Der Spiegel: The Durban Climate Agreement 'Is Almost Useless'

[marmar]

The climate talks in Durban ended with an agreement to agree on a new agreement on emissions cuts in coming years. The outcome was hailed as historic by the organizers, but German commentators say the pledges remain too vague and the progress too slow -- while global warming is accelerating.

Countries from around the globe agreed on Sunday to forge a new deal forcing all the biggest polluters for the first time to limit greenhouse gas emissions. A package of accords agreed after two weeks of United Nations talks in Durban, South Africa, extended the 1997 Kyoto Protocol -- the only global pact enforcing carbon cuts -- allowing five more years to finalize a wider pact.

Delegates agreed in the early hours of Sunday to start work next year on a new, legally binding accord to cut greenhouse gases, to be decided by 2015 and to come into force by 2020. The process for doing so, called the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, would "develop a new protocol, another legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force." The phrasing was vague enough for all parties to claim victory.

.....(snip).....

Left-wing Frankfurter Rundschau writes:

"The Kyoto Protocol is saved. After a hard diplomatic battle, the summit meeting agreed to a continuation of the historic climate agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise have expired in 2012. That makes for good reading. As does the fact that the US, China and the other emerging markets want to take part in a new global agreement from 2020. The only problem is that it's almost useless. The UN summit wasn't a debacle like the Copenhagen conference two years ago, but it only narrowly avoided complete failure -- like most of the 16 summits before it." ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,803158,00.html

[Bob Wallace]

1. And a different perspective...

"My conclusion is that for now, at least, the conceptual advance made in Durban is as good as it gets.

This advance is, potentially, huge: For the first time, officials of the nations that are the biggest carbon emitters — China, the United States and India — have agreed to negotiate legally binding restrictions.

Under the old Kyoto Protocol framework, which for now remains largely in effect, rapidly industrializing nations refused to be constricted by limits that would stunt their development. The United States declined to sign on to the Kyoto agreement as long as China, India, Brazil and other rising economic giants got a pass.

This meant that while European nations worked to meet emissions targets — or, in some cases, pretended to do so — the most important sources of carbon were unconstrained."

"Compromise language was found: By 2015, delegates will negotiate an “agreed outcome with legal force.” What does this mean? Within four years, there is supposed to be something like a treaty — covering developed and developing countries alike — that limits carbon emissions. This treaty or treaty-like document is supposed to take effect in 2020."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/reason-to-smile-about-the-durban-climate-conference/2011/12/12/gIQA80nZqO_story.html

[joshcryer]

2. By the time they get around to discussing "negotiating legally binding restrictions"...

...we'll have long past any feedback tipping point.

[hatrack]

3. We're out of time - YOY increases in atmospheric GHG content in 2010 were 5.95%

Granted, there will assuredly be fluctuations going forward. However, I'd be willing to bet that the trend is not going to flatten out or go negative any time soon, whatever the pronouncements of diplomats or however many CCS pilot projects AEP or Duke propose and later scrap.

Extending (for the sake of illustration) the trend of 5.95% over time, today's annual GHG output of 10 billion tons becomes 16.8 billion tons by 2020, the time the treaty will ostensibly enter into force, and will double to 20 billion tons by 2023.

Is there anybody who thinks that dealing with an annual GHG output of 16.8 billion tons (or 20 billion tons) is going to be easier than dealing with an annual GHG output of 10 billion tons?

For that matter, is there anybody who thinks that dealing with an annual output of 10 billion tons would have been easier, or preferable, to dealing with an annual output of 6 billion tons, which is what it was at the time of the creation of the original protocol?

To borrow a phrase from the Japanese government in early December 1941, "things are automatically going to happen" - and we're not going to be able to control of any of them.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. However, that 5.95% increase in emissions was after a decrease from 2008 to 2009

and so is not really suitable for a longer-term projection. I presume you're referring to this data (or something similar):

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/perlim_2009_2010_estimates.html

2010 was 4.5% above 2008; looking at their figures for 2008 and earlier, the annual growth rate has been slowing down, and may well be something like 2.2% now. Any growth in this is bad, of course, but 5.95% per year does not look like something that would be sustained.

[joshcryer]

10. The west has been relatively flat for decades, the increases are coming from India, China and the...

...developing world.

There is absolutely no indication that we're slowing down any time soon:

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. The annual increase had been slowing from 2003 to 2007

The increases, going from 2008 backwards to 1999, for the whole world were (from the table in my 2nd link):

206
193
264
304
385
416
65
166
169
-57

So you can see that 416 (the increase from 2002 to 2003) had been the previous largest one.

[joshcryer]

17. 2010 is the largest, though, and that's at the end of a deep recession.

1999 6584
2000 6750 +166
2001 6916 +166
2002 6981 +65
2003 7397 +416
2004 7782 +385
2005 8086 +304
2006 8350 +264
2007 8543 +193
2008 8749 +206
2009 8627 +122
2010 9140 +513

I think you're basing your trend on too small of a sample size. The OECD countries have been flat. The sub 200 figures are almost all due to the recession and developing countries stagnating.

[joshcryer]

18. Here, I plotted it with the 2008-2010 data:

I forgot how to put the date axis in there so just ignore that.

It's wrong to take a short term trend and act as if it represents a future trend, imo.

Short of another global recession it's bound to go up.

[hatrack]

20. Another interesting point about the subset of CO2 within the larger GHG growth picture:

If you go to Mauna Loa's website, and check annual mean changes in CO2, you'll find this:



http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ - (third graph down the page).

