Ozone Treaty May Hold Key to Halting Climate Change

Stephen News, ozone , ,

moonlit cactus - peruBy Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Aug 25 (IPS)

Will the world take the easy step to phase out “super” greenhouse gases – hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) – using the existing Montreal Protocol ozone treaty?

Doing so would be equivalent to preventing the release of 118 to 224 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050, according to a report by the Environmental Investigation Agency.

That’s vitally important.

The latest science shows humanity cannot put more than another 700 billion tonnes into the atmosphere over the next 40 years without risking dangerous climate change. At current rates of carbon emissions, that limit will be exceeded in half that time.

“An HFC phase-down under the Montreal Protocol will do far more for climate protection than the Kyoto Protocol has accomplished in its entire history or than Copenhagen will achieve in the next decade,” said Samuel LaBudde, senior U.S. climate campaigner for the non-profit Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

“And it will do so at a fraction of the cost of securing reductions in other sectors and much faster as well,” LaBudde told IPS.

The leaders of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico committed to “work together under the Montreal Protocol to phase down the use of HFCs” earlier this month at the North American Summit in Guadalajara, Mexico. This follows a similar commitment made by G8 leaders in July.

Primarily used in refrigerators and air conditioners, HFCs are the standard replacement chemicals for those that were thinning the protective ozone layer in the upper atmosphere. Although HFCs pose no ozone risks, they typically have a global warming potential hundreds or even many thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide (CO2), hence the “super greenhouse gas” label.

The number of the world’s estimated 1.5 -1.8 billion refrigerators, 1.1 billion home and 400 million mobile (auto) air conditioners is expected to grow dramatically as developing nations like China and India modernise and increase use of HFCs.

A July study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that such a skyrocketing use of HFCs will have a significant impact on the climate at projected growth rates by 2050, negating much of future efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

“Phasing down HFCs under the Montreal Protocol is a brilliant strategy,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, an international environmental NGO.

“This is the treaty that never fails to deliver. It’s already phased out 96 chemicals by 97 percent, and it’s ready to tackle these super greenhouse gases,” Zaelke said in a release.

Two small island nations, the Federated States of Micronesia and Mauritius, were the first to campaign to amend the Montreal Protocol to tackle HFCs at a July meeting of signatories. Ironically, under the Protocol, richer countries provide financing to poor countries to replace ozone-destroying refrigerants with HFCs.

Many country delegates felt it is the responsibility of the Montreal Protocol to prevent the further commercialisation and prolific use of HFCs even though it is not an ozone-depleting chemical.

“The support of North American leaders is appreciated,” said Ambassador Yosiwo George from the Federated States of Micronesia. The tiny Pacific island nation is threatened by rising sea levels from global warming and is advocating for a 90 percent HFC phase out by 2030.

For full story see here


Early Warning Systems for the Coming Climate Storm

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, global warming, News , , ,

Chile—The fury of Chaitén volcano - nat geoBy Stephen Leahy

GENEVA, Aug 31 (IPS)

Climate change is here. The challenge in Geneva this week is to find ways to help the world cope with a climate that will have more and worse extremes in terms of temperatures, floods, and storms.

More than 2,500 experts and policy-makers from 150 countries are attending the Aug. 31-Sep. 4 World Climate Conference to discuss how to improve weather forecasting and long-range seasonal weather projections, especially to help poor nations in areas such as agriculture.

“Until now, the way that we deliver climate information to some sectors has been ad hoc. What we need is a formal system that all people can trust to access vital information that can save their lives and protect property and economies,” said Michel Jarraud, secretary- general of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which is convening the World Climate Conference this week in Geneva.

The WMO has proposed that a global climate services system be created to boost observations and research for monitoring the climate and new information tools that will provide sector- and regional-specific products and services, Jarraud told IPS.

The first two “World Climate Conferences” in 1979 and 1990 were organised by the WMO and played the key roles in the creation of the U.N. climate secretariat, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This “Global Framework” system could help reduce losses caused by extreme weather and climate events such as heat waves, sandstorms, cyclones, drought and floods which will become more frequent and more intense as the climate continues to warm, he said.

“Extreme weather events and changing climatic conditions affect all of us, frequently resulting in humanitarian disasters and heavy losses,” said Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz.

For full article:  CLIMATE CHANGE: Early Warning Systems for the Coming Storm.

Drowning the Oceans in Plastic Trash (Pacific Garbage Patch)

Stephen ENVIRONMENT, OCEAN, Pollution and Toxics, water, WILDLIFE , , , , ,

plastic trash - pacific gyre By Stephen Leahy

UPDATE: The “Pacific Garbage Patch” is really a “plastic soup” where the plastic is distributed throughout the water column in area more than twice the size of Texas. See here for more

[FYI: I’m an independent journalist who supports his family and the public interest writing articles about important environmental issues. ]

Wired 06.05.04

Marine trash, mainly plastic, is killing more than a million seabirds and 100,000 mammals and sea turtles each year, said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a statement.

