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Page added on December 6, 2015
Paris climate change talks yield first draft
Negotiators paving the way for a global climate change agreement in Paris have cleared a major hurdle, producing a draft accord in record time and raising hopes that a full week of minister-led talks can now clinch a deal despite many sticking points.
No part of the deal has been finalised because in the end it is likely to be a tradeoff between developing countries’ demands – particularly for financing to help cope with the impacts of locked-in climate change – and wealthier nations’ insistence that over time all countries properly account for the progress they have made towards emission reduction goals.
And it remains littered with brackets – indicating areas of disagreement. But the document handed to the French on Saturday has refined 50 pages down to just over 20 and, unusually, was agreed on schedule, leaving a full week for ministers to reach agreement.
China’s chief climate negotiator, Su Wei, said: “It has laid a solid foundation for next week … like when we cook a meal you need to have all the seasonings and ingredients and recipes, but next week is the actual cooking.”
Senior negotiators and long-time observers believe there will be a way through the sticking points. “There is good news. This is only a basis for a negotiation … there are several disagreements that we need to talk to each other, to try to solve … but political will is there from all parties,” he said.
Non-government observers were also cautiously optimistic. Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace said progress was far better than at a similar point in the 2009 Copenhagen talks. “At this point in Copenhagen [in 2009] we were dealing with a 300-page text and a pervasive sense of despair. In Paris we’re down to a slim 21 pages and the atmosphere remains constructive. But that doesn’t guarantee a decent deal. Right now the oil-producing nations and the fossil fuel industry will be plotting how to crash these talks when ministers arrive next week.”
Laurence Tubiana, the French envoy for the talks, said: “We could have been better, we could have been worse. The job is not done, we need to apply all intelligence, energy, willingness to compromise and all efforts to come to agreement. Nothing is decided until everything is decided.”
Liz Gallagher, project manager at the non-profit organisation E3G, said the first week of talks had seen “some movement among negotiation blocs, with the idea of north and south … becoming more nuanced”. India had been “better behaved than we expected them to be”, she said, but Saudi Arabia had been blocking the negotiations on several fronts. The Saudis had, for example, been trying to prevent any reference to the need to hold global warming at 1.5C.
The final draft agreement includes the options of holding temperature increases to 1.5C or “well below two degrees”; evidence, the US envoy, Todd Stern, said on Friday, of the emergence of “a high-ambition coalition”, that “includes many countries” but not all of the 195 countries in the talks.
For the foreign minister of the tiny Marshall Islands, Tony de Brum, that goal is a matter of survival because some islands are already under water. “Put simply, I refuse to go home from Paris without being able to look my grandchildren in the eye and say I have a good deal for you.”
The Saudis have also been blocking the idea that the commitments countries have put on the table in Paris – covering emission reductions between 2020 and 2030 – should be reviewed before that period commences, and potentially increased. The Climate Action Tracker website has calculated those commitments put the world on track for warming of at least 2.7C. Differences on this issue between China and the US were central to the breakdown of the Copenhagen talks six years ago, but in Paris China is taking a softer approach. “We need to enhance the transparency system … it is very important to build trust,” Su said.
There is intense division over how the agreement is worded, in a way that would bind rich countries to specific continued investments, beyond the deal struck in Copenhagen for $100bn (£66bn) a year in public and private money to flow by 2020. (An OECD review said around $60bn was already committed, but poor countries dispute the calculations). And there are also divisions over suggestions big developing countries should join rich countries to make financial contributions to help poor countries reduce their emissions and cope with the impacts of locked-in climate change.
Stern told reporters some countries had “over-read” the issue. He said it was about recognising what was already happening – China pledged US$3.1bn in support to developing countries, when President Xi Jinping met President Obama at the White House this year – rather than introducing any requirement, he said.
A group of 10 Democratic US senators reassured countries at the climate meeting on Saturday they “had Barack Obama’s back” and would defend his agenda in a Republican-controlled Congress. The 10 were the first wave of what is anticipated to be a strong US presence at the Paris meeting, designed to counter Republican attempts to sink Obama’s climate plan. Congress voted last week to repeal the main part of Obama’s plan, especially on rules limiting carbon emissions from power plants. But the Democrats said they would be prepared to defend Obama’s agenda in Congress, and push for stronger climate action.
“What you see here are people who are going to protect what the president is putting on the table here in Paris as a promise from the American people to the world,” Ed Markey, a Democrat senator from Massachusetts, told a press conference. “We are going to back up the president every step of the way.”
