We broadly agree with comments made by Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International in his description of the 'deal' announced at the end of the Copenhagen talkfest.
'Not fair, not ambitious and not legally binding. The job of world leaders is not done. Today they failed to avert catastrophic climate change. The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through. We have seen a year of crises, but today it is clear that the biggest one facing humanity is a leadership crisis. During the year a number developing countries showed a willingness to accept their share of the burden to avert climate chaos. But in the end, the blame for failure mostly lies with the rich industrialized world, countries which have the largest historic responsibility for causing the problem. In particular, the US failed to take any real leadership and dragged the talks down. Climate science says...
[More]
Tags:
climate change, copenhagen talks
Posted at: 12:05 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
We are always optimstic, but it's looking increasingly unlikely that much positive stuff will emerge from the Copenhagen talkfest on climate change.
The decision this week by a United Nations board to allow soya, palm oil and other agrofuel plantations to receive carbon credits through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is an environmental disaster. The agrofuel industry, already boosted by EU and US targets, incentives and subsidies, can now pocket hundreds of millions of dollars in extra subsidies. Vast carbon dioxide emissions from coal power stations in Europe can now be officially ‘offset’ by companies paying for soya plantations in Brazil or palm oil plantations in Indonesia or Thailand, which in turn will cause more deforestation and other ecosystem destruction – and more climate change.
The CDM was set up under the Kyoto Protocol and allows Northern hemisphere countries to ‘offset’ greenhouse gas emissions by paying for projects in the South, instead of cutting their own emissions. There is clear evidence that most of the CDM carbon credits go towards polluting industries in the Southern hemisphere, and in future, more carbon credits will go towards monoculture plantations in the South – now including soya, palm oil and jatropha plantations for agrofuels. The new CDM...
[More]
Tags:
carbon emissions offsets, clean development mechanism
Posted at: 06:24 PM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
