It’s Getting Hot In Here

Was the world doing better on climate change under President Bush?

The focus on international climate change negotiations has receded since Copenhagen last year. Copenhagen was seen as a disappointment, with its much touted outcome, the ‘Copenhagen Accord’ looking like it could lead to an almost 4C in temperature rises, causing massive devastation – and solidifying the opposition to the Accord among many vulnerable countries such as Tuvalu and the Cook Islands.

So with less fanfare than last year, the countries of the world have returned to the table to negotiate further agreement on international climate action. The second official meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for 2010 will begin Monday in Bonn, Germany, with countries hoping to begin work on a pathway toward new legally binding agreements on emission reductions, funding for adaptation to climate impacts, and international institutions/governance.

There are plenty of new things to get your head around in the climate negotiations this year. There is a new executive secretary (starting in July); a new draft-negotiation text that has just been released; and a new infusion of ideas, courtesy of the People’s Summit held in April in Cochabamba, Bolivia. There is also, of course, new science, which shows that the situation for the planet is getting worse and that climate impacts could be more severe than previously projected.

Unfortunately, what’s old is the approach of the United States. Just six months after President Obama received his Nobel Prize for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” and his “constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting”, people across the world are beginning to question whether he has lived up to that inscription in his actions.

Under President Bush the approach of the United States was easy to understand and easy to vilify. Bush denied climate change existed. He withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol. And he obstructed international negotiations. In a famous exchange at the Bali negotiations in 2007 a delegate from Papua New Guinea, asked the United states: ‘If you’re not willing to lead, then get out of the way.’

The approach under President Obama has been much more confusing – until now. It has been confusing because the US has actively engaged in the negotiations, not blocking with procedural issues, and actively taking leadership on issues, but often doing so in a way that hasn’t pleased campaigners.[1] Now, however, President Obama has followed up on his bald-faced blackmail of small developing countries to change their position in negotiations with a submission that clearly shows that the United States is not blocking negotiations but trying to take them backwards.

As the rules now stand developed countries have a collective target for emission reductions (an aggregate target) and then they negotiate their individual country targets underneath that aggregate. The negotiations focus on how comparable each countries’ individual target is, for example that the UK is doing the same amount of heavy lifting as Germany, and they work to make sure that the total sum of countries’ commitments will meet the agreed aggregate target. They then negotiate on the rules for meeting these targets and the penalties for failing to meet them.

The United States’ recent submission refuses to negotiate on any of these issues. President Obama rejects an aggregate target for the developed countries, which means we can’t be sure of how effective their contribution will be. He rejects that targets should be comparable, so different countries do their fair share of the heavy lifting. Now poor countries like India and Bangladesh will have to do a lot more than the US to keep temperature rises from wrecking havoc on their communities. Obama also proposes that there should be no rules about how targets are met or what penalties for not meeting them should be. In effect what President Obama has announced is that the US will not negotiate on emission targets – on their size, on how they are determined, or how they are achieved. In this context when the US says it’s for a ‘legally binding outcome’ I’m with outgoing UNFCCC Executive Security Yvo De Beor when he asks what does that mean in substance?

It’s also got the world asking the broader question: what’s the point of negotiating with the US at all? If the US will do whatever it decides (a 4% cut on 1990 levels by 2020 with unlimited offsets), no matter what the world decides, then what value is there for the world letting Obama save face by pretending to be a part of the solution? Increasingly the answer seems to be: very little. Perhaps someone at Bonn will say: ‘We want to go forwards. If the US wants to go backwards, please go by yourself. We’re going forwards and you can join us later.”

To see what is actually said at Bonn check back here as I (and others) provide updates – I’ll also be tweeting @climatedebtorg

Building on momentum from the successful defeat of the proposed Bradwood LNG terminal earlier this month, yesterday climate and clean energy activists turned up the pressure on a company that’s continued to push for twentieth-century solutions to the Northwest’s twenty-first-century energy problems: Northwest Natural Gas.  In case you haven’t heard, NW Natural – a company that greenwashes itself as an environmentally aware corporate citizen – is backing the proposed Palomar LNG Pipeline in Oregon.  If built, Palomar threatens to lock the western US into years of dependence on the high-carbon, imported fossil fuel liquefied natural gas. 