Despite the multiple disagreements in Paris, Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN convention on climate change, said the talks were “where we thought they could be”. Officially Saturday is “high level action day” in Paris, the culmination of a process to get emission reduction commitments from bodies other than governments. There have been more than 10,000 such pledges from businesses, local authorities, non government groups and individuals.
Among those attending the event are the former US vice president Al Gore, the former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, the actor-cum-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the actor Sean Penn.
36 Comments on "Paris climate change talks yield first draft"
makati1 on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 7:09 pm
“Once upon a time…”
Pennsyguy on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 7:10 pm
A great way to fight climate change would be to stop these Potemkin village events and let Arnold, Sean, et al. stay home. But then again, hypocrite that I am, I would’ve went if someone paid for the trip.
shortonoil on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 7:21 pm
In three, or four years at best oil will be $30/ barrel, and huge pieces of the oil industry will be going out of existence. Huge pieces of the world’s economy will be going with it. They’ll be stoking up the old coal furnace then, or freezing in the dark. Humanity will destroy it, long before they save it.
apneaman on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 7:28 pm
The Invisible Spill Spewing the Gases of a Half-Million Cars
“Call it the invisible spill.
You can’t see it, but it’s there — a steady stream of natural gas seeping out of a leaking well in Southern California that may spew as much greenhouse gas into the air as a half-million cars do in a year. Pipeline operator Sempra Energy says it may take three to four months to plug.
Using the same tactic that eventually ended the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the San Diego-based utility owner is boring a well that’ll intercept the damaged one to stop the seepage. Meanwhile, it’s relocating hundreds of people into temporary housing as health officials say the gas is making some sick. The company faces as much as $900 million in costs such as relocation and legal expenses, based on government data and Bloomberg Intelligence estimates.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-05/the-invisible-spill-spewing-the-gases-of-a-half-million-cars
apneaman on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 7:32 pm
Dissecting Paleoclimate Change
Using a core sample from the Santa Barbara Basin, UCSB researchers decipher the history of paleoclimate change with surprising results
“New research from UC Santa Barbara geologist James Kennett and colleagues examines a shift from a glacial to an interglacial climate that began about 630,000 years ago. Their research demonstrates that, although this transition developed over seven centuries, the initial shift required only 50 years.”
“One of the most astonishing things about our results is the abruptness of the warming in sea surface temperatures,” explained co-author Kennett, a professor emeritus in UCSB’s Department of Earth Science. “Of the 13 degree Fahrenheit total change, a shift of 7 to 9 degrees occurred almost immediately right at the beginning.”
http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/016158/dissecting-paleoclimate-change
Pete Bauer on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 7:52 pm
Are Saudis blocking the deal. Hmm, they are running out of water. Soon they are going to change their position.
Better to act now than repent later.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-04/saudi-wells-running-dry-of-water-spell-end-of-desert-wheat?cmpid=taboola.science.rt-rtcom
apneaman on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 7:58 pm
Storm Desmond: army aids rescue effort as communities struggle after floods
At least 60,000 homes are without power, villages and towns are cut off and clean water could run out after storm affects treatment works and water mains
“Flooding started on Saturday as Storm Desmond brought more than a month’s worth of rain in 24 hours.
Energy firm Electricity North West had spent £7.9m on flood defences to protect against what it dubbed “once-in-100-years floods” following the 2009 disaster. But they were no match for the rain on Friday.”
“It’s heartbreaking to see what this has done to people’s homes, especially just before Christmas … The scale of this isn’t like anything I’ve seen before, it’s relentless. I’ve been involved in six other flood rescue operations with the RNLI and this is by far the worst. It’s unprecedented.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/06/storm-desmond-army-rescue-effort-lancashire-cumbria-scotland-struggle-after-floods
apneaman on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 8:03 pm
The Chennai Floods Are a Devastating Preview of Unnatural Disasters to Come
“Right now, Chennai—India’s fourth-largest city with a metro area the size of Chicago—is paralyzed. Flooding from record rainfall—the heaviest in more than a hundred years—has cut off more than 3 million people from basic services for days. At least 270 people have died, and what’s happening should provide a cautionary tale to the world: Chennai is a new type of “natural” disaster, a preview of the Anthropocene, the idea that humans have become a geological-scale force of nature.”
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/12/04/chennai_floods_devastate_india_s_fourth_largest_city.html
The mounting economic toll of the record rainfall in Chennai
“Eicher Motors, the maker of Royal Enfield motorcycles, lost production of 4,000 bikes in November and has kept its factories and offices in the city closed since Dec. 1. “The floods caused by the rain have also impacted logistics and our supply chain,” the company tells Quartz. BMW, Ford, and Renault have also halted production at their factories in and around Chennai, and Reuters reports that the state-run Chennai Petroleum Corp (CPCL) has shut its 210,000 barrels per day refinery in the city’s industrial zone of Manali.
