Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
Are the Copenhagen climate talks failing?
In the last few days it has seemed like the only thing everyone can agree on in Copenhagen is that time is running out.
The heads of state start arriving today and descend in full force on Thursday.
Negotiators say they don’t want their leaders arguing over the placement of a comma or a set of brackets, and so everything needs to be tied up by Friday morning.
That leaves just over two days, and more than 190 countries gathered in the conference hall can’t even settle on a draft text to argue over.
The parties seem to have divided into three factions – although officially it is rich vs poor, as developing countries say they are united.
In reality, developed countries responsible for most emissions currently in the atmosphere are facing down the major developing countries expected to produce the majority of emissions in coming decades.
Both want the other group to sign up for more ambitious targets – whether emissions cuts, funding for the poor, or verification of what they will do to curb production of greenhouse gasses in future.
Cap and trade not the solution, climate scientist says
Fighting climate change is a huge investment opportunity but not through emissions trading and investors should instead put their money into renewables which will power the economy in the future, says a leading environmental scientist and cap and trade expert.
As yesterday’s walkout by African nations showed, getting anyone to agree on anything at the U.N. Climate Conference is easier said than done. The use of markets to address pollution is no different. Supporters of cap and trade — the system which allows companies or groups who meet their emissions targets to sell their remaining carbon credits — are out in force, but so are the groups who say the scheme prevents less responsible companies from breaking their bad habits.
Scientist Payal Parekh, from International Rivers, has come to Copenhagen to lobby on the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to highlight the failures of the cap and trade system. She said: “We are working here to ensure that we get ambitious reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases so that we can make a smooth and efficient transition to a clean and green economy. This means that we really need to set up a system that rewards innovators as opposed to allowing dirty industries to continue polluting.
“Cap and trade favours dirty industries as opposed to innovators. The reasons for this are that in cap and trade systems that are up and running, most notably in the European Union, polluters are given rights to continue their dirty habits and there are also loopholes such as offsets which allow them to not have to make their emissions reductions at home but instead push them off on to developing countries.”
Proponents of the buying and selling of carbon credits believe that it is vital world leaders reach a deal on emissions targets by the end of the Copenhagen Conference. The head of the Asian Development Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, recently told Reuters that failure to reach a deal could cause the collapse of the carbon market.
“Cap and trade is vitally important because without a price on carbon there isn’t a clear signal to the market place as to what it is the market should be recognizing as real value going forward. It is possible to put a price on things without a cap and trade scheme … but it will be immeasurably more difficult,” said Fiona Wain, chief executive officer of Environment Business Australia.
The light bulb was invented fairly recently and most power plants are also fairly new. New dirty power plants are being make even today simply because its cheaper and easier to crate dirty power plants than to create green power plants. Another problem is the “NIMBY’s” (not in my back yard) These people do not want wind turbines in their town because they are ugly.
We do need laws that put a price premium on dirty power plants so that the scale can be tipped in favor of green energy. We also need some anti NIMBY laws because we can’t roll out millions of wind turbine towers if people can say they don’t like the way it looks or whatever their complains are.
You don’t like that wind turbine? Well I don’t like smog, acid raid, pollution and I really don’t trust big business to ever do the right thing, unless they have to.
Solar car “crashes” at end of round the world trip
Luckily for my colleague, photographer Kacper Pempel, this solar powered “taxi” was not going very fast when it smashed through a wall of polystyrene at the end of a 52,000 km trip around the world.
It stopped pretty much in the debris of the makeshift wall after the deliberate “crash” marking the finish outside the venue of Dec. 1-12 U.N. climate talks in Poland. (Click here for a story)
Driver Louis Palmer, a Swiss teacher (in blue, lower right), has driven through 38 nations over 17 months, the first time a solar-powered car has gone round the world. He ended the final stretch at U.N. climate talks with Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat as a passenger.
I have enjoyed following Louis’ travels. He once gave me a lift a year ago at the last U.N. climate conference in Bali, Indonesia and the car was certainly zippier under the tropical sun than it was in mid-winter Poland. Whatever the location the car was quite difficult to drive because of its length: it tows a flat-backed trailer covered with solar panels.
Louis says that his trip shows that the world needs more electric powered vehicles….Is this the way forward for carmakers?
There are very many examples of home-made electric cars on YouTube and other video sites. The motors, controllers and deep-cycle batteries are readily available and are relativly inexpensive.
