It’s Getting Hot In Here

Today, I had the pleasure of coordinating the Fossil of the Day Awards given by the Climate Action Network (CAN) to the parties that did their best the to obstruct negotiations the day before. Today’s First Place in the Fossil of the Day awards went to the European Union and Canada for their insistence on including Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This technology is premature and should not be used to credit parties involved in these projects. The Second Place went to Saudi Arabia for their efforts to try and limit the work of the ad hoc Working Group on further commitments (AWG). And Third Prize went to Kuwait for their insistence that CCAS was viable, and their threat to halt the CDM discussion until CCS had been agreed on.

Immediately afterwards, a delegate from Qatar, a country with one of the highest GHG emissions per captia and an OPEC nation, approached me with some questions. Thinking he probably knew more than me on some of the angles I ventured to answer them cautiously. His first question was in relation to the award for Kuwait, he asked me why his neighbor had gotten the award for CCS; wasn’t CCS a clean technology? No, I told him, not exactly. See, the problem with CCS is that it has not been around long enough, tested enough, or analyzed enough to be viable for developing countries. The nature of storing carbon in the crust of the Earth, or in its oceans, is regionally specific and there is not enough research on what this technology means for the entire world. This “technological fix” also fails to arrive at a sustainable solution. We need to promote “clean development,” which means implementing renewable energy solutions, not prolonging the life of fossil fuel-based economies.

Apparently, Qatar might look into applying for a CCS-based CDM project at some point soon, but I’ll have to go see their side event to find out more….

Mohamed’s (I only caught his first name) next question was about solar energy. He had awoken at 1am and read about solar energy for a few hours before going to sleep again. He is impressed at a lot of the user-friendly, consumer-scale solar devices, but had some criticism. A “solar torch” (flashlight for those at home) is an interesting device, but the technology is not, in general, user-friendly. It is complicated, bulky, and not convenient. I agreed in part, but then addressed the issues of support for technology. IN the U.S. we have subsidy programs for oil and coal, but very little incentives to pursue renewable energy technology. We have a long way to go (the average photovoltaic cell is only about 15% efficient), but we need regulatory bodies to support this innovation, not the old, dirty, unsustainable fossil fuels. If we had the resource and legal support that the coal and oil lobbies are able to snatch, we might find our renewable energy economy booming!

This was a new idea to him, so I took it and ran with it. What we need, I said, is regulation that accounts for the true costs of materials and services. The service an oil company provides is access to energy in a usable form. If these companies changed their identity away from the products they use, to the service they provide, we might be a little closer to where we want to be. Regulation can help with this process by creating laws that account for the environmental and social costs associated with fossil fuel use. This “true cost accounting” would make renewables cheaper in comparison because their costs in these terms are relatively minimal. His eyebrows raised a bit.

I also explained the principle behind carbon offsets–he had never heard of them. The question had come out of his prodding as to whether I actually follow the principles I promote. I explained our travel situation and how we were offsetting our flights. He was pretty interested and had never heard of such a thing. With a puzzled look on his face that seemed to say, “thank you for giving me something to think about,” he shook my hand, smiled, and said he hoped he doesn’t get a fossil award!

All in all, it was an interesting way to connect to another first-timer. Worrying, because a 23-year old from the States was teaching him about things any negotiator should at least know about.

Hopeful, because of the impact I was able to have, his eagerness to learn, and his compassion for the youth voice.