Heat has gone from climate debate

The two-week  2010 United Nations  Climate Change Conference  starts next week in Cancún, Mexico, without much hope of any real success  with some commentators even saying that the climate change scare is dying. At best there is some hope that the foundations could be laid for progress at next year’s conference to be held in South Africa.

The Cancún  conference follows on last year’s failed effort in Copenhagen and is officially referred to as the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 6th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties (CMP6) to the Kyoto Protocol.

Originally there were high hopes last year for COP15 (Copenhagen) to come up with a legally binding accord aimed at the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out in 2012. In the end the best that COP15 -- with some 100 000 people in attendance and the biggest conference ever held --  could come up with was a non-binding Copenhagen Accord.

This year barely 10 000 people will attend COP16 after four preparatory rounds of negotiations, three in Bonn, Germany and one Tianjin, China largely failed to make any headway. Some minimal progress was made in Tianjin although it was marked by a clash between the United States and China.

China’s opening bid

China last week made the opening bid in the final run-up to COP16 when its special representative for climate change negotiations, Huang Huikang said a package of decisions could be clinched, but called on the developed nations to show sincerity in bridging differences with developing countries.

"By working from the easier issues, the delegates at the Cancun conference may be able to reach a balanced package of decisions on consensus issues like financial resources, technology, adaptation and forestry.

"For other disputed issues, the delegates should continue to take a cooperative attitude to lay a foundation for the completion of the Bali Road Map negotiations at the South Africa conference," Huang told a news briefing.

At the heart of the problem of finding consensus to deal with the issue of climate change and reach a binding accord on emission caps is the cost involved.

The dilemma, especially under prevailing global economic circumstances of huge budget deficits in developed countries and threatening currency turmoil for developing economies, was probably best summarised by German economist Ottmar Edenhoffer, who is co-chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group III on Mitigation of Climate Change, who said: “The climate summit in Cancun  is not a climate conference but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War.”

Edenhofer also said “climate policy is redistributing the world’s wealth” and that “it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalisation”.

The approach from the developing world, as enunciated by China, is that the developed world have achieved their level of development over many decades on the back of massive carbon emissions. They have an obligation to show some retribution and assist developing nations who cannot be expected to reach their full potential on the back of a much costlier energy regime than was available to the developed nations.

In the words of Huikang: “Developed nations have the responsibility to take the lead in drastic emissions cuts and to offer funds and technology to developing nations.

“It is their historic and moral responsibility and legal obligation; it is unconditional and should not be linked with other things."

Developing  nations, including China, face the tasks of developing their economies, eradicating poverty and improving people's lives and they should have reasonable increases in carbon on the path of sustainable development. “This is a legal right and should not be taken away,” Huikang said.

Dodgy science

Besides the economic and cost implications associated with attempts to bring down the global emissions of greenhouse gas, climate change activists have also suffered  other major setbacks.

Most notable among these was the science scandal in which  the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) itself  was involved . This week a year ago the world was treated to the spectacle of leaked emails between a small group of scientists at the heart of the IPPC. It exposed their manipulation of data and suppression of dissent, which called their reputation as disinterested scientists seriously into question.

It also emerged that the most recent IPCC report was riddled with errors and that many of its more alarming predictions were based not on proper science but on claims dreamed up by environmental activists.

In the meantime the technology of carbon capture and storage, once one or the big hopes for dealing with the fact that most economies will for be heavily dependent on fossil fuel energy for years to come, is also under pressure. A leading expert in this field, German geologist Andreas Dahmke in an interview with Spiegelonline, after the government of Germany’s northern state of Schleswig-Holstein managed to block a draft law that would have cleared the way for research into carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in Germany, responded as follows:

“The benefits of the storage technology are as diffuse and abstract as the climate change it is supposed to be alleviating. But the truth is that the risks associated with nuclear power are infinitely larger than anything that has to do with CCS. By 2040, we want to have phased out coal-fired electricity generation, but it isn't as if we can shut down every coal power plant tomorrow. CCS is one of the few options to minimise CO2 emissions in the short term. I'm surprised that German society has reached the consensus that it would rather release the CO2 into the atmosphere than investigate what else could be done with it “

The global consensus that at one point a year of so ago seemed unstoppable, that man can influence the fact of, or the speed of climate change and agreement on how to go about the task, seems to be disintegrating.”