Image Credit : Dr Martin Rodger, Take Global Warming Seriously

We are at the very cusp of the edge of the verge of a swirling vortex of Climate Chaos, and all the United States of America can think about is protecting their business interests at the Cancun United Nations talks.

Yes, there can be “technology transfer” from the US to “emerging economies” (read : China), but “intellectual property rights”, as owned by private companies, must be protected.

Yes, there can be “Climate finance” from the USA to the Least Developed Countries (read : Long Dirt-poor Colonies), but the banks need to get their pound of flesh profit, so the money will be in the form of loans.

Yes, there can be “Reduced Deforestation” (what ? Not “totally reduced deforestation” ?), as long as American firms can still import a certain amount of tropical and sub-tropical wood for making toilet paper and construction beams.

Yes, there can be commitments to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions, but the paranoid Americanos want to enforce satellite verification and inspection teams for monitoring – yet more business opportunities.

China (and Russian and India and Brazil) are never going to agree all this. This is V. O. C. territory – on the Verge of Chaos.

From an exchange on the MediaLens Message Board :-

“Cancun Climate Talks : Get a grip or we are all V. O. C. K. D…You know – as in D. I. S. C. O.”

“Really, we are all seriously V. O. C. K. D. unless somehow the world’s energy companies are convinced to stop mining”

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/climate-change-igniting-deep-peatland-fires-study-says/”

“Climate Change Igniting Deep Peatland Fires, Study Says…Climate change is causing Alaskan wildfires to burn more fiercely, liberating vast stores of soil-based carbon dioxide that will further accelerate warming, a new study has found…“There is no way these systems are serving as a net carbon sink anymore”…”

“Personally, I blame the Americans. Well, there’s got to be *someone* to blame, hasn’t there ?”

To which there was this telling reply :-

“Why do people continue to believe international talks intended to develop meaningful treaties are the appropriate response to climate change?”

And so we tip into the grip of Vortex of Utter Chaos…

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1291727322.html

Video Credit : Democracy Now

Of all the macroeconomic proposals put forward over the last two decades for consideration by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the most ridiculous has to be Carbon Trading.

To imagine that a market can be created for something that the industrialised country economies are highly dependent on is an hallucination.

Carbon Dioxide emissions are in lock-step with economic growth, the creation of liquidity, if not wealth. To try to price Carbon Dioxide emissions would be to attempt to give a negative value to a positive commodity. It just won’t work. Nobody will want to buy it. And if they’re forced to buy it, they won’t want to pay much for it. And nobody can think of a way to force the developed countries to pay for their Carbon Dioxide emissions.

Even before the “serious” negotiating week of Cancun begins, the Kyoto Protocol has been pronounced dead on arrival :-

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/6/climate_talks_in_jeopardy_as_industrialized

Nobody ever said the “KP” was perfect – it only committed countries to a very small level of emissions cuts. Some commitment ! Few of the countries in the KP have taken their responsibilities to cut emissions seriously. And if they have, they’ve just outsourced them to China.

But the Son-of-Kyoto Post-Kyoto Protocol Protocol could have been something, you know, if the industrialised countries admitted they needed to back down significantly from rising and large emissions profiles – if developed nations had not tried to lean on the “flexible mechanisms” that effectively legalised offsetting their emissions with emissions reductions in other peoples’ countries.

But, no.

It appears from Wikileaks that the United States of America have been scuppering the United Nations’s best efforts :-

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/6/bolivian_un_ambassador_pablo_solon_reacts

“Secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks have revealed new details about how the United States manipulated last year’s climate talks in Copenhagen. The cables show how the United States sought dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming, how financial and other aid was used by countries to gain political backing, and how the United States mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the “Copenhagen Accord.”"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-us-manipulated-climate-accord
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/us-basics-copenhagen-accord-tactics

It wasn’t China’s fault, (or only China’s fault) as Mark Lynas and many other commentators have asserted :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas

If, as reports state, the United States are continuing to use any leverage they can to push countries to accept the doomed Copenhagen Accord, there can be no progress on Climate Change.

We may have just found the real Climategate.

You cannot buy or sell the atmosphere.

There is only one solution – that is to displace High Carbon Energy with Low Carbon Energy and that means goodbye to Tar Sands, Shale Oil, Tight Gas, deepwater Petroleum, dirty Petroleum, Coal, Coal-to-Liquids, anything that you can dig out of the ground and burn.

We have to stop mining for energy.

And that has serious implications for a number of international energy corporations and state energy enterprises.

Unless this basic issue is addressed, we are all heading for hell and high water.

The Climate Change talks have been window dressing for unworkable hypothetical macroeconomic policies, and continue to reduce chair people to tears :-

Image Credit : TF1

It’s not that developing countries and emerging economies are being picky. The problem lies with the United States of America, desperate to cling on to its geopolitical leverage :-

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS273211516320101129

“U.S. Call to Preserve Copenhagen Accord Puts Climate Conference on Edge : By Stacy Feldman at SolveClimate : Mon Nov 29, 2010 : Many poor countries want to scrap the three-page Copenhagen agreement that the U.S. wants to preserve : CANCUN, MEXICO — The United States said Monday it would not back down on its plan to turn the unpopular Copenhagen Accord into a final global warming deal, setting the first day of already fragile UN climate talks in Cancun on edge. “What we’re seeking here in Cancun is a balanced package of decisions that would build on this agreement … [and] preserve the balance of the accord,” Jonathan Pershing, lead U.S. climate negotiator in Cancun, told reporters at the talks…”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/30/cancun-climate-change-summit-america

