Leading emitters failing the world

For quite a while, China and the US have been linked together and put under the global spotlight due to both their global economic and climate impacts. However, they belong to different economic bloc, the South and North. The US, as the largest developed country, has been widely criticized for failing to fulfill its duty and take the leadership in fighting the climate crisis.  On the other hand, China, though already implementing massive domestic action to turn its low-carbon vision into reality, is blamed for using its status as a developing country as an excuse to continue polluting the world, something not accepted by much of the developed world.

China has, more than once, highlighted its status as a developing country at the Tianjin UNFCCC conference, which was concluded on Friday. This position is the fundamental reason for its not choosing to cap its emissions for absolute reductions but only to slow down the growth of emissions. However, its domestic targets to reduce carbon intensity of per unit GDP by 40-45% by 2020 have been mostly recommended globally, and the implementation of the ambitious targets will go through provincial-level efforts, to ensure the national goal is realized through this top-down approach.

Facing similar concern as China that emissions caps will have an impact upon GDP, the US has been lagging behind China after failing to pass the climate bill this year.  Despite this, the fact is that climate action plans have been designed and even executed at the sub-national state levels through the bottom-up approach, and climate efforts at the federal level are still actionable through the Clean Air Act and other related legislation.

Now the question is whether the climate issue should be perceived as a global one or just an issue connected between China and the US. Whether the two big nations are ready to stand up to take the leadership of the global climate efforts if they are entrusted with this privilege. Or if they fail in their duties, shall the whole world lose confidence in fighting climate change and overlook all efforts which have been, are and to be done on the ground even without any international deal.

The problem is that the whole world, influenced by media coverage, has given too much attention to climate negotiations, whose results are unfortunately decided by national interests rather than global interests. Most delegates negotiate for their countries' interests rather than the global interests or precisely the interests of the whole mankind. So in the near term, there is only a slim chance of reaching a deal.

The lack of progress at the UNFCCC conference in Tianjin has reduced hopes for a successful meeting in Cancun, Mexico in two months' time. If trust in governments' attempt to collaborate is lost, we have instead to look to people working on the ground and projects at home.

Pictured: Jonathan Pershing, US Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change and Chief US negotiator and China's Chief negotiator Su Wei

UN climate delegates warned against carbon market

Three NGOs jointly urged on Friday that UN climate delegates stop using carbon markets as an approach in combating climate crisis, and warned
that more harm than benefits stem from the market mechanism.

The warning came during a news conference, a joint effort of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), the Friends of the Earth (FOE), and The EU Forest Campaign (FERN), at the Tianjin UNFCCC conference a day ahead of its conclusion.

 "Carbon as a commodity into the same poorly regulated global markets that so recently tore apart developing country economies and pushed a hundred million more people into hunger is highly irresponsible," said IATP President James Harkness.

"There is a proposal here at the UNFCCC to introduce carbon credits from forests into carbon markets, but in reality, they do nothing to reduce emissions, and should not be counted as offsets," said Kate Dooley, Forests and Climate Campaigner at FERN, adding that "even offsetting is not mitigation."

Dooley argued that developed countries have agreed to offer, without conditionality, financial support to help the developing world fight against climate change. And thus the North using money to buy carbon credits from the South is wrong, she said, adding that it won't solve the problem and is bad for the South.

Nick Berning, Director of Public Advocacy and Communications, said that using carbon markets compromises climate integrity, and is subject to credit fraud and abuse, and will cause bribery for credit verifications. Issues like the uncertain nature of financial markets and high overheads will make carbon markets work less efficiently than the public fund, he added.

The organizations also argued that there are many other alternatives to carbon markets to raise funds for mitigation projects. Their opposition to carbon markets becomes noticeable and adds controversy to the issue, especially at a critical moment when the financial tool has been highly valued for its role in the global efforts in mitigating GHG emissions.

China has just announced that it will soon issue a provisional regulation on voluntary carbon trading, paving the way for creating a regional sector-based carbon market in the near term. This policy signal has long been awaited and widely welcomed, and is expected to create financial incentives for energy-efficiency and emissions-cutting tasks at provincial levels in China, contributing to the country's overall carbon intensity reduction target by 40-45% by
2020. 

