President Barack Obama meeting with former Vice President Al Gore in the Oval Office on December 7, 2009 regarding Copenhagen. (Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of the White House)
With no legally-binding agreement in
Copenhagen, there’s now talk of another global
warming conference next summer in Mexico
City. Lester Graham has more on that:
Transcript
With no legally-binding agreement in
Copenhagen, there’s now talk of another global
warming conference next summer in Mexico
City. Lester Graham has more on that:
When the U.S. House passed a climate bill this summer, the Senate was expected to pick it up and vote on it by the end of the year—maybe before the U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen.
That didn’t happen.
In Copenhagen last week, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore looked ahead to another conference next year.
“I believe that we are capable of resolving the remaining issues to the point we can meet in Mexico City this July in the aftermath of a successful action by the United States Senate in April and conclude a binding international treaty.”
Al Gore wants the Senate to pass the legislation by April 22 to be exact – Earth Day. With business concerned about coming greenhouse gas regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Senate might feel more pressure to by then.
Europe was the first to do carbon cap-and-trade, four years ago.
(Photo courtesy of NASA)
Congress is haggling over a climate
bill that includes a carbon cap-and-
trade system. In many ways, it’s
similar to the one the European Union
put in place several years ago. Liam
Moriarty looks at what
the European experience has been and
what the lessons for the US might be:
Transcript
Congress is haggling over a climate
bill that includes a carbon cap-and-
trade system. In many ways, it’s
similar to the one the European Union
put in place several years ago. Liam
Moriarty looks at what
the European experience has been and
what the lessons for the US might be:
Slashing greenhouse gas emissions is hard. Our economy is powered mostly by fossil fuels. Switching to clean fuels will be disruptive and expensive, at least to start with.
So how do we get from here to there? The approach that’s proving most popular is what’s called “cap-and-trade.” It works like this – first, there’s the cap.
“We’re going to put an absolute limit on the quantity of carbon-based fuels that we’re going to burn. And we’re going to develop a system to make sure we’re not burning more fossil fuels than that.”
Alan Durning heads the Sightline Institute, a sustainability-oriented think tank in Seattle. He explains that once you put the cap in place…
“Then, we’re going to let the market decide who exactly should burn the fossil fuels based on who has better opportunities to reduce their emissions.”
That’s the “trade” part. Companies get permits to put out a certain amount of greenhouse gases. Outfits that can cut their emissions more than they need to can sell their unused pollution permits to companies that can’t.
The cap gets ratcheted down over time. There are fewer permits out there to buy. Eventually even the most polluting companies have to reduce their emissions, as well.
The goal is to wean ourselves off dirty fuels by making them more expensive. And that makes cleaner fuels more attractive.
Europe was the first to do carbon cap and trade, four years ago. And things got off to a rough start. They set the cap on emissions too high and way overestimated the number of permits – or allowances – that companies would need.
“We have too many allowances. Simple supply means that the prices of those allowances crashes. They don’t have much value, and therefore the price went down to close to zero.”
That’s Vicki Pollard. She follows climate change negotiations for the European Commission. She says the whole system got knocked out of kilter.
For the first two years, European carbon emissions actually went up. After the collapse of Phase One, big changes were made. The next phase of the trading system has a tighter cap, more stringent reporting requirements and enforcement with teeth.
Today, Europe’s on track to meet its current emissions target. But environmentalists, such as Sanjeev Kumar with the World Wildlife Fund in Brussels, say those targets are still driven more by politics than by science.
“We have a cap that’s very weak, i.e. that means that it doesn’t mean that we’re going to achieve the levels of decarbonization that we need within the time scale.”
Leading climate scientists say we have to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by the middle of this century to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Business still has concerns about the EU cap and trade scheme. Folker Franz is with BusinessEurope, sort of the European version of the US Chamber of Commerce. He says companies worry about the additional cost of carbon emissions putting them at a competitive disadvantage.
“If you produce one ton of steel, you emit roughly one ton of CO2. So any ton of steel produced in the EU is right now some 17 dollars more than outside the European Union. And that makes a difference.”
