Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Rajendra Pachauri: The Silent Suffering
Rajendra Pachauri, Guardian/UK
Science is now unequivocal as to the reality of climate change. However, one facet – its human face – has been dangerously neglected. Until now. Given what the science tells us about global warming, how many people around the world will be affected, in what way, and at what cost?
These are the questions that a major new report attempts to answer for the first time. Its findings indicate that hundreds of millions of people are already permanently or temporarily affected, and half a billion are at extreme risk now. Because of climate change, each year hundreds of thousands lose their lives. All these figures are set to increase rapidly in as little as 10-20 years.
This publication, from the Global Humanitarian Forum, of which I am a board member, constitutes the most plausible estimate of the human impacts of climate change today. The scale of devastation is so great that it is hard to believe the truth behind it, or how it is possible that so many people remain ignorant of this crisis.
Four main factors have contributed to the silence. First, while the world has been coming to terms with the science of climate change, the problem has moved from being a future threat to a current danger. Climate change is an evolving concern, affecting people now.
Second, 99% of the casualties linked to climate change occur in developing countries. Worst hit are the world’s poorest groups. While climate change will increasingly affect wealthy countries, the brunt of the impact is being borne by the poor, whose plight simply receives less attention.
Third, and worse, climate change hides its influence among a wide range of today’s key global problems. It impacts heavily on nutrition and diseases such as malaria, and increases poverty. But that impact can be lost among the many contributing factors.
That is why a fourth major challenge is the current inability to separate the impacts of climate change in specific situations. It is impossible to say, for example, how much the severity of any hurricane is due to climate change.
(30 May 2009)
Rajendra K. Pachauri is an economist who has served as the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 2002.
Wangari Maathai: ‘We Know What to Do: Why Don’t We Do It?’
John Vidal, Guardian/UK
Africans – and especially African women – will suffer most from climate change. Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai intends to help them
—
… while the scientists, academics and politicians talked of technological shifts and the need to bring the best brains in the world to bear on the problem, the former professor of biology at University of Nairobi said bluntly that the answers were known. “We all know what to do. Why don’t we do it? The question is, how are we to ensure something is done?”
The reality, Maathai says, is that of the nine billion people expected to be on the planet in 2050, eight billion will be in what are now developing countries. “Climate change is life or death. We could be accused of being alarmist, but if we have faith in science then something very serious is happening. Climate change and global warming is the new global battlefield. It is being presented is as if it is the problem of the developed world. But it’s the developed world that has precipitated global warming. There will be a much greater negative impact on Africa because of its geography. But instead of adapting we are scraping the land, removing the vegetation and losing the soil. We are doing things to make it worse.
“Besides, it’s in the interests of the rich to help Africa adapt to climate change and preserve its forests. By allowing them to be destroyed a lot of the efforts made in the rich world will be negated and undermined.”
Maathai links ecology and culture and argues that the challenge for Africa (the title of her new book) is to look to itself and reclaim not just the land, but its cultures and resources. “If the soil is denuded and the waters are polluted, the air is poisoned and the mineral riches are mined and sold beyond the continent, nothing will be left that we can call our own. Our real work is reclamation – bringing back what is essential so we can move forward. Planting trees, speaking our languages, telling our stories are all part of the same act of conservation. We need to protect our local foods, recall our mother tongues and rediscover our communal character.”
…Since she won the Nobel prize, tree planting has become an essential for all countries wanting to flaunt green credentials. In 2007 she fronted a UN plan to have 1bn trees planted throughout the world. Over 3.1bn have now been planted and the target has been revised to 7bn – one for every person on earth with a few left over – by the end of 2009.
In a tumultuous life as a pro-democracy and environmental activist, Maathai has been arrested many times, imprisoned, beaten, gone on hunger strike, had to barricade herself into her house to keep the police out, stood for president and been elected an MP.
(30 May 2009)
Monbiot: Stern breaks the east-west deadlock on who’s responsible for CO2
George Monbiot, Guardian
China says it’s unfair that the west ‘outsources’ emissions. Now that Lord Stern has said responsibility should be split between producers and consumers, other countries may follow suit
—
I’m with China. Greenhouse gas emissions are rising because consumption is rising. Unless we address this, we cannot prevent climate breakdown. It doesn’t matter where production takes place: the problem is that we are consuming too much.
During the panel discussion that followed a screening of the eco film Age of Stupid last week, I asked Lord Stern about this. His answer surprised and delighted me: it represents a dramatic departure from the policy of the government with which he has worked so closely. Here’s what he said:
It is a point that the Chinese authorities make very clearly and strongly and I think that it’s a very sound one. My own view is that we need a combination of the two things. If you move to a different kind of division of labour where another country, in this case China, starts to make things that we might have made, and therefore has that production process in the emissions occurring there, rather than their own country, then we’re jointly responsible for that and both parties gain from the division of labour. That’s what trade is all about and that’s why trade can help development.
So my own view is that we probably need something like an average of the two, or a combination of the two. But the logical point China makes is that there is a definite responsibility with the consumer and not just with the producer is a sound one.
When Stern talks about these matters, governments listen.
(27 May 2009)
71 arrested in Copenhagen resisting World Business Summit on Climate Change
Matt Wilkerson, It’s Getting Hot In Here
Protesters clashed with police in Copenhagen this weekend while attempting to disrupt the World Business Summit on Climate Change, a gathering of the worlds largest corporations and, not coincidentally, biggest polluters. Organized by the Danish government, the Business Summit gave corporate interests unprecedented access to the ongoing UN climate talks, including face time with UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon and so called climate “hero” Al Gore.
The group of protestors, lead by a banner reading “Our Climate is not Your Business” attempted to breach police lines in order to disrupt the meeting. The lively group of activists wanted hightlight the damaging and disruptive role that corporations play in the international climate talks. The list of corporations attending included #1 carbon emitter in the world Shell Oil, Duke Energy (#12 at last count), and BP among other climate criminals.
“The Danish government appears to be under the impression that some of the world’s most polluting companies are going to put forward tough measures to tackle climate change,” said Kenneth Haar, a researcher with Corporate Europe Observatory. “But unfortunately this doesn’t seem likely to be the case. The majority of the corporations attending the World Business Summit on Climate Change seem more intent on pursuing business as usual – with the promise that future technologies will resolve the problem at a later date.
(27 May 2009)