 Yesterday close to 300 Oregonians of all ages turned out to NW Natural’s shareholder’s meeting at the Oregon Convention Center to demand the company pull out of Palomar.  Yesterday I posted about the highly successful rally on the progressive blog BlueOregon. 

Originally, the Palomar Pipeline was supposed to connect to the Bradwood LNG terminal on the Columbia River.  Climate activists and community organizers defeated Bradwood earlier this month, but NW Natural is still trying to push Palomar forward by connecting it to other LNG projects.  We showed up Thursday to let the company know Palomar is a bad deal for Oregonians; not only is it a threat to the climate and Oregon’s natural landscape, it’s a bad investment as well.  NW Natural’s shareholders already lost money when Bradwood LNG went down, turning the company’s investment in that project sour.  Every day NW Natural stays committed to Palomar, the company is chalking up debts that have to be paid – either by shareholders or ratepayers.  Continue reading ‘Liquefied Natural Gas Confronted at NW Natural’s Shareholder’s Meeting’

Applications are now available for SustainUS’s Agents of Change delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, November 29-December 10.

Applicants must be 18-26 years old at the start of the negotiations, and must be either U.S. citizens or permanent residents, or have been studying or working in the United States for at least six months at the time of application.

Selected applicants will join a diverse delegation of youth, including those both familiar with and new to the youth climate movement; from across the United States and beyond; including young scientists and engineers, policy specialists, grassroots activists, media and communications specialists; students, young professionals, and community volunteers; and more. We have limited, need-based scholarship money for youth from climate change-impacted communities (requires separate application, see link below).

Full delegation details and application materials are available at http://www.sustainus.org/COP16

Applications are due by 5 p.m. EDT on June 4th to agents@sustainus.org

The office is not one of the first places we turn when looking to reduce our carbon footprint, but that may be changing. A number of tactics, from using recycled paper to making delivery and travel routes more efficient, can be used to “green” your work.

The Shoplet.com blog offers a comprehensive guide to reducing your carbon footprint while at work. Most of these tips – from using energy efficient lighting to cutting down on travel – are relatively straightforward. Some are a little more forward thinking. For instance, Shoplet suggests allowing for flexible work hours that enable more employees to carpool to work, and installing “air infiltration barriers” at loading areas.

Perhaps one of the most interesting ideas is the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office Carbon Footprint Tool. This tool allows business owners to evaluate where and how much energy they are using at the workplace, and then offers suggestions on possible energy-saving measures.

One of the simplest ways to start reducing your carbon footprint at the workplace immediately is to start using recycled paper. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently reported on Grays Harbor Paper’s “Harbor 100” – a special kind of recycled paper that is 100% recycled and 375% less carbon-intensive. Switching to recycled paper can have a larger impact. If an office of 20 people were to switch to recycled paper, that could have the same effect of taking 70,000 cars off the road for one year.

A ream of Grays Harbor Paper’s “Harbor 100″ (from ghpaper.com)

When thinking about ways to cut back, we should focus on more than just in our homes or vehicles. The workplace, where we spend most our days, is full of things that can be made more efficient, scaled back, replaced, or removed entirely.

What have you done to reduce your carbon footprint in the workplace? Has it had an effect? Are you glad you did it? Is this all just a waste of time? Share your thoughts below…

(Read this post and more like it at Planet Forward)

ilovemountains.org has teamed up with Ashley Judd and The Alliance for Appalachia to get mountaintop removal into America’s living rooms.

We’re using the most talked about ad in America’s history -President Johnson’s “Daisy Girl Ad” – to convey the severity of mountaintop removal.

