Wednesday, Jan 20, 2010

Gulf News

Abu Dhabi The failure of the Copenhagen summit to achieve a legally binding accord on how to stop climate change was a clear indication the split between the developed and developing states on how to stop carbon emissions.

The core of the split is how the developing countries will stop their currently high emissions increasing further, while at the same time meet the entirely legitimate demands of their populations for a better lifestyle, as well as to grow their economies. The developed countries are unwilling to pay for the change, while at the same time take the economic pain of reducing their own carbon emissions.

In addition, neither developed nor developing governments want to force laws on their companies forcing them to employ new carbon efficient technologies, which will have a higher cost, unless all other countries are doing the same so that the business disadvantages are spread fairly as the world moves to a more carbon free economy.

Vague solutions

Much of the debate at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi focused on the way that the Copenhagen summit might have defined the problem, but left the solutions vague.

"Copenhagen failed to deliver a legally binding agreement, which we all need. For example, it spoke of four funds, but did not give details of how the money is to be sourced nor how it is to be handled," Rashid Ahmad Bin Fahad, UAE Minister of Environment and Water, said yesterday.

"Copenhagen did not mention any obligations from the developed countries," said Bin Fahad. "If we are to move forward, we have to focus on the areas of disagreement."

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, had the same sceptical expectations. He said that there is little hope of the next round of talks in Mexico in November reaching a binding agreement unless there is a clear commitment from Barak Obama's administration; and institutional arrangements for the funds are agreed so that they can be both established and the money disbursed according to agreed targets.

But regardless of the differences that remain between nation states, many speakers agreed that at least Copenhagen defined the problem, even if the answer remains a mixture of all sorts of actions on many different fronts.

There was also consensus that there is a very narrow window for action, and the dangers of doing nothing mean that action has to be taken quickly.

Richard Johns of the International Energy Agency, IEA, said that if nothing at all is done to limit carbon emissions, then the world will be heading for 1,000 parts per million (ppm) of carbon in the atmosphere by 2030, causing the average world temperature to increase by 4 degrees, and then heading for a very dangerous increase of 6 degrees by 2050.

Even if all the pledges made at the Copenhagen summit become policy, and if the policies are implemented, Johns said, the carbon emissions would grow to 550ppm, which would take the average temperature to an increase of three degrees.

Unknown amounts

"We do not know what this would mean," said Johns, pointing out that "3 degrees could be a tipping point since such a high increase might start to melt the Arctic tundra, and this would release unknown a mounts of carbon gas that is currently frozen in the ground."

Johns said that the IEA has been recommending policies that cut carbon emissions by enough to meet a target of 450 ppm by 2030, which would result in the rise of 2 degrees that the Copenhagen summit targeted.

But climate change has already gone so far that it will continue for the next three or four decades even if the most successful solutions are implemented. Several speakers spoke of the increasing extremes of climate, predicting more severe heat waves and floods than up till now.

The importance of action was summed up by Pachauri when he reminded the conference that "the worst affected areas will also be the poorest in the world. For example, water stress will affect 250 million people in Africa, just as rising temperatures will reduce agricultural output by 50 per cent.

"We hold this world in trust for our children. We are living on borrowed time using borrowed resources," he said.

By Francis Matthew

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