Poznan Climate Conference Seeks Consensus on Emissions Reductions, Climate Policy
Building the Green Economy, Food Supply Security, Quipu Economic Forum :: Comments (0)
11 December 2008 :: by J.E. Robertson
The climate change conference currently underway in Poznan, Poland, seeks to build on the Bali agreement, adopted by 180 countries in 2007, in hopes of achieving a global emissions regime. A sweeping economic downturn overtaking North America and Europe, and now hitting China’s manufacturing and export base, it is feared, will hamper efforts to implement comprehensive green industrial and economic reforms.
Details of a new global climate protocol, to replace the troubled Kyoto protocol, which does not regulate China, India or the United States, are to be discussed at Poznan and established at the Copenhagen conference, in 2009. As reports from Poznan suggest progress is moving slowly, with some nations demanding the right to delay implementation of emissions caps, there is concern the Copenhagen protocol will be weaker than needed, or will fail to be adopted.
Steve Howard, chief executive of the Climate Group, says “Expectations from Poznan are not exceptionally high, but there are some clear signals from the major players that we are moving towards a robust global framework. Poznan needs to set the stage for Copenhagen to have a realistic chance of success.” The Climate Group works to bring governments and business leaders together to hash out a viable global framework for climate policy.
The UN’s top diplomat, however, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for a global “Green New Deal” and says that precisely because the global economic crisis threatens to distract policy-makers from much-needed action, now is the time “We must re-commit ourselves to the urgency of our cause”. One of Ban’s first trips after accepting the post of UN secretary general was to Antarctica, where scientists showed him the dire effects of global climate change and brought his attention to the threat of rising sea levels.
One major area where progress may be set back is emissions regulation. The European Union is now grappling with serious questions over how aggressively to pursue its emissions-reduction regime, which many countries are now failing to meet. Economic conditions have made it more difficult for private business to make the necessary technological improvements or fund green-friendly energy processes, which would help reduce emissions across nations and the Union more broadly.
EU ministers are now studying the problem at Brussels, with policy-makers in the US watching closely. According to The Washington Post:
At the Brussels meeting, E.U. leaders must decide whether to finalize plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2020, while also reducing energy use by 20 percent and obtaining 20 percent of their energy supply from renewable sources. Coal-dependent nations such as Poland want to delay further lowering of emissions limits under the European Union’s nearly four-year old cap-and-trade system.
There is disagreement across the EU, however, on what the economic implications of speeding a shift to clean resources will be. The disparity in policy positions or confidence about the viability of green energy initiatives is tied in part to the degree to which various nations rely on emissions-intensive industries for their economic output. The AP is reporting:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU’s biggest economic power wanted an unequivocal commitment to the plan despite the economic downturn. But Italy’s premier threatened to veto the deal, and the 27 EU leaders will have a tough time finding a compromise that satisfies the often-conflicting demands from national industries.
With Poland, the nation hosting the Poznan conference, aiming to delay aggressive reductions, new global action on emissions reduction may be set back significantly, especially if the view takes root that emissions reduction is not economically viable. Green energy proponents, ecologists and some leading economists argue that such strategies are inseparable from achieving sustainable future prosperity, but skeptics and industry leaders continue to argue that such changes mean unnecessary economic strain.
The transition team for incoming US president Barack Obama has signalled that his policy on greening the economy will operate from the logic that an overhaul of the economic infrastructure will spur growth and build important resilience measures into the economy, over the long term. Ban Ki-moon’s call for a Green New Deal urges world leaders to include green economic inputs as a major segment of the massive economic stimulus plans currently being contemplated or implemented to spur economic recovery.
Climate scientists continue to sound the alarm, warning that failure to act on global climate change could lead to a severe worsening of chronic famine in poor parts of Africa. Climate-induced migration and the degradation of arable land could lead to a degeneration of food security, in Africa and across the world economy.
US president-elect Barack Obama has signalled his understanding of the intertwining of these issues. The Christian Science Monitor reports that, after meeting privately with his vice-president-elect Joe Biden and former VP and Al Gore —who won a Nobel Prize and Academy Award for his work to raise concern about the climate crisis—, Obama told reporters:
We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now, that this is a matter of urgency and national security, and it has to be dealt with in a serious way. That is what I intend my administration to do.
He also expressed his belief that “We have the opportunity now to create jobs all across this country, to re-power America, to redesign how we use energy, to think about how we are increasing efficiency, to make our economy stronger”. He has also linked the challenge of creating a clean-energy economy to national security, in part due to the need to extricate US economic prosperity from the availability of oil from authoritarian or hostile regimes.
