environment minister took a moment to tell journalists that he would ‘make it clear’ at the meetings in Doha that developing countries shouldn’t expect more money towards climate financing from Canada, because after all, Doha “isn’t a pledging conference.”

Thanks for clearing that up, Minister! We are sure that that will do wonders for your stellar credibility and reputation at these talks. Thankfully the Minister IS coming to Doha with at least one commitment: Canada is still firmly committed that tar sands emissions will rise far beyond the 2 degree climate limit.

World to Canada: You are supposed to be ramping finance up and emissions down; not the other way around!”

The Second Place Fossil of the Day goes to New Zealand, again, because not only did Wellington deliberately decide not to put its target into the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, but today proposed that access to the CDM should be open to all and should not depend on whether a country is signing up to a second commitment period. To make it clear, New Zealand pointed out that otherwise the Adaptation Fund will not have enough money to keep functioning. Come on Kiwis, forget about the hobbits and think about your neighbors! You have to be serious… if you want to feast on carbon markets you have to work up your targets first!

The United States gets the Third Place Fossil for once again rejecting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yesterday President Obama signed a misguided Bill coming from Congress aimed at preventing compliance of US airlines with EU regulations, for flights into and out of the EU. If Congress doesn't like the EU approach, we hope they realize the only alternative is a strong multilateral agreement. We urge Obama to reject any approach based on isolationism, and take this bill as an green light to pursue a strong multilateral agreement for the global aviation sector, including putting a price on carbon, and to lead the way a strong and binding global climate agreement under the UNFCCC.

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fossil-pressrelease-nov28.pdf

Fossil bounty for backtracking Canada and New Zealand

Submitted by MBrockley on November 28, 2012 - 10:21am

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Finance and EU rifts could threaten COP19 progress

Submitted by MBrockley on November 28, 2012 - 9:21am

[Doha – Qatar] – November 28, 2012 – Half way through the first week of the major climate talks of the year a number of worrying fault lines have emerged which have the potential to derail the Doha negotiations if they are not resolved, NGO experts warned.

The Polish Government – who will today be announced as host of next year's major climate talks - is playing a unique blocking role towards further climate action in Europe which could destabilise the climate talks in Doha.

While other potential flash points have emerged around the successful closure of the LCA track and climate finance.

Anja Kollmuss, from Carbon Market Watch, said the Polish Government was trying to win respect as a climate leader by hosting the COP19 next year, but the truth was they were singlehandedly preventing the European Union from raising its emissions reduction target to 30 per cent and from finalising a long term strategy to deal with climate change.

“The President of the climate talks needs to be able negotiate deals between parties and seal deals but the Polish government has shown it is not capable of this as it has repeatedly been against the wishes of the other 26 EU member states,” she said.

But the Polish Government is also blocking progress in the negotiations in Doha by refusing to agree to the tightening of the rules around pollution permits in the second commitment period of the only legally binding climate deal we have, the Kyoto Protocol.

The Polish Government wants to use pollution permits it did not spend in the first commitment period of Kyoto because it chose a target that was already met several times over, but allowing this would make a joke of Warsaw's commitment to the treaty.

Also under a cloud is the question of whether rich countries will scale up their funding of climate action to developing countries to reach the $100 billion commitment by 2020 and to capitalise the now empty Green Climate Fund.  

Oxfam International's Tim Gore said despite economic problems facing many rich countries there were many options still available to them to fund climate action, such as a Financial Transactions Tax (due to be implemented in 12 EU countries next year) or a fair carbon change on the emissions from international aviation and shipping.

“Failure to do this by next week, could see this COP start to unravel,” Gore said.

Mohamed Adow, from Christian Aid, said at this early stage of the talks countries were already adopting unhelpful negotiation tactics around the successful closure of the longterm cooperative action (LCA) track which came out of Bali in 2007 where finance was a key issue.

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Will Doha Burst the Hot Air bubble?

Submitted by rvoorhaar on November 28, 2012 - 1:00am

A staggering 13 billion emissions permits are left over from the first Kyoto commitment period. Hot air is looming large – and threatens the viability of CP2 and any future climate deal.

