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Top American and Chinese negotiators in action

by Rebecca Lefton

The UN climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa have gone into emergency session on Saturday after negotiators worked through the night.  Time is running out for parties to work out a second commitment of the Kyoto Protocol and a host of other issues, including technology, adaptation, and reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (or REDD).

But it appears that negotiators are close to reaching an agreement on the Green Climate Fund.  Implementing the Green Climate Fund in Durban would probably be the most important achievement to come out of this process, ensuring that significant financial resources are dedicated to help developing countries avoid the worst impacts of global warming through the rest of this decade.

All parties here in Durban endorsed the development of a fund to mobilize large sums of money for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries during the last UN climate summit in Cancun.  At that meeting a Transitional Committee (TC) was created, comprised of 40 parties and tasked with designing the implementing structure for the Green Climate Fund.  The TC finished its work at a final meeting in Cape Town in October.  Unfortunately though the TC was not able to achieve final consensus at the meeting on the implementing document for the GCF and the final approval of the GCF was postponed to this meeting in Durban.  We have written about why parties should advance the fund here.

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by Andrew Light

DURBAN — The expected end game of the international climate talks in Durban is shaping up to be a fierce stand off.

A showdown has emerged between the EU and other parties over their conditions for agreeing to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. The first commitment period will expire in 2012.  If it is not renewed the fate of the instruments that support the world’s fragile carbon market is uncertain.

Japan, Russia and Canada have all signaled that they are unwilling to continue with a second commitment of binding emission cuts for the treaty leaving only the EU ready to move forward.

But the conditions the EU has asked for at this meeting to preserve the Kyoto Protocol are steep.  In exchange for their commitment they expect everyone else – in particular the other large greenhouse gas emitters like the U.S., China, and India – to begin a roadmap for a process that will create a binding agreement on reducing emissions later in the decade.  What we now know as the “mandate” debate has pulled everyone into a discussion over the fate of the Kyoto Protocol — including the U.S., which is not a party to it.

While the fate of U.S. emissions is not bound to the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the fate of many of the most important achievements of the Obama administration in this forum are now tied to Kyoto through the mandate debate.  Included in this list are the institutions that were created out of last year’s meeting in Cancun – such as the Green Climate Fund (tasked with mobilizing a large chunk of the promised $100 billion a year in climate financing by 2020) and the Clean Technology Center and Network – as well as progress they have made on pushing for a more rigorous system of transparency for measuring, reporting, and verifying (MRV) promises for emission reductions.

The dominoes could fall like this:  If the U.S. and other parties say no to the EU demand for a mandate on a process of a new binding agreement, then the EU could in turn say no to a re-commitment to the Kyoto Protocol.

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During the two weeks of the international climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, millions of people have been affected by extreme weather disasters. Our poisoned climate is fueling more extreme and dangerous weather, as the super-heated atmosphere brings heavier rains, harder droughts, and fiercer storms. These eight climate disasters that took place while the world’s governments debate whether to address climate pollution have killed dozens of people, displaced tens of thousands of people, and disrupted the lives of millions, and yet are far from the most damaging of 2011:

8. Canada Weather Bomb

On December 8: Hurricane-force winds in a fast-moving “weather bomb” system, including 92 mph gusts, knocked out power for 68,000 people in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Heavy snowfall blanketed north New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, forcing schools to close.

7. Scotland Weather Bomb

December 8: Severe winds of up to 165 mph from another weather bomb battered Scotland and northern England, forcing hundreds of schools to close, destroying a giant wind turbine, and leaving more than 56,000 people without power. “The storm’s winds were so strong as its pressure dropped by 44mb, almost double the qualifying amount for a weather bomb, in the 24 hours to 6am this morning. The winds today were stronger than the 80mph gusts seen when Hurricane Katia hit in September.”

6. Los Angeles Santa Ana Windstorm

November 30: A powerful, late-season Santa Ana windstorm with gale-force gusts “left much of the Los Angeles area strewn with toppled trees and downed power lines on Thursday, slowing rush-hour traffic,” canceling hundreds of flights, and knocking out electricity to over 430,000 residents. “Public schools in Pasadena and 11 other districts in San Gabriel Valley, northeast of Los Angeles, were closed for the day.” Thousands are still without power.

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Oceans make up 70% of the earth’s surface and hold 90% of natural carbon. So why do they only make up a small portion of the research on the global impact of carbon emissions?

The role of “blue carbon” in climate change is getting more interest from the international community. With a growing body of research exploring how an increase in atmospheric carbon is impacting the chemistry and biology of ocean ecosystems — and thus influencing climate change — people are starting to pay more attention.

However, it’s still not a well-explored concept outside the scientific community. At the COP climate talks in Durban, for example, there is endless talk about atmospheric carbon and about how to control terrestrial carbon emissions through deforestation programs like REDD+. But there are still very few mentions of oceanic carbon.