We don’t have the coal industry’s billions. But we do have the power of people like you! We need people to watch thead, share the ad, and then help raise money so that we can raise the stakes! Can you help publicize this powerful ad and fundraising effort? The widget above has everything you need to share this important effort on Facebook, Twitter – you name it.

On May 20th, University of Maryland students participated in the national day of action “Crude Awakening” to mark the one-month anniversary of the offshore drilling disaster.  More importantly, it was to call attention to the fact that we have a morally bankrupt energy system based on fossil fuels that needs to be replaced through an aggressive transition to clean energy, NOW!

Continue reading ‘UMD Demands “Clean Energy Now!” at Commencement’

In the past few days, there’s been an increasingly loud chorus of voices demanding that President Obama use the BP Oil Disaster as an opportunity to push for a real, clean energy legislation that can break our addiction to oil and other dirty energy. On May 18, Thomas Friedman weighed in with a harsh condemnation of Obama’s lack of leadership, writing, “Sadly, President Obama seems intent on squandering his environmental 9/11 with a Bush-level failure of imagination.”

It looks like Obama is getting the message. Today, he toured the Solyndra solar panel factory in Fremont, California and made a strong speech connecting the disaster in the Gulf and the need for strong clean energy legislation:

But even as we are dealing with this immediate crisis, we’ve got to remember that the risks our current dependence on oil holds for our environment and our coastal communities is not the only cost involved in our dependence on these fossil fuels.  Around the world, from China to Germany, our competitors are waging a historic effort to lead in developing new energy technologies.  There are factories like this being built in China, factories like this being built in Germany.  Nobody is playing for second place.  These countries recognize that the nation that leads the clean energy economy is likely to lead the global economy.  And if we fail to recognize that same imperative, we risk falling behind.  We risk falling behind … But we’ve still got more work to do, and that’s why I’m going to keep fighting to pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation in Washington.  (Applause.)  We’re going to try to get it done this year, because what we want to do is create incentives that will fully unleash the potential for jobs and growth in this sector.

That’s a good start, (applause), but it’s not enough. First, we need Obama to be giving this speech not just in sunny California but in stormy Washington D.C., where Senators and industry lobbyists are working 24/7 to water down any action on climate change. Second, we need President Obama to explain how he’s going to improve the current energy and climate legislation drafted by Senator Kerry and, ahem, BP and other oil industry lobbyists. Third, we need some repetition. President Obama should be pushing hard right now, not just with a couple speeches, but through all the many communication channels available to the President.

Don’t doubt that there’s some real momentum right now. We may not be seeing all the protests or public action that advocates would like, but there’s real anger out there over the spill (the Don’t Drill Facebook group is growing by the day, for example). How do you think we can be transitioning that anger to building real grassroots power for this movement?

Update with new video of arrests and inside report-back below:

Today in his first shareholder meeting as Chevron CEO, John Watson opened the annual shareholder meeting touting Chevron as a “good neighbor”. However, at that very same moment Watson was having communities from Houston, Alaska, Canada, Burma, Nigeria, and Colombia locked out of the shareholder meeting. Having legitimate and legal proxies, community leaders who had traveled for days to bring their community’s stories directly to Chevron’s CEO, Board of Directors, and shareholders, were silenced and disenfranchised.

Of 27 delegates from the True Cost of Chevron Network, all with valid legal proxy statements, only 7 were allowed to enter the meeting. This action directly contradicts Chevron’s own policies and potentially violates their own corporate governance laws.

“This is the way we have been treated at home and meeting them here was no different,” explained Emem Okom, founder of the Kebetkuche Women Development and Resource Center of Nigeria.

In an immediate response to Chevron’s lock-out, impacted community members and campaigners staged a blockade sit-in at the entrance of Chevron’s meeting (pictures). As a crowd of over 40 people raised their voices chanting “Let Them In” the sit-in participants committed to not leave until all voices were heard.

