The Copenhagen climate summit is only about 10 days away. Here is some of the latest news about climate change and the U.S. and Australian probable actions on climate change.
Climate Change Speeds Up and Seas Feared up 2 Meters — OSLO (Reuters)
Global warming is happening faster than expected and at worst could raise sea levels by up to 2 meters (6-1/2 ft) by 2100, a group of scientists said on Tuesday in a warning to next month’s U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen.
In what they called a “Copenhagen Diagnosis,” updating findings in a broader 2007 U.N. climate report, 26 experts urged action to cap rising world greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 or 2020 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
“Climate change is accelerating beyond expectations,” a joint statement said, pointing to factors including a retreat of Arctic sea ice in summer and melting of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica.
“Accounting for ice-sheets and glaciers, global sea-level rise may exceed 1 meter by 2100, with a rise of up to 2 meters considered an upper limit,” it said. Ocean levels would keep on rising after 2100 and “several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.”
Many of the authors were on the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in 2007 foresaw a sea level rise of 18-59 cms (7-24 inches) by 2100 but did not take account of a possible accelerating melt of Greenland and Antarctica. Coastal cities from Buenos Aires to New York, island states such as Tuvalu in the Pacific or coasts of Bangladesh or China would be highly vulnerable to rising seas.
“This is a final scientific call for the climate negotiators from 192 countries who must embark on the climate protection train in Copenhagen,” Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said in a statement. Read more here.
US to go to Copenhagen summit with proposed target on carbon emissions–
Barack Obama to announce target in next three weeks. The White House said today it would go to the Copenhagen climate change summit with a proposed target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions after facing international pressure to commit to stronger action on climate change.
An administration official told reporters that President Barack Obama would propose the targets before the climate meeting, which is less than three weeks away. The move removes the biggest obstacle to a political deal at Copenhagen. America is the only major industrialised country that has yet to reveal its emissions reduction plan. The official did not give details on the stringency of the proposed cuts, but it is thought likely they would range from 14% to 20% from 2005 levels – still below those put forward by the EU and other industrialised countries.
“The one thing the president has made clear is we want to take action consistent with the legislative process,” the official told reporters. “[We] don’t want to get out ahead or be at odds with what can be produced through legislation. Read more here.
Study: Climate Change Will Result In More Civil Wars in Africa
ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2009) — Climate change could increase the likelihood of civil war in sub-Saharan Africa by over 50 percent within the next two decades, according to a new study led by a team of researchers at University of California, Berkeley, and published in the Nov. 23 online issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The study was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study, conducted by researchers at UC Berkeley as well as at Stanford University, New York University and Harvard University, provides the first quantitative evidence linking climate change and the risk of civil conflict. It concludes by urging accelerated support by African governments and foreign aid donors for new and/or expanded policies to assist with African adaptation to climate change.
“Despite recent high-level statements suggesting that climate change could worsen the risk of civil conflict, until now we had little quantitative evidence linking the two,” said Marshall Burke, the study’s lead author and a graduate student at UC Berkeley’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. “Unfortunately, our study finds that climate change could increase the risk of African civil war by over 50 percent in 2030 relative to 1990, with huge potential costs to human livelihoods.”
“We were definitely surprised that the linkages between temperature and recent conflict were so strong,” said Edward Miguel, professor of economics at UC Berkeley and faculty director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Evaluation for Global Action. “But the result makes sense. The large majority of the poor in most African countries depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, and their crops are quite sensitive to small changes in temperature. So when temperatures rise, the livelihoods of many in Africa suffer greatly, and the disadvantaged become more likely to take up arms.” Read more at Science Daily.com
130 Climate Justice Activists Arrested At Australian Parliament
A protester gets carried away from the entrance of Parliament House in Canberra during a demonstration over the proposed emissions trading scheme (ABC News: Jeremy Thompson)
ABC News (Australia)– Over 130 protesters have been arrested at Parliament House in Canberra while demonstrating against the Government’s actions on climate change.
The group descended on Parliament today as debate continues to rage in the Senate over the Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
Holding a banner which read “Rudd the world is watching – make Copenhagen count”, the protesters called on the Government to commit to a 40 per cent emissions reduction in 2000 levels by 2020.
But police began to arrest the protesters, who sat down in front of the main entrance to Parliament House, after they refused to budge for several hours.
States Mull a “Plan B” for Carbon Markets in the Face of Federal Delays
Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) — Cash-strapped states in search of new revenue may establish their own “cap-and-trade” program for greenhouse gases covering more than half the U.S. economy if Congress doesn’t set up a federal emissions market.
“Plan A is we get a federal cap-and-trade program,” Judi Greenwald, a vice president at the Arlington, Virginia-based Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said by phone. State-enforced greenhouse gas limits “can be a credible Plan B.” [Plan B sounds better since Plan A won't work for climate change].
Ten Northeastern states already have a cap-and-trade program for power plants and raised $432.8 million from carbon dioxide permit sales since September 2008. [How does this help the climate?] Two other regional coalitions are planning cap-and-trade programs for 2012 and one participating state, California, predicts it might earn as much as $4 billion a year from the sale of pollution rights.
With backers of cap-and-trade legislation that passed the U.S. House of Representatives in June struggling to round up support in the Senate, the states are discussing the “nuts and bolts” of linking regional programs to form a single carbon market, Illinois Environmental Protection Agency Director Doug Scott said in an interview….”
Australian Carbon Trade Plans
Australia’s government gained bipartisan backing on Tuesday for its revised carbon-trade plan, avoiding an early election and boosting compensation to big carbon emitters, coal companies and electricity generators. [Are they crazy?]
Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull said conservative senators [liberal in the U.S. is Conservative in Australia] will back the scheme in a parliamentary vote later this week, ending a deadlock that threatened the carbon-trade plan, a central part of the government’s efforts to fight climate change.
However, divisions over the scheme run deep in the opposition and some members are threatening to vote against it or try to have the Senate vote, expected on Thursday, delayed until February 2010.
The center-left government needs seven extra votes in the 76-seat Senate to pass the scheme, which aims to put a price on every tonne of carbon produced and give industry an incentive to become more efficient.
“Some of the Senators have said regardless of the party decision they will cross the floor (and vote against the legislation). I am confident enough Senators will comply with the shadow cabinet and that the legislation will pass,” Turnbull told reporters after a heated, eight-hour party room meeting.
The Senate has already rejected the plan once. Another defeat would give Prime Minister Kevin Rudd a trigger for a snap poll.
The scheme is scheduled to start in July 2011, cover 1,000 of Australia’s biggest polluters and 75 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas
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