“Cancún climate change summit: America plays tough : US adopts all-or-nothing position in Cancún, fuelling speculation of a walk-out if developing countries do not meet its demands : Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 November 2010 : America has adopted a tough all-or-nothing position at the Cancún climate change summit, fuelling speculation of a walk-out if developing countries do not meet its demands. At the opening of the talks at Cancún, the US climate negotiator, Jonathan Pershing, made clear America wanted a “balanced package” from the summit. That’s diplomatic speak for a deal that would couple the core issues for the developing world – agreement on climate finance, technology, deforestation – with US demands for emissions actions from emerging economies and a verifiable system of accounting for those cuts. In a briefing with foreign journalists in Washington, the chief climate envoy, Todd Stern, was blunt. “We’re either going to see progress across the range of issues or we’re not going to see much progress,” said Stern. “We’re not going to race forward on three issues and take a first step on other important ones. We’re going to have to get them all moving at a similar pace.” In the run-up to the Cancún talks, Stern has said repeatedly that America will not budge from its insistence that fast-emerging economies such as India and China commit to reducing emissions and to an inspection process that will verify those actions. The hard line – which some in Washington have seen as ritual diplomatic posturing – has fuelled speculation that the Obama administration could be prepared to walk out of the Cancún talks…”

An “inspection process” ? Agreeing to the same use of satellite snooping and the threat of the penalties of economic sanctions as applied to the fabled Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and the current pincer on Iran ?

I can’t quite see China agreeing to that.

If we’re thinking about paranoia, who should be monitoring whom ?

The Clean Development Mechanism should have been more closely monitored, but it wasn’t, and it’s collapsed in a big pile – fake credits, false accreditation, poor success rate. Where has the verification process been, there ?

New schemes for “climate finance” will essentially involve creating debt for Climate Change mitigation and adaptation projects in developing and emerging economies. Why more debt ? To prop up the ailing industrialised economies. And allow the Bank sharks to feed.

And “technology transfer” ? That’s all about intellectual property rights – America owning all the rights, and China and India and so on owning nothing, of course. What great technologies have parasitical American companies been keeping hidden away up their sleeves to sell to the Chinese under a Climate deal ? Or are they just rubbish deals, like expensive and untested Carbon Capture and Storage ?

“Deforestation” ? Virtually all proposed schemes under the REDD banner (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) include an element of emissions trading – just the kind of offsetting that large, dirty American companies want to buy to justify carrying on with Business As Usual. Protecting the rainforests ? Nah – just finding another way to make money for the Carbon Traders, and protect the Oil, Gas and Coal industries of the industrialised regions.

What is needed is for the industrialised nations to commit to domestic emissions reductions, not continued attempts to coerce other countries to make cuts that can be traded.

Nobody has learned anything in the last year. The same ridiculous non-options are on the table, and nobody’s biting.

The United Nations have gathered in Cancun, Mexico, for the annual Climate Change negotiations. It’s only the first day, but already the talk is of compromise :-

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ca6a3e58-fbe8-11df-b7e9-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz16i2D3k1V

“Cancún hears call for ‘tapestry of compromise’ : By Fiona Harvey in London : November 29 2010 : Governments meeting to negotiate an agreement on global warming this week must learn to compromise, the UN’s top official on climate change said. Christiana Figueres told the opening meeting of the talks, being held in Cancún, Mexico, that only through giving up entrenched positions could countries at the talks hope to find common ground. “A tapestry with holes will not work,” she told officials from more than 180 countries. “The holes can only be filled with compromise.” … For the UN, therefore, Cancún is a test of its ability to carry forward the negotiations, which have been taking place for two decades. Officials are also hoping to make progress on vital issues – such as financial assistance for poor countries to cut their emissions and adapt to the effects of global warming – and a possible deal on preserving the world’s forests…”

Hmm. Let’s take a quick look at what these two highlighted proposals are :-

1. “…financial assistance for poor countries to cut their emissions…”

This is being worked up in a bunch of vehicles, including the initiative that David Cameron writes so emotionally about, the Capital Markets Climate Initiative :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/28/david-cameron-climate-change-cancun

“Use the profit motive to fight climate change : The prime minister argues that there are huge gains to be made from a green economy : David Cameron, The Observer, Sunday 28 November 2010 : …I passionately believe that by recasting the argument for action on climate change away from the language of threats and punishments and into positive, profit-making terms, we can have a much wider impact. That’s why this government has set up the Capital Markets Climate Initiative – to help trigger a new wave of green investment in emerging economies and make the City of London the global capital of the fast-growing green investment sector…”

So, it’s not donations, or even grants or other forms of aid – it’s debt – debt that’s no longer possible to create in the Credit Crunched developed nations.

It’s probably not quite what Nicholas Stern was thinking of when he said that $100 billion needs to be made available to the Global South in the next decade for Adaptation to Climate Change.

It’s certainly not the redistribution of global wealth that the rightwingers fear from the great “eco-socialist conspiracy”.

It’s an attempt to shore up the corroding economies of the Global North by putting the Global South into further debt.

Score : 0 out of 20.

2. “…a possible deal on preserving the world’s forests…”

This is the policy proposal known as REDD – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, which most people translate as meaning (a) cut down some of the forest for economic purposes in order to (b) protect the rest.

I mean, how likely is that to work ?