The 4 were arrested on trespassing charges and hauled into waiting police vans (pictures). The four arrested at the entrance were Juan Parras a long time environmental justice activist in Houston and founder of TEJAS, an EJ group fighting refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast; Rev. Jerome Davis a livelong civil rights hero who marched in Selma and has long fought for environmental justice in Richmond, CA; and Mitch Anderson and Han Shan from Amazon Watch, an organization working in solidarity with Indigenous communities fighting Chevron in Ecuador.

Before his arrest, Reverend Davis stated, “I represent an area where there is no beautyshop, groceries, or cleaners. Our industry is Chevron. My people breathe their contamination every day and are constantly sick. Our health is not for sale.” He embodied that today.

Continue reading ‘Chevron Bars 20 Community Members From Houston Shareholder Meeting, Leads to 6 Arrests’

The Collapse of Competitiveness Policy?
By Teryn Norris
May 26, 2010
Published by The Huffington Post

Last week, the flagship federal legislation for U.S. competitiveness containing broad support for science, technology, and advanced education – called the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 – collapsed in Congress after it was blocked from passage through the House, despite already being significantly weakened.

Enter the age of American polarization, where bread-and-butter competitiveness and innovation policy is subject to hyper-partisan politics and obstructionism, even in the face of rapidly rising global competition. America COMPETES, which was originally passed with strong bipartisan support under President Bush, may be yet one more casualty of today’s extreme political polarization, which according to one major study is at the highest level in over a century.

But beyond the issue of partisanship, this is an alarming wake-up call to how anti-government sentiment and neoliberal economic ideology – which seeks to discredit the role of federal investment in promoting technology innovation and growth – could combine forces and seriously damage our national innovation system in the years ahead.

The United States was a driving force behind the global expansion of prosperity and security in the 20^th century, due in large part to our technological leadership. The collapse of America COMPETES is one of the clearest and most alarming examples in recent history of how this leadership is being threatened – not by some foreign entity, but from within our own country. How did we get to this point, and what lessons might this incident hold?

Continue reading ‘The Collapse of Competitiveness Policy?’

Cross posted from The Skywriter – 1Sky’s Blog:

Senator Lisa Murkowski, working on behalf of oil companies, large utilities, and coal companies, will force a vote on the Dirty Air Act on June 10. If passed, the “disapproval resolution” would gut the Clean Air Act and stop the first meaningful regulations of greenhouse gasses from vehicles and big polluters, like coal plants. Initially, the Senator planned on forcing a vote this week, but grassroots pressure has pushed the vote until after Memorial Day recess.

Currently, the Dirty Air Act has 41 votes in the Senate. But with your help, we can stop Senator Murkowski and her fossil fuel cronies. So far this year, she raised more than $500,000 from the dirty energy interests to fund her reelection campaign.

Thanks to the hard work of activists across the country this spring, we stopped Senator Murkowski from bringing the Dirty Air Act to the floor. However, the Senate will vote in two weeks on protecting our health and our clean air or letting the dirty energy industry continue polluting our communities.

In other words, we only have 16 days to stop the dirty energy industry from crippling the Clean Air Act.

The next few weeks are critical for our clean energy future. The “disapproval resolution” would put public health at risk, jeopardize long-overdue action to hold the biggest polluters accountable, and stall our transition to a clean energy economy. (See this letter from the EPA Administrator (.pdf) under President Nixon and Ford.)

More importantly, this vote on the Dirty Air Act will set the stage for the broader fight to kick our reliance on dirty fossil fuels. With the cost of our dependence on oil visible in the Gulf, senators should be working on cleaning up these dirty industries, not bailing them out. Instead of protecting the fossil-fueled status quo, senators need to get to work protecting our clean air, and rebuilding our economy with clean renewable energy by passing strong climate and energy legislation that builds on the Clean Air Act instead of blocking it.

Take action by sending a message and making a phone call to save the Clean Air Act that has protected our health and our environment for 40 years and will lead us to a clean energy future.