But, Franz says, European businesses accept the need to take prompt action on climate change and are on board with the stricter cap and trade rules coming over the next few years.
Americans have watched Europe struggle with carbon cap-and-trade. The Sightline Institute’s Alan Durning says we can benefit from Europe’s willingness to break new ground.
“It was a big advance when they started it, because nothing like it had ever been done. But, it’s not the be-all-and-end-all. In fact, the United States now has an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and leapfrog ahead to a much better climate policy.”
Durning says an American cap and trade system could avoid the costly stumbles that’ve hampered Europe’s carbon reduction efforts.
Talks begin in Copenhagen on December 7th.
(Photo Source: Thue at Wikimedia Commons)
This week, world leaders are talking
about how to tackle climate change.
Most experts agree that’ll mean
fossil fuels will become more expensive.
Rebecca Williams has been talking
with one climate expert who says we
might not really notice it, at least
at first:
Transcript
This week, world leaders are talking
about how to tackle climate change.
Most experts agree that’ll mean
fossil fuels will become more expensive.
Rebecca Williams has been talking
with one climate expert who says we
might not really notice it, at least
at first:
There’s been a lot of debate about how much our energy bills might go up.
Energy companies and some Republicans have been warning that bills will skyrocket – going up by hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it’ll be a lot less – something between $100 and $200 a year.
Michael Oppenheimer is a professor at Princeton University. He says we will have to make a lot of changes in our lives – but they’ll be little changes and they’ll be really gradual.
“They’ll probably wind up buying appliances which are more energy efficient and that may cost them some money at the outset but it’ll save them money in terms of lower electricity bills. They may be driving cars that look somewhat different than their current vehicles but save them money with less gasoline use in the long term.”
Oppenheimer says higher energy costs will eventually be offset by energy savings – and probably, government rebates – until the economy adjusts.
Eileen Claussen is the president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
(Photo courtesy of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change)
Beginning December 7,
world leaders – including President
Obama – will gather in Copenhagen,
Denmark to talk about cutting the
greenhouse gas emissions causing
climate change. Eileen Claussen is
the President of the non-profit Pew
Center on Global Climate Change.
Lester Graham talked with her about
what will be accomplished at Copenhagen:
Transcript
Beginning December 7,
world leaders – including President
Obama – will gather in Copenhagen,
Denmark to talk about cutting the
greenhouse gas emissions causing
climate change. Eileen Claussen is
the President of the non-profit Pew
Center on Global Climate Change.
Lester Graham talked with her about
what will be accomplished at Copenhagen:
Lester Graham: We’ve been hearing about this United Nations summit in Copenhagen in the news for months now, but it’s not really clear what the world’s nations will accomplish there. It’s been downgraded from a conference to hammer out a treaty to a conference to come up with some kind of a framework for a treaty. So what can we really expect from Copenhagen?
Eileen Claussen: I think there are three things that are likely to be agreed in Copenhagen. All the developed countries in the world will make political commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by significant amounts, I think, across the board. I also think the major emitting developing countries will pledge to reduce their emissions from where they would otherwise go. And I think we will see some amount of money – maybe 5 to 10 billion dollars – collected from the developed countries to help developing countries adapt to climate change and build up their capacity to actually reduce their emissions.
Graham: And perhaps preserve some of the forests that store CO2.
Claussen: Absolutely. I think forestry is something where you actually might see some real progress.
Graham: President Obama is expected to tell the gathering that the US intends to cut greenhouse gas emissions to about 17% below the levels we emitted in 2005. And cut them by 83% by the year 2050. But, as it stands right now, there’s no legislation to accomplish that. It’s not clear that there’s enough support in Congress to pass climate change legislation that would accomplish that. Is the president making offers not within his power to give?
