It’s Getting Hot In Here

Perplexed by the inter-related problems India faces as it develops at the cost of 2/3 rd of its population living outside the economy, two young activists from Switch ON, rode their cycles 1800 kilometers across India through the coal belt – to question India’s growth based on fossil fuel, and to seek and highlight alternatives for a sustainable and equitable development.

Why New Coal gives a new perspective to Coal in India – addressing India’s growing energy needs, problems of energy security and Climate Change Vulnerabilities – by interviewing experts across the nation, while also documenting Vinay and Hoob’s epic journey across the nation.

Continue reading ‘Why New Coal?’

Congressman DeFazio & Candidate Obama

Cross-posted from Focus the Nation

After listening to Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) speak today on all the reasons the Waxman-Markey cap and trade plan (ACES) is deeply flawed and that advocates for greenhouse gas reductions should be working to kill it, not pass it, I find myself almost convinced.

I’m only almost convinced because I fear the two alternatives to cap and trade – a carbon tax or Clean Water Act-style regulation – may be political nonstarters.

Congressman DeFazio (and many others) claims that carbon trading will be subject to all the same financial corruption responsible for our current economic crisis and that offsets provisions remove any incentive for real behavior change. He has co-sponsored Jim McDermott’s bill that would impose a Clean Water Act-style regulator system on global warming pollution, and hinted that a carbon tax would be better than cap and trade.

At the end of the Congressman’s speech today, I asked him this: “Waxman-Markey, even in its present severely weakened form, is going to have a tough time passing the full house. What are the chances of Congressman McDermott’s bill, Congressman Larson’s carbon tax, or even Congressman Inglis’ revenue-neutral carbon tax bill of passing the house, and how important is it to the success of an international climate treaty that the US pass something soon?” Continue reading ‘Would Obama Do It?’

'The struggle of the Amazonians is for all Peruvians'

On June 5, 2009 I was vacationing in Cuzco, Peru awaiting the start of my 5 day hike to Machu Picchu, when I stumbled upon a protest in a small square.  It was an impromptu gathering of people allied with indigenous people in the Amazon region who are resisting the privatization of the rainforest for oil and gas development.  The effects of rainforest destruction and the use of oil on our climate are well documented.  Instead, I’d like to look at why the rainforest is being sold to private companies and its effect on the indigenous people who have lived there for generations.

Why is the rainforest being sold off by the Peruvian government?  It all comes back to the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement, which requires the government to allow oil and gas development by multi-national corporations.  The protesters I met were demanding that the law granting oil and gas concessions on the indigenous people’s communally held be land permanently repealed.

The small protest is Cuzco wasn’t the only thing going in on Peru.  In Lima thousands of people took to the streets demanding the law be repealed.  Indigenous people have been blockading the roads that the oil company uses for the past two and half months.  As a result, the Amazon region has experienced a shortage of cooking gas and food prices are on the rise.  On June 5^th the Peruvian President Garcia decided he had enough and moved to clear roads.  The communities were armed with sticks and lances; the police with guns, helicopters, shields, and gases. Police attacked the blockaders, killing hundreds of indigenous protesters (according to witnesses, the government reports put it at only 30) and in the process about a dozen police were captured or killed.

In the following days a curfew was imposed and witnesses reported seeing the police dump bodies into the river in the middle of the night.  I’m sure when you read this you’ll think, like I did, that these are the kind of things that happened in the 70s and 80s, but not today.  It crazy, but it’s true, even in 2009 there are governments that, in the name of defending free trade, are throwing protesters’ bodies into the river.  Violence is continuously perpetrated in the name of Free Trade, here in Peru against the indigenous in the Amazon, in Guatemala against banana workers, or in Colombia against union members. Continue reading ‘Free Trade, Violence & the Destruction of the Amazon’

Canada has committed to emission reductions at home of 2.7% below 1990 levels by the year 2020. (Or 20% below 2006 levels by 2020 as the government phrases it). ember that we committed years ago to 6% below 1990 level target by the year 2012 via the Kyoto Protocol.

I am confident that the government recognizes the scientific advice of achieving 25 to 40% emission reductions globally below 1990 levels by 2020. Yet our target doesn’t seem to match up.

Continue reading “Number Crunch: Where Canada’s Emission Targets Stand” here…

Released yesterday, the Pew Charitable Trusts released a report titled “The Clean Energy Economy: Repowering Jobs, Businesses and Investments Across America” defines and quantifies all the jobs in the every state in country and the District of Columbia that are involved in developing the clean energy economy.

To do this, they defined what a clean energy economy is and created criteria to determine which jobs can actually be included in that definition. This report provides a baseline of existing jobs, rates of job growth and analysis of the state and federal policies that encouraged this job development from 1998-2007. Finally, someone is defining criteria for measuring the development of a clean energy economy!