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/tags/redd

Plus, it could become a vehicle to justify the continued existence of the oil and gas industry :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/28/redd-forest-protection-banks-oil

“Oil companies and banks will profit from UN forest protection scheme : Redd scheme designed to prevent deforestation but critics call it ‘privatisation’ of natural resources : John Vidal, environment editor, in Cancun, guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 November 2010 : Some of the world’s largest oil, mining, car and gas corporations will make hundreds of millions of dollars from a UN-backed forest protection scheme, according to a new report from the Friends of the Earth International…”

Score : -40 out of a possible 20

With these kind of compromises on the table, do you think the Global South will be any more willing to sign onto any “Accord” any more than they were at Copenhagen ?

Unless and until corporate interests are removed from the United Nations Climate Change treaty, the world’s poorest, their habitats are our futures are being betrayed.

Where’s Climate Change at ?

Behind closed doors. Swept under the mat.

I think a number of people are coming to terms with the fact that carbon pricing cannot possibly sort the problem of emissions. The only way forward is regulation, legislation, rules, laws.

So, where are the policymakers ? And what are they saying ?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/07/3032542.htm

“Dumped climate assembly ‘bad from the start’ : 7 October 2010 : Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she is more interested in outcome than method : The Federal Opposition says the dumping of a proposed citizens’ assembly on climate change is proof the Prime Minister has no idea about genuine policy. Julia Gillard went to the election promising to create an assembly of 150 citizens to discuss ways of addressing climate change. Instead, the Government has set up a climate change committee made up of Labor, Greens and independent MPs…”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/oct/07/conservatives-green-agenda

“Have the Conservatives gone from green to blue? : The environment may not have been a central theme of the Conservative party conference, but that didn’t mean it was altogether off the agenda :
Juliette Jowit in Birmingham : Thursday 7 October 2010 : …Andy Atkins, Friends of the Earth’s executive director, went to both Labour and Tory conferences this year and believes the real test was not in the last two weeks, but will be on 20 October. “In terms of the programme, I think the Tories won, but in terms of leadership, Ed Miliband [the new Labour leader] did say climate change was the greatest challenge of our generation; David Cameron didn’t even mention climate change,” concluded Atkins. “Really we’re waiting; the proof of the pudding is going to be the comprehensive spending review in two weeks time: we’ll see whether the Conservatives’ aspirations to be the greenest government ever are followed by policies and programmes that actually get to that…”

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/No-Clear-Consensus-at-International-Climate-Talks-104483919.html

“No Clear Consensus at International Climate Talks : Stephanie Ho : Beijing 07 October 2010 : United Nations talks on climate change are nearing a close with no clear consensus yet in sight. The meeting is aimed at laying the groundwork for progress at a major climate change meeting in Mexico later this year. While many of the negotiators for a global climate change accord consider it a pressing issue, there is less agreement on how to share the burden of tackling the problem. Last year, the international community failed to reach an agreement that included legally binding emissions reductions at a high-profile meeting in Copenhagen…”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/06/ED4T1FOIH4.DTL

“Behind the meltdown of the climate-change bill : Thursday, October 7, 2010 : President Obama killed the climate change bill. That’s the brunt of the article, “As the World Burns, How the Senate and White House missed their best chance to deal with climate change” by Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker. Lizza tells the tale of how Washington’s erstwhile “Three Amigos” – also known as K.G.L., for Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.- cobbled together a cap-and-trade climate-change bill that had “the support both of the major green groups and the biggest polluters” – until the deal fell apart. The story has generated a lot of Beltway buzz and some ire among Senate staffers. But if the White House did have a role in killing the bill, kudos to Obamaland. The tale starts in March 2009, when the White House announced a “grand bargain.” In exchange for a cap on carbon emissions, Democrats would agree to offshore oil drilling, nuclear power and more natural gas production…”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/20/climate-change-negotiations-failure

“…The closer it comes, the worse it looks. The best outcome anyone now expects from December’s climate summit in Mexico is that some delegates might stay awake during the meetings. When talks fail once, as they did in Copenhagen, governments lose interest. They don’t want to be associated with failure, they don’t want to pour time and energy into a broken process. Nine years after the world trade negotiations moved to Mexico after failing in Qatar, they remain in diplomatic limbo. Nothing in the preparations for the climate talks suggests any other outcome…”

Copenhagen was never seriously going to deliver, and I don’t think most of the protesters on the streets in Copenhagen thought so. Activist demands, including from activist nations, were always going to be ignored, The solutions really didn’t come to the conference, and the problems really lay elsewhere.

But there’s no need to utterly despair, George !

You ask, “Climate change enlightenment was fun while it lasted. But now it’s dead : The collapse of the talks at Copenhagen took away all momentum for change and the lobbyists are back in control. So what next?”, and the two most obvious things to say are :-

a. The media have failed the public.

b. The big institutions working on global issues, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, have failed to perceive and deflect political attacks.

