Anotated Article on Copenhagen

The Economist on Copenhagen

A forthcoming climate-change summit will not produce a binding deal on emissions



EXPECTATIONS for the Copenhagen climate conference, held next month in Denmark, have been steadily dwindling. On Sunday November 15th, as Barack Obama toured Asia, he and the Danish prime minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, quietly agreed what many had anticipated—that no binding agreement would be reached at the conference. There is now no hope of new legal targets for emissions-reductions to replace those set out in the Kyoto Protocol and which will lapse in 2012. Instead the pair suggested that the best to be expected is a political deal on cutting emissions.

Some of the blame for this must be directed at Capitol Hill. Not only will Mr Obama now not sign a cap-and-trade bill before Copenhagen; the Senate is not even expected to pass one. The House of Representatives passed in June its version of cap-and-trade but the Senate, preoccupied by a debate over the reform of health care, has left climate talks to inch along slowly behind. John Kerry, one of the Senate’s cap-and-trade champions, now says he hopes for a vote on the bill only in the spring.

But American congressmen are not alone in shouldering responsibility. Each tortuous round of negotiations ahead of Copenhagen has lengthened the list of issues up for debate. The negotiating text is now a snarl of material that few parties can agree upon. And big developing countries have been almost as immovable as America, at least publicly. China’s president said in September that his country would in time cut the amount of carbon dioxide it emits per unit of GDP by a “notable amount”. But Sun Guoshun, a Chinese diplomat in Washington, says that a figure is unlikely to emerge before Copenhagen. India (a much smaller polluter) has steadfastly resisted binding targets for poor countries. Many in Washington believe that America, just as it did at Kyoto, will not accept a deal that requires nothing concrete on emissions from the developing world.

Yet this does not mean that America will never get around to cutting emissions. During Mr Obama’s trip to China climate change was at the top of the agenda. Some had hoped that Mr Obama and Hu Jintao, China’s president, might announce a means of breaking the negotiating deadlock. Instead they unveiled some practical measures on energy.

These include the creation of a Sino-American clean-energy research centre, with initial funding of $150m, and an electric-vehicles initiative. A plan was also aired to increase energy efficiency, especially in buildings. By some estimates, China will add housing and office space equivalent to America’s entire stock over the next 20 years.

The two countries also promised to work together on “cleaner” coal (both countries sit on huge reserves of the stuff). Carbon-capture-and-storage technology for coal-fired power plants does not yet work at the scale and cost required. But James Rogers, the head of Duke Energy, a big American utility, says optimistically that perhaps only China has the resources to develop a workable system of carbon-capture, and America could reap the benefits. Last, the two agreed to co-operate on finding and using natural gas from shale. Gas power emits just half the carbon-dioxide of coal.

Focusing on measures like efficiency and cleaner power rather than targets may be the only way to get a bill through the Senate and thus make a binding international deal possible. But the interplay between international negotiations and the Senate’s deliberations is delicate. The Senate wants proof that developing countries will not get off the hook while China and India will avoid commitments as long as it seems that the Senate is unwilling to move. Copenhagen is now unlikely to be celebrated as the city where the world took big steps towards tackling climate change. A binding deal will have to wait until 2010, perhaps at a mid-year meeting in Bonn or in December in Mexico City.

Anotated Article on China

The article summarizes China's essential views on Emission cut backs and basically the Copenhagen Conference's main goal. The article begins with the listing of Chinese interventions and participation in the different international "green causes" and projects and later following up with a Chinese statement, which asks for consistency in the documents that will come out of Copenhagen, if any, with the old "green causes" documents and declarations.

After the portrayal of Chinese responsibility, the article makes note on the Chinese official's position on the help of developed nations towards developing nations, like China. In the quote, the Chinese official focuses on how developed nations should help developing nations even after not doing a massive effort to cut back on emissions, given that they need high production of these after high levels of consumption and production, all in order to reach the developed economy state.

Following the Chinese position, the article makes a remark on how developing nations must be left to take the right environmental measures within their own time schedule, therefore whenever they feel it's much more convenient.

Finally, the article makes a note on the meeting China had with Brazil, India, South Africa and Sudan. All of these developing nations met up to agree on the outcomes of the Copenhagen Conference, mentioning the financial help from the developed economies that they deserve, all going to back to the Chinese stand on receiving massive benefits through doing as little as possible in regards to climate change policies.