The report states,

A clean energy economy generates jobs, businesses and investments while expanding clean energy production, increasing energy efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, waste and pollution, and conserving water and other natural resources.

and defines and provides examples of the types of jobs involved in a clean energy economy:

• Clean Energy – Building sustainable energy for the future
• Energy Efficiency – Reducing and managing our energy demand
• Environmentally Friendly Production – Improving our products and processes
• Conservation and Pollution Mitigation – Recycling and remediating waste
• Training and Support – helping develop our clean energy economy Continue reading ‘Pew Report Counts Clean Energy Jobs’

Cross-posted from Adopt a Negotiator.

Rumor in the halls is that Canada is waiting in the wings to see what emission reduction targets the United States puts on the table. The following table suggests that perhaps the US is not influencing Canada as rumor suggests – unfortunately. In summary, the United States is far ahead of Canada on targets and policies.

Have a look. The table speaks for itself.

Provided by Matthew Bramley of The Pembina Institute.

Continue reading ‘Canada vs. United States: How do they Compare?’

There is light at the end of the tunnel, if Canada chooses to walk towards it.

Canadian negotiators are stuck between a rock and a hard place. These people, government bureaucrats, are sent in good faith by the Canadian government to discuss and deliver on agreements under global climate change agreements. The team may very well be sent with specific mandates of flexibility (or lack thereof), and there may be little room to actually negotiate. But there is room. Plenty of it, and full of potential.

We must remember that we are working with a government that 1) cut climate change funding by 80% in the first month of being elected, and 2) is the only country in the world that has said it will *not* meet its Kyoto Protocol emission reduction targets.

We’re also working with a country with an economy currently depends largely on 1) our 2nd largest oil reserve in the world, after Saudi Arabia, and 2) trade relationships with the United States of America.

This means that there is reason to back down on climate commitments, but certainly not reason enough to outweigh the reason why we should live up to our word – and to our world.

…Continue reading “Let’s be honest here.”

Inspirational banners, music, drums and polar bears welcomed delegates to the thirtieth sessions of the UNFCCC Convention subsidiary bodies – SBSTA and SBI, sixth session of the AWG-LCA and the eighth session of the AWG-KP this morning at the Maritim Hotel in Bonn. Delegates in Bonn will be hammering out the draft text for the Conference of Parties (COP 15) in Copenhagen in December, 2009.

This important meeting will see an unprecedented level of youth engagement for an intercessional. Following on the successful participation at Bonn I, the international youth have descended on Bonn. Action factories, negotiator trackers, 350.org, a day of action and regular actions throughout the conference will remind the delegates that we are watching.

See more images from the first day in Bonn here. (©Robert van Waarden)

The Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy & Security Act (ACES) contains a provision that could allow U.S. global warming pollution to exceed the supposed emissions “cap” by 10 percent — and “make up” for these additional emissions by purchasing several billion more tons of carbon offsets.

Every climate bill, in the U.S. and abroad, contains provisions limiting how high carbon prices established by the policy can rise. The Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) is no different. As the Breakthrough Institute previously reported, ACES would allow polluters to purchase up to 2 billion tons per year of relatively cheap carbon “offsets,” which could allow emissions in supposedly “capped” U.S. sectors to rise by up to 9% between 2005 and 2030. The EPA predicts that, largely due to the extensive use of offsets, carbon prices will remain less than $20 per ton of CO2 for the next decade.

Many proponents of ACES have argued that U.S. polluters will not utilize the 2 billion tons of authorized carbon offsets each year. The supply of credible offsets is limited, they say, and demand will eventually push their price above the cost of most alternative emission reduction strategies. (For now, let’s put aside the fact that those same price pressures — and the industries and sectors that stand to profit from selling more offsets — will also be a powerful force for establishing weaker offset certification standards.)

However, even in the case where affordable offsets are unavailable, and emission allowance prices rise, ACES contains an additional cost containment provision that could allow U.S. global warming pollution to exceed the supposed emissions “cap” — and “make up” for these additional emissions by purchasing several billion more tons of carbon offsets.

Continue reading ‘The Catch-22 of Waxman-Markey: Is Offsetting Inevitable?’

Protesters clashed with police in Copenhagen this weekend while attempting to disrupt the World Business Summit on Climate Change, a gathering of the worlds largest corporations and, not coincidentally, biggest polluters. Organized by the Danish government, the Business Summit gave corporate interests unprecedented access to the ongoing UN climate talks, including face time with UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon and so called climate “hero” Al Gore.

The group of protestors, lead by a banner reading “Our Climate is not Your Business” attempted to breach police lines in order to disrupt the meeting. The lively group of activists wanted hightlight the damaging and disruptive role that corporations play in the international climate talks. The list of corporations attending included #1 carbon emitter in the world Shell Oil, Duke Energy (#12 at last count), and BP among other climate criminals.

“The Danish government appears to be under the impression that some of the world’s most polluting companies are going to put forward tough measures to tackle climate change,” said Kenneth Haar, a researcher with Corporate Europe Observatory. “But unfortunately this doesn’t seem likely to be the case. The majority of the corporations attending the World Business Summit on Climate Change seem more intent on pursuing business as usual – with the promise that future technologies will resolve the problem at a later date. Continue reading ‘71 arrested in Copenhagen resisting World Business Summit on Climate Change’