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SPECIALREPORTS
| Friday 13
August 2010 |
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CLIMATE
CHANGE
Cancún
Conference
Holds
Out
Little
Hope in
Face of
Extreme
Weather
By Julio
Godoy*
BONN (Tierramérica)
-
Unusually
warm
temperatures
and more
frequent
and
intense
droughts
and
hurricanes...
you have
seen the
headlines.
As
options
dwindle
for
negotiating
a global
pact to
fight
climate
change,
the
United
Nations
is
pointing
to
today's
"extreme
conditions."
A glance
at
recent
weather
reports
around
the
globe
reveals
these
conditions.
In the
Andes of
South
America,
the
snowfall
of the
current
southern
hemisphere
winter
has been
intense,
killing
hundreds
of
people.
But at
the same
time,
glaciers
in Peru
and
Bolivia
have
been
steadily
melting.
In
Pakistan
and
other
parts of
Central
Asia,
prolonged
torrential
rains
have
also
caused
thousands
of
deaths.
The
current
northern
hemisphere
summer
has
Europe
and
North
America
simmering,
with
temperatures
hovering
at 35
degrees
Celsius
(95
degrees
Fahrenheit)
or
warmer.
In
Russia,
an
unusually
hot
summer,
with
temperatures
in the
40s (in
the 100s
Fahrenheit),
triggered
massive
fires in
late
July and
early
August
around
the
capital
and six
other
regions,
forcing
the
government
to
declare
a state
of
emergency.
The
heat,
drought
and fire
have
killed
thousands
of
people
and
destroyed
thousands
of homes
and some
10
million
hectares
of
crops.
"The
rooftop
of
humanity
is
burning,"
said an
environmentalist
who was
in Bonn
to
attend
the
third
round of
preparatory
talks
last
week for
the 16th
Conference
of
Parties
(COP 16)
to the
UN
Framework
Convention
on
Climate
Change (UNFCCC),
to be
held in
November-December
in
Mexico.
The
halls of
the
gigantic
Hotel
Maritim
in this
German
city
were
covered
with
posters
about
the
consequences
of
global
warming
during
the
meet.
According
to the
U.S.
space
agency
NASA,
the high
mean
temperatures
recorded
between
March
and June
around
the
globe
made
history:
it was
the
warmest
period
in the
last 130
years of
officially
recorded
temperatures.
Apart
from
weather
disasters,
global
warming
has
other
disastrous
consequences.
In
Europe,
governments
and the
private
sector
fear
that the
warm
temperatures
and
drought
will
lead to
widespread
agricultural
losses.
"The
harvest
of
grains
and
cereals
this
year
will be
down
around
10
percent,
or about
25
million
tonnes,"
Ludwig
Höchstetter,
director
of BayWa
and one
of
Germany's
leading
agricultural
traders,
told
Tierramérica.
These
losses
mean
higher
prices
and
shortages
-- in
other
words,
growing
food
insecurity.
The new
executive
secretary
of the
UNFCCC,
Christiana
Figueres,
once
again
reminded
the
governments
of the
industrialised
countries
of their
"responsibility
this
year to
take the
next
essential
step in
the
battle
against
climate
change."
At the
conference
to take
place in
the
Mexican
resort
city of
Cancún,
the
governments
are to
approve
a
binding
agreement
to
further
reduce
greenhouse-effect
emissions
as of
2012,
when the
first
period
of
emissions
cuts
ends, as
established
under
the
Kyoto
Protocol.
"We have
to
stabilise
emissions
before
2030,
and
reduce
them 50
percent
before
2050" in
order to
limit
the
average
increase
in the
global
temperature
to two
degrees
Celsius,
with
respect
to the
pre-industrial
age,
Figueres
told
Tierramérica.
But the
world
faces a
paradox.
On one
hand,
nations
need to
meet
growing
demand
for
energy,
especially
in the
developing
world.
On the
other,
they
have to
avoid
increases
in
greenhouse
gas
emissions
caused
by
burning
more
fossil
fuels,
like
petroleum
and
coal.
In order
to
generate
clean
energy
and
create
low-carbon
economies,
the
UNFCCC
Secretariat
estimates
that
some 20
trillion
dollars
in
investments
are
needed.
More
than
half of
those
funds
should
benefit
the
developing
world.
That sum
is
relatively
low,
compared
with
what it
will
cost to
mitigate
climate
change.
According
to
Figueres,
for
every
dollar
invested
in clean
energy
in
developing
countries,
the
world
will
save
seven
dollars
in
mitigation
costs.
The
responsibility
to
reduce
greenhouse
gases
falls to
the
industrialised
nations,
according
to Huang
Huikang,
China's
special
representative
on
climate
change.
"In the
last 200
years,
the
industrialised
countries,
with
their
mode of
production
and
lifestyles,
have
caused a
great
accumulation
of
carbon
dioxide
in the
atmosphere,"
Huang
told
Tierramérica
in Bonn.
"The
historic
and
moral
responsibility
of the
industrialised
countries
is very
clear."
Although
Huang
did not
mention
the
United
States
specifically,
his
message
was
aimed at
Washington.
The U.S.
continues
to have
the
highest
per
capita
rate of
carbon
emissions,
but the
government
has not
ratified
the
Kyoto
Protocol,
and in
late
July the
Senate
abandoned
a
wide-ranging
bill on
climate
change
legislation.
Washington's
failure
to
assume
its
global
environmental
responsibilities
remains
an
obstacle
in the
negotiations
ahead of
Cancún,
to the
point
that
experts
and
observers
have
suggested
calling
off the
conference
and
pursuing
alternative
channels.
"Perhaps
we
should
simply
approve
the
extension
of the
Kyoto
Protocol
beyond
2012,"
Figueres
told
Tierramérica.
Others,
like Jo
Leinen,
president
of the
European
Parliament's
environmental
committee,
believe
the
UNFCCC
has
proved
useless
in
negotiating
a way to
fight
climate
change.
"If
Cancún
fails --
and
everything
suggests
that it
will --
we
should
consider
a
voluntary
coalition
of
countries
that are
truly
committed
to
fighting
climate
change,"
Leinen
said in
a
conversation
with
Tierramérica.
"That
coalition
should
represent
at least
80
percent
of
global
emissions."
Given
that
China
heads
the list
of
polluters,
with 23
percent
of the
world's
carbon
emissions,
followed
by the
United
States
(20
percent),
such a
coalition
would
have to
include
at least
one of
those
two
nations
-- a
mission
that,
for now
at
least,
seems
impossible.
(*This
story
was
originally
published
by Latin
American
newspapers
that are
part of
the
Tierramérica
network.
Tierramérica
is a
specialised
news
service
produced
by IPS
with the
backing
of the
United
Nations
Development
Programme,
United
Nations
Environment
Programme
and the
World
Bank.)
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