An industry lobby, Associated Chambers of Commerce of India, estimates the overall economic loss from the flooding at over Rs15,000 crore ($2.25 billion).”
http://qz.com/564826/chennai-floods-are-hurting-industries-too/
makati1 on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 9:05 pm
Floods and drought will be more common than normal rainfall, as the Pacific North West and parts of Texas can attest. You may have gotten an average of 24-30 inches of annual rainfall in the past, but today, it may be in 6-10 inch bursts with long dry spells in-between. Water management will soon be more important than oil prices or financial net worth.
apneaman on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 9:06 pm
There will be an agreement alright, but it will be meaningless. Environmentalists and other rightly concerned citizens will hail it as a victory – and believe it. Deniers and minimizers will claim it will kill the economy – and believe it. They’ll both be wrong, but only doing what most apes need to do.
Born to Be Conned
““When people want to believe what they want to believe,” David Sullivan, a professional cult infiltrator, told the Commonwealth Club of California, a public affairs forum, in July 2010, “they are very hard to dissuade.” And the reason it happens (and often happens to the most intelligent people) is that human nature is wired toward creating meaning out of meaninglessness.
“There’s a deep desire for faith, there’s a deep desire to feel there’s someone up there who really cares about what’s going on,” Mr. Sullivan said. “There’s a desire to have a coherent worldview: There’s a rhyme and reason for everything we do, and all the terrible things that happen to people — people die, children get leukemia — there’s some reason for it. And here’s this guru who says, ‘I know exactly the reason.’ ”
Meaninglessness is, well, meaningless. It’s dispiriting, depressing and discouraging. Nobody wants reality to resemble a Kafka novel.”
“We embrace something we think is as true as it gets. We don’t set out to be conned. We set out to become, in some way, better than we were before.
That is the true power of belief. It gives us hope. If we are skeptical, miserly with our trust, unwilling to accept the possibilities of the world, we despair. To live a good life we must, almost by definition, be open to belief.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/opinion/sunday/born-to-be-conned.html?&_r=0
BillC on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 9:19 pm
China just going along to how much money they can get out of the West. I’m sure they are not the only country who sees through the scam
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/02/paris-climate-talks-doomed-china-knows-climate-change-hoax/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
drwater on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 9:58 pm
“China just going along to how much money they can get out of the West. I’m sure they are not the only country who sees through the scam”
That’s the problem with the UN. While it has been good to get more publicity for the problem, the UN approach is the opposite of a real solution.
Apneaman on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 10:03 pm
And retards, like Bill C, believe almost anything their facebook friends or rambling idiots, like the crew at Breitbart make up. Bill, in the 30 odd years of the so called “climate movement” how much fossil fuel have they prevented from being used? How about zero you fucking dip shit. Yet, conservatards are the ones running around accusing others of alarmsim when in fact, fossil fuel use has gone up every year. Nothing has slowed it and no country will ever voluntarily stop. Only the gullible and useful idiots ever believed otherwise. Keep the faith.
Why people fall for bullshit, according to a scientist
http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2015/12/3/9844480/why-people-believe-bullshit-science
Boat on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 11:08 pm
shortonoil on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 7:21 pm
In three, or four years at best oil will be $30/ barrel, and huge pieces of the oil industry will be going out of existence. Huge pieces of the world’s economy will be going with it.
BC, said the worlds economy would crash in 6 months. The world seems to be plugging along 5 months later. For Short I guess we have to wait 4 years for the crash.
The glut seems like it will stabilize according to MSM towards the end of 2016. Then the worry of glut passes onto Iran and if they are able to grow their production. Will fracking be dead by 2017 along with all it’s production. Will tar sands be producing even though they are losing money now. Will the expensive offshore drilling also shut down.
According to the dommer crowd, these resources will never again have the investment needed to bring oil to market and the worlds economy will collapse. Short, do I have your narrative right?
makati1 on Sun, 6th Dec 2015 11:16 pm
Bad news for the tech greenies:
“In tests conducted by the American Automobile Association, an electric car that ran for 105 miles at 75F went only 43 miles at 20F—a 60 percent reduction in range.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-03/electric-cars-can-t-take-the-cold
Bad news for winter and colder climate drivers! I wonder if they even get out of the driveway when it is minus 20F? LOL
antaris on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 12:06 am
Mak I drive an electric car. Turn the heater on at 20 F and of course it won’t go as far. Most people don’t drive 43 miles in a day. Fear keeps people going down the same shitty old path. You are helping with the fear.
makati1 on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 2:28 am
antaris, you drive without heat? Not many Americans are so ‘conservative’. How do you keep the windshield from icing up or clear of snow in bad weather? Freezing rain? Or don’t you live where it gets cold?
