By Gaurav Singh
Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- China, Brazil, South Africa and India will disclose the voluntary steps the countries will take to help reduce global warming by the Jan. 31 deadline set during negotiations in Copenhagen, India’s environment minister said after talks between the four nations in New Delhi yesterday.
The four will communicate their plans to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by the deadline this weekend, Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister, said. He added the countries will work to build support for the global climate accord agreed in December.
Negotiators met in the Danish capital for two weeks of talks through Dec. 19 on curbing global warming. Debate stumbled on aid to developing countries, pollution-reduction goals and how to verify country pledges to cut emissions. Bolivia, Sudan and Venezuela were among countries that opposed the accord, which will serve as a framework for talks this year.
“The value of the Copenhagen Accord lies not as a stand- alone document but as an input into the two-track negotiating process under the UNFCCC, which will culminate in Mexico City in December 2010,” Ramesh said. He spoke at a briefing with Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate negotiator, Brazil’s Environment Minister Carlos Minc and South Africa’s Buyelwa Sonjica.
Rich nations should ensure the early distribution of $10 billion pledged at Copenhagen for this year to address climate change in the least developed nations and island states, according to a joint statement issued after yesterday’s meeting between the so-called BASIC states. …
Monday, January 25, 2010
China, India, Brazil commit to meet Copenhagen Accord deadline
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sen. James Inhofe Called ‘Ridiculous’
Republican Sen. James Inhofe, Congress' leading proponent of the argument that the scientific consensus around man-made global warming is actually a massive conspiracy, traveled to Copenhagen to pour some cold water on any momentum toward a global climate change agreement.
Inhofe, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, spoke to a group of reporters, telling them "the United States is not going to pass a cap and trade" bill. He also reiterated his skepticism of global warming science.
Politico, which noted Inhofe wore black snakeskin cowboy boots, tells the rest of the story:
A reporter asked: "If there's a hoax, then who's putting on this hoax, and what's the motive?"
"It started in the United Nations," Inhofe said, "and the ones in the United States who really grab ahold of this is the Hollywood elite."
One reporter asked Inhofe if he was referring to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Another reporter — this one from Der Spiegel — told the senator: "You're ridiculous."
Copenhagen Accord reaffirms 2 degree goal, but gap with national proposals remain. The sooner the action, the cheaper and easier.
The Copenhagen Accord reaffirms the importance of limiting global warming to 2 °C (3.6 °F), but current national commitments would lead to approximately 3.9 °C (7.0 °F) warming by 2100.
To close that gap global emissions must peak within the next decade and fall approximately 50% below 1990 levels by 2050 (a cut of approximately 60% below current emissions).
The sooner the nations of the world begin to close this gap the cheaper and easier it will be.
For more information, download the full press release and the spreadsheet with the numbers behind the analysis.
The Climate Interactive research team from Sustainability Institute, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Ventana Systems have analyzed the greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets stated in the final Copenhagen Accord and compared these with the emissions reduction commitments made by individual nations. The analysis, based on the C-ROADS climate policy simulation, assumes that all national commitments offered prior to and during the Copenhagen meeting remain in force, are verifiable and will be fully implemented.
The Accord adopted in Copenhagen (accessed 19 December 2009) calls for “deep cuts in global emissions…so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius” compared to preindustrial levels. Simulations of the C-ROADS model show that doing so requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2020 and then fall 50% below 1990 levels by 2050 (a cut of approximately 60% below current emissions).
However, simulations of the C-ROADS model show a large gap between the targets in the final Copenhagen agreement and the commitments offered by individual nations. Using the C-ROADS model, the researchers estimate that current confirmed proposals (that is, submissions to the UNFCCC or official government positions) would raise expected global mean temperature by 3.9 °C (7.0 °F) by 2100. Including conditional proposals, legislation under debate and unofficial government statements would lower expected warming to an increase of approximately 2.9°C (5.2°F) over preindustrial levels. Full details and assumptions are here. …
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Copenhagen live: US military veterans discuss security threats of climate change
USCAN on behalf of Operation Free:
US military veterans discuss security threats of climate change
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Live stream from Copenhagen
UNFCCC Webcast
United Nations Climate Change Conference, Dec 7 - Dec 18 2009
Tuvalu negotiator at Copenhagen: ‘I woke this morning, and I was crying, and that's not easy for a grown man to admit. The fate of my country rests in your hands.’
