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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Win Smith who wrote (126720)	12/9/2009 11:48:22 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541043

Doesn't matter. Game over. Cal has cap and trade, Idaho is selling permits, etc. They are still fighting a war that's been lost. EPA chief: US will regulate CO2 with common sense (AP) – 3 hours ago COPENHAGEN — The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says she will take commonsense steps to regulate carbon emissions to protect the health of Americans. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said her newly declared power to regulate greenhouse gases will be used to complement legislation pending in Congress, not replace it. She said "this is not an either-or moment. It's a both-and moment." EPA declared Monday that carbon emission could endanger human health and would be subject to federal regulation. Jackson spoke Wednesday at the 192-nation climate conference in Copenhagen, which is trying to forge an international treaty to control the gases causing the Earth's temperature to rise. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. COPENHAGEN (AP) — Negotiators on Wednesday worked to bridge the chasm between rich and poor countries over how to share the burden of fighting climate change, and a top U.S. envoy was to highlight the Obama administration's efforts to curb greenhouse emissions. Lumumba Di-Aping of Sudan, the head of the 135-nation bloc of developing countries, said the $10 billion a year that has been proposed to help poor nations fight climate change paled in comparison to the more than $1 trillion already spent to rescue financial institutions. "If this is the greatest risk that humanity faces, then how do you explain $10 billion?" he said. "Ten billion will not buy developing countries' citizens enough coffins." U.S. Environmental Protection Agency head Lisa Jackson, whose agency just gave President Barack Obama a new way to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions, takes to the podium at the U.N. climate conference later Wednesday, headlining a U.S.-sponsored meeting entitled "Taking Action at Home." The EPA determined Monday that scientific evidence clearly shows greenhouse gases are endangering Americans' health and must be regulated. That gave Obama a new way to regulate those gases without needing the approval of the U.S. Congress. Obama will join more than 100 national leaders converging on Copenhagen for the final days of bargaining late next week. China, which has recently overtaken the United States as the world's top greenhouse gas emitter, strongly protested Wednesday a blunder that prevented a top diplomat from entering the vast Bella Center where the 192-nation U.N. climate conference is being held. Su Wei, the director general of China's climate change negotiation team, told the meeting he was "extremely unhappy" that a Chinese minister was barred from entry three days in a row. Su called the incident "unacceptable" and expressed anger that U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer was not informed. De Boer pledged to investigate and "make sure it doesn't happen again." Meanwhile, small island nations, poor countries and those seeking money from the developed world to preserve their tropical forests were among those upset over competing draft texts attributed to Denmark and China outlining proposed outcomes for the historic Dec. 7-18 summit. Some of the poorest nations feared too much of the burden to curb greenhouse gases is being hoisted onto their shoulders. They are seeking billions of dollars in aid from the wealthy countries to deal with climate change, which melts glaciers that raise sea levels worldwide, turns some regions drier and threatens food production. Diplomats from developing countries and climate activists complained the Danish hosts pre-empted the negotiations with their draft proposal, which would allow rich countries to cut fewer emissions while poorer nations would face tougher limits on greenhouse gases and more conditions on getting funds. "When a process is flawed then the outcome is flawed," Raman Mehta, ActionAid's program manager in India, said of the Danish proposal. "If developing countries don't have a concrete indication of the scale of finances, then you don't get a deal — and even if you do, it's a bad deal." It focuses "on pleasing the rich and powerful countries rather than serving the majority of states who are demanding a fair and ambitious solution," said Kim Carstensen of the environmental group WWF. A sketchy counterproposal attributed to China would extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrial nations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming by an average 5 percent by 2012, compared with 1990 levels. The Chinese text would incorporate specific new, deeper targets for the industrialized world for a further five to eight years. However, developing countries including China would be covered by a separate agreement that encourages taking action to control emissions but not in the same legally binding way. Poorer nations believe the two-track approach would best preserve the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" recognized by the Kyoto treaty. In Rome, Greenpeace activists climbed halfway up the Colosseum at dawn Wednesday to press for a historic climate deal at the Copenhagen conference. The U.N.'s weather agency unveiled data Tuesday showing that this decade is on track to become the hottest since records began in 1850, with 2009 the fifth-warmest year ever. The second warmest decade was the 1990s. Only the United States and Canada experienced cooler conditions than average, the World Meteorological Organization said, though Alaska had the second-warmest July on record. EDITOR'S NOTE _ Find behind-the-scenes information, blog posts and discussion about the Copenhagen climate conference at facebook.com, a Facebook page run by AP and an array of international news agencies. Follow coverage and blogging of the event on Twitter at: twitter.com. Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. google.com