Carbon markets, especially its progress in China, have created heated discussions at several side events during the Tianjin UN conference.

pictured: L-R Nick Berning, Director of Public Advocacy and Communications from the Friends of the Earth, James Harkness: President of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and Kate Dooley from the EU Forest Campaign

UNFCCC side event spotlights China carbon market

Top officials of China's three climate and environmental exchanges have shown up at two UNFCCC side events held two days in a row in Tianjin, stealing the limelight of other activities at the climate change talks.

China has yet to implement a national cap on emissions and currently all carbon credits are being traded voluntarily. Even so, the prospects of China's carbon market have become a hot issue due to the huge market potential and lucrative opportunities for business people beyond national boundaries.

In China's latest national drive to pursue a low-carbon experiment in five provinces and eight cities, the country intends to trial a carbon market within
the low-carbon pilot areas and only for some certain economic sectors. The power industry is one potential sector where the pilot initiatives will be employed. The power industry often has a better record and availability of economic data and is better prepared to demonstrate carbon trading.

However, Yi Gang Wang, Deputy General Manage of China Beijing Environmental Exchange said, "in my own opinion, I cannot understand the (geo-economic) logic of operating a carbon market within the low-carbon pilot areas."

Mr. Wang gave a detailed presentation on October 7th on the key factors in deciding on the carbon price in China, and the implications of government policies such as subsidies and free credit allocation.

Asked whether improved performance of the three climate exchanges in Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai would send a signal demanding the government to cap emissions in the near term, Ms. Mu Lingling, Vice President of Tianjin Climate Exchange, responded from a different perspective. The key issue was not whether an emissions cap should be imposed or not, she said. It was instead, important to build a mature carbon market on the ground.

Ms. Mu said she was confident that experience and lessons drawn from China's CDM projects will give a boost to the country's ability in operating a carbon market in the near term.

Meanwhile, Miss Li Jin, Business Supervisor, Research and Development Department of the Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange said China still needs to learn from overseas practices, such as EU ETS and RGGI, a power sector-focus carbon market covering 11 states in northeast United States, for trading standards and business-engaging mechanisms.

Will Tianjin climate talks build on COP15?

At the ongoing UNFCCC conference in the coastal city of Tianjin in northern China, negotiating parties are expected to use this last opportunity prior to their Cancun gathering to establish common ground for producing a climate agreement in Mexico in two months' time.  

Some progress has been made after the first three-days of negotiations, especially in shared visions and adaptation framework. Much of the talks focused on finance, technology and capacity building, making the Tianjin event appear pragmatic and productive. Less progress has been seen in the mitigation front, meanwhile loud calls for more balanced mitigation commitments have been aired.  

On the finance issue, doubts and uncertainty still remain about effective delivery of the support pledged by the developed world in Copenhagen to assist the developing world in combating climate change.

The 2009 Copenhagen Accord outlined two significant funding commitments from developed countries to finance adaptation, REDD + and technology transfer in the developing world. The first is a "Fast Start" investment of US$30 billion over three years. The other is a long-term commitment of US$100 billion per year by 2020. 

Contributing countries of the "Fast Start Finance" agreed that the funding would be "new and additional." However, there is a lack of a standard for the definition of "additional", and each donor nation has proposed its own definition.

Addressing this issue, China has pointed out that some committed finance stem from overseas development assistance of donor nations and thus does not meet the criteria of "new and additional".

At the same time, some less developed countries also challenged the scope and equity of the outflow of the Fast Start finance. They argued that those middle-income developing countries, which are not large enough like China and Brazil to have attractive climate projects, and meanwhile are not poor enough like Ethiopia to be given enough attention, fail to benefit from the Fast Start finance.

China was even cited to support this argument as 80 percent of CDM funding goes to five countries, 60 percent of which alone goes to China. 

In response, some experts from donor nations said that lack of capacity in some countries to deliver climate projects cannot justify the receipt of financial support. Though it has been said Fast Start finance will mainly support countries which are making efforts in low-carbon transition and those which are planning to pursue similar paths. But transparency and lack of criteria in finance allocation make many countries doubt its effectiveness, and whether it be properly supported by developed nations.

