There was a questionable bit of progress this past Friday at the Vienna Climate Change Talks, where negotiators agreed on loose targets for cutting the emissions that cause global warming.

The 158 nations represented agreed that industrialized countries should cut global warming emissions by 25-40 percent of 1990 levels by 2020. But nations like Canada, Japan, and Russia delayed the talks, arguing instead for a more "open approach" rather than setting hard and fast targets. In the end, negotiators agreed that the targets would be non-binding and that each nation’s efforts will be "determined by national circumstances and evolve over time."

Some participants saw it as a good sign that developed nations are more serious about cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, while others warn that there’s a lot further to go. Red Constantino with Greenpeace International told the Associated Press that CO2 emissions need to be cut at least 30 percent of 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid the disease, water shortage, and misery certain to afflict the developing world in a warmer climate.

Smaller nations pressured the developed ones for even deeper emissions cuts, to no avail. The UN’s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, pointed out that if the world doesn’t act more quickly to slow climate change soon, these smaller nations will not be around to represent.

The United Nations-backed Vienna conference served as a starting point to guide the high-level international talks that begin in December in Bali. World leaders must begin crafting a new global agreement to put in place after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

While the U.S. did not ratify Kyoto, President Bush has committed to a series of climate change meetings. The first will be at the end of September in Washington, DC. Fifteen countries, the European Union, and United Nations officials are attending.

Associated Press, via CNN
Washington Post

It’s been a busy week for international climate change negotiations. A meeting of the United Nations and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) have some watchers feeling cautiously optimistic of future global agreements, while others are less than impressed with the semantics.

The Vienna Climate Change talks saw more than a thousand people from government, industry, and research gather in the Austrian capital to discuss ways to fight global warming. This United Nations-backed meeting is preparation for the more high-level talks in New York in September, and Bali in December. The first phase of the Kyoto Protocol will expire in 2012, and nations are scrambling to determine effective next steps that will address climate change mitigation, adaptation, and a global carbon market. Many hope for and expect more participation from nations glaringly absent from the first phase of implementation, like the United States and China.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said he expects the Vienna meetings to give a good indication as to whether governments are ready to take serious action on cutting emissions.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged governments to figure out the next phase of Kyoto three years before the first phase expires so there is time to ratify the law and be ready to go in 2012.

Austrian Environment Minister Josef Proell said in his opening remarks:

"Climate change is a huge challenge that can only be tackled at a global level and in an integrated manner… We do not have much time to create adequate framework conditions. Each year without mitigation measures is a year which drives the human and financial cost of adaptation steeply upwards."

On the other side of the world in Singapore, APEC has drafted a declaration agreeing to cut "energy intensity" by 25 percent by 2030 and plant nearly 50,000 million acres of trees. Energy intensity measures an economy’s energy efficiency – but clean energy supporters say this particular wording avoids any sort of serious commitment to cutting emissions. A spokeswoman for Greenpeace told Bloomberg news: "The APEC declaration is clearly ‘Made in the U.S.’ and covered with a thick coating of Australian coal dust."

Next month at a meeting in Sydney, Australia, APEC nations will agree to fund clean technologies and fight illegal logging. China has said it will support the Sydney declaration on climate change, and the U.S. is expected to attend the meetings.

Bloomberg
Independent Online

German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits China again this week, marking her second official visit to the nation. While she traveled with a delegation of business interests eager to make headway into the burgeoning Asian economy, Merkel’s trip also included some serious talk about climate change solutions.

On Monday, she urged Chinese leaders to do more to cut heat-trapping emissions. That led to the Chinese rebuttal that the West has been polluting the planet much longer than the Chinese have been. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said that although his people want “blue skies, green hills, and clear water,” it’s much harder for China to cut emissions that it is for other, more developed nations like Germany. A rapidly growing economy and a much larger population have put it on the fast-track towards development, but China is wary of climate change policies that would slow its development.

Nonetheless, Wen did promise Merkel that China would work hard to slow global warming in its next five-year plan on the environment that begins in 2011 – that’s in addition to the 20 percent increase in energy efficiency, and a 10 percent cut in emissions planned by 2010.

Merkel noted that industrialized nations should make clean technology available to developing countries, and that China should also develop its own technology or adopt it from abroad. China’s expected annual economic growth of 10 percent is not sustainable with improvements in efficiencies, she noted.

Back in June, G8 leaders agreed to pursue unspecified cuts in global warming emissions and to work with the UN on a post-Kyoto Protocol plan (under Kyoto, China has no emissions gargets because it’s a developing nation). In December, world environment ministers will meet in Bali to begin planning a course of action after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Reuters
DPA News, via EarthTimes

A U.S. District Court Judge has ruled that the Bush Administration broke federal law when it failed to produce two required global warming reports on time.

The ruling was based on a 1990 law - the Research Plan and National Assessment required by the Global Change Research Act - directing the President to regularly issue two global warming plans: one that guides research and another explaining global warming’s possible impacts on the U.S.