A couple of things jumped out at me - first of all, the anomalous years - 1964, 1992 and 1999, when we monitored mean annual CO2 increases of .28, .48 and .93 ppm/yr. The first came during the booming mid-1960s, the second at the end of the Gulf War Recession and the last just when globalization was really getting going. Is there a common thread to explain these relatively low-output years? Recession would seem to explain 1992, but not the others.

Second, the mean annual increase during the 1990s was lower than the decade that preceded it and the decade that followed - not by much, but it was a lower-CO2 decade. Why? Was it the payoff of moves to energy efficiency in technology and industry during the 1980s? The shutdown of massively polluting industries in the East Bloc post 1989? India and China not really moving yet? I suspect all of the above, but absent data won't speculate further.

But the main point is simply this - there's not a single year, going back to the end of the 1950s, in which we do not see a mean annual increase in CO2 content. IOW, there's never been a net negative year in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and though there have been years of slow growth, there's never been even a single flat year. That's what concerns me, especially now, given the scale of coal burning that's about to really get going, and a point that tends to get lost in our review of the inevitable fluctuations in total anthropogenic GHG output year to year.

CO2 - the core GHG - hasn't had a single net negative year in all the time we've been tracking it directly, and that's more than half a century.

[Bob Wallace]

5. Are we out of time?

We might be. The just observed massive amounts of methane being emitted in the Arctic may be a sign that we've allowed too many amplifying forces to come into play for us to turn things around.

But we also have climate scientists telling us that we have about 40 years to get things 'fixed'.

Jacobson and Delucchi gave us a rough blueprint for changing to ~100% renewable, carbon free energy in 20 years. That, as they point out, would take considerable political will and a 'World War II' type effort.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030

If we get scared enough we can give it a WWII effort. I think there's a good chance we haven't lost yet.

The dumbest thing we could do is to assume we have and not try to avoid the worst.

[txlibdem]

6. Methane is 27 times more potent greenhouse gas than is CO2

It's bubbling up in Siberia and the oceans of the Arctic.

Can we get out heads out of the sand (literally and figuratively) and start funding the long past due changeover to 100% zero carbon energy sources... ASAP. Please.

Carter Tried To Stop Bush's Energy Disasters - 28 Years Ago
by Thom Hartmann

In his recent news conference, George Bush Jr. suggested that our nation's "problem" with high gasoline prices was caused by the lack of a national energy policy, and tried to blame it all on Bill Clinton. First, Junior said, "This is a problem that's been a long time in coming. We haven't had an energy policy in this country."

This was followed by, "That's exactly what I've been saying to the American people -- 10 years ago if we'd had an energy strategy, we would be able to diversify away from foreign dependence. And -- but we haven't done that. And now we find ourselves in the fix we're in." As is so often the case, Bush was lying.

Consider President Jimmy Carter's April 18, 1977 speech. Since it was given nearly three decades ago, when many of the reporters in Bush's White House were children, it's understandable that they don't remember it. But it's inexcusable that Bush and the mainstream media (which, after all, has the ability to do research) would completely ignore it. It was the speech that established the strategic petroleum reserve, birthed the modern solar power industry, led to the insulation of millions of American homes, and established America's first national energy policy. "With the exception of preventing war," said Jimmy Carter, a man of peace, "this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes."

He added: "It is a problem we will not solve in the next few years, and it is likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century. "We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0503-22.htm

Note: this piece was written in 2005 so it would now be 34 years ago. We've lost over 30 years;we can no longer afford to "take the slow route" and now all we have left is a WWII style all-out effort to get rid of polluting energy and polluting industries.

Zero carbon energy sources are, fortunately for us, abundant and we have the technology TODAY to start. We need no more studies, no more lobbyists, we need action and we need it now, on a grand scale.

[joshcryer]

8. It does have a much shorter atmospheric life, but it's enough to cause glacial feedbacks...

...and other ice feedbacks that drastically change the albedo of the planet, and we're back to dinosaur era temps.

[Dead_Parrot]

11. Point of interest: the 20-odd time worse figure is averaged over a century.

Over shorter time periods, methane is much worse - 72xCO2 averaged over 20 years

Be afraid.

[joshcryer]

12. Fair point.

I'm afraid.

Which is why I'm moving to the desert. Survive there, survive anywhere.

[NickB79]

13. Just let me say thank you for giving me nightmares for the next month

72X, Jesus Christ on a cracker.

[Dead_Parrot]

16. Average lifetime is something like 8 years

So f--k know what it is over that timescale. Don't have the figures, happily.

Sleep well.

[Nihil]

19. Oops.

> Point of interest: the 20-odd time worse figure is averaged over a century.
> Over shorter time periods, methane is much worse - 72xCO2 averaged over 20 years

I thought 20x was bad enough ...

[joshcryer]

9. Unfortunatley it'd cost $100 trillion, or roughly 10%-15% global GDP every year for a decade.

We have the technological capacity, but I doubt we have the political capacity to do it.

[joshcryer]

7. Have to agree. Ice free arctic in 5 years tops. Methane releases beyond expectations.

The feedbacks have started. We should just prepare ourselves for a really bad couple of decades, and then we'll probably resort to some sort of atmospheric dimming approach.

[joshcryer]

14. A post from 2006 by hatrack:

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2661411&mesg_id=2661801

Going to cross-post into the methane thread.