David Cromwell and David Edwards of MediaLens write :-

http://www.medialens.org/board/

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1285056426.html

“Re: The battle against climate change is now over. Climate change won. : Posted by The Editors on September 21, 2010, 9:07 am, in reply to “The battle against climate change is now over. Climate change won.” : Monbiot: “To compensate for our weakness, we indulged a fantasy of benign paternalistic power – acting, though the political mechanisms were inscrutable, in the wider interests of humankind. We allowed ourselves to believe that, with a little prompting and protest, somewhere, in a distant institutional sphere, compromised but decent people would take care of us. They won’t. They weren’t ever going to do so. So what do we do now?”. We turn on the corporate media that are a huge part of this problem. The attitude of the Greens to the media has always been pitiful. Time and again groups like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Green Party have told us, ‘We have to maintain good relations with the media.’ But if the world is sleeping, the mainstream media is the great corporate sandman. It really is time to wake up about that. Working through the media does not work. Eds”

Declaring war on the media is quite a bold call. A great number of people straddle and cross the boundaries between science communications and media. Should we ask everyone to step outside the publishing house circus ?

And would we see a different flavour from the writings of those such as Richard Black and Roger Harrabin if they were to quit the BBC ?

Is George Monbiot’s position compromised by continuing to write for The Guardian ? This is a question that has been posed by MediaLens contributors in the past.

Opinion is varied on that. But what is clear is that new non-traditional organisations have the opportunity to take on the role of being the best communicators on Climate Change.

Trouble is, currently that’s mostly the sceptic-deniers. But that could change, and that is maybe what George Monbiot could promote – New Media on accurate Climate Change Science reporting.

George, George, you wonderfully caring fellow, you should keep your spirits up – there are masses of people out there, all over the world, planting trees, growing organic crops, cycling their whole lives, building sustainably and putting up wind turbines – bypassing the politicking and posturing on Climate Change policy and just getting on with the things that need to be done. Quite economically beneficial, too, sometimes.

Get back your positive perspective, George, do. Chin up, old man !

Come, call with us for a truly sustainable media, outside the press barons’ nosebags and troughs. Let us tell the whole, unwholesome, worrisome narrative of the Climate Change Science, and let’s make Climate Change policy a voting-worthy issue !

Entropy versus Order – the central battle of the Universe.

Also the struggle within the realm of Science, trying to make global sense out of a very disparate, creative spectrum of study on Climate Change.

Here, at the very hub, we find the bubble of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC – a wide variety of people with a wide variety of knowledge and viewpoints all trying to establish a common perspective.

The management of this enterprise has been under review, and thought to be found partially wanting :-

http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/ReportNewsRelease.html

“InterAcademy Council Report Recommends Fundamental Reform of IPCC Management Structure : UNITED NATIONS — The process used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to produce its periodic assessment reports has been successful overall, but IPCC needs to fundamentally reform its management structure and strengthen its procedures to handle ever larger and increasingly complex climate assessments as well as the more intense public scrutiny coming from a world grappling with how best to respond to climate change, says a new report from the InterAcademy Council (IAC), an Amsterdam-based organization of the world’s science academies. “Operating under the public microscope the way IPCC does requires strong leadership, the continued and enthusiastic participation of distinguished scientists, an ability to adapt, and a commitment to openness if the value of these assessments to society is to be maintained,” said Harold T. Shapiro, president emeritus and professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University in the United States and chair of the committee that wrote the report. Roseanne Diab, executive officer of the Academy of Science of South Africa and professor emeritus of environmental sciences and honorary senior research associate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, served as vice chair of the committee, which included experts from several countries and a variety of disciplines…These assessment reports have gained IPCC much respect including a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. However, amid an increasingly intense public debate about the science of climate change and costs of curbing it, IPCC has come under closer scrutiny, and controversies have erupted over its perceived impartiality toward climate policy and the accuracy of its reports. This prompted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and IPCC chair Rajendra K. Pachauri to issue a letter on March 10 this year requesting that the IAC review IPCC and recommend ways to strengthen the processes and procedures by which future assessments are prepared…”

http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/OpeningStatement.html

http://climate-l.org/2010/08/31/interacademy-council-delivers-ipcc-review-report/

“InterAcademy Council Delivers IPCC Review Report : 30 August 2010: The InterAcademy Council (IAC) has delivered its independent report into the processes and procedures of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report was delivered to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and IPCC Chairman Rajenda Pachauri during a press conference held at UN Headquarters in New York, US, on 30 August 2010. The review examined the management of the IPCC, its procedures for communication with the public, the use of non-peer reviewed literature and the incorporation of various viewpoints. The IAC’s recommendations will be reviewed by the IPCC at its 32nd Plenary Session, to be held in Busan, Republic of Korea, from 11-14 October 2010. The IAC report concluded that the process to produce its assessments has been successful but that the IPCC needs to reform its management structure and strengthen its procedures. The report recommends establishing an executive committee, including members from outside the IPCC, to act on the Panel’s behalf and ensure ongoing decision-making capability. It suggests the appointment of an executive director, and states that the IPCC Chair, Executive Director and Working Group Co-Chairs should be limited to one-assessment period. It highlights the need for: formal qualification requirements for the Chair and Bureau members; and a conflict of interest policy for all IPCC leaders, authors, reviewers and staff. On the review process, the IAC concludes that the existing process is thorough, but stresses the need for stronger enforcement of existing IPCC review procedures. It calls for review editors to reflect genuine controversies, and underscores the need for increased consistency in the characterization of uncertainty. The IAC also suggests the continued use of gray literature, noting that more specific guidelines for evaluating gray literature sources are required. On the response to revelation of errors, the IAC suggests that the IPCC implement a communications strategy that includes a plan for rapid but thoughtful responses in crisis highlighting the need for guidelines for who can speak on behalf of the IPCC. At the press conference, Pachauri welcomed the review, highlighting that “only by challenging scientific findings do we expose weak arguments and substantiate strong ones.” He underscored the IAC’s qualifications to conduct the review, as an organization to mobilize scientists and engineers to provide objective advice to international bodies…”

The IPCC and its leaders appear to have been doing the best that they can, given the structure in which they have been operating, and improvements offered by refinements, as in any human system, are always possible.