China on Copenhagen

China hopes Copenhagen conference achieve 'fair and feasible' results

China said Tuesday it hoped the upcoming Copenhagen Conference on climate change would achieve "fair and feasible" results.
China has advocated the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC), Kyoto Protocol, and the Bali Road Map, and held the principles of common but differentiated responsibilities, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang at a regular press conference.
"All documents or outcomes from the conference should be consistent with the provisions in these agreements, and would pave the way for the cooperation of the international community in the years to come," Qin said.
He also reaffirmed the developed countries and the international community should pay enough attention to the concern of the developing countries.
"The developed nations should honor its commitment to accomplishing or establishing the medium-term emission reduction target on the one hand, and provide the developing nations with financing, technology transfer, and capability building support on the other hand," he said.
Meanwhile, he said the developing nations should take appropriate actions that adapt to and will slow down climate change, in the light of their own national situation and under the sustainable development framework.
Representatives from China, Brazil, India and South Africa along with Sudan, the current chairman nation of G-77, met in Beijing on Nov. 27 to 28 to prepare for the Copenhagen Conference.
They agreed the outcome of the conference should include long-term cooperative actions on climate change, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation to the impacts of climate change, as well as provision of financial and technological support.
"The agreements reflect the concern and advocation of the developing nations, and deserves great attention from the developed nations," Qin said.
The 15th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be held from Dec. 7 to 18 in Copenhagen of Denmark. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will attend the conference.

Unites States and Copenhagen

Precis:

Lisa P. Jackson held a speech on the 9th of December 2009 at the Copenhagen conference in Denmark. She addressed the current economical and global issue of the whole earth and how the United States have already began solving the issue. According to her, through the economical crisis, the world has realized how one nations failure can lead to future failures in other countries. The economic crisis was a proof of this failure and has shown, that the whole world should work together to find a solution. She sees the source of the issue in the trade, population growth and social behavior which eventually caused the break down of the environment. Now to solve the problem the American government have invested billions in mitigation and adaption strategies. Businesses of the United States have started to invest billions to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The United States is willing to help and reduce their emissions to safe the future generations and enable them to have a prosperous life in this environment.

United States Copenhagen

precis:

Through these three paragraphs it becomes clear that the global issue is a concern which has to be solved now. According to President Obama the future depends on today's generations, as their action will decide over the future of future generations. Also Hillary Clinton sees a great need for immediate actions to be taken against the growing climate change. She addresses how the United States is willing to fight this problem internally and also in foreign nations. Last but not least, it is described how the United States engages in solving this current issue. By listing the actions the United States had already taken they show how America contributes to the solving of this current issue.

India and Copenhagen

Here is my annotated article, it isn't very messy so I will not put the original one because it is 13 pages...

URL: http://www.climate-leaders.org/wp-content/uploads/qa-on-indias-position-on-cc-27-feb.pdf

















Precis:
The Indian view on the climate change differs maybe from other countries, due to fact that India considers herself as a developing country. This is where the problem, in the eyes of the worlds, lies. Many people think, including the interviewer, that India is not a developing country. However, throughout the interview India always refers back to the fact that America and China should do it like that, HOWEVER India cannot follow them since they are still developing and need to use more emissions. Even though, India is the third country on the list of emissions, it does not consider herself as a ‘major emitter’ because they are still developing and only emit 4% of the world CO2 emissions, whereas the USA and China make 14% of the worlds emissions. Not only does India stress that she is developing, having social problems, poverty and overpopulation she also keeps repeating that India needs help. India needs to adapt to the climate change because they are having major problems. This is of course true, due to major droughts, storms and the Tsunami in 2004 which are all problems which arose due to the climate destabilization. However, India is not the only country which is having these problems but also other countries are facing changes, but India thinks and keeps repeating throughout the interview that they need advanced technology, and help to adapt to the situation. The first question in the interview is the expectation of India in this conference: they answer adaption, technology and finances. These three aspects are then used over and over again in the article to stress the horrible situation. Therefore, one may say that this interview gives a clear and helpful position on the thought of India, and states that they will cut emissions; however the world must consider that they are a developing country.


I did not finish the article, because the rest of it was not important, however one may read it to get more detail about the economics of India.

Economist Article

The green slump

Dec 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition

Why investors have been deserting clean energy

THE slogan that BP adopted in 2000, “Beyond Petroleum”, was brilliantly unforgettable. It linked the company’s name with the bright, clean future which, the flower/sun logo implied, was to be found on the far side of fossil fuels. But that, as it turned out, was unfortunate, for the company is no longer hurrying towards those fresh green pastures.

BP insists that the role of renewable energy in its strategy has not changed, but admits that investment in it will fall from $1.4 billion in 2008 to between $500m and $1 billion this year. The company is selling some of its renewable-energy assets, including three wind farms in India, and has cut its solar-cell manufacturing capacity in Spain and America. The one renewable-energy source it still seems to be serious about is biofuels.