Earlier this week, Ian Fry, the lead negotiator for the small island nation of Tuvalu -- one of a handful of countries severely threatened by climate change -- called for the strongest of possible agreements: a legally-binding treaty that would demand developed countries help bring atmospheric CO2 down to 350 ppm. It's a bold demand that the US and other developed countries will not accept, and which developing countries, bent on a renewal of Kyoto, also reject. Today he delievered a speech that, according to Jamie at 350.org, "had delegates from around the world in tears."
Here's a rough transcription from 350.org:
…This is not just an issue of Tuvalu... millions of people around the world are affected. This is not just Tuvalu. Over the last few days I've received calls from all over the world, offering faith and hope that we can reach a conclusion on this issue. Madame President, this is not a media trip for me, I have refused to take media calls on this issue. As a humble servant of the government of Tuvalu, I have to make a strong appeal to you that we consider this matter properly. I don't want to cause embarrassment to you or the government. …
Tuvalu Negotiator Delivers a Tear-Jerking Call for the Toughest Treaty at Copenhagen
Friday, December 11, 2009
Climate scientists around the world debunk Wall Street Journal ‘Stalinist’ screed
From Climate Progress:
The Wonk Room is reporting on the scene from Copenhagen during the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal published a bizarre and vile screed by editor Bret Stephens, who compared climate scientists to anti-Semites and Stalinists, furthering the descent of the Climategate swiftboating campaign into parody. The Wonk Room has the exclusive responses to the charges Stephens made from several of the thousands of scientists working to understand the dynamics of our climate system. These scientists are participating in the American Geophysical Union’s Climate Science Q&A for Copenhagen program. The Wonk Room would like to thank the scientists — from the United States, Norway, Australia, Scotland, and Germany — for their thoughtful replies to a pile of otherwise unredeemable twaddle.
These scientists refute the charges that they are guilty of “utopianism,” “anti-humanism,” “intolerance,” and “indifference to evidence.” Their responses may be summed up by that of David S. Stevenson, a University of Edinburgh climate scientist: “Mr. Stephens is missing something here, and it is called a scientific understanding of the climate system.” …
Climate scientists around the world debunk Wall Street Journal “Stalinist” screed
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The Climate Scoreboard: Watch the global temperature change with Copenhagen
The Climate Scoreboard uses the C-ROADS simulation to calculate the long-term climate impacts of proposals under consideration in the negotiations to produce a global climate treaty. Embedded Scoreboards automatically update as the deal improves. Watch the video (top right corner) for background and explanation of features. To see recent changes to the Scoreboard, click on the log link at right.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
'Copenhagen' hits #1 most Googled topic
Yup, just a half hour or so ago, 'copenhagen' beat out 'tiger woods' to claim the mantle of the world's #1 search query on Google. This means that the world's eyes are indeed on COP15--and that world leaders have a real opportunity here. They can take advantage of the spotlight and make real progress in crafting the foundation for a global climate treaty. More info, and a graph of other related surging terms (thankfully, 'Nations Rush to Create the First Draft of a Global Climate Treaty ..." climategate' is on the decline) after the jump. …
Stolen email shows scientist happily sharing climate research data
More evil climate scientist conspiracy:
At least one of the scientists being accused by industry groups and right-wing think tanks of hiding their climate research data, appears in an email we found in the stolen files to be more than happy with sharing his data.
Not only does he share it, but he does so with a person he's never even met before!
Now that our research team has completed a thorough analysis of the entire 1000+ email record, we'll be publishing a lot of the information in the coming days that runs counter to the claims made by those using these leaked emails to further their own political agendas.
