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India Rejects Calls For Emission Cuts
Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post
Days after the Obama administration unveiled a push to combat climate change, Indian officials said it was unlikely to prompt them to agree to binding emission cuts, a position among emerging economies that many say derails effective action.
“If the question is whether India will take on binding emission reduction commitments, the answer is no. It is morally wrong for us to agree to reduce when 40 percent of Indians do not have access to electricity,” said a member of the Indian delegation to the recently concluded U.N. conference in Bonn, Germany, which is a prelude to a Copenhagen summit in December on climate change. “Of course, everybody wants to go solar, but costs are very, very high.”
India’s position goes to the heart of the vexing international debate over how quickly nations should try to phase out carbon-spewing fuels such as coal and switch to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. In India, the debate has been cast as a choice between pursuing urgently needed economic growth to reduce poverty and addressing climate change.
(13 April 2009)
The glaring contradiction: the poor in India will be precisely the ones to suffer and die as climate change continues. -BA
Rich-Poor Divide Still Stalls Climate Accord
Elisabeth Rosenthal, Dot Earth, New York Times
BONN, Germany — Little concrete progress was achieved at the climate talks that ended here this week, but the fault lines that will divide the world as its attempts to negotiate a new climate treaty by the end of this year became vividly clear in the corridors of the Maritim Hotel Conference Center.
A host of developing countries, from China to Bolivia to the Philippines, took to the podium to insist that developed countries cut their emissions very rapidly by far more than they had planned. Most said the appropriate figure would be at least a 40 to 50 percent reductions compared to 1990 levels by 2020.
… Negotiators from developed countries tended to dismiss the steep emissions reductions demanded by poorer nations as a negotiating strategy — and also absurd.
But delegates from poorer countries were adamant and united on the issue, aggressively collaring reporters in the hallways to say that huge reductions were required, fast. They talked about the “carbon debt” they were owed by the industrialized world.
“Developed countries have over-consumed their share of the atmospheric space –- they ate the pizza and left us the crumbs,” said Ambassador Anjelica Navarro Llano of Bolivia, hoarse because she had talked about the topic so much over the 12 days of the conference.
(10 April 2009)
What will global warming look like? Scientists point to Australia
Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times
Drought, fires, killer heat waves, wildlife extinction and mosquito-borne illness — the things that climate change models are predicting have already arrived there, they say.
Reporting from The Murray-Darling Basin, Australia — Frank Eddy pulled off his dusty boots and slid into a chair, taking his place at the dining room table where most of the critical family issues are hashed out. Spreading hands as dry and cracked as the orchards he tends, the stout man his mates call Tank explained what damage a decade of drought has done .
“Suicide is high. Depression is huge. Families are breaking up. It’s devastation,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve got a neighbor in terrible trouble. Found him in the paddock, sitting in his [truck], crying his eyes out. Grown men — big, strong grown men. We’re holding on by the skin of our teeth. It’s desperate times.”
(9 April 2009)
World can halt global warming, activist says
Abby Haight, The Oregonian
Canadian scientist and environmental activist David Suzuki is not optimistic that the world will do enough to stop global warming. But he has hope.
Suzuki, in Portland on Wednesday for the World Affairs Council International Speaker Series, said the intelligence that created the wonders of the modern world must now save that world as it teeters on the brink of environmental crisis. He also spoke with The Oregonian’s editorial board.
“We can see where the dangers and the opportunities lie,” said Suzuki, the host of “The Nature of Things” and author of more than 40 books. “And we have the foresight to avoid the dangers and take advantage of the opportunities.”
Suzuki has hope in the Obama administration, which is taking an aggressive stance toward climate change and has appointed well-respected scientists, including Oregon’s Jane Lubchenco, to important positions. The administration also is pushing for green jobs to boost the economy.
(8 April 2009)