The fourteenth session of the AWG-KP and the twelfth session of the AWG-LCA are taking place from Monday 4th to Saturday 9th October 2010 at the Tianjin Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center (MJCEC), Tianjin, China.

Can Google break China's censorship?

The strong Haiti earthquake and other events of similar weight might have stolen the limelight of Google China, which has decided not to filter its search engine results as required by the Chinese government, and prepared, as a consequence, to close its business in the world's leading internet market.

Google has been applauded by many Chinese people for its long-awaited courage to challenge the information censorship China relies on to tighten its control of people, allegedly for the sake of internal unification and domestic stability.

Chinese lay people have never been trusted by their government with the capability to make good judgements and tell right from wrong about what they read on the internet.

For thousands of years, people in this country seem to be told, and guided by the authorities as to what they should hear, see and read. 

As China becomes stronger, many people worry that the control over the flow of information will tighten too. And there are mixed reactions among Chinese people to the possible departure of Google. Some believe it may lead to increased government censorship while others argue that the potential departure may encourage the government to lessen its grip on the Internet.

There is no doubt that its leaving will be a great loss not only for Google's long-term business returns, but also for China's Internet industry and users. For many those who have used the variety of Google tools in their daily life and even work, it would not only mean a change of working habit, but also lead to a decrease of understanding of information technology.

This will bar Chinese netizens from accessing new technology and information development in an effective and efficient way. Whether this will enable the government to increase its control of this populous country is open to question.

Whatever decision Google China makes, it has already made its mark in the history of the Chinese Internet industry.

Obama in Copenhagen: bring hope for new climate deal?

The White House has announced that US President Barack Obama will attend the forthcoming UN climate change conference in Copenhagen to work with the international community for a "comprehensive and operational" Copenhagen accord.

In the context of an overall deal in Copenhagen that includes robust mitigation contributions from China and the other emerging economies, the President, said the White House is prepared to put on the table a US emissions reduction target in the range of 17% below 2005 levels in 2020 and ultimately in line with final US energy and climate legislation.

In light of Obama’s goal to reduce emissions 83% by 2050, the expected pathway set forth in this pending legislation would entail a 30% reduction below 2005 levels in 2025 and a 42% reduction below 2005 in 2030, said the White House, adding that Obama is working closely with Congress to pass energy and climate legislation as soon as possible..

The countries of the world, led by the major economies, have been urged by the White House to “do what it takes to produce a strong, operational agreement that will both launch us on a concerted effort to combat climate change and serve as a stepping stone to a legally binding treaty”.

However, it poses the question as to whether Obama’s presence and US climate targets will bring some hope to the Copenhagen conference, which reportedly will see the end of the Kyoto protocol, the only existing globally agreed climate treaty.

Bilateral and multilateral climate agreements, rather than a post-Kyoto deal have been reported to be highly possible as an outcome of the Copenhagen conference. This projection came as leading emitters, especially China and US, reject any commitment to capping emissions, regarded as the critical factor in discouraging and impeding the process for a new global climate agreement.

The two countries have been strongly urged to make legally binding targets instead of taking advantage of each other’s inaction, to take the lead in making concerted efforts to fight the climate crisis.

China to embrace low-carbon city strategy

China's speedy urbanization has urged the government to take on a low-carbon approach, to kick off the green transformation of its urban development as part of the country's 12th five-year planning from 2011 to 2015.

It is forecast that up to 75 percent of the population in China will live in cities by 2050, a significant rise from the 44.9 percent in 2007. This will further the tension between the demand and supply of resources, and overstretch the accommodating capacity of the environment, says a recent report on China's low-carbon and eco-city development strategies.

Embracing low-carbon city model, which will lead to energy, industrial and lifestyle revolution, is the only way for Chinese cities to achieve sustainable growth, the report which was issued by the Chinese Society for Urban Studies points out.

China's aggregated CO2 emissions will keep growing until 2040, if China doesn't implement energy-saving and emissions-cutting measures, or only acts less vigorously, or only works for restructuring industrial setup to reduce the share of heavy industrials of the whole economy, says the report.