All very reasonable – which makes other commentary from this week’s news appear completely tangential, inappropriate and poorly thought-out, including this completely unwarranted attack piece from Geoffrey Lean (leaning towards what, I’d ask ?) :-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7974521/IPCCs-Rajendra-Pachauri-is-damaging-the-world.html

“IPCC’s Rajendra Pachauri is damaging the world : The IPCC’s head should quit to avoid harming the global warming cause further, says Geoffrey Lean. : By Geoffrey Lean : Published: 01 Sep 2010 : Beware of winning the Nobel Peace Prize – for the world’s highest accolade for the great and supposedly good, endowed by and named after the inventor of dynamite, has a nasty habit of blowing up in the face of those who ceremoniously receive it. For Barack Obama, things have only gone downhill since he was awarded the prize (prematurely, to put it at its kindest) last year. Al Gore has looked increasingly tarnished since getting it in 2007. Although most past winners have been praiseworthy choices, others have included Yasser Arafat, Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (although the North Vietnamese revolutionary-turned-negotiator had the grace to refuse to accept). Yet no fall from grace has been so unforeseen as that of Gore’s co-winner, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Just two years after picking up the prize, the UN organisation – chiefly criticised until then for its caution in interpreting the growing evidence of climate change – was plunged into controversy, after it was found grossly to have exaggerated the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting. Climate sceptics were quick to seize on other “errors” in the IPCC’s latest 3,000-page report – sometimes justifiably. Coinciding with the cold winter in Britain and the US, the controversy caused by hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, and the disappointing outcome of the Copenhagen climate summit, the furore severely eroded public support for measures to tackle global warming. Now an inquiry carried out under the auspices of the world’s top 15 academies of sciences, including Britain’s Royal Society, has revealed shortcomings in the IPCC’s organisation and management. It strongly suggests that the panel’s controversial chairman, Rajendra Pachauri – who collected the Nobel Prize on his institution’s behalf – should not continue in his post…”

Geoffrey ! You are playing with words most nastily, in my view : “It strongly suggests that…Rajendra Pachauri…should not continue in his post…”

Nowhere in the report does the IAC suggest that Pachauri should be removed from post for any wrongdoing, which is what you appear to imply ! A trick of semantics !

“Plunged into controversy”, Geoffrey ? No, actually, there were no significant errors, as has been shown repeatedly and expertly, only lots of accusatory froth, flim-flam and smoke from the Climate Change deniers.

As for “Al Gore has looked increasingly tarnished since getting it in 2007″, that’s plain rude, and refers to a non-story about Gore’s private life.

For some reason, the Daily Mail appears to have capitulated to the ranks of the accusers and backbiters, after apparently finding somebody who could understand Science to report on Climate Change a few weeks ago :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1307446/UN-climate-change-experts-overstated-dangers.html

“UN climate experts ‘overstated dangers’: Keep your noses out of politics, scientists told : By FIONA MACRAE : 31st August 2010 : UN climate change experts have been accused of making ‘imprecise and vague’ statements and over-egging the evidence. A scathing report into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change called for it to avoid politics and stick instead to predictions based on solid science.
The probe, by representatives of the Royal Society and foreign scientific academies, took a thinly-veiled swipe at Rajendra Pachauri, the panel’s chairman for the past eight years…”

The Daily Express appears to just make up world Scientific opinion on the hoof :-

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/196642/Climate-change-lies-are-exposed

“CLIMATE CHANGE LIES ARE EXPOSED : A damming report has highlighted questions over the credibility of a leading climate change body : Tuesday August 31,2010 : By Donna Bowater : THE world’s leading climate change body has been accused of losing credibility after a damning report into its research practices. A high-level inquiry into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found there was “little evidence” for its claims about global warming. It also said the panel had emphasised the negative impacts of climate change and made “substantive findings” based on little proof. The review by the InterAcademy Council (IAC) was launched after the IPCC’s hugely embarrassing 2007 benchmark climate change report, which contained exaggerated and false claims that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035…”

The Daily Telegraph proves it can fight on both “sides” of any debate about Global Warming, by interviewing researcher Myles Allen who recognises the inherent danger in messing with the IPCC community structure and management :-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7974052/Overhaul-of-UN-climate-change-body-could-lead-to-more-mistakes.html

“Overhaul of UN climate change body ‘could lead to more mistakes’ : A major overhaul of how the UN advises the world on climate change could lead to more mistakes on the impacts of global warming, an Oxford academic has warned. : By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent : Published: 31 Aug 2010 : In a damning report out earlier this week, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was criticised for making a number of errors about the potential impacts of global warming. The most notable mistake was wrongly predicting that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. The IPCC was also told to stick to the science rather than straying into the politics of climate change. The review, by the InterAcademy Council, called for “fundamental reform”, including a more formal review process. But a leading British academic said the recommendations are in danger of making the situation worse by imposing so much bureaucracy on reviewers they are unable to spend enough time actually assessing the science. There is also a risk it may lead to top scientists refusing to take part, leaving only Government scientists that are more likely to be influenced by politics. Dr Myles Allen, Head of the Climate Dynamics Group at the University Of Oxford, said wasting time on red tape could lead to more mistakes. He pointed out that all the authors and reviewers are unpaid volunteers. “They could actually make it worse because the more time scientists are spending on bureaucracy the less time they have to deal with the scientific questions they should be dealing with,” he said. Dr Allen said there was also a risk that the process could become even more political. “There is a real danger that the only people that are willing to do it are people put forward by the Government, which will further politicise the thing,” he added…”