Here's one we came across between East Anglia researcher, Dr. Keith Briffa and a Russian scientist, Leonid Klyashtorin, in which Briffa gladly sends along research data to Kylashotrin, a person he has never met: …
Stolen email shows scientist happily sharing climate research data
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Temperature records released to debunk contrarian claims
By Emily Beament, Press Association, Tuesday, 8 December 2009
The Met Office today released temperature records from more than 1,500 climate monitoring stations around the world in the latest efforts to debunk claims by sceptics that global warming data was manipulated by scientists.
The raw data comes from a network of individual stations which have been used by the World Meteorological Organisation to monitor global surface temperatures.
According to the Met Office, the records from the 1,500 sites show that temperatures have risen over the past 150 years.
The results from the monitoring centres released today is very similar to the complete set of data records from around 5,000 stations which the Met Office's Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) use to measure global land temperatures in the "HadCrut" record.
The data released today, a subset of the total from the 5,000 sites, is not a new global temperature record and does not replace the HadCrut record or other analyses from Nasa or the National Climatic Data Centre in the US.
The Met Office said it would release the data from the remaining station records when it had permission from those centres to do so.
And scientists said they would publish "as soon as possible" the specific computer code that aggregates the individual station temperatures into the global record. …
Temperature records released to debunk climate change claims
Monday, December 7, 2009
The Times: Climate e-mail hackers “aimed to maximise harm to Copenhagen summit” – Russian security services implicated
From DeepClimate:
According to TimesOnline, investigators of the CRU email theft (dubbed SwiftHack or Climategate) have concluded that the release of the stolen material was held back for weeks in order to cause maximum damage to the upcoming Copenhagen conference.
This development, along with new reports of breakins and other attacks at the University of Victoria, should finally lay to rest the baseless rumour that the hacked email archive was assembled at CRU as part of a contingent FOI response and released by an inside whistleblower, a canard that was started by – wait for it – none other than Steve McIntyre himself!
First, here’s the latest on the CRU SwiftHack (a.k.a. “Climategate”) investigation from the Times of London: …
Update, December 6: The Daily Mail reports that suspicion is falling on the Russian security services:
Suspicions were growing last night that Russian security services were behind the leaking of the notorious British ‘Climategate’ emails which threaten to undermine tomorrow’s Copenhagen global warming summit.
An investigation by The Mail on Sunday has discovered that the explosive hacked emails from the University of East Anglia were leaked via a small web server in the formerly closed city of Tomsk in Siberia. …
The server is believed to be used mainly by Tomsk State University, one of the leading academic institutions in Russia, and other scientific institutes.
Computer hackers in Tomsk have been used in the past by the Russian secret service (FSB) to shut websites which promote views disliked by Moscow.
Such arrangements provide the Russian government with plausible deniability while using so-called ‘hacker patriots’ to shut down websites. …
The Times: Climate e-mail hackers “aimed to maximise harm to Copenhagen summit”
Hackers paid by climate sceptics, UN says
By PAOLA TOTARO, LONDON
December 8, 2009UNITED Nations officials have suggested that computer hackers who pilfered thousands of emails and files from a British university were probably paid to undermine the Copenhagen climate change summit.
And according to a British newspaper investigation, the emails emerged from a server operated from a small red building in the Siberian city of Tomsk.
The Mail on Sunday reported that the server is primarily used by Tomsk State University. In 2002, ''hacker patriots'' believed to be students from the institution acted against a site that had reported events in Chechnya and angered Russian officials.
UN officials confirmed that the files appeared to have been first uploaded on to a website from a computer in Russia, suggesting that the culprits were not amateur climate change sceptics but paid professionals.
They first appeared on a wesbite run by climate change sceptics on November 17.
On Sunday, Achim Steiner, the director of the United Nations Environment Program, said the theft of emails from East Anglia University's climate research unit, a globally renowned climate research institute and keeper of British temperature data, was reminiscent of the Watergate scandal, which brought down US president Richard Nixon.
