There Are Bright Spots, But Stupid Is Still Stupid, And I've Begin To Wonder If Stupid Is Just A Cover For Insane?

Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation Reports Denmark Readies A U-Turn on Ambitious Climate Targets, The UK Announces More Green Cuts, DECC Plays Down Merger Rumour, Obamas' Ready To Consider Extreme Weather Compensation For Developing Nations and Western Nations Are Cornered, Under Pressure and Ensnared In Their Own Climate Trap, As Obama Dispatches US Envoy To Rescue Deadlocked UN Climate Talks, Prompting A Call For World Leaders To Intervene.

Denmark Readies U-Turn on Ambitious Climate Targets - Denmark’s widening budget deficit is forcing its policy makers to take some hard decisions in the very area where they are considered global role models: the fight against climate change. Denmark’s Liberal government is to reverse ambitious CO2 emission targets introduced by the previous administration. It will also drop plans to phase out coal-fired power plants and become fossil-fuel free by 2050, according to leaked documents first reported by newspaper Information. The news about Denmark’s cost-cutting measures, which also include a reduction in green funding initiatives worth 340 million kroner ($51.5 million) through 2019, came on the same day on which U.S. President Barack Obama issued a global appeal for urgent action in the buildup to a United Nations summit in Paris in December.--Peter Levring, Bloomberg, 1 September 2015

 

UK Announces More Green Cuts; DECC Plays Down Merger Rumour - A subsidy for green heating systems worth more than £400m a year is set to be pruned in the autumn spending review as ministers seek to rein back spending at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Officials have also proposed earmarking some of the money Decc gives to the International Climate Fund —amounting to £335m in 2015. Meanwhile, Decc is playing down a rumour that it could be merged into another ministry, the business department, for example, to cut costs. “I’d strongly, strongly steer you away from that,” said one insider.--Jim Pickard and Pilita Clark, Financial Times, 3 September 2015

 

Germany’s Green Energy Revolution Fails Its Climate Goal - More than one million solar energy projects and 25,000 wind turbines are obviously not enough: Despite Germany’s green energy revolution, the federal government’s climate targets cannot be achieved. This is the result of the most recent update of the so-called Energiewende-Index by consulting firm McKinsey. The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 is“unrealistic”, says the report. Any improvement is not in sight either, the authors conclude: “The prospects for a turnaround by 2020 are permanently bad.”--Daniel Wetzel, Die Welt, 3 September 2015

 

Dutch Government Appeals Against CO2 Emissions Ruling - The Dutch government said Tuesday it plans to appeal against a court decision which ordered it to slash emissions, arguing the verdict could set a precedent for courts to interfere with government policy. In a June 24 ruling, a court in The Hague ordered the government to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020, saying that the more modest 17 percent cuts that it was expected to achieve by that year were not enough to combat global warming. Wilma Mansveld, the Dutch environment minister, sent a letter to the Dutch parliament announcing the cabinet would appeal against the ruling, arguing that the verdict constrains the state’s ability to make decisions by balancing competing interests.--Kalina Oroschakov, Politico, 1 September 2015

 

Climate Negotiators ‘Frustrated’ Over Snail’s Pace -Diplomats tasked with forging a climate rescue pact expressed frustration Wednesday over the lagging progress, with only seven negotiating days left until a Paris conference which must seal the deal. “I think we are all equally frustrated at the pace of the negotiations currently,” Amjad Abdulla of the Maldives, who speaks for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), told AFP. Instead of rolling up sleeves and reworking the text, still over 80 pages long and littered with contradictory proposals, the Bonn session had seen “conceptual discussions, going around in circles,” he said. --AFP, 2 September 2015

 

Eleventh Hour Panic: UN Summons Leaders To Closed-Door Climate Meeting - Frustrated by slow progress in global climate talks, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to invite around 40 world leaders including President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to a closed- door meeting next month. Major players including India, Indonesia and Brazil still haven’t submitted their climate plans, and the draft text for the Paris agreement remains an 88-page grab bag of conflicting options that negotiators still must sort out. At a news conference in Paris last week, Ban urged them to pick up the pace.“We have only less than a hundred days for final negotiations,” Ban said, complaining that diplomats were still working on a “business-as-usual”schedule. “They have been repeating what they have been doing during the last 20 years. We don’t have time to waste.” --Ewa Krukowska and Alex Nussbaum, Bloomberg, 1 September 2015