Claussen: Well, I think there’s no question that absent action in the Senate and a conference that merges the bill that passed in the House this summer, he can’t deliver on the 17%. There are many things he can do. And, in fact, he’s actually tried to do many of them. To increase the efficiency of automobiles which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions; to put stimulus money into clean energy projects; to get the EPA geared up to start regulating under the Clean Air Act. But I think none of those add up to the 17%. So we will need legislation that establishes a cap on emissions.
Graham: This Copenhagen agreement is supposed to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. The US did not ratify that treaty. But, of the nations that did, many of them failed to meet their obligations to reduce emissions. So will a treaty really mean anything?
Claussen: Well, I’m not sure that I agree that most countries or many countries have failed to reduce their emissions sufficiently. There are some countries that are not on track at the moment to get to their objectives, but others are. And I think it is still possible that most of those countries – not all – but most of them will actually get to where they said they would go.
Graham: Well, we’ll cal l that the optimistic view. I think in Canada they’re probably not going to make it.
Claussen: Well, Canada is the clear example of a country that won’t make it.
Graham: So we won’t have a sort of Copenhagen Protocol, Copenhagen appears to be now just another stop along the way to drafting a treaty.
Claussen: It’s not everything that many were hoping for, and there’s a fair amount of disappointment about that. But, quite honestly, there are a lot of very difficult issues for different countries to face here. And there actually had not been any real negotiation over the two years since the negotiation started.
Graham: Eileen Claussen is the President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Thanks very much for talking with us.
Al Gore's Vice-Presidential portrait from 1994. (Photo courtesy of the United States Government)
The man who won a Nobel Peace Prize for
his work on climate change is optimistic
about the politics around the issue. Lester
Graham reports Al Gore says he thinks the
political landscape is changing in favor of
a world-wide climate change treaty:
Transcript
The man who won a Nobel Peace Prize for
his work on climate change is optimistic
about the politics around the issue. Lester
Graham reports Al Gore says he thinks the
political landscape is changing in favor of
a world-wide climate change treaty:
The former U.S. Vice-President says he thinks world leaders will sign a meaningful climate change treaty in Copenhagen in December.
Al Gore says politicians and governments around the world seem just about ready to do something significant about climate change.
“The potential for much larger change has been building up and I think that Copenhagen is the moment when it may cross that political tipping point. Now, let me take the other side of it just for a brief moment. The consequences of a failure in Copenhagen would, in my opinion, be catastrophic.”
Gore says waiting any longer to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause global warming could take the world past a point of no return.
That’s because tundra in the frozen north thaw and release the potent greenhouse gas, methane, creating a feedback loop that cannot be stopped.
World leaders are meeting in Bangkok for preliminary discussions on climate change. (Photo source: Alter at Wikimedia Commons)
In December, the world’s nations
meet in Copenhagen to try to come
up with a treaty to deal with climate
change. Right now, preliminary talks
are going on in Bangkok. Lester Graham
reports observers don’t think there’s
much progress:
Transcript
In December, the world’s nations
meet in Copenhagen to try to come
up with a treaty to deal with climate
change. Right now, preliminary talks
are going on in Bangkok. Lester Graham
reports observers don’t think there’s
much progress:
Warren Evans is the Director of the Environment Department at the World Bank. He’s just back from Bangkok where climate change negotiations are going slowly. Evans says that shows just how hard it will be to finalize a treaty in Copenhagen.
“Well, I think our assessment is that there will be considerable progress and that it should set the stage for moving forward, but is it the final agreement that actually put in motion all of the necessary steps and finance? That’s highly unlikely.”
The world will be watching in December to see whether U.S. will agree to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
It refused to ratify the Kyoto climate change treaty in 1997. Critics are making some of the same arguments now.
They say a Copenhagen treaty could put the U.S. at an economic disadvantage to rapidly developing countries such as China and India.
UN Headquarters from northwest on 1st Avenue - taken on April 20, 1956. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress)
In December, in Copenhagen, nations around
the world are all supposed to sign a treaty to
reduce the greenhouse gases causing global
warming. But negotiations are going slowly.
