US Balks at Bali Carbon Targets
The UN climate talks seeking a new pact on global warming hit a potential problem today when the US said it was unwilling to approve a draft agreement setting firm targets for cuts to carbon pollution.
The US said a proposal for developed nations to reduce emissions by 25-40% by 2020, which is backed by Britain and the EU, was “totally unrealistic” and “unhelpful”. Other nations, including Japan, are believed to be against the idea.
The US said it was in Bali to be “constructive” and wanted the meeting to agree a roadmap to a new agreement, which would be concluded by 2009. But it said it would not agree a firm target, presented either as an emissions reduction or as a maximum temperature rise.
European negotiators argue such a target is needed to reflect the urgency of the problem and to encourage industry to invest in green technology.
In an unusual step, the UN published the text of the four-page draft agreement, based on the first week of informal discussions, on its website over the weekend. It will now be argued over by the 190 countries present.
Observers said the draft would be repeatedly modified and updated through the week. A final version must be agreed by Friday.
The initial draft calls on countries to respond to the “unequivocal scientific evidence that preventing the worst effects of climate change will require [developed nations] to reduce emissions in a range of 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 and that global emissions of greenhouse gases need to peak in the next 10 to 15 years”.
Harlan Watson, the senior climate negotiator for the US, said: “We have problems with defining the numbers up front. In our view that pre-judges the outcome of the negotiations over the next two years.”
He said the US supported the concept of a “shared global goal” to address climate change but did not want the Bali meeting to discuss exact numbers.
The 25-40% figure is based on the work of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due to be formally awarded the Nobel peace prize jointly with Al Gore today. Watson said the IPCC calculation was based on “many uncertainties”.
Yvo de Boer, the head of the UN climate secretariat, said the 25-40% figure would be a “critical issue” at the talks. He said it was an important signpost to show where the world was heading in dealing with global warming.
© 2007 The Guardian
If it is good for the world, if it is good for people, trust the US to do the opposite. We are masters in death and destruction
Since when has the U.S. been “constructive” in an international agreement of any kind.
It is not global warming greenhouse gases but rather competition to big businesses from new technologies that so pollutes the US political position.
Old money is more important than humanity, more important than family, more important than life.
Just say no to the future, no to children, no to posterity, no to prosperity. We now live in an evil empire of death.
pcsmith December 10th, 2007 12:17 pm — “Since when has the U.S. been ‘constructive’ in an international agreement of any kind.”
Believe it or not, former US governments, including very decent Republicans such as Eisenhower, were once prime movers in putting forth ‘the rule of law’ as the norm for international conduct. I know it’s increasingly hard to remember that era now that those same norms are dismissed as ‘quaint and obsolete’ by the same country that fought so hard for their establishment.
Probably the rest of the world will need to do some boycotts to the the US moving like a partner instead of the bully in this dire matter.
Having already achieved the distinction of having lead the world’s number one rogue state into never before imagined disrepute, one might think the Bush administration might rest on its laurels, but no, not them. Every day provides a new opportunity for the Bush/Cheney criminal gang to prove just how self-serving, irresponsible, short-sighted, reckless, destructive, and dishonest they are.
Doing the right thing does not interest the bastards who are in charge of our nation. Doing the most profitable thing does. I’m afraid that they’re very sick and twisted.
If any nation on the planet deserves to be isolated and heavily sanctioned, it is the USA!
Ha! Ha! Ha! The U.S.A. is Fucked!
I’ll give you a little advice from someone who is on the inside and knows the future. Abandon U.S. greenbacks, because when the imperium falls those pieces of paper will be worth nothing.
“The US said a proposal for developed nations to reduce emissions by 25-40% by 2020, which is backed by Britain and the EU, was “totally unrealistic” and “unhelpful””
I guess so, given that the new UN report calls for an 80% drop by 2030 and a 100% drop (total cessation of net CO2 emissions) by 2050. But I have a funny feeling that this isn’t why the USA (and my country, Canada, who is as bad) is balking.
Oddly enough, the 100% drop will likely occur by 2100 or so … one way or another.
Craig
Trust the US to send an amphibian as delegate to the summit.
Guess Harlan Watson won’t mind getting his flippers wet when sea levels rise onto his porch.
