[NYTr] APEC "Muddies the Climate Waters"

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Rich Winkel (activ-l)

BBC via Truthout - Sep 7, 2008
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/090707EA.shtml

Also below:
Pacific Rim Nations Eke Out Climate Change Agreement

APEC "Muddies the Climate Waters"

    By Richard Black
    BBC News

    If you thought that climate change was just an occasional staging
post on the eternal global tour of international diplomacy, think so no
more.

    Within the last few months the climate circus has stopped at the G8
in Heiligendamm, the UN climate convention (UNFCCC) in Vienna, and UN HQ
in New York (twice) - not to mention triple dips into the prediction pot
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

    Over the next few months, the pace hots up. After Apec, there is the
Gleneagles clean energy dialogue in Berlin, UN HQ (again), the
Washington White House - and finally, in December, the UN climate
convention's annual gathering, this time amidst Bali's lush beauty.

    Did I miss a few out? I hope so.

    It would be nice to leave room for some content in this article
among the dizzy succession of geographical name-checks and the welter of
organisational initials, which is beginning to resemble the alphabet
soup of heavyweight boxing.

    "There's a complex picture emerging," observes John Ashton, the
British government's international climate change envoy.

    "I would draw an analogy with other international negotiations, for
example on arms control. What you saw was that when it became clear that
this was something the world needed to do something about, you saw a
proliferation of different conversations in various fora.

    "That's what we're seeing now with climate change."

Simple Appeal

    So is the complexity a good or a bad thing?

    Bad, it appears, to some, notably the governments of Malaysia, China
and the Philippines which opposed Australian and US moves to get a
climate resolution from the Sydney Apec meeting.

    "It is unfortunate that people who are talking about climate change
like the US are not even members of the Kyoto Protocol," Malaysia's
trade minister Rafidah Aziz said during the preliminary skirmishes.

    "If you want to talk about climate change, please join in with the
rest of the global community to make commitments ... there's no point
talking outside of the [Kyoto Protocol] forum."

    In other words, keep it simple, Sydney.

Intense Debate

    The Apec formula, as originally proposed by Australian premier John
Howard with Washington's blessing, envisaged developed and developing
nations alike signing up to goals - not on reducing greenhouse gas
emissions however, but on improving "energy intensity".

    Brought first into the political arena by President Bush, the
intensity concept is basically a measure of how efficiently your economy
uses energy - the ratio of wealth created to energy expended.

    It is a concept that environmental groups find deeply troubling.

    "Even with the proposed target (of a 25% improvement in intensity by
2030), we would see a net increase in emissions from the region,"
comments Tony Mohr, climate change campaigner from the Australian
Conservation Foundation (ACF).

    "Intensity improves, but the economy grows as well. And that's the
problem with intensity targets."

    In the run-up to the Apec summit, the Australian government's Bureau
of Agricultural and Resource Economics (Abare) produced a report
forecasting that under business as usual, emissions from Apec nations
would grow by 130% between now and 2050.

    With the deployment of technologies such as renewables, nuclear,
clean coal and energy efficiency, Abare calculated it would be feasible
to reduce that emissions figure by 49%.

    So hang on, let's do the maths ... 49% of 230% ... subtract the
original 100% ... and what Abare is projecting, what Mr Howard and Mr
Bush believe acceptable, is a rise in greenhouse gas emissions of about
15% by 2050.

    And the rise is that small only if all these clean technologies are
developed and rolled out smoothly across the region, which even Abare
admits is a path strewn with social and economic hurdles - it could have
added technical ones, too.

    The rise could be much bigger.

    Writing about this Apec meeting has given me a distinct feeling of
dC)jC  vu; and I know why. It is because when I covered the inaugural
ministerial meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean
Development and Climate in Sydney some 18 months ago - and apologies
for thickening the alphabet soup still further - exactly the same
arguments appeared.

    Then, as now, we had major Asian economies at the table. Then, as
now, the Howard and Bush governments argued that technology and
voluntary deals could bring emissions down. Then, as now, we had an
Abare report showing that when they talked of bringing emissions down,
they actually meant allowing emissions to rise.

    The climate world is certainly on twin tracks when it comes to the
meaning of apparently simple words.

Revenue Stream

    There is a green sales pitch for Mr Howard's Apec push, though, and
it is this.

    Under Kyoto, developing countries do not have any firm targets for
reducing emissions. At least under the proposed Apec agreement, they
would have a target for something.

    Being cynical for a moment, perhaps that is why China, Malaysia and
the rest want to stick to the Kyoto track, and focus on developing a
successor agreement when the protocol's existing targets expire in 2012.

    Kyoto brings no targets for developing nations; but it does bring
revenue, through the Clean Development Mechanism (for clean
technologies, usually) and through funds to help them adapt to the
impacts of climate change.

    A "Kyoto-2" treaty, the focus of the Vienna talks, would provide an
even bigger pot.

    "I think there was a general concern (in Vienna) that funds for
adaptation need to rise quite dramatically, and a recognition that the
mechanisms in place to fund adaptation have been insufficient," said
Angela Ledford-Anderson, vice-president for climate programmes at the
National Environmental Trust in Washington DC.