Shell, which also took a sizeable punt on renewable energy, admits that its strategy has changed. Earlier this year its then chief executive, Jeroen van der Veer, said of wind, solar and hydrogen, “I don’t expect them to grow much at Shell from here.” Further investments in renewable energy, he said, would focus on biofuels. Linda Cook, who resigned in May as head of Shell’s gas and power business, said that wind and solar “struggle to compete with the other investment opportunities we have in our portfolio”.

Whereas policymakers have been scurrying from conference to conference to urge the world on towards a green future, investors have been walking away from it. For one businessman the attendance at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen in May said it all. “There was the usual raft of bigwigs on the panel, but the audience was just hangers-on—journalists, PR people and so forth. There were no serious delegates there.”

The clean-energy business has had a hard year. Investment in the sector tanked in late 2008, as did share prices (see chart 2). Private equity and venture capital held up a little better, but not much. The beginning of 2009 was “scary”, according to Michael Liebreich, chief executive of New Energy Finance, a consultancy.

The industry suffered particularly badly in the credit crunch. Almost by definition, renewable energy sources have low running costs but high up-front costs. And because they are regulated assets with long-term pre-defined revenue streams, they are particularly suited to debt finance, and therefore tend to have high debt-to-equity ratios (typically 80-20). “When the project finance disappears, you’ve got a problem,” says Robert Clover, director of alternative-energy equity research at HSBC. He points out that some of the banks that suffered worst during the crisis—RBS, Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual and Fortis—were also among the biggest in clean-energy finance.

As the flow of finance to electricity generators dried up, so did the orders to equipment manufacturers. Mr Clover reckons that wind-turbine manufacturers’ order books so far this year are down by 55-60% on the same period in 2008.

But the problem was not just the shortage and cost of capital. The credit crisis also revealed a basic problem with the clean-energy business. Fossil fuels are, in terms of the energy they store, remarkably inexpensive to get out of the ground and sell. That makes dirty industrial processes irresistibly cheap—so long as they are not required to cover the costs of the pollution they cause. Companies cannot be expected to abandon them unless they get a clear signal from consumers or governments that it is in their financial interest to do so. And they are not getting such a signal.

Public awareness of global warming picked up significantly about three years ago. Now most consumers claim to be concerned about it, and public concern is one reason why companies have been branding themselves green. Energy companies boasted of their diversification out of fossil fuels. Businesses with small carbon footprints, such as banks and retailers, promised to go carbon-neutral.

But consumers’ commitment to greenery is rather doubtful. There is a big market for organic products (though it has got smaller since the recession), but shoppers are more concerned about their families’ health than about the planet, and few are prepared to pay premium prices for green products. BA, for instance, has been offering carbon offsets with its flights for the past four years, but finds that only around 3% of customers buy them.

In the absence of pressure from consumers, governments need to give businesses a shove. That was the idea behind the Kyoto protocol, which aims to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by getting countries to accept binding targets with timetables attached. It divided the world into developed countries, which are required to cut their emissions, and developing countries, which are not. When rich countries ratify the protocol, they have to commit themselves to reducing their emissions by a certain percentage below a date of their choosing (mostly 1990)—Britain by 12.5%, Japan and Canada by 6%, and so on. The idea is that in order to meet these targets governments should introduce policies that send price signals to businesses to shift investment away from dirty products and processes to cleaner ones.

Global carbon-dioxide emissions have risen by 20% since the protocol was signed in 1997, so the plan has evidently not worked all that well. There are three main reasons for that. First, rich countries have exported some of their dirty industry to the developing world. Steel, cement, cars, fridges, computers, toasters, kettles and all the paraphernalia of modern life the production of which used to cause pollution in developed countries are now made in China and other developing countries where emissions are not capped—and have risen partly as a result of that shift.

Second, the world’s biggest emitter when Kyoto was signed, America, has not ratified the protocol, and the biggest polluter per person among countries with significant emissions, Australia, did so only two years ago. It might reasonably be argued that the blame should fall on those countries’ governments, rather than on the treaty itself; but a treaty in which the most important parties play no part cannot be said to be a success.

Third, some countries have failed to cut their emissions as promised. In 2007 Canada’s emissions were 29% above their 1990 level and Spain’s 57%. But there is no need for them to miss their targets, thanks to the countries of the former Soviet Union. Their dirty industries collapsed during the 1990s, so they are awash with carbon credits that can be bought for a small consideration. Countries in danger of failing to meet their Kyoto targets can simply buy what is known in the industry as “Russian hot air”. As the 2012 deadline for meeting Kyoto targets approaches, there is a growing appetite for those meaningless credits.

