What should the international community do?
The President of the Pacific island nation of Nauru, Kinza Clodumar, addressed the
international community about one of the problems of global warming,
sea level rise, which we
dealt with as issue #5 in this policy section.
For President Clodumar, it is more than just an academic issue; his whole nation could
disappear, being covered entirely by water.
These are some of the most stirring words we have heard, and we quote him directly when
he said, "We submit respectfully that the willful destruction of entire countries and
cultures, with foreknowledge, would represent an unspeakable crime against humanity.
No nation has the right to place its own, misconstrued national interest
before the physical and cultural survival of whole countries."
REF: U.N. Global Warming Conference Held in Kyoto, Japan; Treaty Sets First
Global Emissions Limits; Facts on File World News; December 11, 1997.
http://www.facts.com/cd/97083640.htm
Economics in a nutshell: the tradeoffs
As stated earlier, the history books have it all wrong: the industrial revolution was
about new wealth through energy, not about the rise of the use of tools. Fossil fuels
are a source of energy to create
wealth. The burning of it produces two results:
wealth from productivity
environmental change through the increase of
greenhouse gases and
pollutants.
While the scientific conclusions on the impact of this are still not etched in stone,
physics and chemistry calls the world to consider the outcome before disaster is
irreversible. If sea level rise
is on the horizon, the Dutch had better be ready to
export their dike technology to the small island nations!
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The international community has come together to jointly attack the problems
of atmospheric emissions and global warming in the IPCC.
Actually the United Nations had set up the World Climate Programme in 1979, more than
ten years before the IPCC was established. The WCP was the UN's central collection
point for reviewing and organizing climate research. During this some odd 10 years,
the UN became convinced of
anthropogenic climate change.
In 1987, a year before the IPCC was formed, nations met and agreed to the Montreal Protocol
to ban emissions that depleted the ozone layer.
The IPCC was organized by the World Meteorological Organization
www.wmo.ch
under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The panel:
studies and reports on global changes in the climate
studies the social and economic forecasts of adaptation strategies for responding
to climate change
presents options for reducing greenhouse gas (see previous topic in this section)
and catalogs an inventory of greenhouse gases.
The IPCC shook the earth and ignited political fireworks in the scientific community
in 1995 when it proposed a link between human activities and climate change in its
Climate Change 1995 report.
The independent public policy research organization, The Heartland Institute, based in
Chicago, Illinois, alleges that the IPCC did not prove the link, presenting the views
of two noted scientists:
Dr. Frederick Seitz, president emeritus of Rockefeller University and past
president of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Seitz feels that the IPCC report
was not properly peer-reviewed.
Dr. Benjamin Santer, who says that existing circulation models (see topic presented
above) can explain the global warming as being "natural."
Further Heartland notes the Dr. Bert Bolin, IPCC chairman, said in a recent debate
that the climate issue "is still not settled."
Treaties coming out of the IPCC conventions
Since the IPCC's organization in 1988, nations have come together in COPs (Conference
of the Parties) to make commitments to reduce
the following substances in the atmosphere:
carbon dioxide
nitrous oxide
sulphur hexafluoride
hydrofluorocarbons
perfluorocarbons
methane
The COPs (Conferences of the Parties) are translated into the following languages:
Arabic
Chinese
English
French
Russian
Spanish
The representative groups attending COPS are as follows (based on interest):
Governments
Russia - still strongly debates IPCC science about the problems of global warming
(see our global warming a myth
tab above). Their main academe skeptic is Yuri Israel.
AOSIS - Alliance of Small Island States. These are the small island that are concerned
that rising sea level will swamp and drown their nations out of existence (See our tab
on sea level rise due to polar ice cap
melting above.
OPEC - the oil producing nations worried about the economic consequences of reducing
the use of the oil they produce through future protocols (protocols are emission
contraction agreements reached at the COPs). See our tab on
global economic considerations above.
JUSCANZ - Japan, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. This group broke up
in COP 2 (see COP 2 below. Canada walked
out of COP 2 in disgust. The US decided to break to commit to lowering emissions. Australia
decided to let emissions rise. Japan's position was confused (at that time).
China and small developing - reluctant to commit to contraction.
European Union - showing the most concern, proactive for aggressive contraction of
emissions, wants to attack global warming problems.
Business interests NGO (non-governmental organizations) - There are two types:
Those interests that are trying to develop "techno fixes" or solutions to the
problem of emissions contraction. Some of these are solutions for energy production
with no emissions, some are solutions with emissions limited to CO2, and
some are "carbon fix" solutions where CO2 is removed from the air.