It’s important not to get caught in the usual muddy language and muddy thinking. Both the article and virtually all commenters refer to the heinous intentions or actions of “the US.” But to whom do thy actually refer? Obviously not the section of the Earth’s surface known as the US. Nearly as obviously, they don’t mean the people of the US. It’s becomme more and more clear that the criminal gang in the White House, and their accomplices in Congress, do not have the support of the American people; more and more, it’s clear that the American people have little or no say in what “their” government does.
That said, it’s also important to recognize that there are reasons this cabal was able to keep and maintain power, reasons why cries for action to reclaim our country are considered quixotic. The truth is, we are a complacent, lazy, easily fooled people happy to scapegoat the powerless. The truth is, most of us would be happy if “our” negotiators in Bali would work with the rest of the world to come up with a good accord, instead of working to defend Exxon’s profits…but we won’t do anything whatsoever about it until the damage is enormous and unstoppable. People come home from a long day at work and flop in front of the TV for hours of mindless “entertainment” used as a drug. If the newscasters don’t act like it’s an emergency then it must not be that bad, right?
Meanwhile, a halfway decent energy bill bogs down under threat of a Republican filibuster, and the Democrats cave and agree to send another $70 billion to kill people in Iraq. A fresh effort, such as we see every four years, to persuade the more aware minority that they need to pour their time and money and energy into “getting more Democrats elected” is clearly relying entirely on the abysmal state of the Republican Party and seeing no need to act like a real alternative.
It’s approaching the point where the best hope is some kind of catastrophe.
Please, please, someone kill Bush and his power, before he kills most of US.
Yo, SuperGore!!
Rip off the shirt & tie, and start taking names. I want Gore to channel full condemnation. GET INDIGNANT, cos’ America sure as hell deserves it.
…………………
My trite offering from a while back:
www.supergore.com
What is an American citizen to do when our corporate controlled government is out of control and determined to destroy the earth we all live on? I, for one, am avoiding buying products of American corporations and and walk or drive as short as I can to buy local fruits and vegetables without meat. I put my savings in Euros and bundle up to minimize my carbon footprint.
I saw Gore’s Nobel Speech on c-span today and he made it very clear that the US and China were the worst polluters and that the US was the worst of the two. In the speech and in an interview afterword he suggested a lot of things that the US (and other countries) should and could do. (Not that they will).
The interviewer (name escapes me but he’s from the MSM) asked him The Question - Is he going to run? - but Gore dodged it. But he did say that he might get back into politics in the future.
My immediate thought was - what future is that?
The size of target reduction is not so important as the change in direction that each and every country must face. Any target is only a target which emphasizes a rate of reduction of Greenhouse gas production, and some nations are obviously going to do better than others. What is not yet discussed are penalties for obvious shirkers like the United States and Australia. The world community is getting better at organizing sanctions between each other. Since economic sanctions do work against the economies of all, then they are ideal instruments for reducing GGP world wide.
“25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020…”
Doesn’t sound ‘tough’ to me — haven’t we ‘exported’ more than 50% of our manufacturing since-1990?
Why can’t grossly-profitable and so-called ‘public’ Utilities just invest in decent-scrubbers for emissions?
It’s interesting to see that we are not the only nation allowed to impose sanctions, but can have them imposed against us, too.
Where have we come to?
Typical negotiating strategy when a power doesn’t like something. They don’t want ‘firm targets’, instead they want it flexible and left open to further negotiations. Especially when those might be lower profile than this big meeting in Bali. The US probably thinks it can better strong-arm others into agreeing with their corporate-profit friendly targets.
—————
The US might have lost 50% of its manufacturing since 1990. But remember, in 1990 the SUV didn’t even really exist. They were there, but only workmen types used them. I remember working on a land survey crew out of a Chevy Surburban around about 1990. You sure didn’t see every commuter in an SUV in 1990.
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The really key bit is that the scientists are saying this is what we need to do. We need massive reductions below the 1990 levels to even slow down the global warming we are already seeing. The oil industry, the car industry and a lot of Americans don’t want to hear this.
That’s the sticking point. The US gov doesn’t want to be forced to admit what really needs to be done. They don’t want to admit that major change is coming. So they want to punt the ball a couple of more years down the pike. Just as long as they aren’t the ones who have to stand up and announce that Americans not only have to give up their SUVs but that the total design of American cities with their car-required-to-live suburbs needs to be rethought.
“Since when has the U.S. been “constructive” in an international agreement of any kind.”
