The AP6 climate partnership: some way to go…

by | Jul 31, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, North America, South Asia

As the US-EU bidding war hots up over what should replace Kyoto when it expires in 2012, expect to hear plenty more about the ‘AP6’ – or, to give it its full title, the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (official website here).  The AP6 group of countries (the US, Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea; Canada is reportedly also considering signing up) are all devotees of an approach based on technology partnerships and voluntary targets as an alternative to mandatory targets and timetables.

Of course, all of the countries involved are keen to demonstrate that their voluntary approach can generate real results; unsurprising, then, that the US State Department issued a chirpy press release last week headlined “Asia-Pacific Group Achieving Climate Results Through Partnership”.  But there’s a small problem.  The key part of the State Department press release is its contention that:

[The AP6 partnership] together with the diffusion of clean technologies to other regions could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by about 23 percent in 2050 compared with what would otherwise have been the case, according to a 2006 study by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resources Economics (ABARE).

Sounds great, right?  Only until you follow up the reference and take a look at the ABARE report itself, where “what would otherwise have been the case” turns out to be a whopping global increase in emissions between now and 2050: from around 8 gigatonnes of carbon equivalent (GtC-e) today to around 23 GtC-e in 2050. 

So what the AP6’s touted 23 per cent reduction below business as usual really means is that global emissions in 2050 of about 17 GtC-e rather than the 23 GtC-e that would supposedly have happened otherwise.  In other words: even according to the AP6’s own best case scenario, global emissions grow by more than a hundred per cent between now and 2050.  It’s not looking like a lean, mean alternative to targets and timetables just yet…

Nuclear waste vs carbon capture

by | Jun 26, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity

Day 2.  Danish Foreign Secretary Per Stig Møller explains that Denmark is not investing in nuclear power stations because there’s no long term solution to the waste problem.  But, interjects a feisty member of the audience, in that case why is Denmark investing in carbon capture and storage – which, she says, is toxic too?

Moller disputes that carbon dioxide is a poison; audience member retorts that yes it is, people died in Canada when a volcano erupted and CO2 concentrations in the air became too high.  Back and forth the squabble goes.

But the toxicity point is a red herring.  More interesting, surely, is that an unplanned, large scale release of CO2 storage fields is potentially just as hazardous as nuclear waste.  So why is one a risk that can be managed effectively over the very long term, and not the other?

Where does the deal get done?

by | 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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