George Monbiot is back on the side of right and light, and this time does not give in to the evil rumours and bay for any blood (like he did when he called for Professor Phil Jones to resign over the theft of the University of East Anglia (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) e-mails, a position he had to later retract) :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/sep/01/rajendra-pachauri-ipcc

“Press continue to hound Rajendra Pachauri despite his innocence : The profiteering Pachauri story joins a host of falsehoods about climate change which keep resurfacing despite being disproved : Rajendra Pachauri innocent of financial misdealings : George Monbiot : guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 1 September 2010″

One thing that could certainly improve about the IPCC is the reportage it gets from the Media.

Good thing that there’s stuff in the works to cover just that. I can’t reveal all the details of what is likely to happen, but I can point you at part of the trail :-

http://www.desmogblog.com/ipcc-fumbles-media-relations-strategy-must-review-basic-principles-public-relations

http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/07/12/media-relations-101-for-climate-scientists/

http://mediaecologies.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/ipcc-errors/

Dr Judith Curry insists, quite correctly, that we should take uncertainties into account when deciding Climate Change policy.

Yet I think our respective positions probably strongly differ on which way we weight the uncertainties.

I strongly favour the Precautionary Principle, implemented Early, making it the “Early Precautionary Principle”.

One of the reasons I come down on this end of the spectrum of possible responses to uncertainties is that there are quite a spectrum of unknowns that form the pillars of those uncertainties.

After all, if we don’t know a term in an equation, how can we possibly calculate anything meaningful with any kind of confidence ?

How can anybody feel safe and secure not knowing for certain what the actual equilibrium Climate Sensitivity amounts to ? The response of the Earth’s Climate system to extra airborne Carbon Dioxide-forced temperature rise is a number that is becoming firmer, but there are error bars. Surely this points to conservatism in emissions ?

Moreover, we could be well advised to cut back on Fossil Fuel burning not just to protect the Climate, but to save the Economy. How can we pursue our normal everyday Carbon-emitting lives not knowing how much Fossil Fuel there is left in the ground that can be inexpensively mined ?

How can we know the order of magnitude of Fossil Fuels left to extract ? And how can we know what kind of impact this will have on the Climate ?

Let’s start with how we got here in the first place, with stores of Fossil Fuels in the Earth’s crust. Dismissing ideas based on the Young Earth Theory, and the invention that there may be non-biological sources of petroleum and Natural Gas, we arrive at the geological timeline, that connects atmospheric Carbon Dioxide levels with biota productivity and mass extinction events. When Carbon Dioxide levels have been much higher than today’s in the deep geological past, lots more micro- and macro- plants grew, and then died, and sedimentised, locking down that Carbon out of the air :-

It roughly translates, in my mind (somebody please correct me), as two distinct phases of Earth history where Carbon Dioxide got sucked out of the air and laid down into the crust.

In the period leading up to the end of the Carboniferous period, the amount of Carbon Dioxide sucked out of the air and laid down was very, very approximately taking the atmosphere from 7000 parts per million (ppm) Carbon Dioxide (CO2) down to 350 ppm CO2, that’s roughly 95% of 35,000 petagrams CO2, which is 33,250 petagrams (Pg) or billion tonnes or gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2.

Thereafter there was some volcanic activity that put more Carbon Dioxide in the air, and in the period up to the end of the Cretaceous, another bunch of CO2 was locked down, very very approximately taking the atmosphere from 2000 ppm CO2 down to 350 ppm CO2, 85% of 10,000 Pg CO2, which is 8,500 Pg, Gt CO2.

Add these two amounts together and divide by 3.44, you get a lock down of roughly 12,000 gigatonnes of Carbon, which is roughly what’s in the black box marked as “COAL OIL GAS” in this diagram, so probably the right order of magnitude (without looking at the ocean sediments). This was basically cut from the Global Carbon Cycle, never to be circulated to air again…until we started digging it up :-

There are various views on how much of this has really been laid down as usable hydrocarbons, and how much of it has been degraded, and whether much of it is accessible.

I’m going to summarise a mish-mash of values, taken from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), (largely based on oil and gas company data), and also from Professor David Rutledge at CalTech :-

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch4s4-3.html

http://rutledge.caltech.edu/

A calculation on the IPCC estimates of conventional Fossil Fuels left to burn would put very roughly 1,000 gigatonnes of Carbon (Gt C) back into the atmosphere (as 3,440 gigatonnes of Carbon Dioxide (Gt CO2)).

Compare this to the calculations of George Monbiot, where he calculates 818 Gt C (2,814 Gt CO2) :-

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/05/06/how-much-should-we-leave-in-the-ground/

A calculation on the IPCC estimates of all possible types of Fossil Fuels (including Methane Hydrates) would put roughly 4,000 Gt C back into the atmosphere (as 13,760 Gt CO2).

From projections of conventional Fossil Fuel production, Professor David Rutledge puts Coal left to burn at 847 Gt, and Petroleum Oil and Natural Gas left to burn at 618 Gtoe (gigatonnes of oiil equivalent), making approximately 500 Gt C to go back into the atmosphere if this were all burned (1,720 Gt CO2).