To: Win Smith who wrote (126720)	12/9/2009 11:59:52 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 541043

Ambiner's piece made me go to the filing cabinet. Turns out Kyoto works for those with the balls to meet the challenge. The good old American Can't Do spirit doesn't live in Europe. Industrialised countries will collectively meet 2010 Kyoto target Recently the European Union and other industrialised countries have published new national emission inventories through 2005, which were officially submitted to the UN Climate Secretariat (UNFCCC). MNP has summarised the trend in historical emissions for the period 1990-2005 of the group of countries with an emission target under the Kyoto Protocol (so-called Annex I countries to the Kyoto Protocol) and extrapolated the emissions trend of the last five years (Figures 1 and 2). Three groups are distinguished: 1. Countries of the EU-15, for which the European Union also collectively ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 1997; 2. Other OECD’90 countries (in particular Japan, Canada and, recently, also Australia); Economies In Transition (EIT) (Russia, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries). Although the USA has not ratified the protocol, it is also shown in the graph for comparison. Total emission reduction target of countries with a Kyoto target: -4.1% From the greenhouse gas emissions reported in 2007 it was calculated that the group of countries that committed themselves to a Kyoto target (now including Australia), collectively will reduce their emissions by 4.1% compared to the base year when they all meet their Kyoto target. If the USA would have joined the other industrialised countries in having an emissions target, the total group figure would have been a 5.1% reduction. The mostly limited contribution of ‘sinks’ (carbon storage in forests and soils) from Land Use Change and Forestry (so-called LUCF) and possible (but usually limited) corrections in response to the expert reviews in 2007 of the national emissions inventories have not been included here, lacking completeness in reports on officially accepted emissions and carbon sink data. Limited increase in OECD countries; large reduction in Russia and Eastern Europe The greenhouse gas emissions of the EU-15 has been almost constant over the last 15 years (-1.5% in 2005), while emissions of other OECD countries increased by 15% on average (6.9% for Japan and about 25% for Canada, Australia and New Zealand). In contrast, emissions of the EIT countries (Russia and Eastern and Central Europe) decreased by 35% on average compared to their base year (Figure 1). Figure 1. Emission trend (left) and extrapolation and comparison with the Kyoto target (right) for groups of countries with a Kyoto target (source: UNFCCC). Assuming that greenhouse gas emissions of these three groups of countries will continue according to the trend shown for the past five years, the image emerges as shown in the right-hand side of Figure 1, where the result of a linear extrapolation of the 2000-2005 trend to 2010 is compared with the Kyoto targets for the 2010 (i.e. the average of the 2008-2012 period). Greenhouse gas emissions of the EU-15, which decreased slightly (-1.5%) over the last 15 years, are expected in 2010 to remain lower than the base year and close to the Kyoto target of 8% reduction. Total emissions of other OECD countries with a Kyoto target are expected to continue to increase on average by about 0.5% per year, whereas the Kyoto targets of its largest countries Japan and Canada are -6% and for Australia it is +8%. Also emissions of the EIT countries (Russia and Eastern Europe), in 2005 in total 35% below their base year level, are expected to continue to increase by over 1% per year on average, while there Kyoto targets are +1% (Russia and Ukraine, accounting for more than 2/3 of the EIT total in 2005) or -8% (other Central and Eastern European countries) (Figure 1). Industrialised countries will meet collective Kyoto target for 2010 The group industrialised countries with a Kyoto target will probably meet their emission limitation requirements of about 4% reduction. This target will even be met without accounting for the so-called CDM projects that aim at emission reductions in developing countries and fast growing economies and which reduction may be accounted for as part of the national Kyoto target (Figure 2). When linearly extrapolating the trend of the last five years to 2010 (the average of the Kyoto target period 2008-2012), the emission reduction in 2010 of this group as countries will be close to 11%. When including all 2800 CDM projects “in the pipeline”, which account for approximately 500 megatonne (= million) CO2 equivalent per year, the total reduction may even be as large as 15%. The collective reduction of 11%, expected under the assumption listed above, is due to the limited increase in emissions in OECD countries (e.g. a stabilisation in the European Union for the last 10 years) and in particular due to the large reduction of about 40% until 1999 in the Economies In Transition (EIT) (Russia, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries). In the EIT countries, as a result of their economic recovery, greenhouse gas emissions started to increase again (at an average rate of 1% per year), while the Kyoto target of the largest countries is +1% and -8% for the smaller countries (see Figure 1). The latter also aids that the present EU-27 meets its collective Kyoto target. pbl.nl