environment – Page 3

World leaders spent two weeks in Copenhagen and all we got was this?

It took two weeks of talks in Copenhagen, after two years of preliminary talks and in the end, to much fanfare we got….

A big, fat nothing.

Here is how The New York Times describes the so-called Copenhagen Accord:

The plan does not firmly commit the industrialized nations or the developing nations to firm targets for midterm or long-term greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The accord is nonetheless significant in that it codifies the commitments of individual nations to act on their own to tackle global warming.

The accord provides a system for monitoring and reporting progress toward those national pollution-reduction goals, a compromise on an issue over which China bargained hard. It calls for hundreds of billions of dollars to flow from wealthy nations to those countries most vulnerable to a changing climate. And it sets a goal of limiting the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2050, implying deep cuts in climate-altering emissions over the next four decades.

But it was an equivocal agreement that was, to many, a disappointing conclusion to a two-year process that had the goal of producing a comprehensive and enforceable action plan for addressing dangerous changes to the global climate. The messy compromise mirrored the chaotic nature of the conference, which virtually all participants said had been badly organized and run.

The accord sets no goal for concluding a binding international treaty, which leaves the implementation of its provisions uncertain. It is likely to undergo many months, perhaps years, of additional negotiations before it emerges in any internationally enforceable form.

Goal-setting is nice, but we have moved well beyond the time when we can just set some goals and hope for the best. We still use too much oil, still burn too much carbon and we have done nothing to protect the poor, low-lying nations who will bear the brunt of the bad stuff — and there remain few if any incentives to keep developing nations from doing what we did to build our economies.

Why should China and India make serious efforts to address the issue, when we have shown an unwillingness to do the same?

The cautious optimism proffered by some environmental groups is really nothing more than face-saving given that, in reality, we are in no better of a position on climate change than we were before these talks began.

Green grows the presidency

Give President Barack Obama some green points. Having allowed the healthcare debate to get away from him, he apparently has decided to take the initiative on greenhouse gases and climate change. His administration, via the Environmental Protection Agency, said today that it “was moving forward on new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of power plants and large industrial facilities,” according to The New York Times.

“We are not going to continue with business as usual,” Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said in a conference call Wednesday with reporters. “We have the tools and the technology to move forward today, and we are using them.”

The proposed rules, which could take effect as early as 2011, would place the greatest burden on 400 new power plants and those undergoing substantial renovation, making them prove that they have applied the best available technology to reduce emissions — or face penalties.

Ms. Jackson described the proposal as a common-sense rule carefully tailored to apply to only the largest facilities — those that emit at least 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year — which are responsible for nearly 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

You do it. No, you do it.

There appears to be consensus among international leaders that climate change must be reversed.

The consensus, however, is that it is up to the other guy to make the sacrifices needed to keep the Earth’s temperatures from continuing to rise – and causing the kind of havoc expected to be caused by the increase.

The leaders of about 100 nations are gathering in New York this week to discuss the issue at what The New York Times described as “highest level summit meeting on climate change ever convened.”

But it remains unclear whether the efforts expected to take place this week – they began Tuesday with round-tables on climate change – will shift talks out of neutral, where they have remained stalled for some time.

“The mood in the negotiations has been that I should do as little as possible as late as possible and let the other person go first,” said Kim Carstensen, the director of the Global Climate Initiative of the World Wildlife Fund.

There is some movement forward, but not a comprehensive, international plan. As The Times writes, “virtually all of the largest developed and developing nations have made domestic commitments toward creating more efficient, renewable sources of energy to cut emissions,” but — and this is key — “none want to take the lead in fighting for significant international emissions reduction targets, lest they be accused at home of selling out future jobs and economic growth.”

It is, as Jeffrey Sachs told the Times, a selfish nationalism that privileges parochial gains at the expense of humanity.

“The instinct is a kind of nationalist response that can get it exactly backwards,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. “We should be viewing this as global problem solving, not as global negotiation.”

Green issues not likely to be on gubernatorial table

Environmental issues are likely to get short shrift in this gubernatorial race — and not only because the two leading candidates appear stuck in attack mode and willing to focus on the smallest of alleged ethical lapses.

It’s not only because property taxes and the economy are front in center in voters’ minds.

It has to do with a lack of real interest in the environment by either Gov. Jon Corzine or Chris Christie.

Corzine does not have a good environmental record. He has done some good things — boosting alternative fuels, for instance — but his larger record is far from green, as this report issued by the EPA (which is led by his former environmental commissioner) shows.

Christie has some interesting (if vague and modest) proposals on his Web site, but has said little about green issues on the stump — except to slam Corzine for failing to win the endorsement from the Sierra Club (which Christie also failed to earn).

A second group last week also withheld its endorsement — this time of all candidates:

One of New Jersey’s leading environmental groups announced today it will withhold an endorsement in this year’s governor’s race because its leaders have yet to hear substantive environmental plans from the candidates.

“We really think the candidates thus far have done a poor job crafting environmental positions and showing where they stand on the environment,” said Dena Mattola Jaborska, executive director of Environment New Jersey. “Before people go to the polls this fall, we want them to be educated on the candidates positions.”

Basically, neither of these guys has much of a record to stand on when it comes to green issues and neither is going to go out of his way to talk about it.

Focus on climate, not just energy

The New York Times gets it — the climate crisis is, in fact, a crisis and requires more than the rather timid approaches we’ve taken so far. While it calls the House energy bill a good start — I think it is unfortunately weak — it castigates a Senate that is likely to gut what little good is in the bill. It says “there are small but disturbing signs that what this country might have to settle for is another energy bill.”

The atmosphere in the Senate is just short of mutinous. The mandatory cap on emissions has virtually no Republican support. There is talk of a turf war between two key Democrats, Barbara Boxer and Max Baucus, whose committees share jurisdiction over the bill. On Thursday, 10 Democrats from states that produce coal or depend on energy-intensive industries said they could not support any bill that did not protect American industries from exports from countries that did not impose similar restraints on emissions.

That means that the current bill, with its relatively weak 17 percent cut by 2020, is likely to look far different come the fall — especially with the White House remaining “disengaged” on an issue that was one of Barack Obama’s chief focuses during the campaign.

What is needed “is a climate bill,” the paper says, “one committed to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in a way that engages the whole economy and forces major technological change.”

Without such a bill, America will lose the race against time on climate, lose the race for markets for new and cleaner energy systems, and forfeit any claim to world leadership in advance of the next round of global climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

U.S. inaction might then lead to international inaction as the developing economies — in particular, India and China — point to us as hypocrites and refuse to play ball on the issue.