I’m thinking about 1944-1948. FDR was big on creating the UN Charter. And Truman appointed Eleanor Roosevelt who did a lot of the work on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But that was pretty much the end of that era as the US then wouldn’t adopt the very same Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
So, 1944-1948 would be my answer to your question.
The really sad thing is that long term, the Bushies position is highly destructive of the US economy. Between running our of oil, skyrocketing demand for oil, and global warming, the way we (people of the world) are going to use and even think about energy is going to change.
In other parts of the world, governments realize this. So they are making two sets of changes. One is changes in public law to effect these changes. This then carries on in that as the public law changes, the industries have to change and adapt to that. Which drives them in the right direction. Then on top of that, you see much larger government aid towards developing the new industries and technologies that this new world will require.
So, long term, we’ll see places like Europe far, far ahead of us in terms of very clean and energy efficient technologies. They’ll own all the patents and intellectual property rights, and they’ll have on the hands on experience in making it work.
Meanwhile, the US will have very well developed Oil and Nuclear industries, and a car industry that’s great at building beasts that get 15 mpg. In other words, we’ll have the equivalent of a thriving horseshoe industry when the rest of the world had moved on to cars. Picture the 2050 equivalent of that, and that’s where Bush and his cronies are driving this country.
No surprise. A little Google work shows that Watson is ExxonMobiles man in the White House on the issue of climate change.
http://www.grist.org/advice/books/2004/07/21/gelbspan-boiling/
Clash of the Titans
An excerpt from Boiling Point highlights a clash of interests over climate change
ExxonMobil achieved an even greater success in directing Bush administration climate change diplomacy. Urged on by the company, the White House hired Harlan Watson (no relation to Robert) as its chief climate negotiator. In May 2002, Watson announced that the U.S. would not participate in the Kyoto process for at least 10 years, saying that the White House “wanted no part” of a 2005 international review of greenhouse gas reductions. “The next time we take stock on climate change,” he said, “has been set by the president at 2012.”
Harlan Watson = Corporatist State! This sector of the top 1%income group and their multinational buddies will leave a shriveled Earth to their own great-grandchildren, so long as they can maintain high quarterly profits.
If Scandinavia can move beyond Kyoto and still prosper, then why can’t we? Scandinavia’s experience switching to clean energy sources destroys Bush’s claim that switching to renewable energy would harm the economy. Scandinavia is set to become the most prosperous and environmentally friendly region on the planet.
They’re agnostic when it comes to global warming. They’re guilty of seeing what they want to see, rather than reality.
When you are being led by and follow a fool, you do foolish things.
Just make sure that you don’t prevent the corporations that are killing millions and destroying the earth from making their profits!
What are we going to do when Bush declares Marshall Law and stops all elections, communication, email, political action and allows the corporations to do ANYTHING they want. And, of course, you know the owners of the huge corporations are the ones that control BUSH!
Who cares what the people want?
God help us! Watson looks like he’s already passed away!
George W Bush and the vast majority of his party, with the gleeful if sometimes rhetorically camouflaged support of many Democrats, have pursued a global scorched-earth policy in all spheres. Environmental policy has rested on denial, suppression of science, foot-dragging and lies; foreign policy on militarism, jingoism and war crimes; and economic policy on enriching the rich and depriving everyone else.
As I approach my 80th birthday and realize that, though in good health physically and mentally, I have but a limited time remaining on this mortal coil, I should be thankful for that limitation. But I also have nine children with families (24 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren), and I am sad when I contemplate the future that lies ahead of them if the Bali Conference fails to achieve a meaningful agreement on reversing the growing crisis of global warming.
The above comments are so true - - they have just about said it all, but the pity is that in addition to the global warming and CO2 emission crisis, the Pax Americana imperialistic march is heaping further inhumanities upon the rest of the world, one geographical area at a time, wherever there is money to be made (or generated). I regret that I have not been more of a force to halt these travesties that have and are being committed by my homeland during my time here. I pray that there may be more faithful stewards than I have been who are rerady to take over and redeem the earth while redemption is still possible. And it is possible yet!
Stiv Whitman is right on! What an ugly face to be spokesperson for the U.S., but how symbolically appropriate!
A vast majority of a billion plus Indians don’t have access to toilets or running water why should they worry about carbon emission.
Clearly that is somebody else’s problem. If indeed it is a problem.
Shame on you, Dr. Watson! You’re a physicist. You know the score. You can see the NOAA models and the Scripps data any time you like. You should have resigned before you presented that stall position.