It is a BIG NEGATIVE for folks in the colder parts of the world though, isn’t it? Not many electrics will be sold there. It is already hitting the 20s in the part of the US I used to live in. There goes the mileage!
BTW: Most American folks drive more then 43 miles round trip to their jobs, if they are lucky enough to have one that pays enough so that they can afford a car. I often drove 50+ miles RT to my job. I wore out many cars that way. My sister drove 60+ miles RT every day to her’s. It is not unusual for someone to drive even 50 miles one way to a job or to the mall in America.
adamc18 on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 3:14 am
Interesting to see that the utterly evil Saudi dictatorship is extending its brutal, murderous internal policies to doing its best to destroy wider humanity.
onlooker on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 4:52 am
How the agreement in Paris can even be considered a small step forward when the supposed cuts would be voluntary and unenforceable. What a sad joke.
Go Speed Racer on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 5:39 am
Do these high level climate talks, mean I have to quit burning tires in my backyard?
Dredd on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 5:47 am
The 21st yo hum (Paris Climate Change Conference Begins).
The big question is “Is It The Last One?”
“There is such a thing as ‘too late’ with climate change.” – President Obama
Davy on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 6:34 am
“Paris talks creep towards agreement in final week, but deal could be ‘watered down”. Well “whatcha” think is going to happen. Agreement with lofty goals then watered down then unratified by various nations then unimplemented by various nations or implemented and loop-holed to death. This is the usual show agreement. It cannot be implemented except around the edges.
The proper implementation of such policies is deflationary at I time of increased deflationary dangers. At some point if we are slipping into an economic depression with people falling off the cliff what will be done? Not much. This is a classic catch 22 with no solution.
We have a war in Syria and Northern Iraq shaping up. How much cooperation can we expect when these leaders are preoccupied by war and terrorism? The war in Syria and northern Iraq is morphing into a regional conflict between major powers. This is a complicated global economy that is increasingly snowballing out of control. Peak oil dynamics march onward.
Sorry, we are past tense on climate success and the past tense is failure. Besides honesty knows dangerous feedbacks are already in motion. Honesty knows that the type of carbon reductions needed will destroy the economy. What we have is people going through the paces.
This situation is much like what we have when people are terminally ill. There is a period of hope and effort but the reality is a situation with death around the corner. Nothing can be done to stop death it is as simple as that. It would be far better for all involved if we just acknowledged failure on all fronts and talked about what failure means.
Maybe we, as a global world, could decide we should try to organize some kind of adaptation and mitigation policies to prepare. These policies would take us into crisis mode and end the status quo but they would be based on reality and honesty.
We know voluntary descent policies are anathema to the cornucopians. The war pigs like and want war. The greentopians still hold on to the idea we can have a carbonless complex society with growing population. Peacenik liberals believe peace is around the corner with patience and hope. The brownies will do everything they can to delay any restrictions on their livelihood. The brownies play along and shoot holes in anything too threatening. Entropy continues on without letup because that is what Nature enjoys doing.
Folks this is absurdity in action. I can tell you that all this is a failure. The only reality is failure, decay and descent. That is the cold harsh reality of what remains of human civilization. How long until the terminally ill patient and his family realize hope is counterproductive and acceptance is in order. Our global world will never agree and organize. We are doomed. Humans are beyond help. We deserve to destroy ourselves. The huge question is time frame. No one knows that answer not even honesty.
onlooker on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 7:00 am
Yes this is all a slow motion train wreck. Very if any effective policies are being implemented. What is more to me the main reason we are doomed is the catch 22 of peak oil and climate change. Addressing climate change would require substantial reductions in fossil fuels. These same being the lifeblood of the world economy. what’s more in order to mitigate the impacts of climate change we would need probably substantially relocations, building etc. all without fossil fuels? So it is as if the fates conspired against us to create this most tragically ironic of Catch 22’s.
shortonoil on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 7:00 am
“The glut seems like it will stabilize according to MSM towards the end of 2016.”
