The week began and ended with major international climate change conferences. The first was a United Nations meeting, prepping world leaders for the December talks in Bali that will be the first step to determining emissions goals after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The meeting that closed out this week was held by President Bush in Washington. Sixteen nations, the UN, and the European Union were invited.

At the start of the two-day “Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told delegates that the U.S. while being a major emitter of global warming pollution, the government is very serious about fighting climate change. In a soundbite gobbled up by the media, she said that global warming, like terrorism, needs the nations of the world to work together to fight it.

Like the meeting earlier in the week, the Washington meeting was billed as a starting point for negotiations beyond Kyoto. But while the U.N. meetings discuss measurable emissions cuts and targets, Bush prefers voluntary measures or “intensity targets,” that call for emission reductions per each unit of economic production.

The problem is that intensity targets don’t mean overall emission cuts, and that makes many at home and abroad suspicious of the real motives behind the Bush meeting.

Besides the expected protestors outside the conference, the delegates inside were wary as well. The EU’s Deputy Environment Minister Humberto Rosa explained:

“We have actually found many, many countries voicing our view that (a) voluntary approach may be useful but will not solve the issue. Voluntary goals so far have not got us to the level of ambition that we need.”

In fact, he went on to say that Europe will insist on a clearer picture of Bush’s emissions plan and how it will interlock with the Bali talks before they agree to any further meetings. Although the U.S.’s participation is welcome, they insist, officials want to ensure that the intentions of the Bali conference aren’t stalled.

Agence France-Presse
CNN
National Post

There have been some major wake-up calls in the fight against global warming, starting with the United Nations scolding the U.S. for not doing enough to mitigate its contributions to the problem.

U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told the Associated Press that it’s "very clear" the U.S. is not on the right track, despite the Bush administration’s recent openness to even discussing the problem and the series of meetings President Bush has scheduled with world leaders.

More U.N. meetings begin today to prepare for the Bali talks in December that will include negotiations of how to proceed after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. On Thursday, President Bush convenes his own two-day meeting with 15 big-emitter nations. Some worry that his smaller, more limited round of negotiations will undercut the Bali discussions.

Our friends across the pond didn’t hear any good news on the climate change front, either. A representative of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told the BBC that it’s unlikely the European Union will achieve their goal of keeping global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Professor Martin Parry is the co-chair of the IPCC, the group that has brought us three reports so far this year on the science, impacts, and solutions of climate change. He told the BBC that the chances of humans keeping the average global temperature increase less than 2 degrees C is "quite little."

He went on to explain that the increase of more than 2 degrees will result in major consequences. Water shortages around the globe may occur (especially in areas with melting glaciers that depend on the freeze and thaw for water), heat waves may increase, and crops may be threatened.

Parry believes it is still possible to contain the rise in temperature to less than 3 degrees Celsius, although, as always, our actions have to be swift. In the meantime, world leaders must discuss "very seriously" plans for significant adaptation measures.

Associated Press, via Kansas City Star
BBC
Terra Daily

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

Today the fourth and final assessment from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “Mitigation of Climate Change,” will be released. More than 400 scientists and experts from 120 countries are in Bangkok, Thailand this week to finalize the report. The summary of Mitigation of Climate Change will be posted here; go here for a live webcast around 1PM local time. The full report will be released in September.

The report will lay out ways to cut global warming emissions and prevent the worst impacts without seriously hurting the global economy. In fact, it is expected to show that the cost of doing nothing is far higher than the cost of taking action now.

On Wednesday, the Taipei Times reported that talks were stalled by China, India, and Brazil, who insisted that industrialized nations take more responsibility for their pollution contribution. The stalemate took up other time meant for discussion on how to best tackle global warming. One European delegate reported:

"Progress is slow…Brazil, India and China are trying to put on the shoulders of industrialized nations the historic responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions in order to clear their own emissions [of blame] and to protect themselves in any discussion.”

The report will assess not only the long-term options available for the next 100 years, but a range of economic, technological, and institutional solutions and covering short and medium-term timelines up until 2030, explained Dr. R.K. Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Taipei Times
World Wildlife Fund

A hugely successful solar power project in India is providing clean, affordable electricity for 100,00 people and will be reproduced in other developing nations.

The $1.5 million United Nations-backed project aims to increase the number of homes using solar power in the Karnataka state of southern India. The number of homes using solar power has risen from 1,400 just four years ago to 18,000 today. Indian banks have also helped out by financing the solar systems, which can cost $300-$500 in an area where annual family income is $1,200. The UN’s involvement cut initial interest rate payments, but will be phased out over time.

A UN report to be released this week at the UN Commission for Sustainable Development shows that the solar power is cheaper and healthier than using the common kerosene lamp (no fumes to inhale or dim light to strain the eyes), and it doesn’t emit global warming pollution.

The solar systems allow for a few hours of power to run light bulbs, a radio, fan, or television. But that's enough to make a big difference, according to a UN statement:

“[The lighting] has been credited with better grades for schoolchildren, better productivity for cottage-based industries such as needlework artisans, and even better sales at fruit stands, where produce is no longer spoiled by fumes from kerosene lamps.”

Because of the project's success and its affordability, plans are in the works to expand the model to other developing nations. Efforts are underway in Tunisia, and future projects are planned for China, Indonesia, Egypt, Mexico, Ghana, Morocco, and Algeria.

Reuters, via Environmental News Network
United Nations Environment Programm

For the first time ever, the United Nations Security Council has put global warming on its agenda and will hold a high-level meeting this month to discuss its potential impacts on international security.

We often hear of climate change’s threat to the environment, health, and the economy. But more and more policymakers and leaders are nervous about the global security issues we could face, such as conflicts over water resources and massive numbers of refugees from flooded regions.

Specifically, the April 17th meeting, chaired by British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, will examine how water, agricultural production, famine, and crop surpluses could be effected by climate change. No statement or resolution is expected from the first meeting, which is following on the heels of the recent report on global warming’s impacts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador, Emyr Jones Parry, is the Security Council President. He said he expects a summit on climate change in September 2008. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hasn’t committed to the summit, although he does want to discuss how best to confront global warming’s impacts with world leaders at a G-8 meeting of industrialized countries in June.

The Associated Press, via MSNBC