Just think of that DC humidity combibed with week long stretches of 105+ degree days. Not fun.
Arvy,
you better do some extensive research into who was the one person who started the whole mess in Vietnam before you praise Eisenhower!
“Gore Balks at Kyoto Carbon Targets”
On December 8 1997, Vice-President Al Gore gave a speech regarding the Kyoto Protocol while in Kyoto Japan. He said the following:
“Today let me add this. After talking with our negotiators this morning and after speaking on the telephone from here a short time ago with President Clinton, I am instructing our delegation right now to show increased negotiating flexibility if a comprehensive plan can be put in place, one with realistic targets and timetables, market mechanisms, and the meaningful participation of key developing countries.”
It appears that we are still following that policy today.
Having done the research, I have determined it was President Truman that started our involvement in Vietnam:
Truman sent the first equipment and advisors in 1950. Eisenhower sent billions of dollars worth of equipment and a few hundred advisors but refused to send combat troops or even provide air support. Kennedy sent the first combat forces.
Eisenhower merely continued our monetary and advisory support while it was Kennedy who got us involved in all out war.
Bravo to octogenarian Brown for his concern about the environment but with 9 children, 24 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren does he ever let his wife out of bed or has he not heard the word contraceptive?
He and his clan are certainly doing their bit to suck up Earth resources.
A. Wegweiser - Edinboro - 2 kids
Stop King CONG Coal Oil Nukes Gas
Bali goes on as the Rio conference, which I attended went on, Agenda 21, Kyoto Protocol, and so many organizations and NGOs which I work with trying to reduce the harm multinationals, the G8, WTO and the varied alliances that are aimed at increasing human misery for greeter profit go on. WE need to reduce toxins reduce the economic and carbon footprint on this globe is shouted everywhere because we are very clear on the fact that we must do this if the human race is to survive. We have responsible people on the globe doing all they can to fight against the power elite to end this madness that we see happening.
I have been watching the advertising con-job these big oil companies have been using to try to obscure the fact that they are doing something but we know that they are not! We know that are trying to look green over their black profits which will as it is heading exterminate life on this planet.
The oil companies say that renewables, in their wisdom, will only account for 30 percent of the energy budget for the globe, but even that amount, I am certain could be greater than projected, and coupled with conservation and increasing the desire of populations who want to go back to to living with the most efficient lives possible, would make the difference in keeping the carbon footprint down. All this while breakthroughs in new conserver technology are brought on line.
These corporate con-men are selling us death and destruction of this planet. They are the most irresponsible of the corporate voice and the most cynical. We need their investments not in advertising to hoodwink the world to believe that they care about the greening of oil and coal, but their resources invested into green solutions to the reduction of the use of the hydro carbons in the ground or a sequestration of the carbon if the resources are to be used.
We are the problem in that we need all these great inventions that are created so that we can do everything faster, and have ever more of everything. Who here who is writing will reduce their wants by half and try to try to help half the needs of those around us do the same?
The entire condition of life on the planet is skewed. The need for ever larger and more of everything is based on a conception of economics that is out of touch with survival strategies for the human population. more of everything, greater GDP, more clothes, food, houses and consumption of every descriptionWe try to export these ideas globally so all will buy from the western world and adopt these values. The people in the West want the world to require the same things it’s called globalization! Well my friends China and India have caught on and they want this as well.
We are going down the road to extinction along with the systems we have created that have put us out of touch with all life including our own.The end for wall street and its ideas of value and reason for being which is endless growth can not continue.
There is no such thing as perpetual motion or growth. When we experience growth that is out of control in the human organism it is called cancer and we die. On that note since 1970 the incidence cancer has increased 100% in people over 60.
The idea of human valuation is based on money and thingness; that too is out of touch with human needs for survival. All systems are reaching critical mass. The giant human extinction process has begun. It may lead to the end of all life on this planet. We have less than ten years to make the major shifts necessary to survive.
How much I like the call to optimism, to human adventure and responsible action. It rings like the bell of the angels and like so many who write here are optimistic. I am happy for those of you out there that will say, now, now be optimistic. More people at Bali should get these vibes and act responsibly. Having said that I have written here on the problem and tried often to get the powers to be accept that we have a really serious problem becoming more serious.
I work at the UN and UNESCO in Europe. I must say, I loathe the establishment because my concerned friends it comes down to vested interests, greed and the economy as so many know. I am afraid that we have lost this little game of truth or consequences. But if the truth really be known, the power elite and the one percent who have everything and own everyone really don’t care if some three billion people on this globe perish.