 

And Finally: Why Are We Waiting? Because Nobody Is Listening To Nick Stern - InWhy Are We Waiting? (a follow-up to his well known Review of 2006), Nicholas Stern assembles scientific, moral and economic arguments that rapid and radical reductions of greenhouse gas emissions are needed to limit global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures, and wonders why progress is so slow. Stern’s book is not reliable on either science or policy. In Chapter 4 Stern tells us that current economic models of climate impacts are not alarming enough. But in the end, the book’s main weakness is its failure to answer the question ‘Why Are We Waiting?’ --Ruth Dixon, My Garden Pond blog, 1 September 2015

 

The Price For Paris Deal: Obama Ready To Consider Extreme Weather Compensation For Developing Nations? - Rich nations at UN climate talks are said to be edging towards a compromise on the thorny issue of loss and damage. Poorer countries want compensation for extreme weather events that they link to large scale carbon emissions. But the US and EU have long resisted this idea, fearing an endless liability running into billions of dollars. However a clarified proposal from the US … was said to concede that the Warsaw Mechanism should be extended and made permanent. They would also “respond to the concerns of developing countries”. --Matt McGrath, BBC News, 4 September 2015

 

The developing nations are not stupid. They have ensnared the West in a climate trap that green politicians set for themselves. To meet the growing pressure by the West, developing countries are demanding $200- 400 billion dollars – per annum – for so-called climate compensation and adaptation measures, together with billions worth of technology transfers. It is difficult to see how the West, already heavily curtailed as a result of the economic crisis, would be prepared to transfer such an astronomical amount of money. Even in good times it would have been a foolish idea. Most likely, all efforts of reaching a binding climate agreement will fail in coming years. The pressure of lowering expectations of a green utopia will therefore increase. --Benny Peiser, Copenhagen and the Demise of Green Utopia, Die Weltwoche 23 December 2009

 

US and EU Considering Loss And Damage Options For Paris Deal – A coalition of the world’s richest countries appears to have accepted that there is a need to address loss and damage from extreme weather events in a UN climate deal, set to be agreed in December. The US, EU, Switzerland and Australia are working on separate proposals on how the contentious issue could be included in the Paris pact, and are expected to deliver their vision at UN climate talks in Bonn on Friday. Two observers monitoring the negotiations have told RTCC this text will recognise the importance of helping poor countries cope with climate-influenced events. --Ed King, Responding to Climate Change, 3 September 2015

 

Indian PM Modi Urges ‘Climate Justice’ Ahead Of Paris Meet - Climate change is a “pressing” global challenge and the poor people are ‘most adversely’ affected by it, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said and suggested a shift of the discourse on the issue from ‘climate change to climate justice.’ “In my view, the most adversely affected by climate change are the poor and the downtrodden. When a natural disaster strikes, they are hit the hardest. When there are floods, they are rendered homeless. During a quake, their homes are destroyed.“During droughts, they are affected and during extreme cold too, the homeless suffer the most. We can’t let climate change keep affecting people in this manner. Which is why I believe the discourse must shift focus from climate change to climate justice,” Modi said. --Press Trust of India, 3 September 2015

 

Pay Up Now! - The Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) will call on the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases to compensate all Pacific Islands that are affected by climate change. At the PIDF meeting yesterday, the forum agreed that compensation will be a key component in the Suva Declaration which will be adopted today at the conclusion of the meeting. PIDF Interim Secretary-General Amena Yauvoli said "those who are responsible for emitting the most greenhouse gases should pay" as their actions contradicted what they had agreed upon in the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC). Given the need to address the seriousness of climate change, the UNFCC has set up a Green Climate Fund worth $US100billion. "Its purpose is to fund those nations affected by climate change, the question now is how we can access those funds," said Mr Yauvoli. --Sikeli Qounadovu, The Fiji Times, 4 September 2015

 