Plastic bags, bottle tops and polystyrene foam coffee cups are often found in the stomachs of dead sea lions, dolphins, sea turtles and others. The implications have many at the conference concerned. Last April, Dutch scientists released a report on litter in the North Sea and found that fulmars, a type of seagull, had an average of 30 pieces of plastic in their stomachs.

In the sea, big pieces of plastic look like jellyfish or squid, while small pieces look like fish eggs, says Bill Macdonald, vice president of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, a Long Beach, California-based nonprofit environmental organization.

Macdonald, who is also an underwater filmmaker, said he has seen albatross parents fly huge distances to feed their young a deadly diet of plastic bottle caps, lighters and light sticks.

“The sheer volumes of plastic in oceans are staggering,” he said. In recent years Algalita researchers have sampled a huge area in the middle of the North Pacific, and found six pounds of plastic for every pound of algae.

Do you like this article? It is funded by contributions from readers like you. Please click here to make a donation.

Continue reading →

2020 Climate Deadline Is the Crucial “Litmus Test”

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, economics, Energy, global warming, News , , , , ,

Chile—The fury of Chaitén volcano - nat geo

“The atmosphere and the climate is a public good, a commons, and can’t be protected by the private sector.”

— Marianne Haug, Oxford Institute for Energy

By Stephen Leahy

VIENNA, Jun 29 2009 (IPS)

“So who here thinks there will be a meaningful deal in Copenhagen?”

Few of the more than 600 energy ministers, officials and experts from 80 countries attending the Vienna Energy Conference raised their hands in response to the conference moderator’s question about the final round of climate negotiations this December in Copenhagen.

“I don’t think there will be agreement on an emissions cap,” said Andre Amado, Brazil’s vice-minister for energy, science and technology.

Greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels must peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline to prevent dangerous, irreversible climate change, scientists have warned. A strong international agreement on emissions targets for both the industrialised and developing world is widely believed to be the only way to ensure emissions peak and then decline.

“There will be agreement on technology transfer and reducing barriers for technology transfers,” to assist developing countries in cutting their emissions and adapting to the changing climate, Amado told participants last week in Austria’s capital city.

Continue reading →

Umweltjournalist — German Translations of My IPS Articles

Stephen News

Berlin Olympic Stadium 2007By popular request — yes there have been many requests — I will be posting my 2008-09 Inter Press News Service (IPS) articles that have been translated in German by professional translators (not bablefish or some other software). The 20 or so articles will be posted over the next couple of weeks on this new site: Stephen Leahy — Umweltjournalist

Please pass the link on to any one who might be interested.

It’s diverse world of species, ideas and languages, so I have also posted selected articles in various languages on these sites so that people can read them in their native language whenever possible.

I can only write in English, and even then that’s always a struggle. Note not all of my articles are translated into all languages.

Auf Wiedersehen, Stephen

Dutch

Espanol

Francias

Italiano

Portugues

Desperately Seeking Leadership on Climate

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Energy, News, Science , ,

penguin palm tree

Civil society will have to provide unrelenting leadership if  global carbon emissions are to peak in less than 10 years and go ‘negative’, experts say.

By Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jan 15 2009 (IPS)

Global emissions of carbon dioxide must reach a peak in less than 10 years and then begin a rapid decline to nearly zero by 2050 to avoid catastrophic disruption to the world’s climate, according to a new report.

Emissions of carbon dioxide will actually need to “go negative” – with more being absorbed than emitted – during the second half of this century, according to “State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World” released by the U.S.-based Worldwatch Institute this week.

“2009 is a pivotal year to deal with climate change,” said Christopher Flavin, president of well-respected Worldwatch Institute (WI), a U.S.-based environmental think tank.

“Humanity will face grave danger if we don’t move forward now,” Flavin told IPS.

Climate change is happening faster and with larger impacts than previously predicted, concludes the 26th annual “State of the World” report, devoted entirely to the challenges and opportunities of global climate change.

Even an additional warming of 2 degrees Celsius poses unacceptable risks to key natural and human systems, warned climate scientist W.L. Hare, one of the report’s 47 contributors.

SN852512 Continue reading →

Content Control: Patents Threaten Traditional Knowledge of Indigenous People

Stephen Agriculture/Food, Biodiversity, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Culture, Indigenous People ,

Quechua in Cusco region

“To have potatoes, there must be land, people to work it, a culture to support the people, Mother Earth and the mountain gods…”

By Stephen Leahy*

VIENNA, Jul 6 (Tierramérica)

Indigenous peoples risk losing control over their traditional knowledge if the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) insists on strict standards for managing access to information.