This is the reality of the circumstances of this situation of climate change and its results, my friends who write here. The carbon producing industry want to burn every resulting carbon atom they can release, the atomic energy plants will continue mining uranium and its horrendous amounts a carbon produced for fuel to provide the electricity for ever more production. The last tree in the Amazon will be cut as well as every other rain forest.
Bali will end with vows to create better adherence to the extension of Kyoto but like the RIO conference in 92, which I attended there will be lack of adherence and the levels of CO2 will surpass those allowed by the treaty. After Rio we were to cut emissions by 50% by now they have doubled.
Climate change and its feedback loops will accelerate and the possibilities for future generations will continue to decline. Regardless of who says what ever in government, or in the news, we don’t have more than one and half degree of warming for the feedback lops to begin, if they already are not in motion, as James Lovelock believes.
The changes we have made to the atmosphere are melting the poles with the hydrocarbons we pump into the atmosphere. Most of the carbon we put into the air lasts 100 and the remaining amount in the atmosphere can last 1000 years. the UK plans to build enough coal fired electric plants to increase their footprint in sufficient ways to help Bali appear to be a wimper for change no one really heeds.
Why isn’t the Guardian talking about that? Is is that the Guardian wants to stay away from the issues that are really important in the UK? Below find the conclusion of JIm Hansen’s letter as a private person to the government of the UK. This should make you all sit up and think!!
James E. Hansen
Kintnersville, Pennsylvania
— James Hansen wrote: Final page
” Further actions will be needed to achieve a rollback of the net climate forcing. These actions(http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0706/0706.3720.pdf) include reduction of non-CO2 climate forcings and improved agricultural and forestry practices. These actions are important and have multiple benefits, especially in developing countries, but they do not have the great urgency of halting construction of new coal plants without carbon capture. Power plants have long lifetimes, and once their CO2 is released to the air, it is impractical to recover it.
Energy departments, influenced by fossil fuel interests, take it as a God-given fact that we will extract all fossil fuels from the ground and burn them before we move on to other ways of producing usable energy. The public is capable of changing this course dictated by fossil fuel interests, but clear-sighted leadership is needed now if the actions are to be achieved in time.
Tipping points and positive feedbacks exist among people, as well as in the climate system. I believe that the action with the greatest potential to initiate positive feedbacks, and lead to the benefits that will accompany a clean energy future, is a moratorium in the West on new coal-fired power plants unless and until CO2 capture and sequestration technology is available. Such a moratorium would provide the West with sufficient moral authority to sit down with China and other developing countries to find ways, likely including technological assistance, for developing countries to also phase out coal use that does not capture CO2.
As shown above, responsibility for the first step rests with Great Britain, the United States and Germany. Despite lack of government leadership, citizens in the United States are stepping up to block one coal plant after another, and the next national election is less than a year away.
If Germany and Great Britain halted construction of coal-fired power plants that do not capture and sequester the CO2, it could be a tipping point for the world. There is still time to find that tipping point, but just barely. I hope that you will give these considerations your attention in setting your national policies. You have the potential to influence the future of the planet.
Chancellor Merkel, we cannot avert our eyes from the basic fossil fuel facts, or the consequences for life on our planet of ignoring these fossil fuel facts. If we continue to build coal-fired powerplants without carbon capture, we will lock in future climate disasters associated with passing climate tipping points. We must solve the coal problem now.For your information, I am sending a similar letter to Prime Minister Brown.
James E. Hansen
Kintnersville, Pennsylvania
James Hansen wrote:
eraldo:
It was LBJ who turned the Gulf of Tonkin Incident into a full scale “Police Action”. “Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did ya kill today?”
Truman? The Frogs were still getting their throats cut there in 1950! Diem Bien Phu, I believe was the place.
bbr:
It was 1950 when Truman sent the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) to Vietnam to assist the French. By 1954 the US had supplied over a billion dollars worth of weaponry.
You’re right about lbj though. Kennedy increased the number of “advisors” from 800 to over 16,000, but he was against sending combat troops. lbj later too care of that.
Further evidence of Harlan’s tetrandrian heritage…
[From bbc.co.uk]
“Senior US negotiator Harlan Watson, asked how talks were going, said “swimmingly,” according to news agency AFP.”
Goddamn gill-wearing toad.