A New Climate Conference

  • 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.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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How Much Will Copenhagen Cost?

  • 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.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Interview: Pew Center President

  • 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.

Claussen: Well, thank you.

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Political Change on Climate Change

  • 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.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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United Nations Summit on Climate Change

  • 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.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Tribes Re-Negotiate Fishing Rights

In the mid 1800’s the federal government established several treaties
with Native American tribes. Those treaties gave them broad rights to
fish the Great Lakes and they must be
re-negotiated every few years. These treaties have become a major point
of contention as fish resources become more strained. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports that Michigan is in middle of
working out a new settlement with the tribes in their state:

Proposed Trade Agreement Spells Trouble

Environmentalists warned the North American Free Trade Agreement would
put corporate profits over environmental protection. And now…two
lawsuits filed by U.S. corporations against the Canadian government, are
proving them right. But, as Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator
Suzanne Elston warns, NAFTA is just the beginning. There is another
much more sinister trade agreement looming on the horizon:

Group Builds Support for GL’s Agreement

An environmental group wants to stop the U-S and Canada from
renegotiating an agreement on cleaning up the Great Lakes. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports that the first step the
group is taking is taking the voice of citizens from both countries to
the governments: