The Consequences of Climategate

by Janet Ritz

In response to growing pressure following the release of hacked emails from the U.K.'s University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced yesterday that they would be conducting their own investigation:

The United Nations yesterday announced an investigation into the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. Critics of the scientific consensus on climate change claim emails from the unit’s servers show researchers manipulated evidence to support their theory.

Phil Jones, the director of the CRU, has dismissed the claims as “complete rubbish” but the scandal has thrown the scientific world into turmoil and has been raised by some countries as a reason not to strike a deal in Copenhagen.

British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has weighed in on the controversy, stating: "With only days to go before Copenhagen we mustn't be distracted by the behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate skeptics. We know the science. We know what we must do.”

The Union of Concern Scientists: "Unfortunately for these conspiracy theorists, what the e-mails show are simply scientists at work, grappling with key issues, and displaying the full range of emotions and motivations characteristic of any urgent endeavor. Any suggestions that these e-mails will affect public and policymakers' understanding of climate science give far too much credence to blog chatter and boastful spin from groups opposed to addressing climate change.  Continued...

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Copenhagen climate change conference: 'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'

Fifty-six+ newspapers will feature this editorial today.  Written by The Guardian's editorial staff after consultation with editors from 20+ news services, it is intended to send a message to the leaders gathering in Copenhagen that the time to act is at hand.

Tomorrow 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted.

Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.

Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.

But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June's UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: "We can go into extra time but we can't afford a replay."

At the deal's heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.

Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.

Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targetsby the world's biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.

Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of "exported emissions" so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than "old Europe", must not suffer more than their richer partners.

The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.

Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.

But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.

Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.

Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature".

It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.

The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.

This editorial will be published tomorrow* by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. The text was drafted by a Guardian team during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Like the Guardian most of the newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the editorial on their front page.

Copyright: Guardian News & Media Ltd 2009 - reprinted by permission.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/06/copenhagen-editorial/print

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* Publish date: December 7, 2009

Tipping Points Could Be Closer Than We Thought

by Stormchaser John

Cross-posted on Reuters, USA Today

An international team of experts has submitted a report that lists nine tipping elements -- areas of concern for lawmakers -- that quantify how much time is left to address their impending impact.

Produced by scientists from the U.K, Germany and the U.S., the study states: "Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change," and goes on to predict the critical threshold at which a small change in human activity can have large, long-term consequences for the Earth’s climate system.

"These tipping elements are candidates for surprising society by exhibiting a nearby tipping point," the report states. "Many of these tipping points could be closer than we thought..."

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2008 Temperature Prediction

by Stormchaser John

The University of East Anglia (UK), in conjunction with the British Met Office, has made its annual temperature prediction for 2008:

2008 is set to be cooler globally than recent years say Met Office and University of East Anglia climate scientists, but is still forecast to be one of the top-ten warmest years.

Each January, the climate scientists at the university work with the British Met Office to forecast the expected temperature, taking into account conditions such as El Niño and La Niña, greenhouse gases, industrial aerosols, particulates, ocean trends and solar impact.

The assessment for 2008 is that there will be a "strong La Niña" event in the Pacific, which will limit the warming trend for the year (whilst still being one of the warmest years):

During La Niña, cold waters upwell to cool large areas of the ocean and land surface temperatures. The forecast includes for the first time a new decadal forecast using a climate model. This indicates that the current La Niña event will weaken only slowly through 2008, disappearing by the end of the year...

There's more

Bali Climate Change Talks at Risk: Compromise Negotiations Underway

by Janet Ritz
with Stormchaser John

The same day that the University of East Anglia reports that 2007, despite the cooling effects of La Nina, has been the seventh warmest year on record, word came from the U.N. Climate Conference in Bali that the talks were in danger of breaking down:

European leaders and environmental campaigners reacted angrily yesterday after the United States rejected guidelines for reducing greenhouse gas emissions intended to check global warming.

The proposal, supported by the members of the European Union as well as Brazil, would have set out in writing an ambition to cut greenhouse gases produced by industrialised countries by up to two fifths in the next 13 years.