"Only adopting a low-carbon path, China is able to check the growth of its emissions 10 years ahead, namely by 2035," the report says.

Beijing has been called on to demonstrate low-carbon city development as a city suitable for living, to address the challenges it faces in population, transport, energy and the environment.

On the other hand, Beijing International Institute for Urban Development says that groups of cities will boom as urban agglomeration during the coming few years, to further the advancement of regional economic growth.

There is no doubt about the contribution of cities to China's development. China's top ten big cities in total are home to over 1/3 of the country's population, cover 11 percent of the country's areas and contribute to 2/3 of the country's GDP.

Bangkok climate change talks make no real progress

The UN climate change negotiations that end today in Bangkok have largely failed to deliver any substantive progress on targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, or the transfer of technology and finance from rich to poorer nations for adaptation and mitigation, leading to serious questions about the political commitment of the industrialised nations.

"Last month, President Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other leaders of industrialised nations all lined up to say how committed they were to tackling climate change and reaching an effective agreement on how to do this when UN negotiations end in Copenhagen in December," says Saleemul Huq, senior fellow in the climate change group at the International Institute for Environment and Development and a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"This gave the world high expectations for the international negotiation session that has run for the past two weeks in Bangkok," says Huq. "But it seems like the negotiators from industrialised nations either didn't follow their leaders' speeches or haven't been received any new instructions because in virtually every aspect of the talks there has been minimal progress of any substance."

The G77/China group of 132 developing nations says that the EU is trying to "divide and conquer" the developing nations and detract attention from their own broken promises.

There was virtually no progress on new targets for developed nations that are party to the Kyoto Protocol to cut their emissions, despite them being legally bound to agree new targets.

The G77/China accuse the United States and European Union stand accused of trying to kill of the Kyoto Protocol, the only legal agreement that commits any nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. The EU as a party to the protocol is legally bound to agree new targets for a post-2012 period.

In the negotiations focusing on ways to tackle climate change by reducing deforestation , the European Union has removed a provision that would protect against the conversion of natural forests to plantations, threatening impact for biodiversity and forest-dependent people.

Only Norway, by announcing that it would increase its pledge to cut emissions by 40% of their 1990 level by the year 2020. This is an increase from their earlier pledge of a 30% cut.

"One area of hope is that countries are now reaching agreement that adaptation is essential to protect people and economies in the developing nations," says Huq. "Negotiators made some good progress on adaptation to climate change, assuming that money will be available to do it. But the big questions still to be answered are: how much money will developed nations provide and how will it be chanelled to make adaptation a reality."

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change binds rich countries such as the United States and European Union member states to provide funding to developing nations to adapt to and mitigate climate change.

Climate adaptation will triple estimated costs, says study

Scientists led by a former co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that the UN negotiations aimed at tackling climate change are based on substantial underestimates of what it will cost to adapt to its impacts.

The real costs of adaptation are likely to be 2-3 times greater than estimates made by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), say Professor Martin Parry and colleagues in a new report，published by the International Institute for Environment and Development and the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London.

The UNFCCC has estimated annual global costs of adapting to climate change to be US$40-170 billion, or the cost of about three Olympic Games per year.

But the report’s authors warn that these estimates were produced too quickly and did not include key sectors such as energy, manufacturing, retailing, mining, tourism and ecosystems. Other sectors that the UNFCCC did include were only partially covered.

Costs will be even more when the full range of climate impacts on human activities is considered, according to the report, launched on 27 August at a London press conference.

Parry and colleagues warn that this underestimate of the cost of adaptation threatens to weaken the outcome of UNFCCC negotiations, which are due to culminate in Copenhagen in December with a global deal aimed at tackling climate change.

“Finance is the key that will unlock the negotiations in Copenhagen but if governments are working with the wrong numbers, we could end up with a false deal that fails to cover the costs of adaptation to climate change,“ says Camilla Toulmin, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development, which co-published the report.

Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, which co-published the report, says: "The costs of adapting to live with a changing climate are very uncertain. However, this new report suggests that previous attempts to figure out the costs have drastically under-estimated how expensive this could be. With such large sums potentially involved, the pressure to act now to reduce the extent of climate change is greater than ever.”

