Portal:Climate Change

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The Climate Change Portal

The portal aims to build the best information resource investigating key aspects of climate change policy and debate on a replacement agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. While the December 2009 United Nations’ Climate Change Convention in Copenhagen failed to reach agreement, negotiations will continue ahead of the COP16 conference in Mexico in December 2010.

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Article of the Week

Barack Obama's brokering of the Copenhagen Accord amongst an invited group of countries at the COP15 conference captured headlines around the world. The "accord" was part of a divide and conquer strategy aimed at helping the U.S. administration gain an agreement that can help overcome opposition to climate change legislation in the U.S. Senate. However, even supporters of the administration, agree that the accord finalizes little. Critics argue that on key issues the accord has failed to address key issues and that the 'crash or crash through' approach adopted by the U.S. has created a bitter legacy which will hamper further negotiations.

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Climate Change Who's Who

Mohamed Nasheed, the President of the Maldives, delivered a powerful speech to a 350.org event at the COP15 conference. In it he urged listeners to continue protests in support of dramatic greenhouse gas reductions. "My message to you is to continue the protests. Continue after Copenhagen. Continue despite the odds. And eventually, together, we will reach that crucial number: Three – five – oh. In all political agreements, you have to be prepared to negotiate. You have to be prepared to compromise; to give and take. That is the nature of politics. But physics isn’t politics. On climate change, there are things on which we cannot negotiate. There are scientific bottom lines that we have to respect. We know what the laws of physics say. And I think you know too. The most important number in the world. The most important number you’ll ever hear. The most important number you’ll ever say. These three words: Three – five – oh. (Three – five – oh) (Three - five – oh)".

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Did You Know...

World Nuclear News, a pro-nuclear website run by the World Nuclear Association, is upbeat about the draft "Danish text" climate change agreement. The text, which was secretly drafted by the governments of the U.K., the U.S., Denmark and Australia, has provoked uproar at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen. World Nuclear News notes that that "there are no technology exclusions in the Danish text, in contrast to previous agreements which have seen nuclear excluded from a group of favoured power sources." The draft text states that parties "commit to enable the accelerated large scale development, transfer and deployment of environmentally sound and climate friendly technologies". The nuclear industry has been lobbying to have nuclear projects included in the Clean Development Mechanism, a scheme which allows the funding of 'low carbon' projects in developing countries. The draft agreement would also the allow the experimental carbon capture and storage technology, which has been promoted by the coal industry, to be included in the Clean Development Mechanism.

The World Coal Institute, the power generation industry and some governments want experimental Carbon Capture and Storage projects included in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). While there are no commercial-scale CCS projects operating anywhere in the world, major coal-exporting and consuming countries in the industrialised world want CDM funding used to fund trial projects in less-developed countries. See Clean Development Mechanism and Carbon Capture and Storage and "The Coal Industry Wants Your Cash to Save Them".

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Things You Can Do

• Pages to be started or expanded include:
  • start the article on the International Renewable Energy Agency (see here and IRENA).
  • The climate change bill introduced by Henry Waxman, The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, will become a major debating point on the shape of the domestic policies adopted by the U.S. Congress and promoted by the administration of Barack Obama.
  • International Scientific Congress on Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions March 10-12, 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark;
  • the page on the PR company, The Hawthorn Group which, in a recent newsletter outlined the "grassroots campaign Hawthorn created and managed for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE)." ACCCE is a coal industry front group.
  • the UK Committee on Climate Change and their December 2008 report proposing an 'intended target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 42% by 2020.
  • Clean Development Mechanism and Big Hydropower Schemes - last year the group, International Rivers, released a report on the main problems with major hydro schemes being included in the CDM. See here, here (pdf) and here (pdf) for background information. It would be good to include a summary of the key issues on the Clean Development Mechanism and Big Hydropower Schemes page;
  • International Emissions Trading Association - who do they represent and what policies do they advocate?
  • International Risk Governance Council (IRGC)- the council has published a 32-page paper Regulation of Carbon Capture and Storage which is available here (Pdf). The report was funded by companies including E.ON Energie, the Allianz Technology Center on behalf of the Dresdner Bank Foundation, Resources for the Future (RFF) and Swiss Re. It would be great to have at least a few paragraphs summarizing the key points of the briefing paper on the IRGC page and a more detailed summary on the Regulation of Carbon Capture and Storage (Report) page.
  • COP14 Bloggers - there are more and they will probably be blogging on these issues up to and beyond COP15 -- lets add them in;
  • Industry-funded groups and think tanks opposing the Kyoto treaty - add links and help keep this page updated;
  • Greenhouse gases omitted from the Kyoto Protocol
  • Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action - it would be good to add some details of the discussion areas that fall within its charter;
  • Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex 1 Parties under the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - it would be good to add some details of the discussion areas that fall within its charter;
  • Clean Development Mechanism and Carbon Capture and Storage - this will be discussed at Poznan and the article page will need to be updated;
  • Barack Obama statements on a post-Kyoto global warming agreement - the position of the US will be crucial in the future of the negotiations leading to COP15 so it would be good to keep the page updated; and
  • Global Energy Forum - a commitment made by Obama; this page will need to be kept updated too.