Even in countries that have cut their emissions substantially, business is not always getting the right signals. Britain’s apparently creditable performance, for instance, is less the result of a well-designed policy than the “dash for gas” in the 1980s, spurred by the hostility to the coal industry of its then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Attempts to get a renewable-energy industry going have flopped.

Britain is not alone in finding it hard to work out how to send business the right signals. Policies that are effective, efficient and politically palatable have proved elusive everywhere.



PRECIS:

Why investors have been deserting clean energy

This article by the economist talks about different countries and companies and their actions in regard to the Kyoto protocol and the upcoming summit in Copenhagen.

BP as well as Shell decreased their investment in renewable energy sources since the competition with other investment opportunities is becoming too difficult.

Policy makers all over the world are trying to lead the world towards a greener future, but the investors’ interest is questionable.

Renewable energy sources are usually built up by going into debt. When the banks, that were lending money, crashed in 2008, the renewable energy source market also took a hit.

Dirty energy sources are much cheaper and easier to store and extract.

Public awareness of global warming has picked up. Many companies now branded themselves as being green. However, green companies have green prices, which most of the consumers are not willing to pay.

The idea of the Kyoto protocol was to require the developed countries to cut their emissions by 2012 by a certain percentage.

The protocol failed because of three reasons:

1. Rich countries started exporting their pollution.

2. America and Australia have not signed the protocol

3. The countries failed to cut emissions

Britain has managed to cut their emissions but any attempts to rely more on renewable energy sources have failed. Not only Britain is struggling with sending it’s businesses the right signals.

WWF: The Crisis

 ARTICLE:

The Crisis

Copenhagen? (button)

What's going on? (150 button)

Why bother? (150 button)

What's the solution? (150 button)

Climate blog

* More on information on climate impacts

Nobody should underestimate the task faced by climate negotiators this year, nor its urgency.
Climate change

* is already contributing to severe droughts, floods and hurricanes, and spreading diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.

* is damaging critical ecosystems including the Great Barrier Reef, the Amazon rainforest and the Arctic.

* will mean entire island nations disappear as sea levels rise.

Scientists say the heat wave in Europe in 2003, which killed 30,000 people, could not have happened without global warming.

In addition to the almost 1 billion food-insecure people, many more in developing countries will face food insecurity if deserts spread, if the Asian monsoon system is substantively changed, or if the freshwater supply from melting mountain glaciers such as those in the Himalayas becomes increasingly erratic.

The UN’s authorized climate institution, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), calculates that unchecked climate change will cut global food production by up to 40% by 2100.

Worse still, the planet may be close to tipping points – with entire ecosystems flipping into a new state – beyond which the planet will be transformed in ways we will not be able to put right.

These tipping points will catapult the global climate into a new and more fragile state, and destabilize the polar ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic, causing a sea-level rise of many metres.

A warmer climate may also unleash billions of tonnes of planet-warming methane from melting permafrost, and CO2 from forests increasingly exposed to droughts, insect damage and fires, all of which could cause runaway climate change.

And eventually the ocean circulation system could be switched off.

http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/climate_carbon_energy/climate_deal/2009_climate_copenhagen/climate_crisis/

ANNOTATED:

PRECIS:

THE CRISIS – WWF

Not only the financial crisis has hit, but the climate crisis is ready to kill. The first word of the article “nobody” is in contrast to its meaning, as it speaking to everyone. Using listing, the article explains the danger coming with the global climate destabilization. For one it is already contributing to droughts, hurricanes, and floods and spreading diseases, but it also damages ecosystems such as the Arctic or the Amazon Rainforest. The article uses bullet points for its listing, and includes listing within the listing. This effect gets many facts thrown at the reader instantly, which are drawn from the climate change. As water levels rise, many sea-leveled islands will disappear, and scientists believe that the heat wave in 2003 that killed 30,000 people in Europe can only come from climate change. This fact uses the reference to an “expert” the scientist, since it is more convincing that the statement is true, although the name or area of the scientist has not been mentioned. Different results of the climate change can cause different problems, such as the glacier melting that can cause floods, or the deserts spreading which causes droughts and a loss of animal and plant life. Predictions have been made by the UN’s authorized climate institution, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that the food production will be reduced by 40% in 2100. With these statistical data that the WWF has included in the article, the reader is more prone to wanting to change the world and how the individual acts towards the environment. A metaphoric “tipping point” is used to describe that the world’s resources might head towards an end and it can only end drastically for the future populations. It also uses “may,” “able,” and “could,” suggesting that these scenarios are rather hypothetical rather than a true fact. The article ends with “And eventually the ocean circulation system could be switched off,” using a metaphor to once again describe the near end of the human civilization showing that there will be a drastic end effect.