But he stressed that it was ''not climategate, it's hackergate''. …
Fifty-six newspapers around the world in 20 languages run op-ed for climate action
From Treehugger:
The UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen has finally arrived and the time for action is now. So says an op-ed in almost 60 newspapers around the world that calls for world leaders to agree on a binding deal that locks in targets for reducing emissions and financing for countries most affected by climate change. The op-ed was written by the Guardian's editorial staff and appears in 20 languages including English, Chinese, Arabic and Russian. …
Fifty-six Newspapers Around The World In 20 Languages Runs Op-Ed For Climate Action
Friday, December 4, 2009
Big business demands strong Copenhagen agreement
Tom Young, BusinessGreen, Thursday 3 December 2009 at 00:15:00
Gordon Brown says he welcomes support from firms that will be key players in low carbon transition
Over 850 of the world's largest companies, including Shell, Tesco, Kingfisher, Vodafone, Unilever, John Lewis and Lloyds will today call on Gordon Brown to do his upmost to secure a strong agreement at the upcoming Copenhagen climate change summit.
The firms, who are members of the Prince of Wales's Corporate Leaders Group, will set out the business case for a strong and effective legally binding international deal and underline their belief that economic development can not be sustained unless the climate is stabilised.
Craig Bennett, co-director of the group, said companies across all sectors operating in both developed and developing economies were united in calling for an ambitious deal to be struck at Copenhagen.
"If it is possible for such a variety of companies to agree on the basic shape of an ambitious, robust and equitable global deal on climate change – surely it should now be possible for the world's governments to do the same?" he asked.
Over 100 of the companies will gather at Downing Street this evening to highlight the business opportunities a low carbon economy can offer and urge the prime minister to do all he can to ensure an agreement is reached in Copenhagen. …
Big business demands strong Copenhagen agreement
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Another crop of reasonable reactions to ‘Climategate’
Dmitry Orlov: Please Change the Climate. Thanks.
1. The UEA emails were stolen. Data theft is a criminal activity. Use of stolen data is a criminal activity as well. People who get paid for publishing articles that are based on stolen data are dealing in stolen goods. This is no different from selling a house that you built using stolen materials.
2. Smearing someone's reputation based on lies is called libel. To defend oneself against the charge of libel, one generally has to present evidence to prove that one's statements are in fact true. Stolen data is not admissible as evidence. …
Nature: Climatologists under pressure
Stolen e-mails have revealed no scientific conspiracy, but do highlight ways in which climate researchers could be better supported in the face of public scrutiny.
The e-mail archives stolen last month from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK, have been greeted by the climate-change-denialist fringe as a propaganda windfall (see page 551). To these denialists, the scientists' scathing remarks about certain controversial palaeoclimate reconstructions qualify as the proverbial 'smoking gun': proof that mainstream climate researchers have systematically conspired to suppress evidence contradicting their doctrine that humans are warming the globe.
This paranoid interpretation would be laughable were it not for the fact that obstructionist politicians in the US Senate will probably use it next year as an excuse to stiffen their opposition to the country's much needed climate bill. Nothing in the e-mails undermines the scientific case that global warming is real — or that human activities are almost certainly the cause. That case is supported by multiple, robust lines of evidence, including several that are completely independent of the climate reconstructions debated in the e-mails. …
Mike Hulme: The Science and Politics of Climate Change
I am a climate scientist who worked in the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the 1990s. I have been reflecting on the bigger lessons to be learned from the stolen emails, some of which were mine. One thing the episode has made clear is that it has become difficult to disentangle political arguments about climate policies from scientific arguments about the evidence for man-made climate change and the confidence placed in predictions of future change. The quality of both political debate and scientific practice suffers as a consequence. …
Peter Kelemen: What East Anglia's E-mails Really Tell Us About Climate Change
In the past two weeks, scientists like myself have been gripped by news of the theft and online release of more than a decade of e-mails from one of the world's leading centers for climate-change research, the Hadley Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at Britain's University of East Anglia. During these same weeks, world political leaders have been preparing for a climate summit in Copenhagen and a new study has indicated that a major ice sheet in eastern Antarctica, previously thought to be stable, is in fact losing mass. But those developments have been clouded by the stolen e-mails and what they may imply about how research into human-induced global warming is carried out. …
Bob Ward: Climate change denial is the new article of faith for the far right
It is now 12 days since the hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia first appeared online, and the propaganda machine for the climate change denial lobby is in overdrive.