ECO would like to remind delegates that the problem is the result of extremely weak CP1 emissions targets well above what countries were projected to emit. Poland, for example committed to a 6% reduction from their 1988 emission levels, despite the fact that in 1997, when the Kyoto targets were set, Poland’s emissions were already about 20% below 1988 levels. ECO warns the distinguished delegates not to fall for the bogus claim that the existence of hot air is the result of dedicated action. It’s not – and the economic downfall of the nineties cannot lead to inherited rights in the climate change process.

But memories are short. ECO can’t help but notice that Parties are about to make the same mistake again: Low pledges for CP2 mean that another surplus of 3 to 10 billion tonnes will accumulate by 2020. Add to that the 13 Gt surplus from the first phase and you have rendered any Kyoto targets quite meaningless. Yet Russia, Ukraine and Poland, the largest surplus holders, insist on keeping the right to sell their hot air. ECO has looked into it and found this is a vain hope. Pledges for CP2 are so weak that no one will buy their surplus! Prices for AAUs have dropped from 13 EUR in 2008 to less than 0.5 EUR in 2012.

The problem is so big that even if developed countries were to increase their CP2 pledges, they could meet their more stringent targets by simply buying more surplus and without actually cutting their emissions.

For those delegates that are interested in returning a little bit of environmental integrity to the system, ECO would like to emphasise that they’ll need to burst the hot air bubble. Raising ambition and closing loopholes go hand in hand. ECO therefore suggests to start looking seriously at the proposal by the G77 and China. It effectively minimises the use of CP1 hot air in CP2, does not allow for trading, and, most importantly, cancels the surplus permanently by the end of the second commitment period.

Is it worth it? Look, we are now on a pollution path that could lead to warming of 4oC or more. In addition, impacts associated with even 2oC of warming have been revised upwards and are now considered “dangerous” and “extremely dangerous”. A world beyond 2oC will threaten the very existence of civilisation as we know it. Heard of it? Worried? Then go burst the hot air bubble.

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What’s wrong with Poland?

Submitted by rvoorhaar on November 28, 2012 - 12:58am

The Polish government lives in the past. Because of that it believes Poland should be treated as a special case forever. It fails to acknowledge that a lot has changed in the country since the 1990s. Poland is a developed country now. But instead of strengthening Poland’s climate policies to further enhance competitiveness, its government blocks any action on climate change and threatens the country’s future.

So far, Poland has done everything it can to be the lone bad guy in the EU. Poland already stood alone thrice in opposing European efforts to take more ambitious climate action for 2020 and beyond. ECO understands that Poland wants to be seen as a strong EU country. But domestically, the Polish authorities have done everything but be an equal partner, such as failing to fully enforce important EU laws. And to top its opposition to stronger action by the EU, it plans to build new coal and nuclear power plants, open new lignite mines and extract shale gas. This when most European countries are transitioning to a low-carbon economy based on renewables and energy efficiency.

At the UNFCCC negotiations the Polish government has been blocking the EU from finding a constructive, unified position to address the 13 billion AAU surplus. It is unashamedly claiming a full carry-over of AAUs to CP2 as a price to agreeing to continue into it. The Polish government does not even seem to mind aligning itself with Russia on this issue. ECO would like to ask the Polish government why it insists on full carry over, since AAUs will have zero value in CP2 given there will be no demand because of the low level of ambition by developed countries. Is Poland really willing to derail the international negotiations over this?

Poland wants to host COP19. But is it responsible enough to do so? Hosting a COP comes with many political responsibilities, including being able to constructively engage in finding solutions. It is not just about calling on others to act, it is about showing leadership and committing oneself to more ambitious action. Poland has yet to show the world that it is able to do so. Instead of vetoing, the Polish government has to learn the art of compromise. Poland, are you ready?

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rvoorhaar's blog

Australia to join Carbon diet club...