The research plan was last issued in 2003, and is supposed to be updated every three years. The judge set a March 1 deadline for it. The report on global warming’s impacts is supposed to be issues every four years; the last one was updated by the Clinton Administration in 2000. A May 31 deadline has been set for the newest version, which will explain global warming’s projected impacts on the U.S. economy, public health, and the environment.

The Bush Administration tried to argue that it could decide for itself when and how the reports are released. They claimed they were already following the law by working on 21 different global warming reports, and were just starting to prepare a new research plan on the subject. But the judge wrote in the ruling: "The defendants are wrong. Congress has conferred no discretion upon the defendants as to when they will issue revised Research Plans and National Assessments."

The plaintiffs in the case were the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth. The Bush Administration is reviewing the lawsuit and so far hasn’t commented on the ruling.

Center for Biological Diversity
International Herald Tribune
Wired Science

A joint goal among eight western U.S. states and Canadian provinces was formalized this week when the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) announced a goal to cut global warming emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

The goal is the cumulative total of individual reductions goals for each state and province: for example, Washington has a more ambitious goal of reducing levels of the gases to 1990 levels by 2020.

California, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Manitoba, and British Columbia have agreed to the cuts, which were conceptualized in February as a “Memorandum of Understanding” between five of the states.

The next step is for the WCI to propose a regional carbon emissions trading system with a year, complementing California’s Global Warming Solutions Act that calls for a cap-and-trade system of global warming pollution. Each state will determine its own method for cutting emissions; the agreement doesn’t require any states or provinces to do anything to which they aren’t already committed.

Janice Adair, Washington state’s representative to the WCI, doesn’t anticipate easy negotiations when eight entities come together to set up a market-based system for trading carbon credits: "How we do all that and come to the table — eight very different (states and provinces) — and try to negotiate the best deal we can, and not have anyone go away feeling they got rolled, is going to be very difficult.”

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had a brighter outlook: "Our collective commitment will build a successful regional system to be linked with other regional efforts across the nation and eventually the world.”

Other states like Colorado, Kansas, Nevada, and Wyoming are closely watching the proceedings, as are Ontario and Quebec in Canada and Sonora in Mexico. The potential – or at least the serious interest – is there for other states to get involved in a regional emissions compact and carbon trading agreement. With meaningful energy legislation not coming fast enough from federal governments, states and provinces are reaching across borders to make the real change we need on this side of the world.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Yuba Net

Australian farmers have teamed up with environmentalists to create the Agricultural Alliance on Climate Change, a group that wants to cut emissions up to 60 percent by 2050.

Although they may not agree on all environmental issues, climate change is problem that they know requires immediate action and can be slowed. Farming groups like the South Australian Farmers Federation and Agforce are on the front lines of having to adapt quickly to a changing climate and risking their livelihood in the process. Some farmers also feel that they haven’t received the recognition they deserve for fighting global warming. The Alliance acknowledged as much in a statement:

Australia is tracking close to its Kyoto target due largely to the efforts of Australian farmers reducing emissions, particularly from practices such as minimum tillage and ceasing broad-scale land-clearing, while emissions from most other sectors have continued to increase.

The group seems to be rather light on specific policy initiatives or technology recommendations, while their ultimate aims include creating “effective and sustainable economic drives” from harvesting renewable energy, providing social and physical infrastructure and services to rural Australia, and providing information and tools to rural Australians to help them prepare for some of the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

Here in the U.S., farmers have joined with clean energy organizations and traditional environmentalists to push a common agenda as well. While they may not agree when it comes to party politics, issues like clean, efficient, and homegrown energy have clearly crossed party lines in many areas.

Organizations like the 25x’25 initiative were started by farmers with a vision of 25 percent renewable energy by 2025, and farmers unions are working at all levels of government to push for policies that support local, renewable power. Wind energy and biofuels are common grounds for collaboration, as so much farm land is also in some of the most wind-rich areas of the country, and as the potential for biofuels that go (and grow) beyond corn continue to hold great promise as a clean, reliable source of fuel.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Australian Conservation Foundation

This week a senior U.S. environment official met with Chinese representatives in Beijing to discuss cooperation between the two nations in the fight against global warming.

China and the U.S. are the two largest emitters of global warming pollution, with China recently surpassing the U.S. as the world leader in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions – a major contributor to global warming.

James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, praised China’s “very aggressive measures in recognition of challenges of reducing air pollution.”

Last December, the Asian nation announced it would emit at a slower rate than previously planned, cutting pollution per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 20 percent by 2010. As their impressive economy continues to grow, so too will their pollution.

Connaughton also discussed President George W. Bush’s proposals to cut climate change emissions with the Chinese, noting "It is an exciting time in the relations between China and the United States in the areas of environmental quality and economic prosperity."

While the U.S. is facing pressure from the rest of the world to make real, measurable cuts in emissions, it’s admittedly smart politics to align itself with a rapidly growing nation that is also slow to commit to real emissions reductions. A strong political and economic partnership means more muscle to negotiate at the global climate change meetings President Bush has planned for the end of September, as well as the continued negotiations beyond the expiration the Kyoto Protocol’s first phase in 2012.