    The details of any Kyoto-2 treaty are still in embryonic form, and
will in all probability have barely progressed to the foetal stage
before the big UN climate forum in Bali at the end of the year, to
which Vienna was the official prelude.

    If you will permit a mixed liquids metaphor, the alphabet soup
appears to be muddying the waters.

    "There was a reluctance among many parties to go into too much
detail and a reluctance to commit until the events of the next few
months, the various conversations in different fora, have taken place,"
observes Ms Ledford-Anderson.

    But on the biggest issue - a new set of emissions targets for when
the current set expires in 2012 - something of a consensus did emerge at
Vienna, to many observers' surprise.

    The aspiration that developed countries should aim to cut their
emissions by 25-40% by 2020 is far from a deal, but it already looks
very different from the Apec/Asia-Pacific Partnership/Bush vision.

Ambition Mission

    So how should we judge all these different fora, philosophies and
processes?

    "We should keep our eyes on the big picture, and the big picture is
the level of ambition," suggests John Ashton, emphasising that the
Vienna targets derive from the scientific necessity to cut emissions as
determined by the IPCC.

    "At the moment, (the US and Australian initiatives) are not
ambitious enough - but they're not unique in that, the problem we all
face is how we bridge the gap between where we are now and where we
need to get."

    There is no doubt that climate politics is entering a complex phase.
No longer is it the case that nations are either for Kyoto or against
it; Japan, for example, is for Kyoto, and yet also for the Asia-Pacific
Partnership which comes with a very different level of ambition.

    And no longer are the arguments just about cutting emissions. Funds
for adaptation, clean technology rollout, and financing mechanisms are
considered by many of the players, certainly by the developing world's
superpowers.

    Energy security, leverage, avoided deforestation, sequestration ...
the list is almost as long as Angela Merkel's climate travel itinerary.

    But amidst these swirling, evanescent mists it is possible to
discern two familiar philosophical pillars.

    In one, governments commit to common policies based on the science
which, rightly or wrongly, they have endorsed through their membership
of the IPCC, and which the Stern Review has declared affordable.

    In the other, they subject business-as-usual to only slight
voluntary curtailments that will not distort its basic high-carbon
shape.

    Both have high-profile, powerful backers. The myriad conversations,
processes and journeys of the next four months should tell us much about
which is likely to prove dominant.

                         ***

AFP via Truthout - Sep 7, 2007

Pacific Rim Nations Eke Out Climate Change Agreement

    Agence France-Presse

    Sydney - Asia Pacific countries have agreed a common statement on
climate change after intense wrangling between rich and emerging
nations, a source involved in the talks said Friday.

    The document, which is not binding, contains an "aspirational"
target of reducing energy intensity but also stresses the primacy of
the United Nations in the fight against climate change.

    Drafted by experts of the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation, the six-page text now goes for approval to APEC leaders
meeting this weekend at a summit in Sydney.

    The source, a senior Southeast Asian official who was closely
involved in the negotiations, said the statement urges nations to reduce
energy intensity by 25 percent by 2030 but does not make an enforceable
commitment.

    "It is an aspirational goal, not a binding commitment," the source
added. "Even though there is a numerical target, APEC is not a binding
organisation."

    He also said the statement was "formulated in such a way that it
does not prejudice" the UN process.

    Australia had touted a tough statement on climate change, which
would draw in emerging nations to make cuts in greenhouse gases, as a
cornerstone of the gathering.

    But it triggered a fierce debate here, with emerging nations led by
China saying they did not want to be bound by any commitments.

    They said all attention should be focused on a UN climate change
conference in Bali in December, which aims to lay the groundwork for a
treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol on curbing emissions.

    "We cannot pre-judge the results of the Bali meeting," the official
said. "The UNFCCC is like a Bible," referring to the UN meeting.

    The bickering was all part of a wider tussle to shape the framework
of a successor to Kyoto, which was signed under the auspices of the
United Nations in 1997 but runs out in 2012.

    What also irked environmental activists was that Australia and the
United States are the only two industrialised nations to have refused to
ratify that landmark UN accord.

    Australia, backed by the United States, said Kyoto was basically
flawed as it did not commit emerging nations, notably China and India
with their booming economies, to make cuts in emissions, and that any
replacement treaty had to close the loophole.

    US President George W. Bush said here earlier this week that for any
fresh accord to be effective, "China needs to be at the table."

    Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer had appeared downbeat
earlier Friday as the "very difficult" negotiations went down to the
wire.

    "If we can get a good declaration out of this, that would be a very
great achievement. But I make no predictions about how those
negotiations will go. We're still working at it," he said.

    Chinese President Hu Jintao spearheaded the opposition, insisting
Thursday that the United Nations must take the lead in agreeing a new
treaty.

    Philippines President Gloria Arroyo, too, said Friday that the
proper way ahead was via the Bali conference.

    "It includes all the countries in the world and there is some
binding characteristic, some binding trait in UN resolutions, whereas
APEC doesn't cover all the 'climate makers' and it's non-binding," she
said.

    While it was good to discuss the issue at APEC, she added, "at the
end of the day, the final resolution should really be in the context of
the UN."