Patents and other forms of restricting access to knowledge are very worrisome in a time of climate change, says a new report by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

The study was presented at meetings of the WIPO – a United Nations agency – held Jun. 23-Jul. 3 in Geneva.

“Intellectual property standards restrict use of genetic resources when we need flexibility and adaptability to cope with climate change,” said Michel Pimbert, director of IIED’s Sustainable Agriculture, Biodiversity and Livelihoods Programme.

WIPO aims to develop rules for protecting rights over traditional knowledge, such as indigenous knowledge about medicinal plants, which conventional intellectual property laws do not cover.

However, according to IIED’s Krystyna Swiderska, who coordinated the research in Africa, Asia and Latin America, “WIPO’s call for consistency with existing intellectual property standards is a flawed approach as these have been created on Western commercial lines to limit access to inventions such as drugs developed by private companies.”

Intellectual property is about restricting access, creating monopolies and eliminating competition, and it is being pushed by transnational pharmaceutical and seed companies, said Pimbert. Continue reading →

Green Energy for All by 2030?

Stephen Africa, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, developing world, economics, Energy ,

WED kidjo smlBy Stephen Leahy

VIENNA, Jun 26 (IPS)

While industrialised countries struggle to switch from climate-damaging, carbon-based energy to greener energy sources, much of the world is desperately energy poor, with 1.6 billion people having no access to electricity and 2.4 billion relying on wood and dung for heat and cooking.

“Over 1.6 million deaths a year are attributed to indoor use of biomass for cooking and heating,” Kandeh Yumkella, director-general of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), told more than 600 participants from 80 countries at the Vienna Energy Conference this week in Austria’s capital city.

The conference concluded with a recommendation to create a 20-year plan to end energy poverty by 2030.

Women and children in many parts of the world have little choice but to spend hours each day in search of firewood, trapped in a vicious cycle of deforestation that increases erosion and reduces the fertility of their land. “Energy interacts with all of the development challenges we face,” said Yumkella.

The developing world – and especially those without access to electricity – must be part of the new green energy revolution, he said. “We can’t leave people out. We must have climate justice and energy justice,” he told IPS in an interview.

For complete story see  Green Energy for All by 2030?

Green Energy Investments Beat Fossil Fuel For First Time in History

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, economics, Energy , ,

wind turbines at night USABy Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jun 5 (IPS) 

The world has turned a green corner toward a more sustainable future, with investments in clean energy outpacing fossil fuel power generation for the first time.

Despite the global economic crisis, a record 155 billion dollars was invested in clean energy companies and projects worldwide last year, mainly in wind and solar, according to a new report from the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

More remarkably, that investment in clean energy topped 2007’s record investments by five percent, in large part as a result of investments by China, Brazil and other emerging economies.

Achim Steiner, UNEP’s executive director, says that “2008 was the first year where there was more investment in non-carbon energy sources than in high carbon and nuclear energy.”

“That’s hugely significant,” Steiner told IPS in an interview.

UNEP has been calling for a “Global Green New Deal” to jump-start the global economy and use the various economic stimulus packages to make investments in clean technologies and ‘natural’ infrastructure such as forests and soils. Experts argue that this is the best bet for real growth, combating climate change and sparking an employment boom in the 21st century.

“There are literally millions of new jobs that could be created in the next few years,” Steiner said. Continue reading →

You Go First Carbon Politics Threatens Us All

Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, economics, Energy, News , , , , ,

mage showing iceberg off Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada with meltwater ponds in the foreground. Arctic warming has been associated with a rapid decline in Arctic summer sea ice extent. Image credit- Sandy BriggsBy Stephen Leahy

NY-ÅLESUND, Svalbard, Norway, Jun 15 (IPS)

Political and business leaders may agree in principle that climate change is a serious threat, but there is a startling lack of consensus and a ‘you-go-first’ attitude on taking action, even amongst a small group of high-level decision makers disconnected from their cell phones here in the Arctic.

“We want to reduce China’s CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions, but we are a market-driven economy,” Liu Yanhua, China’s vice minister for science and technology, told 30 participants at the Ny-Ålesund Symposium located at a scientific research centre called Kings Bay on the western coast of Spitsbergen Island about 1,200 kilometers from the North Pole.

“Climate change is a matter of economy, of energy,” said Yanhua, a former scientist at the Chinese Institute of Geography.

It is also an issue of generational equity, since at current rates all fossil fuels will be consumed in 50 to 80 years, leaving nothing for future generations, he said.

China’s CO2 emissions have soared 150 percent in the last 20 years, Yanhua acknowledged, and are now the highest of any country, including the United States. China’s carbon intensity – the amount of carbon emitted per unit of production – is 10 times higher than Germany’s and major efficiency improvements are needed, he said. Continue reading →