by Alex Evans | Jun 25, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Influence and networks
Quote of the day so far: Mutsuyoshi Nishimura, Japan’s Ambassador for Global Environment, who opines that:
“If [UNFCCC Conferences of Parties] were televised live, people would be aghast!”
Amen to that. And it raises the interesting question, so far not really explored at today’s conference: where will the real deal-making be done? Of course, we all agree that the deal will be signed at a UNFCCC summit; even President Bush said so, at Heiligendamm.
Yet even some environment ministers are increasingly wondering privately whether the real deal-making needs to be done in some other forum, probably at head of state level.
But where?
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by David Steven | Jun 25, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, North America
Cleo Paskal switched focus from the problems that climate change will exacerbate to the unfamiliar problems it could cause.
What if a small, low lying country disappears, she asked? Does it continue to exist as a ghost nation? Can it hold onto its UN seat, perhaps with a government-in-exile to keep its name alive?
And what will happen to maritime borders as sea levels rise? Paskal expands in a recent paper:
If the Florida coastline retreats up towards the middle of the state, and Cuba stays more or less as it is, should the border be moved to reflect the new midpoint?
That would push the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico into Cuban territorial waters, she points out. And the Cubans would be able to drill for oil where Miami once was…
by David Steven | Jun 25, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity
Interesting differences of opinion about how serious a problem we’re facing…
Potted Bert Metz: To avoid dangerous climate change (a 2 degree increase in mean global temperature), we need to stabilise emissions by 2015 and get them back to current levels by 2040. Even if this is achieved, we’re still going to see very costly damage.
Potted Matthew Hulbert: Don’t expect a ‘seminal moment’ where climate change is definitively linked to conflict, but security is undoubtedly going to get worse. Climate change is an undoubted ‘threat multiplier’. Africa is most vulnerable, where the climate is already challenging, many people live close to the edge, and resilience is in short supply.
Potted Brahma Chellaney: Yeah it’s going to be bad, but the doomsayers are painting too black a picture. “Scaremongering makes it harder to come up with a realistic response.” The green bandwagon is already leading us down some dead ends. Biofuels, for instance, are a sop for the farm lobby, but will push food prices higher and harm the poor. Innovation and ingenuity are the answer. (more…)
by Alex Evans | Jun 25, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Economics and development
Our second speaker: Bert Metz, the co-chair of the mitigation working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Metz regaled us with various numbers about the affordability of climate mitigation before noting parenthetically that, um, the figures didn’t take into account the costs of damages.
An analysis showing that stabilising at lower greenhouse gas levels is more expensive, but that doesn’t make any assessment of the damages?
Er… hello?
What you don’t usually get told in these kinds of presentations is why the damage costs have been left out. The short answer: because the mitigation ‘experts’ all remember what happened with IPCC’s second assessment report, back in 1995. It wasn’t pretty…
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by David Steven | Jun 25, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity
Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup – Chief of the UK’s Defence Staff – opens the conference, pitching for a frontline role for the military in the response to climate change.
Key questions for military planners. Is the pace of climate change likely to be quicker than the world can respond to safely? In the most unstable parts of the world, will the consequences of climate change ‘pour petrol onto a burning fire’?
“Although hard power cannot solve climate change,” Stirrup argues, “military power may be needed to respond to the consequences.”