Those interests that favor continued BAU (business as usual) practices of using
fossil fuels without interference or with limited influence based on environmental
concerns.
In 1992, the nations met for Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
This resulted in a vague, non-binding agreement known as UNFCCC (The UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change).
The 120 nations meeting made a nonbinding agreement to limit greenhouse gas
emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000.
In 1994, the United States projected that it would emit 1.33 billion tons of
carbon dioxide in 2000, up from 1.3 billion tons in 1990. The following countries
announced they would not be able to voluntarily reduce emissions to 1990 levels
by 2000:
Australia
Austria
Canada
Norway
Spain
Sweden
In 1995, the nations met to issue the Berlin Protocol (met in Berlin, Germany).
This was the first COP (Conference of the Parties)
Two things came out of this:
Nations agreed to work on specific timetables and targets for lowering
emissions after 2000
They came up with the concept of "exchange credits" against lowering emissions.
Credits could be granted by helping developing nations with technology and/or money
to reduce emissions as they developed (the do it right from the beginning approach).
In 1996 - 1500 scientists gathered for the 2nd Conference of the Parties under the
United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change in Geneva, Switzerland.
There was disagreement about procedures for voting and no binding agreements came
out of this conference. 900 delegates represented 180 countries. There were 500 NGOs
(non-governmental organizations, representing business and other special interests).
The sessions ran on three parallel tracks:
SBSTA - Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice - discusses about whether or
not to accept the IPCC report
SBI - Subsidiary Body for Implementation - discusses the economic, financial, and policy
instruments from the basis of international law; sets reporting guidelines
AGBM - Ad hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate - discussed moving towards the contraction
of emissions (baselined to 1990 emissions levels) agreed to at Berlin in 1996. This group
sought to keep discussions moving to set some definitive commitments before the next
protocol in 1998. So its real purpose was to accelerate discussions and to bring parties
together to keep emission contraction in the forefront by meeting more frequently than
the COPs.
In 1998 - the Kyoto Protocol (met in Kyoto, Japan).
This was the third COP (Conference of the Parties).
Raul Estrada-Oyuela of Argentina
chaired the convention. The following binding emissions curbs were negotiated for
achievement in 2010 based on 1990 levels. Many nations signed the protocol but
as of the date of the creation of this page only Fiji, Tuvalu and Trinidad -Tobago
have ratified it as a binding treaty.:
This was quite a commitment for the United States. The US is 4% of the world's population
with 25% of the emissions. It means cutting fossil fuel use by 30% over the next ten years.
The US Congress is bombarded by the strongest fossil fuel lobbying interests. The US
senate has used the lack of commitment by developing countries
(see IPCC COP participant government list
above) to commit to emissions
controls as an excuse for not favoring ratification of binding emissions contraction
protocols (see COP 3 agreements
above.
REF: U.N. Global Warming Conference Held in Kyoto, Japan; Treaty Sets First
Global Emissions Limits; Facts on File World News; December 11, 1997.
http://www.facts.com/cd/97083640.htm
Fourth Conference of the Parties - Buenos Aries - November 1998
The countries came together again to develop workable arrangements for implementing the
principles and objectives of the Kyoto Protocol in COP3.
Emissions trading
The Umbrella Group (Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Russia,
Ukaraine, and the United States) wanted emissions trading. The European Union did not
favor emissions trading. The United States had already experimented with emissions
trading on a national level (see last tab on government)
As mentioned earlier, the European Union wanted to move directly to carbon taxes as
an abatement strategy.
Internationally, this is called joint
implementation. Article 6 of the Kyoto Protocol permits developed countries
to acquire credits in meeting its emissions quota by investing in projects in
developing countries.
Another mechanism is the CDM or clean development mechanism. This enables a developed
country to invest in emission reducing projects in developing countries for credits
against its emission target.
REF: Australian Greenhouse Office 1999; National Emissions Trading: establishing the
boundaries; Discussion paper number 1; Commonwealth of Australia, Canbera.
You need Acrobat to read the reference below. Press here for free download of Acrobat.
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/emissionstrading/emissions_1.pdf
International law: economics vs. ecology
James Sheehan has written a book called Global Greens: inside the international
environmental establishment.
The concern of the book is that non-governmental green organizations, which he calls
NGOs (see NGO discussion above), are
using international law and the United Nations to "undermine self-government,
economic freedom, and personal liberty."