The new report calls for detailed case studies of what adaptation costs will be, and points out that the few that already exist suggest that costs will be considerable.

The report was reviewed by seven of the world’s foremost adaptation scientists, including the lead authors of the original UNFCCC study. Following this, close to 100 adaptation policy and research experts were invited to comment on the pre-publication draft.

Its key findings include:

Water: The UNFCCC estimate of US$11 billion excluded costs of adapting to floods and assumes no costs for transferring water within nations from areas of surplus to areas of deficit. The underestimate could be substantial, according to the new report.

Health: The UNFCCC estimate of US$5 billion excluded developed nations, and assessed only malaria, diarrhoea and malnutrition. This could cover only 30-50% of the global total disease burden, according to the new report.

Infrastructure: The UNFCCC estimate of US$8-130 billion assumed that low levels of investment in infrastructure will continue to characterise development in Africa and other relatively poor parts of the world. But the new report points out that such investment must increase in order to reduce poverty and thus avoid continuing high levels of vulnerability to climate change. It says the costs of adapting this upgraded infrastructure to climate change could be eight times more costly than the higher estimates predicted by the UNFCCC.

Coastal zones: The UNFCCC estimate of US$11 billion excluded increased storm intensity and used low IPCC predictions of sea level rise. Considering research on sea level rise published since the 2007 IPCC report, and including storms, the new report suggests costs could be about three times greater than predicted.

Ecosystems: The UNFCCC excluded from its estimates the costs of protecting ecosystems and the services they can provide for human society. The new report concludes that that this is an important source of under-estimation, which could cost over US$350 billion, including both protected and non-protected areas.

Photo by DanRhett

China electricity giants urged to cut emissions

Greenpeace has urged China’s top power companies to play a role in cutting emissions and easing the country’s reliance upon coal, by dramatically increasing energy efficiency and the use of renewables.

China’s top ten power companies and their heavy dependence on coal are hindering the country’s efforts to tackle climate change, a new Greenpeace report released on Tuesday said.

The top ten power companies provide almost 60% of China’s total electricity, says the report, entitled “Polluting Power: Ranking China’s Biggest Power Companies.”

By burning 20% of China’s coal in 2008, the companies emitted an equivalent of 1.44 billion tonnes of CO2. And emissions by the largest three, namely Huaneng, Datang and Guodian, surpassed Britain’s total emissions in the same year, according to the report.

"Climate change is humankind’s most urgent environmental problem. China’s power companies are not only the key coal consumer but also the major CO2 emitter. All parts of Chinese society must play a role in moving China away from intensive coal dependence and these major polluters must not be exempt from this responsibility,” said Greenpeace Climate Campaign Manager Yang Ailun,

During the past three and a half years, China has closed down the least efficient coal-fired plants with installed capacity totalling 54.07 gig watts, which is higher than the total capacity of Australia.

Greenpeace urges the Chinese power companies to phase out all inefficient coal-fired plants under 100 megawatt by 2012, saying that by doing so, China could reduce coal consumption by 90 million tonnes and avoid 220 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year.

According to China’s renewable energy mid-and-long term development plan, by 2010, large power companies, including the top ten listed in this report, are obliged to have at least 3% of their installed capacity from non-hydro renewable sources.

But by the end of 2008, eight out of the ten were not even half way to
meeting this modest target, the report points out. “Yet, China has a huge potential to become the world leader in renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies,” Yang said.

Greenpeace also calls on the Chinese government to introduce a price signal for coal that not only effectively drives power companies to rapidly move to renewable energy, but also ensures that, during the transition, coal is used as efficiently as possible.

However, electricity price in China is regulated and fails to reflect the higher market price of coal. Power companies have expected a small rise of coal price to make a profit.

China must also double its national renewable energy target to 30% by 2020.

“In order to achieve these targets, the electricity sector, especially the large power companies, must play their crucial role. The challenges China is facing in the lead up to the UN Climate Meeting in Copenhagen this December will be even larger without serious actions to cut emissions by these companies,” Yang concluded.