“Hopefully, by exposing the science to higher level decision makers, we will bridge a gap of communication for that necessary understanding” of the role that oceans play in climate change, said Alberto Piola, an oceanographer with the Naval Hydrographic Service in Argentina, speaking at a side event on Blue Carbon at COP 17 this week.

We can look at Blue Carbon in two ways. The first is the climate change impact of releasing natural carbon from the oceans through the destruction of ecosystems. Most research in this area is focused on near-shore ecosystems like mangroves and sea grasses. The second is the impact of burning fossil fuels on ocean ecosystems by adding geologically-trapped CO2 to the carbon cycle.

Considering the immense shift already underway in the oceans, it’s amazing that the concept hasn’t gotten more attention in the international negotiations on addressing climate change.

In pre-industrial times, the ocean was a source of CO2, and the atmosphere was a sink. But the release of staggering amounts of geologic carbon has made the oceans a net sink.

We’ve reversed the natural carbon cycle in about 200 years.

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by Melanie Hart

For the past two weeks, speculation has grown about China’s apparent public willingness to consider binding targets.

Up until the meeting in Durban, China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, refused to make a binding international commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Many in the international community view a binding international emissions commitment from the Chinese as a critical barrier to slowing the pace of climate change.

Then, to the surprise of many at the meeting, the Chinese delegation last weekend kicked off a flurry of speculation with a series of statements that appeared to signal a willingness to open the door to reconsidering its previous refusals. Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua suggested that the country may be willing to consider binding emissions reductions after 2020, and he outlined five conditions that the international community would have to meet for a post-2020 binding China climate deal.

Xie’s comments attracted significant global attention, and reporters began calling China the “success story,” the “unlikely darling,” and the “rock star” of the Durban climate conference. But soon, confusion reigned. Other parties—particularly the United States and Europe—began to express skepticism that China was actually offering anything new. The media, in turn, began backing away from the China story, and the flurry slowly died down, leaving many confused about what exactly the Chinese had said and what exactly happened in South Africa.

So what do we know as this 17th meeting of the UNFCCC meeting draws to a close about the direction of Chinese climate-change policy? Here are some tea-leaf readings from the conference in Durban.

China’s Durban messaging may reflect a change in tone while the substance is unclear

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Read all the ThinkProgress coverage from the Durban climate talks.

The delegates assembled in Durban, South Africa to tackle the civilizational challenge of manmade climate destruction burst into sustained applause on Thursday when a young American interrupted the proceedings to speak on behalf of the United States people. Abigail Borah, a 21-year-old student from Middlebury College and member of the youth climate delegation, spoke out in the plenary hall as US climate envoy Todd Stern prepared to address the assembled environmental ministers. “I am scared for my future,” she said, because of the “obstructionist Congress” and the “empty rhetoric” of President Obama:

I am speaking on behalf of the United States of America because my negotiators cannot. The obstructionist Congress has shackled justice and delayed ambition for far too long. I am scared for my future. 2020 is too late to wait. We need an urgent path to a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty. We need leaders who will commit to real change, not empty rhetoric. Keep your promises. Keep our hope alive.

Watch her speak, from Democracy Now:

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In the last 24 hours, historic weather bombs have struck North America and Scotland, powered by unchecked levels of carbon pollution. The freak weather disasters are another deadly reminder to the Durban climate talks that dangerous interference with the climate system is an urgent reality.

Yesterday, Washington, D.C. facd a severe storm that “had it all: heavy mountain snow, raging wind, and severe thunderstorms” that went down as the wettest December 7th on record. In Canada, a nasty snowstorm has left 30,000 without power. Scotland and Britain are facing the fiercest storm since 2007, a “red warning” “weather bomb”:

Scotland battened down the hatches with school, offices and attraction not opening or closing early … The storm’s winds were so strong as its pressure dropped by 44mb, almost double the qualifying amount for a weather bomb, in the 24 hours to 6am this morning. The winds today were stronger than the 80mph gusts seen when Hurricane Katia hit in September … WeatherOnline forecaster Simon Keeling said: ‘The weather machine has thrown absolutely everything at us, from wind to snow. Just about anything that can be mustered has been on the cards.‘

At the Durban talks Environment Minister Peter Kent acknowledged Canada is well past safe temperatures:

Time is really running short in terms of the 2 degrees, and in Canada we’re already past that in the Arctic, and we really do need to find a way to get meaningful significant reductions from the major developing economies.

Back in Canada, Stephen Harper’s right-wing government demonstrated Kent’s words are meaningless. It gave the go-ahead today for a major tar sands project that is the equivalent to 270,000 more cars on the road.

As global greenhouse pollution increases at record rates, the U.S. has experienced an unprecedented 12 billion-dollar weather disasters this year. The extreme weather hitting the countries making key decisions regarding tar sands and pollution regulations serves as a forewarning of the disasters we face with insufficient action on climate action.