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By Michelle Nichols and Timothy Gardner
Reuters
Thursday, September 27, 2007; 6:34 PM
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Africa is unfairly suffering from global warming and must be able to sell carbon credits to grow in a “green fashion,” Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Bill Clinton’s philanthropic summit on Thursday.
Climate change took center stage at the third annual Clinton Global Initiative sponsored by the former U.S. president, being held as the world’s biggest polluters, including the United States and China, met at the State Department in Washington for talks on global warming.
“Africa contributed nothing to global warming because it failed to develop the way the rest of the world developed,” Meles said. “Africa’s capacity to cope with climate change is very weak. Therefore climate change could push the fragile economies and societies of Africa beyond the precipice.”
Speaking on a panel with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, U.N. climate change envoy Gro Harlem Brundtland and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Meles said the “only realistic option” for Africa was sustainable growth, but money was needed to achieve that.
“The money has to come from the cap and trade mechanism,” Meles said. “We did not pollute. We are being punished because of what you did and we deserve the right to sell carbon credits to you so we can use the money to promote green development in our countries,” he said, drawing applause from the audience.
Under the Kyoto Protocol to curb global warming, rich countries can meet their emissions reduction targets by funding green energy development in poor countries in exchange for carbon credits.
$30 BILLION EMISSIONS MARKET
But the overall $30 billion emissions market has failed to help Africa, with China and India benefiting the most. World Bank data shows Africa accounted for 3 percent of the credits sold, compared with China’s 61 percent share and India’s 12 percent.
Scientists say smokestack and tailpipe emissions of heat-trapping gases cause global warming, which could lead to more deadly floods, droughts and heat waves.
Clinton said the carbon market could “energize investors and ideas people to create the multifaceted change that will be really necessary to prove that we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and grow the economy at the same time.”
At Clinton’s summit on Thursday, Standard Chartered Bank made a commitment to seek out and underwrite $4 billion to $5 billion in debt for renewable and clean energy projects in Asia, Africa and the Middle East over the next five years.
“There’s lots of opportunity in Africa and we are already active in Africa,” Chief Executive Peter Sands told a news conference at the Clinton brainstorming summit on health, education, poverty and climate, which rates action over talk.
Blair said world leaders this year must lay out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol in which everyone — including the top two emitters, the United States and China — take part to cut emissions. The Kyoto deal runs out in 2012.
“We are at the point now where the business community internationally is ahead of the politics and is saying to political leaders: ‘Now is the moment. If you give us the framework we will get behind it,”‘ Blair said.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092701976.html?sub=AR
Critics Praise Attention But Call Ideas Lacking
By Peter Baker and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 29, 2007; Page A03
President Bush assured the rest of the world yesterday that he takes the threat of climate change seriously and vowed that the United States “will do its part” to reduce the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet, but he proposed no concrete new initiatives to reach that goal.
The president’s speech at a conference of major economic powers represented a symbolic turn for a leader who once expressed doubt about global warming and angered foreign partners by renouncing the Kyoto treaty. After nearly seven years on the defensive, Bush tried to assume a leadership role in crafting “a new international approach” to preserving the world’s climate.
Yet he found himself largely isolated at a meeting that he had organized to address the issue, lambasted by foreign officials, U.S. lawmakers and environmental activists who saw his effort as more show than substance. Although critics welcomed his newfound attention to the dangers of shifting climatological conditions, they complained that it would not add up to anything unless he reverses himself and embraces some form of mandatory limit on emissions, something he did not do yesterday.
Instead, he touted technology as the ultimate solution, citing ideas he has promoted for years, such as cleaner coal production; more nuclear, solar and wind power; additional ethanol as a substitute for gasoline; and increased vehicle fuel-efficiency standards. “I want to get the job done,” he told hundreds of envoys, lobbyists and activists. “We have identified a problem. Let’s go solve it together.”
Bush said he wants to forge an agreement with other heads of state by next summer setting a long-term goal for reducing emissions, but each nation would decide how to meet it. “By setting this goal, we acknowledge there is a problem,” he said. “And by setting this goal, we commit ourselves to doing something about it.”
The much-anticipated speech disappointed critics looking for more tangible proposals. Daniel J. Weiss, an analyst at the liberal Center for American Progress, said Bush essentially was relying “on waving a magic technology wand” with measures that “won’t make a dent in global warming.” John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA, said Bush’s speech underscored “his do-nothing approach to global warming” and proved that “his position is a lie” that no one believes.
“The president says his goals are aspirational, but his goals are really procrastinational,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of a new House committee on global warming. “The U.N. is saying the planet is urgently sick, and the Bush administration is saying, ‘Take two aspirin and call me when I leave office.’ “
Everton Vargas, the head of Brazil’s delegation, said Bush “didn’t bring any new ideas, any new proposals [to] the U.S. position. What we saw was more of a reiteration of what we have heard before.” John Ashton, Britain’s special representative for climate change, said “what has emerged at this conference, and also at the United Nations, is how isolated the administration is now on this issue, especially on the issue of mandatory targets.”