Lester Graham reports the Secretary General
of the United Nations is stepping in:
Transcript
In December, in Copenhagen, nations around
the world are all supposed to sign a treaty to
reduce the greenhouse gases causing global
warming. But negotiations are going slowly.
Lester Graham reports the Secretary General
of the United Nations is stepping in:
Tomorrow, the UN Secretary General is holding a summit of the heads of state.
Janos Pasztor is the Director of the Secretary General’s Climate Change Support Team. He says, although the world’s leaders won’t be directly involved in the negotiations, its’ good for them to spend a day talking about the broader political implications of global warming.
“What we expect is, at the summit, heads of states will consider those broad political issues and give—not just impetus that they need to be fixed, but even give some direction, some vision on how they can be fixed without actually getting into the negotiation itself.”
Pasztor adds it might even be a good thing if the U.S. does not pass a climate change bill before Copengagen. That gives the U.S. some room to negotiate instead of showing up and saying ‘There it is. Take it or leave it.
Flags of member nations flying at United Nations Headquarters (UN Photo by Joao Araujo Pinto)
Delegates from 190 countries are
meeting in Poznan, Poland for the The
United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change. Lester Graham reports
the delegates are concerned about the
economic costs of reducing the greenhouse
gases that cause climate change:
Transcript
Delegates from 190 countries are
meeting in Poznan, Poland for the The
United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change. Lester Graham reports
the delegates are concerned about the
economic costs of reducing the greenhouse
gases that cause climate change:
With the world in an economic slump, it might be difficult to come to a new climate
change agreement.
But, Yvo de Boer, who’s the Executive Secretary for the convention says, you think
this is bad, wait ‘til you see what happens if nothing is done about global warming.
“This result in an economic failure on the scale of two world wars and the great
depression combined.”
Most countries are looking to see what the U.S. will do.
Angela Anderson is with the Pew Charitable Trusts Environment Group and a
speaker at the climate change convention. She says there’s talk about what the
Obama administration might do.
“There has been a discussion of the ‘Obama Buzz’ as it’s being called here in
Poznan. And you do hear lots of people in the corridors speculating on what the
negotiations will be like next year.”
This time next year is the deadline for an agreement to replace the expiring Kyoto
protocol.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
Flags of member nations flying at United Nations Headquarters (UN Photo by Joao Araujo Pinto)
The leader of a key panel on climate
change says upcoming international meetings
will have a lot at stake. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:
Transcript
The leader of a key panel on climate
change says upcoming international meetings
will have a lot at stake. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:
The UN intergovernmental panel on climate change has developed a road map for holding down
emissions that contribute to global warming.
The panel will be part of meetings in Poland this December and in Denmark next year.
R.K. Pachauri chairs the panel. He says negotiators must build on progress made so far.
“And if we miss this out, then I think all the momentum that’s been generated would be lost and
essentially we’d be starting from scratch and we know what that means. It means several years
of delay.”
Pachauri says he’s worried that the current global economic problems will hurt efforts to protect
the earth against climate change. He says things like sea levels, weather patterns, crop
production, and the health of some kinds of animals hang in the balance.
Great Lakes governors are calling on state lawmakers to settle their differences over a plan to protect the lakes from large scale water diversions. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Great Lakes governors are calling on state lawmakers to settle their differences over a plan to protect the lakes from large scale water diversions. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Half of the states in the Great Lakes region have completed or nearly completed work on bills that would ratify the Great Lakes water compact. But some Republicans and developers, especially in Wisconsin and Ohio, say they still have concerns about the agreement.
David Naftzger is Executive Director of the Council of Great Lakes Governors. He says despite what critics argue, the Compact is designed to be good for business.
“The goal of the compact is to ensure that the Great Lakes are available to continue to power our regional economy.“
Naftzger says the compact includes a lot of flexibility for each of the eight states to get water. He says that was built in for the benefit of businesses and communities on the edge of the Great Lakes basin.
President Barack Obama meeting with former Vice President Al Gore in the Oval Office on December 7, 2009 regarding Copenhagen. (Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of the White House)