-snip-

The row has undermined the hopes of environmentalists for a strong and detailed statement of agreement among the 190 governments attending the United Nations climate change conference on the Indonesian island of Bali. Link.

This has lead to a proposal for a compromise deal. If they cannot come to agreement, participants have threatened to to bypass next month's Bush Administration's climate meetings set for Hawaii.

Al Gore, speaking before the gathered representatives, acknowledged this:

"My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali. We all know that. But my country is not the only one that can take steps to insure that we move forward from Bali with progress and with hope. "

From Jennifer Morgan of the Climate Action Network (who did not mince words): "There is a wrecking crew here in Bali, led by the Bush Administration and its minions. Those minions continue to be the governments of Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia and others..."

And from Yvo De Boer, UN Climate Chief: "I'm very concerned about the pace of things. If we don't manage to get the work done in time on the future, then the whole house of cards basically falls to pieces."

The battle is about the EU's request for a non-binding agreement on carbon emissions. You read that correctly. The "wrecking crew" is balking at a non-binding agreement. There is concern that, if this cannot be resolved, the statement that comes out of Bali will be so anemic as to be useless in furthering the implementation of climate goals in the years ahead.

The U.S. representative, Under Secretary of State, Paula Dobriansky, dismissed that, saying that "we don't have to resolve all of these issues here in Bali." She called instead for a "solid Bali road map, one that sets the stage for robust, constructive and ground-breaking negotiations in the months ahead."

The EU and other member nations disagree, as does the U.N., which put out this robust and constructive road map in February of 2007.

The negotiations for the compromise deal has extended the conference:

The EU has been pressing for the final text to include a specific commitment that industrialised nations should cut their emissions by 25-40% by 2020.

The US and Canada oppose firm cuts - a draft text circulating around contains no figures for 2020.

The Indonesian hosts have been trying to bridge the gulf between the sides. Link.

The Director of Friends of the Earth reports that the pressure on the U.S. from the EU is "immense" right now to agree to the EU 25-40% emission reductions proposed for 2050. It is not known whether the Bush Administration will agree or if the target number will be left out. Friends of the Earth reports that it is not the American people or American business that disagrees, but only the Bush Administration that is standing in the way of the deal.

The conference is set to conclude today.

Everything but the Oceans' Sinks

by The Environmentalist Staff

Amidst alarms raised about the loss of ice in the polar regions, the extreme droughts and floods across the US, the floods in the UK earlier last year, the increasingly unstable nature of the weather worldwide, a new concern has been raised about the Southern Oceans' inability to absorb and store CO2:

The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is so loaded with carbon dioxide that it can barely absorb any more, so more of the gas will stay in the atmosphere to warm up the planet, scientists reported on Thursday.

Human activity is the main culprit, said researcher Corinne Le Quere, who called the finding very alarming. The phenomenon wasn't expected to be apparent for decades, Le Quere said in a telephone interview from the University of East Anglia in Britain. "We thought we would be able to detect these only the second half of this century, say 2050 or so," she said. But data from 1981 through 2004 show the sink is already full of carbon dioxide.

This is very alarming. The southern ocean is the the world's strongest carbon sink, a "reservoir that absorbs and stores more carbon than they release, thereby offsetting greenhouse gas emissions." If the sink has been filled, as seems to be the case, that carbon has no where to go but to the atmosphere, as our other sinks: the forests, the land, the rest of the oceans, are all stressed by loss of habitat, increased warming and their own carbon levels. Which means a speed-up of warming at a far faster rate than had been previously predicted.

This increase in the Southern Ocean has been attributed to a change in wind patterns caused by the following climate forcings:

1. Ozone depletion. The reduction of ozone has changed the temperature and increased wind patterns in the Southern Hemisphere. As these winds flow across the oceans they pull natural CO2 to the surface. This is a problem because natural CO2 does not bind easily with human caused carbon. The balance had been maintained through past wind patterns, which had helped to combin the two types of carbon. With the increased winds and level of stored carbon, that natural mixture has been disrupted...
   

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