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Beyond COP15

The COP15 conference ended with little progress being made on finalising a replacement agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. Instead, the U.S. and a group of other countries drafted the Copenhagen Accord, a 12-point plan aimed at providing a global framework for addressing global warming. However, the “accord” has been widely criticised for the ‘take it or leave it’ approach to its development and its lack of specific binding targets and strategies. The accord had its origins in the Copenhagen Agreement which was developed by the "Circle of Commitment" and leaked to the Guardian early during the COP15 conference.

If you want to follow the detail of what was discussed at the COP15 conference and the fallout from it, some mainstream media portals covereing the conference are:

• The Guardian (UK)
• BBC
• Washington Post Climate reports and blogs from Copenhagen
• Sydney Morning Herald

For detailed specialist coverage of the conference there are three groups which provided detailed daily updates. These are:

• Climate Action Network, | ECO-Daily NGO Newsletter. During COP conferences the Climate Action Network publishes this daily bulletin on the day's events from the perspective of the major environmental nongovernmental organizations working on global warming. They also have a blog feed and a Twitter feed.
• Earth Negotiations Bulletin. The Canadian-based IISD publishes this daily bulletin at the negotiating meetings, as well as discussion papers on key post-Kyoto treaty options. They also have a Twitter feed.
• Third World Network, The Third World Network publishes one or more summary bulletins per day during negotiating sessions as well as background papers.

The Road to COP16

• Week starting January 24: BASIC countries -- Brazil, South Africa, India and China -- meet in New Delhi to finalise their position on the Copenhagen Accord.
• January 31st: deadline for signatories to the Copenhagen Accord to submit national emission reduction and mitigation actions;
• May 31 – June 11: the first round of talks leading to COP16 - see Bonn Climate Change Talks - May/June 2010
• November 8 – November 19: the second round of talks;
• November 29 – December 10: COP 16 in Mexico City

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Becoming a Citizen Journalist on Climate Change

If you would like to help document climate change issues and debates, this is the place for you. This project relies on citizen journalists to expand, update and create articles on topics.

You can view the existing articles on climate change here. And it is also worth visiting the Coal Issues portal which documents areas such as coal mining, coal consumption and coal-fired power station proposals around the world.

If this is your first experience of a wiki, don't worry - help is at hand. To learn how you can edit any article right now, visit SourceWatch:About, SourceWatch:Welcome, newcomers, our Help page, Frequently Asked Questions, or experiment in the sandbox. If you need help, feel free to post a note to the User talk:Bob Burton or User talk:Diane Farsetta. Or, you could post a query to the 'talk page of any other user (by clicking the 'Talk" next to the name of other users at the Special:Recentchanges page.

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Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentrations

(Credit: Co2now.org)

One important issue under discussion at COP15 is whether a new agreement will be expanded to include greenhouse gases that are currently excluded from the Kyoto Protocol. See Greenhouse gases omitted from the Kyoto Protocol.

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Climate Change Skeptics Corner

Ian Plimer, a Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, is the author of Heaven and Earth, a book hailed by climate change skeptics. Plimer is also a director of three mining companies: Ivanhoe Australia, a subsidiary of Bob Friedland's Ivanhoe Mines, CBH Resources and Kefi Minerals.

Patrick J. Michaels is the Editor of the World Climate Report, a blog published by New Hope Environmental Services, "an advocacy science consulting firm" he founded and runs. Michaels, who is considered to be one of the leading global warming skeptics, has long been a speaker to various think tanks, trade associations and energy and other companies. On a 2007 academic CV, Michaels disclosed that prior to creating New Hope Environmental Services he had received funding from the Edison Electric Institute and the Western Fuels Association.

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