While China has shown progress in emissions reductions - stronger vehicle fuel efficiency standards than the U.S., for example - I’m still cautious about a U.S.-China partnership to tackle climate change, especially while the Bush administration running the show. A partnership that involves real cuts in emissions, strengthens a global clean energy economy, and facilitates the exchange of cutting-edge technology is the only way these two nations can show real leadership in a cleantech era.

China View
World Watch

The big news this week was that the U.S. House passed an energy bill that for the first time included a federal renewable energy standard (RES). This RES – an amendment to the energy bill sponsored by Representatives Tom Udall (D-NM) and Todd Platts (R-PA) – requires utilities to get 15 percent of their power from renewables by the year 2020. Other components of the House energy bill include:

• Moving $16 billion in tax incentives away from oil companies and putting it towards renewable energy.
• New energy efficiency standards for appliances and building codes.
• The creation of a Solar Energy Industries Research and Promotion Board to raise national awareness of solar energy options. The program would be funded completely by a portion of solar industry revenues, with no appropriations authorized.
• A modified 4-year extension of the wind power Production Tax Credit (PTC) that limits the credit to 35 percent of wind project costs.

Not in the bill is an increase in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards (a.k.a. “fuel efficiency”) that was a hot topic as the session came to a close. By avoiding a vote on CAFE standards, Democrats avoid public in-fighting with fellow Dems from auto industry states, notably Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI).

The Senate already approved an increase in fuel efficiency back in June, which will be just another piece of the Senate bill to be reconciled with the House version in conference committee this fall. In addition, the White House has threatened to veto any legislation containing a renewable energy standard.

Renewable Energy Access
The Sietch Blog
Yahoo News

Finance ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) met last week in Australia to discuss how to meet the region’s energy needs and combat global warming. Key to this effort, they concluded, is to establish a framework to take the place of the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.

Market-based strategies, like a cap-and-trade policy used in Europe, were discussed. A cap-and-trade policy sets an overall limit on emissions, and then grants entities (factories, for example) permits that allow them to emit a particular amount of pollution. If they emit less than what is allowed, they can sell the surplus permits to a business that can not or will not meet their emissions requirements. This puts a price on emissions and creates an incentive to lower them. The value of global emissions-permit trading was over $30 billion in 2006, with 81 percent of that in the European Union.

APEC economies represent half of the world’s trade and include the world’s largest emitters, the U.S. and China. Neither country is bound by the Kyoto Protocol: China because it is a developing nation, and the U.S. because it didn’t ratify it. Another APEC member and large emitter, Australia, also didn’t ratify Kyoto but seems to making some progress with the announcement last week that it will start a national CO2 emissions trading system by 2012 and set a global warming emissions reduction target by next year.

China plans to cut energy consumption by 20 percent over the next five years. However, Finance Minister Jin Renqing told APEC members that developed countries have the responsibility to help developing ones with the technology to achieve this. China is the world’s largest user and producer of coal, and just passed the U.S. as the world’s largest emitter of CO2.

Australian Treasurer Peter Costello was encouraged by China’s talk of using market mechanisms to cut pollution. He foresees his country playing a larger role as energy demand increases in the region but traditional supplies dwindle or are unusable because of their global warming impact. He assured China that its development will not be interrupted by energy scarcity and that Australia has “a lot to offer” it in terms of energy security.

Bloomberg News

Renewable energy was in the spotlight during this last week of Congress. The Udall-Platts amendment to the House energy bill calls for a renewable portfolio standard (RPS, sometimes also called a “renewable energy standard”) that would require the nation’s utilities to get 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. But it failed to get a vote yesterday because of computer problems with the voting system and a dispute over a vote on an agricultural bill. However House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed that the amendment would be taken up today.

An RPS is a key policy tool to create a reliable renewable energy market in this country. In fact, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) was spurred to create a new website called the Power of Wind to educate readers about wind power and why an RPS – and the Udall-Platts amendment in particular – is so important.

Besides information, the Power of Wind gives the reader suggestions of actionable items to promote wind power. Learn how to contact your elected official on specific wind energy legislation or tell a friend about the issue. AWEA also has an impressive new TV ad promoting an RPS.

The best feature of the Power of Wind is certainly the Current Issues section that explains wind power policies in plain English. I hope that Current Issues stays updated; it amazes me how many times I try to find new information on energy legislation, only to go advocacy groups’ online newsrooms or press releases and find that the most recent updates are from 2004.

The site is still young, but my recommendation would be to add state-level news about wind power. There is so much action happening around the country; it would be great to have one-stop shop for all your wind power news needs.

Overall, the site is much easier to read and navigate that AWEA’s main website, which is rather overwhelming, even for me. The Power of Wind promises to be an accessible, informational place for wind advocates and those wanting to learn more about it.