So Professor Rutledge can only see one part in twenty-four of the locked down Carbon being re-released, but the IPCC can see somewhere between one part in twelve and one part in four (roughly speaking).

David Rutledge uses Climate Change modelling software to claim that his projections of temperature rise from Global Warming will not cross the 2 degrees of warming considered the “safe” threshold by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

However, David Rutledge does not consider unconventional Fossil Fuels, so he may need to revise his projections in further work.

Besides which, there are various voices, based on research, that suggest that the “safe” threshold for Climate would only permit far lower levels of emissions than the IPCC lowest figure, and even lower than Rutledge’s figure :-

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7242/fig_tab/nature08017_F2.html

“Abstract…Limiting cumulative CO2 emissions over 2000–50 to 1,000 Gt CO2 [290 Gt C] yields a 25% probability of warming exceeding 2 6C—and a limit of 1,440 Gt CO2 [419 GtC] yields a 50% probability—given a representative estimate of the distribution of climate system properties…”

There’s nothing really special about the 2 degrees Celsius “guard rail”. Climate Change is already serious, even at 0.6 to 0.8 degrees C, and there’s another roughly 1.0 degrees C locked in, yet to come, from emissions already made. Maybe we should stop adding Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere right away to keep the place liveable…

With all these types and levels of uncertainty, surely the best response is to stop burning Fossil Fuels ?

Some may say, and that probably includes Dr Judith Curry, that this response is a response too far, but I think it’s fairly reasonable in terms of the level of caution suggested by the uncertainties :-

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Long-Term-Certainty.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWsQscb6lfM

http://unfccc.int/files/press/news_room/application/pdf/100806_speaking_notes.pdf

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has just held its regular half yearly conference to further the working parties of the Kyoto Protocol :-

http://unfccc.int
http://unfccc.int/2860.php

A number of Press commentators have been critical of proceedings, indicating that there has not been much progress at Bonn, and in fact the conference could show some ground having been lost :-

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c9213b40-a180-11df-9656-00144feabdc0.html

“Hopes of early global warming deal cool : By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent : Published: August 6 2010 : Hopes that international climate change negotiations would produce a deal this year have been dashed as progress made at last year’s Copenhagen summit appeared to be reversed in the latest talks. Negotiations on a global warming treaty ended on Friday night amid acrimony and accusations of backsliding. Jonathan Pershing, US deputy special envoy for climate change, told reporters: “I came to Bonn hopeful of a deal in Cancún [where governments will hold a meeting in December], but at this point I am very concerned, as I have seen some countries walking back from progress made in Copenhagen.” Other people involved in the talks also spoke of their frustration that principles established at the Copenhagen summit – which failed to produce a full agreement but resulted in a partial accord accepted by the vast majority of governments – were reneged upon. The Copenhagen Accord marked the first time that both developed and big developing countries agreed to place limits on their greenhouse gas emissions. Developed countries committed themselves to absolute reductions by 2020, while developing nations including China, India and Brazil agreed to slow the rate of growth of their emissions. At the weeklong Bonn talks, some developing countries wanted to water down this agreement, by making industrialised countries’ obligations binding while the commitments of developing countries would be voluntary. That arrangement is not acceptable to many rich nations, which point out that the world’s main emerging economies are responsible for nearly 40 per cent of global emissions. China is the world’s biggest emitter, while India is rising up the table fast…”

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/338343,cancun-deal-no-closer.html

“Third round of climate change talks brings Cancun deal no closer : Posted : Fri, 06 Aug 2010 : By : dpa : Bonn – A third round of climate change talks in Bonn has brought little prospect of reaching a new deal at a UN summit in Mexico later this year, as a week of discussions ended on Friday without progress. The UN’s new climate change chief, Christiana Figueres, urged governments to “agree to further compromises” in the coming months in order to “deliver clear and unmistakeable progress” in the city of Cancun…Delegates in Bonn worked on new proposals for partial agreements to be reached in Cancun, but made no progress on binding targets to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, or on the shape of a future deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires 2012. “It’s hard to cook a meal without a pot, and governments are much closer now to actually making the pot,” Figueres said optimistically. “However governments also need to decide what exactly they are going to cook in the pot,” Figueres added. “To receive the desired outcome in Cancun they must radically narrow down the choices that are now on the table.” Individual agreements reached in Cancun could include issues such as forest protection, financial aid to help developing nations adapt and mitigate the effects of climate change as well as the delivery of low-carbon technologies to such countries. However, an overarching agreement would still be necessary to implement any decisions reached in Cancun. Such a deal is looking unlikely to emerge before the 2012 UN climate change summit in South Africa. Developing countries said a lack of transparency regarding the disbursement of emergency funds by rich countries, as agreed in Copenhagen, made it hard for them compromise on any future deals. US climate change legislation has stalled in the Senate, where it has met with fierce opposition, making it unclear to other states to what extent they can expect the US to cooperate on any new pledges…”