The University of East Anglia has rightly announced an independent investigation into the hacking episode. It is essential that the investigation examines, thoroughly and transparently, the substance of the email messages and establishes whether there has been any wrongdoing. From what I have seen, there is no evidence of research misconduct, but the only way to clear the air now is through an investigation.
Some people have already, and predictably, taken on the role of judge, jury and executioner, and have called for Phil Jones, the director of the unit, to resign. Yesterday Jones announced he would be temporarily standing down while an inquiry is carried out. But such a hysterical witch hunt is a sign of desperation rather than justice.
Despite nearly two weeks of frantic brandishing of the "smoking gun", there is still no evidence of the alleged bullets that would constitute an overturning of 200 years of climate research. The greenhouse effect still exists and the Earth is still warming. …
Ben Jervey: The Ministry of Climate Change Misinformation
I really didn't want to write anything about the stolen climate scientist emails. Besides the fact that the personal accounts of scientists in the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were illegally hacked, the supposedly incriminating quotes were taken well out of context, and, frankly, the actual content of the correspondences contains nothing to suggest that climate change isn't very real and a very immediate threat. The emails certainly don't change the fact that the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change remains strong.
Not that the scientific consensus seems to matter in this day and age of misinformation.
But these emails reared their ugly heads the same week that I happened to be reading a new book on the long-running "crusade to deny global warming," an exposé of the intricate and highly orchestrated efforts of fossil fuel companies (and the politicians, mad men, and reactionary media flacks in their back pockets) to discredit real climate science and manufacture confusion. Climate Cover-Up grew out of the good, old-fashioned muckracking that James Hoggan (with co-author Richard Littlemore) has been publishing since 2005 on the invaluable website DeSmogBlog. The book, through meticulously documented analysis, lays out the deliberate, nefarious, and immoral campaign to manipulate the public discourse on climate change. It also helps explain why, despite the well-established science, there are still ads on TV trumpeting the benefits of carbon dioxide ("They call it pollution, We call it life"), why anonymous commenters continue to bombard climate-related articles and blog posts (and, likely, this column) with uninformed "it's a hoax" or "the world is cooling" denial talking points, why just over half of registered Republicans believe climate change is happening at all, and why, last week, some stolen personal emails from climate scientists that don't actually discredit their work is a bigger news story than the very severe, enormously dire findings released by the scientifically sound Copenhagen Diagnosis. …
Ben Santer: Dear colleagues and friends
I am sure that by now, all of you are aware of the hacking incident which recently took place at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). This was a criminal act. Over 3,000 emails and documents were stolen. The identity of the hacker or hackers is still unknown.
The emails represented private correspondence between CRU scientists and scientists at climate research centers around the world. Dozens of the stolen emails are from over a decade of my own personal correspondence with Professor Phil Jones, the Director of CRU.
I obtained my Ph.D. at the Climatic Research Unit. I went to CRU in 1983 because it was - and remains - one of the world's premier institutions for studying the nature and causes of climate change. During the course of my Ph.D., I was privileged to work together with exceptional scientists – with people like Tom Wigley, Phil Jones, Keith Briffa, and Sarah Raper. …
An Open Letter to Scientists from Kevin Trenberth
…This has been a difficult time for us, with very personal abusive and threatening emails, protesters at the bottom of the NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) hill, and trying to get a decent hearing. I am proud of what Phil and I did for Chapter 3 in AR4, and it is disappointing that the IPCC has not been more forthright in standing up for its procedures.