There Is No 'Magic Wand' To Solve Climate Change Warns UN Climate Chief, As Bonn Talks Stall - The two most senior officials in the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat have called on countries at the latest round of talks in Bonn to put forward draft texts for a global deal, as fears grow that the negotiations are once again stalling. At the latest round of talks in Bonn, countries yesterday raised the alarm that time is running out before the Paris Summit at the end of this year where they will be expected to sign a global deal to tackle climate change. --Jessica Shankleman, Business Green, 3 September 2015

 

EU Divided Over Non-Binding Renewables Target The EU has pledged that 27 percent of its energy will come from renewables by 2030 — but now the fight is over how individual countries are supposed to pitch in to reach that goal, addressed in a draft proposal issued by Luxembourg this week. Some countries, especially the U.K. and central and eastern Europeans, want a soft, non-legislative approach which would not interfere with their right to decide their energy mix. In other words, it would allow the U.K. to continue building nuclear power plants and exploring for shale gas, while coal would continue to play an important part in Poland’s power generation. But other countries keener on slashing emissions and switching to solar and wind, like Germany, Denmark and Sweden, want a tougher system to ensure that everyone is doing their fair share. --Anca Gurzu, Politico, 3 September 2015

 

UN Climate Stalemate Prompts Call For World Leaders To Intervene - World leaders must step into the ongoing UN climate change negotiations, to remove roadblocks and ensure their negotiating teams can lay the groundwork for an agreement at landmark talk in December, an influential group of former leaders has urged. The Elders – a group including former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, Graca Machel, the Mozambican politician and widow of Nelson Mandela, and Mary Robinson, formerly president of Ireland and a UN high commissioner – made their call on Friday, as the latest round of pre-Paris negotiations ended with many key issues left open. --Fiona Harvey, The Guardian, 4 September 2015

 

Obama Dispatches US Envoy To Rescue Deadlocked UN Climate Talks - A senior Obama administration official will visit India and China next week to "consult" on climate change ahead of the crucial UN climate talks in Paris later this year, the White House has said. "Senior Advisor to the President, Brian Deese, will visit New Delhi on September 7 and Beijing on September 9 and 10. He will meet with senior officials in both countries, including Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in India and Executive Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli in China, to consult on key international climate change issues," a White House statement said. --Press Trust of India, 5 September 2015

 

UN Climate Talks Kick Can Down The Road - Diplomats in Germany wrangling over the text of a climate rescue pact with a December deadline looming, kicked the can further down the road Friday, frustrated at their own slow progress. “We have only 1,800 minutes (at the next meeting) to agree on the draft package for Paris,” said Djoghlaf. “Every minute has value.” The existing blueprint is an 83-page behemoth with contradictory country proposals for dealing with the pressing climate threat. Fundamental divisions remain over how to share out carbon-emissions cuts between rich nations, which have polluted for longer, and emerging giants such as China and India powering fast-growing economies and populations. --Mariette Le Roux, AFP, 4 September 2015

 

Green Fear: A Hallow UN Climate Agreement - Negotiators from 195 nations tasked with crafting a universal climate pact are driven by twin fears tugging in opposite directions, which may result in a hollow deal, say analysts. Career diplomats — and their political bosses — working on the nitty-gritty of the deal to be inked in Paris in December are haunted by another fear subtly nudging them in the opposite direction: the fear of failure. And yet, progress has been incremental and painfully slow. Negotiators left the former [West] German capital Friday after a week of closed-door meetings with very little to show and a draft agreement “not fit for a negotiation,” in the words of the European Commission’s top negotiator, Elina Bardram. --Marlowe Hood, AFP, 5 September 2015

 

Peter Foster: Obama On Thin Ice In Pushing ‘Legacy’ Climate Agenda In Alaska - Paeans of praise emerged from our rival newspapers this week in the wake of President Obama’s hastily-called conference in Anchorage to push his “legacy” climate agenda. According to University of Saskatchewan’s Greg Poelzer, writing in the Globe and Mail, “Make no mistake: The consolidation of a political consensus [on addressing climate change] is real and rapidly gaining strength.” Tell that to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who just summoned world leaders to New York later this month because climate talks are going nowhere. Indeed, Obama’s trip took place as the process of trying to clean up a “bewildering” 80-odd page text for the UN climate meeting in Paris in December was reportedly close to collapse. --Peter Foster, Financial Post, 4 September 2015