Citing the MSM as a reference is not the best way to improve ones credibility? If you want to see how well the oil industry is doing go to Huston, and find an unemployment office. The world’s oil producers are now shutting down everything short of the head quarters’ john. Another $10 decline in the price of oil, and it will be bring your own TP. The price of oil will fall until producers can no longer make money producing oil; at which point they stop producing it. That will be called the end of the oil age!
onlooker on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 7:00 am
Few if any effective
Lawfish1964 on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 7:12 am
Apeman, wasn’t 630,000 years ago about the last time the supervolcano at Yellowstone blew?
shortonoil on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 7:24 am
“Yes this is all a slow motion train wreck.”
The world can not reverse climate change by curtailing its use of fossil fuels. If it curtails its use of fossil fuels it curtails its economy, If it curtails its economy, its debt based monetary system collapses, along with everything else. The world is already in a deflationary spiral for which there is no escape. This issue will work itself out without any human interference; for better, or for worse. Better if you are a whale, probably worse it you are homo sapien.
onlooker on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 7:32 am
Yes Short, thus my reference to a Catch 22, damned if you do, damned if you do not. Not much we humans can do now but let is play out and try and adapt.
Kenz300 on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 7:52 am
Fossil fuel companies are spending millions to spread doubt about Climate Change……
4 Ways Exxon Stopped Action on Climate Change
http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/27/exxon-stopped-climate-action/?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=1d016dacb9-Top_News_11_28_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-1d016dacb9-86023917
joe on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 7:53 am
Paris is all well and good, climate change (wasn’t it called global warming one upon a time?) is not going to be a hot button issue in 2 years if they get it off the agenda now.
They will day anything and agree to anything because it makes life easy for both sides next year, and then, they’ll forget Paris and carry on their own agendas.
They may reduce carbon emissions, but that stuff is in the pipeline anyway, new tech destroyed budgets will reduce our want for oil, decline on the bumpy plateau is what’s in store for us.
Kenz300 on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 7:53 am
India –Climate Change is real and will impact all of us…………
Climate Change Blamed for Southern India’s Worst Flooding in More Than a Century
http://ecowatch.com/2015/12/04/india-chennai-floods/?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=b5a283874c-Top_News_12_4_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-b5a283874c-86023917
————–
Uruguay leading by example…….Climate change is real….. we must deal with the cause (fossil fuels)
Uruguay Powers Nearly 100% of Electricity From Renewables
http://ecowatch.com/2015/12/04/uruguay-renewable-energy/?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=b5a283874c-Top_News_12_4_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_49c7d43dc9-b5a283874c-86023917
antaris on Mon, 7th Dec 2015 9:05 pm
Mak of course I drive with fucking heat. That is why the car gets less mileage. Now if you have to drive 60 miles each way to work in your ICE car when there is no gasoline in the future, then you will be fucked. Until then driving an electric in an appropriate place at an appropriate time makes a lot of sense.
GregT on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 4:17 am
“Until then driving an electric in an appropriate place at an appropriate time makes a lot of sense.”
Greenwashing antaris. Nothing more. Driving an electric vehicle contributes to climate change, and makes no sense at all in the big scheme of things. CO2 is accumulative in the environment. We either stop, or we don’t. There is no middle ground. The more we add, the worse the problem becomes.
apneaman on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 1:42 pm
Top Climate Expert: Crisis is Worse Than We Think & Scientists Are Self-Censoring to Downplay Risk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmL4t8TclGU
apneaman on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 1:44 pm
Greenland’s dark snow – in pictures
From rapid ice melts to calving glaciers and a snow terrain poked by dark patches, Daniel Beltrá’s stunning images show how rising temperatures and global pollution are literally leaving their dark imprints on Greenland’s pristine landscape. ‘Climate change is having its biggest and most visible impact in Greenland. It is like the canary in a coal mine; what is happening there will affect us all,’ he says
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2015/dec/08/greenlands-dark-snow-in-pictures
apneaman on Tue, 8th Dec 2015 3:47 pm
Thailand’s Drought: Time to conserve water is now
“SALT WATER INTRUSION
There has been a reduction of Chao Phraya River water available to be used due to a problem of salt water intrusion, said Thanasak Watanathana, the governor of the Metropolitan Waterworks Authority (MWA).
People living in Bangkok and nearby provinces, particularly Nonthaburi and Samut Prakan, to which the MWA supplies tap water, should prepare to deal with possible water shortages during the drought season which lasts from now until May next year.
There will be less water to provide tap water to households living in Bangkok, Nonthaburi and Samut Prakan provinces.”
http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/learning-from-news/788433/thailand-drought-time-to-conserve-water-is-now