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France Tells U.S. to Sign Climate Pacts or Face Tax
Katrin Bennhold, NY Times
President Jacques Chirac has demanded that the United States sign both the Kyoto climate protocol and a future agreement that will take effect when the Kyoto accord runs out in 2012.
He said that he welcomed last week’s State of the Union address in which President Bush described climate change as a “serious challenge” and acknowledged that a growing number of American politicians now favor emissions cuts.
But he warned that if the United States did not sign the agreements, a carbon tax across Europe on imports from nations that have not signed the Kyoto treaty could be imposed to try to force compliance. The European Union is the largest export market for American goods.
“A carbon tax is inevitable,” Mr. Chirac said. “If it is European, and I believe it will be European, then it will all the same have a certain influence because it means that all the countries that do not accept the minimum obligations will be obliged to pay.”
(31 Jan 2007)
Paxman accuses BBC of hypocrisy over environment
Jason Deans, Guardian
Jeremy Paxman has accused the BBC of hypocrisy over climate change, saying it takes a “high moral tone” in its reporting of the issue while at the same time pursuing environmentally irresponsible policies.
Paxman said the BBC urgently needs a coherent organisation-wide green policy, covering everything from overseas travel for programme-makers to recycling and making corporation buildings more environmentally friendly.
The outspoken Newsnight presenter also called for the BBC to commit to environmentally friendly policies including reducing its carbon emissions by at least 3% annually for the next 10 years, minimising air travel by staff, and offsetting the carbon cost of all unavoidable journeys.
(31 Jan 2007)
Investment winners and losers of global warming
Tara Perkins, Toronto Star
Investors around the world are rejigging their portfolios to take advantage of climate change.
Green investing is no longer a new phenomenon, but this is something different. This is not designed to spur companies into protecting the environment – this is a growing field of research and investment advice that attempts to peer into the future and determine who will win and who will lose as a result of global warming. ..
Yesterday, Swiss-based banking and investment giant UBS released a 106-page report with a section on “the investment risks and opportunities of climate change.”
The report “takes the most up-to-date research on climate change, offers a detailed, sector-by-sector breakdown and identifies key investment opportunities and threats and translates it into concrete proposals for investment strategy,” said a news release from UBS. ..
Eric Kirzner, a professor of finance at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, said “there may very well be something useful in sector allocations in changing times.”
He cautioned that, “for retail investors, trying to switch and guess which sector’s going to be strongest in the future is usually a waste of time. And things don’t happen quite that quickly in this world – things that look like they’re catastrophic today often take many years before they materialize.
“But, there may very well be something of value in looking at how particular sectors are going to perform over the next five, 10, 20 years as the world’s climate changes, and that will lead to geopolitical changes as well.”
(1 Feb 2007)
The Week in Carbon
Gil Friend, WorldChanging
WorldChanging Ed note: This is Gil’s self described: “sometimes weekly, no pretense at comprehensive, occasionally opinionated scan of some of the week’s key events in carbon emissions and climate crisis,” for the week of Jan 22-28.
(31 Jan 2007)
How climate change hits India’s poor
Roger Harrabin, BBC
…Sangita earns little – and pollutes little. The average Indian produces around a 10th of the greenhouse gases of the average European – a 20th of the average American.
That helps to explain the attitude of India’s political leaders to the recent request from the US and Europe that India should join talks on restricting emissions.
One of the reasons given by President Bush for America’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol was the absence of emissions targets for the Asian giants.
India’s politicians observe the Texan lifestyle, compare it with Sangita’s lifestyle and consider the president’s demand morally outrageous.
Some Indian politicians think climate change is an excuse by the West to suppress the economic boom that is intoxicating this great nation.
So while the Chinese government willingly joins preliminary talks on a future global climate agreement, India either attends as a silent observer or does not attend at all.
India’s political leaders may be interested in gaining cheap finance for clean technologies through the world trading system in carbon emissions – but they are not interested in even thinking about limiting emissions from their coal-fired power stations while so many millions scrabble in poverty.
They want to see the rich nations keep promises they made under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 that they would make the first move in cutting emissions. And so far there is little sign of that.
Scientists are warning us that if we fail to cut emissions, the future will be hard for people like the families of Sangita and Bashunto who live on the margins. They did not cause the climate problem – but they are likely to suffer most from it.
(1 Feb 2007)