http://www.aolnews.com/story/climate-talks-appear-to-slip-backward/1192598?cid=7

“Climate talks appear to slip backward : By ARTHUR MAX : 6 August 2010 : BONN, Germany -Global climate talks appeared to have slipped backward after five days of negotiations in Bonn, with rich and poor countries exchanging charges of reneging on agreements they made last year to contain greenhouse gases. Delegates complained that reversals in the talks put negotiations back by a year, even before minimal gains were scored at the Copenhagen summit last December. “It’s a little bit like a broken record,” said European Union negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger. “It’s like a flashback,” agreed Raman Mehta, of the Action Aid environment group. “The discourse is the same level” as before Copenhagen. The sharp divide between rich and poor nations over how best to fight climate change — a clash that crippled the Copenhagen summit — remains, and bodes ill for any deal at the next climate convention in Cancun, Mexico, which begins in November…Dessima Williams of Granada, who speaks for island states, charged that rich countries were “backsliding” on pledges of help to the poorest countries. Devastating floods in Pakistan, deadly fires and drought in Russia, a food crisis in West Africa — and reports that the first decade of this century was the hottest on record — provided a stark backdrop to the talks. “The situation in all of our countries is worsening,” Williams said. In Bonn, negotiating text doubled in length over the last week as countries put forward claims that had been deleted last year and delegations jockeyed for last-minute advantage before heading into the final stage of negotiations before Cancun…”

You have to remember that items “deleted” in Copenhagen were not agreed by all States. The so-called “Copenhagen Accord” which was only negotiated and “accorded to” by a small number of countries did not fully represent the Copenhagen 2009 conference positions of all the parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

The seesaw politicking between industrialised and developing countries will continue unless they can agree a “no regrets” shape of the “cooking pot” that Christiana Figueres metaphors.

What are the key issues ?

1. Poorer countries want richer countries to finance their Adaptation to Climate Change. Adaptation will include assistance with improving defences against rising instances of Climate Change-aggravated natural disasters such as floods and droughts. They don’t want aid. They want trade. They want the richer countries to accept their historic responsiblity for Climate Change, and pay their ecological debts.

2. Poorer countries want richer countries to finance their Mitigation strategy. Mitigation will include transfer of Green Energy, Renewable Energy technologies so that poorer countries can skirt High Carbon development paths, avoiding the history of High Emissions of richer countries. They don’t want aid. They want trade. They want the richer countries to accept that the poorer countries have spare, unused Carbon Rights that can be sold to the richer countries to offset the richer countries’ high emissions.

3. Poorer countries want richer countries to permit the poorer countries to continue Economic Development. They want such things as the clean water, electric light, good health services, education, industrial production and transportation that richer countries take for granted. They don’t want aid. They want trade. The poorer countries want the richer countries to fairly open up their markets to poorer country products – but currently the poorer country exports to richer countries are undervalued, for a variety of reasons.

4. Poorer countries want richer countries to make firm commitments to reducing richer country Greenhouse Gas Emissions. They don’t want aid. They want trade, but it won’t be physically possible to grow enough new or replacement forest in the poorer countries to permit the richer countries to carry on burning at such high rates.

Currently, the UNFCCC has passed around the hat for “donations” – pledges from the richer countries to reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions. The sum of the collected reductions pledged does not add up to what the Science demonstrates is needed.

Under the policy of “I won’t if you won’t”, China is not prepared to commit to a legally binding emissions reduction trajectory if the United States of America does to commit to a legally binding emissions reduction trajectory. Token gestures will be offered, but no firm progress can be made.

The missing saucepan is Contraction and Convergence, the proposal from Aubrey Meyer of the Global Commons Institute. If the world could agree to move towards equal per person Greenhouse Gas Emissions rights under a Global Carbon Budget as determined by the Science, in an agreed period of Convergence, then the responsibilities of each country, richer or poorer, could become clear.

Under the Contraction and Convergence framework, everybody would have to do some work, but nobody would risk losing out, have to skim billions from their own Economy to send abroad in the form of Adaptation Aid, or re-assign billions in their domestic budgets to pay for Carbon Credits.

Moving money around, as currently proposed in the multi-billion dollar Mitigation and Adaptation Fund plans, would not necessarily solve any problems. We have numerous examples of money becoming worse than useless in this way – just look back over the history of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Some milestones are inevitable. The world has to spend a large amount of money in the next few decades on re-vitalising energy, regardless of any emissions commitments. It would take similar sums of money to revive the energy sector in a Low Carbon form, creating new opportunities for companies, community projects and engineers.

The world has to increase its “Carbon Sinks” rapidly over the next few decades – principally by stopping deforestation and forest degradation – and conversely reforesting and afforesting new areas. This will take monetary investment, but also reap wide economic paybacks, just like the Green Energy sector.

In order to shore up the global economy, and protect numerous sources of cheap raw resources, money needs to be spent on avoiding devastation from increasingly violent and frequent natural disasters associated with extreme weather. People who cannot farm cannot trade and cannot eat. People who are forced to migrate cannot farm reliably. People who lose crops due to wild weather cannot farm reliably. People in stressed environments cannot afford agrochemicals, so will need to farm organically, and harvest rainwater more efficiently.

Decarbonisation is urgent, and the High Emissions countries have to commit to it, deliberately and effectively. Carbon Trading cannot provide the richer countries with sufficient leeway in “offsets” to carry on emitting at the same rates as today.

If the richer countries start major decarbonisation now, it won’t cost them as much as it will do in a decade’s time.

It’s time to stop haggling and horsetrading over economic development and Carbon Finance, and who is a “developing country” and who isn’t, and get on with emissions reductions in the countries of major emissions origin – the industrialised/industrialising nations – the “major emitters” :-

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Major_Economies_Forum_on_Energy_and_Climate

“The 17 countries participating in the forum account for approximately 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.”