Submitted by rvoorhaar on November 28, 2012 - 12:48am

Now you all know that ECO doesn’t like to be rude to Parties, but surely all would admit that Australia is carrying excess carbon weight and needs to lose some carbon flab. So ECO was delighted to hear a few weeks back that Australia was signing up as a member of the KP2 carbon weight loss club. ECO had visions of a trim physique of a zero-carbon economy.

But oh dear Australia – what happened with your target? 99.5% of carbon emissions – really? That’s a carbon loss goal so small that a bit of rounding and pffft it’s gone. Haven’t you heard that carbon flab is bad for your health? The UNEP doctor has said you need to trim down by 25-40% for all our sakes. Surely a sporty nation like yours knows about “no pain no gain”? Especially as your own economy doctor Garnaut has said the sooner you start the easier it will be.

Could your fossil fuel addiction be swaying your resolve? ECO knows you have all those stashes – but you’ve got amazing clean energy resources as well to help wean you off.

So where do we go from here? Well you do have a reasonable weight loss goal in column 6 and there’s plenty of support meetings over the next two weeks. Let’s hear you stand up and say: “My name is Australia, I’ve been on the wrong path, but I’m going to make Kyoto count and commit to strong targets and strong rules.”

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Turkey's Love Affair with Coal is a Real Fossil

Submitted by MBrockley on November 27, 2012 - 10:18am

The First Place Fossil is awarded to Turkey. Although Turkey is the world's fourth largest investor in coal, recording the largest relative increase in annual GHG emissions between 1990–2010 with Ankara declaring 2012 the year of coal, Turkey is asking for more funds in the climate negotiations. This is even though Ankara did not post any QUELROs for the first commitment period. To make matters even more fossilised, Turkey has already declared they wont make a pledge for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. Although, they work almost invisibly during the negotiations, so as not to receive too much attention, it’s clearly their time to step onto the fossil stage! It’s your turn Turkey for a Fossil!

The second place Fossil of the Day goes to the EU for having already reached their pledged 2020 target of 20% but having so far failed to increase even though there is still almost 10 years to go. How outrageous! Is the EU really planning to go for the next 10 years without doing ANY further emissions reductions? EU you will need to quickly increase your target or the clouds will appear and it will start raining even more fossils on your negotiating table.

(1) According to the latest projections by the European Environmental Agency the EU’s domestic emissions were 17,5% below the 1990 level in 2011. Factoring in offsets surrendered into the EU ETS in 2011, we find that the EU27 has effectively beaten it’s -20% climate target for 2020 with nine years to spare!

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Fossil of the Day - COP18 - November 26

Submitted by MBrockley on November 27, 2012 - 5:11am

Fossil of the Day - Day 1 at COP18

By: OneWorldTV

The First Place Fossil is awarded to USA, Canada, Russia, Japan and New Zealand for running away from a legally binding, multilateral rules based regime. To the USA – seriously, get over your exceptionalism and agree to common accounting rules already. Canada you are exceptional in ways we cannot communicate diplomatically during a fossil presentation, but it is not good - withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol is completely unacceptable and your target is an insult to the most vulnerable. As for Japan, Russia and New Zealand - you still have a chance to support the only legally binding regime and commit to ambitious targets for the second commitment period (and that means no AAU carry over, Russia). We are looking to hearing from you by the end of the week, because really, do we want to be lumped into this low-ambition group?

The Second Place Fossil is awarded to New Zealand. Unlike its neighbor to the west, New Zealand decided not to put its target into the second commitment period, citing spurious grounds when the reality is that it is just a massive display of irresponsibility. It's island partners in the Pacific should think again before ever trusting NZ again.

The Ray of the Day goes to the EU for having already reached their pledged 2020 target almost 10 years ahead of time!(1). They really are the fastest under-achievers in the KP! But wait!? The EU has told us that they are not planning to increase their 2020 emissions pledge from the already achieved 20%. How outrageous! Is the EU really planning to go for the next 10 years without doing ANY further emissions reductions? EU you will need to quickly increase your target or the clouds will appear and it will start raining fossils on your negotiating table.

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Fossil of the Day

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