After the SAR, when editors were introduced, the IPCC process has become very open, transparent and thorough, but it is not documented anywhere that we can hold up to the world and say, "look, see". The IPCC web site is not helpful. It is possible to find something on IPCC procedures and the URL is in the attached. However, the attached is my attempt to detail the process of which we should be proud. In particular it documents the process down to the level of Chapter 3 of AR4. Along with the huge xls spread sheets that document how every comment (for chapter 3 over 3500) were handled and responded to (now why aren't those made publicly available???) the process does not allow any of the finagling or manipulation we have been accused of.
Indeed in the stolen emails you will find evidence of this. Please promote the attached document and maybe we can get it onto the IPCC web site somehow? And maybe we can get others to pay attention to it. …
Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Centre in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Munich Re presses for progress on climate
BERLIN—Next month's Copenhagen summit needs to make significant progress toward a new climate-change deal, a leading reinsurer said Thursday, arguing that global warming already is costing billions of dollars per year.
"Our statistics clearly show that the loss burden from weather-related natural catastrophes is increasing," said Torsten Jeworrek, a board member at Munich Re AG.
Munich Re said its statistics show losses from weather-related disasters increasing by an average 11 percent per year since 1980. …
"Even if an all-embracing agreement does not seem feasible in Copenhagen, at the very least fundamental framework conditions should be established," Jeworrek said. "We cannot afford a delay at the expense of future generations."
Munich Re said overall losses due to weather-related events, such as hurricanes and tropical storms, from 1980 to 2008 came to some $1.6 trillion, with insured losses totaling $465 billion. Between 2000 and 2008 alone, it said, total losses came to more than $750 billion, while insured losses totaled some $280 billion. …
Friday, October 30, 2009
Military experts call for action on climate change to avoid security threats
Washington, D.C., October 30, 2009 – Yesterday, a group of serving and retired military officers from around the globe called on governments to "work for an ambitious and equitable international agreement" at the Copenhagen climate negotiations in December.
Participants at the conference on "Climate Change and Security at Copenhagen" emphasized the critical importance of addressing climate change now in order to avoid exacerbating current security threats and creating new ones.
"To avoid conflicts from climate change-related impacts, we need to employ every tool and strategy available, and the military is a critical ally in this fight," said Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development and speaker at the conference.
The officers, representing Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the US, are part of an international initiative on Climate Change and the Military led by the Institute for Environmental Security (IES) in The Hague and 10 other think tanks from Asia, Europe and North America.
Quoting from the military climate statement released at the conference, Air Marshal (ret) AK Singh of India, Chairman of the project's Military Advisory Council, warned that "failure to recognise the conflict and instability implications of climate change, and to invest in a range of preventative and adaptive actions will be very costly in terms of destabilising nations, causing human suffering, retarding development and providing the required military response." AK Singh also serves as Project Director, Climate Change & Security, Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi. …
Military Experts Call for Action on Climate Change to Avoid Security Threats
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Terror Act used on climate activist
By Beverley Rouse, Press Association
Thursday, 15 October 2009
Terror legislation was used to stop a British climate change activist from travelling to Denmark, it has emerged.
Chris Kitchen, 31, said he was prevented from crossing the border on Tuesday at about 5pm when the coach he was travelling on stopped at the Folkestone terminal of the Channel Tunnel.
Mr Kitchen told the Guardian that police officers boarded the coach and, after checking all passengers' passports, took him and another climate activist to be interviewed under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a clause which enables border officials to stop and search individuals to determine if they are connected to terrorism.
He was asked what he intended to do in Copenhagen and also about his family, work and past political activity.
Mr Kitchen said he pointed out that anti-terrorist legislation did not apply to environmental activists but said the officer replied that terrorism "could mean a lot of things".
His coach had left by the time his 30-minute interview had finished and police paid for a ticket for him to return to London.
Mr Kitchen said he believed the officials knew his name and had planned to remove him before they boarded the coach as passports were not initially scanned.
"The use of anti-terrorist legislation like this is another example of political policing, of the government harassing and intimidating people practising their hard earned democratic rights," he told the Guardian.” …
Terror Act used on climate activist
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