Some delegates said they must turn to Congress for leadership. Environmental Defense President Fred Krupp drew extended applause at the conference when he called for a mandatory U.S. limit on carbon dioxide emissions. “The delegates came with all eyes towards the United States to see if there’s movement, and they found out there is movement — it’s in Congress,” he said.
Delegates plotted climate strategy with lawmakers, with European delegates urging senators to pass a cap-and-trade system before U.S. climate talks open in Bali, Indonesia, in December. Markey and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) plan to lead congressional delegations to the Bali talks.
The conference represented the most serious effort Bush has made to play an international leadership role on climate change. As a candidate in 2000, he expressed doubt that human activity was responsible for global warming. After taking office, he renounced the Kyoto treaty and broke a campaign promise to impose mandatory reductions in power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions. Since then, his views have evolved to the point where now, nearly seven years into his presidency, he has decided to make a major push to find an international agreement to replace Kyoto when it expires in 2012.
The two-day White House conference that ended yesterday brought in envoys from 15 other major polluting nations, including European powers, Japan, Russia, Canada, Australia and South Africa. Especially important was the participation of China and India, the world’s most populous nations, which were exempt from Kyoto although they produce increasing amounts of greenhouse gases.
Bush cited their exemption when he repudiated Kyoto, saying that any real solution had to include such large economies and expressing concern about the impact on the U.S. economy. Still, a study released this week by Duke University researchers underscored the singular role of the United States, concluding that it will have to account for one-third of the world’s greenhouse gas reductions by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change.
In his address yesterday, Bush said warming can be addressed without jeopardizing economic prosperity and called climate change and energy security “two of the great challenges of our times.” No longer, he said, are those two priorities mutually exclusive: “Today we know better. These challenges share a common solution — technology.”
The president’s talk was more a defense of his record than a specific roadmap for the future. Other than a new fund to finance clean energy projects in developing countries, he announced no new initiatives. Instead, he touted the $18 billion he has devoted to developing new technology and his plan to reduce the projected use of gasoline in the United States by 20 percent in 10 years through alternative fuels and increased fuel efficiency.
If nothing else, Bush’s language represented a stark change from seven years ago. “Our understanding of climate change has come a long way,” he said, citing a report that concluded that rising global temperatures are “caused largely by human activities.”
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092800079.html?nav=rss_nation
23/09/2007 7:37:00 PM
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be among nearly 80 world leaders attending a United Nations summit in New York on Monday to spur action against climate change.
Environmentalists are hoping the leaders will make some progress in breaking the gridlock on efforts to forge a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol before it expires in 2012.
On Monday morning, Harper is scheduled to address a session on the role of new technologies in cutting emissions.
Under Kyoto, which was signed by Canada in 1998 under a previous Liberal government, the country agreed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by six per cent from 1990 levels by 2012.
After Conservatives were elected in January 2006, Harper repeatedly said the country’s commitments under Kyoto were not achievable by the deadline because they would cripple the economy. Instead, the Conservatives pledged to reduce emissions by 20 per cent from current levels by 2020.
The government’s own advisory body, the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, criticized the Conservatives’ plan in a report released Friday. The report said the Conservatives’ plan is vague, uses inconsistent accounting measures and exaggerates the extent of the greenhouse-gas cuts it would result in.
A key opening speaker at the United Nations summit will be California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, representing local governments worldwide. He has been pushing aggressive efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions that go well beyond what fellow Republican U.S. President George W. Bush supports.
Bush, who has long opposed negotiated limits on the gases blamed for global warming, will not participate in the UN meetings, but plans to attend a small dinner Monday evening, a gathering of key players hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Three days after the UN summit, Bush is holding his own two-day climate change conference in Washington with officials from 16 industrial countries, as well as a few developing countries, including China and India.
Canadian Environment Minister John Baird will attend the Washington meetings on Thursday and Friday.
Earlier in 2007, the UN released a series of authoritative scientific reports that warned the planet will drastically change by 2100, with rising seas and widespread drought, unless countries dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions and other heat-trapping gases.
Debate is focused both on pushing industrialized countries for tougher emissions cuts and on creating incentives for reductions in the developing world.
Countries like China have steadfastly refused any binding measures. Meantime, Kyoto set reduction quotes for 36 industrialized countries but many are unlikely to meet their pledges.
With files from the Canadian Press
22/09/2007 1:58:14 AM
The federal government’s own environmental advisory body has lobbed sharp criticism at the Conservatives for their climate-change plan, accusing them of overestimating what the plan will accomplish.
In a report released Friday, the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy said the government’s plan is vague, uses questionable accounting methods and exaggerated greenhouse-gas cuts it would result in.
The roundtable comprises leaders from business, labour, universities and environmental organizations.
The report examined 22 programs in the government’s climate change plan and found that each either overestimated the amount of greenhouse gas emission reductions it would achieve or had insufficient information to reach any conclusion.
In some cases, the Tory plan double counts some of the cuts it is supposed to make, the advisory council says.
Friday’s report comes as Prime Minister Stephen Harper prepares to head to New York next week to speak about climate change at a meeting of world leaders.
The prime minister has claimed at other world events that his government’s plan will achieve real and specific greenhouse gas emission cuts.
With files from the Canadian Press
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