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Countdown to Copenhagen

oheffernan — 2009-11-24T16:26:08+00:00

Keith Kloor

Less than three weeks before more than 60 world leaders will gather in Copenhagen for a historic climate change summit, the Obama Administration is saying don’t count them out. According to the Guardian, White House officials have told reporters that President Obama will soon announce a U.S. proposed target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

As the BBC notes:

“The absence of a US target has widely been seen as the single biggest obstacle to agreement at the summit.”

Until now, it’s been assumed that the U.S. couldn’t offer an emissions reduction target until its Congress passed a climate change bill, the details of which are still being worked out in various Senate committees. But as one senior White House official tells Politico:

“It would be a mistake to conclude that the international community's failure to reach a final treaty in Copenhagen is due to a lack of domestic legislation in the United States."

Yale Environment 360 asks ten environmental leaders and climate experts to “outline what they believe can still be accomplished at Copenhagen.”

An increasing sense of urgency for international action comes today with the publication of The Copenhagen Diagnosis. The report, compiled by 26 climate researchers, is an update of the latest climate science since 2007. A number of the participating scientists have issued statements accompanying the report, among them Matthew England, joint Director of the Climate Change Research Centre of the University of NSW, Australia:

"We have already almost exceeded the safe level of emissions that would ensure a reasonably secure climate future. Within just a decade global emissions need to be declining rapidly. A binding treaty is needed urgently to ensure unilateral action among the high emitters."

Is east Antarctic ice melting?

oheffernan — 2009-11-23T12:49:23+00:00

Daniel Cressey; cross-posted from The Great Beyond

The ice sheet covering east Antarctica may have been melting since 2006, according to new research, contradicting previous suggestions that it has remained stable or even grown in mass.

Using measurements for 2002 to 2009 from a twin pair of satellites, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas, say east Antarctica is losing mass at about 58 gigatonnes a year. Most of the loss appears to be from coastal regions and to stem from increased ice loss post 2006.

Previous studies have generally used satellites to measure elevation or movement of ice. The new study - published in Nature Geoscience - instead looks at the Earth’s gravity field and uses that to work out how much ice is there. It also suggests that 132 Gt of the total annual ice loss of 190 Gt per year is coming from the west.

Although there are uncertainties in the data, the new estimates of ice loss are on average consistent with previous calculations, “but, in contrast to previous estimates, they indicate that as a whole, Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea-level rise”, the researchers write in their paper.

CRU data hack

oheffernan — 2009-11-20T18:33:46+00:00

Everyone's talking about the CRU data hack. Quirin Schiermeier reports on Nature News:

One of Britain's leading climate-research centres has had more than 1,000 files stolen from its computers and republished on the Internet. The cyber-attack is apparently aimed at damaging the reputations of prominent climate scientists.

The full story is here:

Comment 1 (CRU data hack)

mondo — 2009-11-21T08:24:06+00:00

You imply that "skeptics" are mounting a cyber-attack apparently aimed at damaging the reputations of prominent climate scientists.

They've done a pretty good job of that by themselves, wouldn't you say?

Also, this episode rather throws into highlight the inadequate enforcement of editorial policies, proper peer review, and data archiving policies by leading science journals.

Comment 2 (CRU data hack)

charlie2 — 2009-11-21T12:37:29+00:00

It's not the hacking that damages the reputations of prominent climate scientists, it's the contents of the emails they were sending to each other. Hard to understand how anyone could honestly come to any other conclusion.

Comment 3 (CRU data hack)

mike1 — 2009-11-21T22:46:48+00:00

The emails & data could just as easily have been leaked by an insider - for whatever motive. Cyber attack doesn't seem warranted.

Comment 4 (CRU data hack)

husten — 2009-11-23T12:21:18+00:00

Quirin,
This is not a computer problem We would not be discussing this a "Nature" were it so. 50/50 chance it is a whistleblower, not a hacker. It would not hurt to report on the contents and accusations unbiased.
Hans

Comment 5 (CRU data hack)

steve_jones — 2009-11-23T17:25:19+00:00

Can someone at Nature explain exactly how this is different from the Pentagon papers?

The things going on in those emails are nothing less than federal crimes (deleting emails to avoid FOIA) and research misconduct.

This is going to be the next Hendrik Schon case.

Nature needs to run an in-depth piece examining how its own review procedures could have failed to such an extent to let this stuff through.

Comment 6 (CRU data hack)

Ron Cram — 2009-11-23T17:40:32+00:00

Now that the CRU whistleblower has released these emails and documents which were responsive to FOI requests and were illegally withheld, how will this change editorial decisions at Nature?

For example, now that we know the CRU cabal were putting undue pressure on journals not to publish papers by skeptical scientists, will Nature be more open to publishing quality work produced by skeptical scientists?

Will Nature report on pressure applied to its editors to prevent the publication of skeptical papers?

Since skeptical scientists like Steve McIntyre, John Christy, Roy Spencer, Richard Lindzen, Roger Pielke and Anthony Watts have been discriminated against, are you willing to issue these scientists a gold embossed invitation to publish any paper they deem worthy as a way to correct previous years of shutting them out?

Are you willing to invite skeptical scientists to review more papers? In my opinion, it is utter folly to publish a tree-ring study or temp series without asking McIntyre or another Climate Audit contributing scientist/statistician to review it.

In short, what are your plans to make amends for the undue influence exercised by the Jones, Mann, Briffa, etc in the editorial process?

Comment 7 (CRU data hack)

Larry Sheldon — 2009-11-23T22:01:58+00:00

"damaging" reputations?

or "correcting"? "Disclosing"?
"validating opinions of"?

Countdown to Copenhagen

oheffernan — 2009-11-20T17:42:40+00:00

Keith Kloor

While many are feeling pessimistic about the prospects for a deal at Copenhagen, Geoffrey Lean at Grist believes the big climate summit still has a pulse. He reports that “environment ministers from 40 key countries—assembled this week for a two-day preparatory meeting in Copenhagen—made good progress towards a political agreement.”

Lean doesn’t deny that the odds for success are still long. But the game is by no means over, he writes:

“It is all very difficult. But there is a chance that, with luck and skill, a climate-saving deal can be reached. And while far from ideal, the hope that a deal is still salvageable is a lot better than the doom that was so widely pronounced at the start of the week.”

Meanwhile, are people suffering from “climate fatigue,” and tuning out the steady drumbeat of alarming news on climate change? Richard Kerr in Science examines the communication challenges [subscription required]. He writes:

“Almost all climate scientists are of one mind about the threat of global warming: It's real, it's dangerous, and the world needs to take action immediately. But they disagree about the best way to convey the urgency of the situation to the public and policymakers.”

At Yale Environment 360, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger argue that one thing not to do is hype the danger incessantly. Pointing to the consistent polling that shows Americans to have soft support for climate change measures, the authors assert:

“The lesson of recent years would appear to be that apocalyptic threats — when their impacts are relatively far off in the future, difficult to imagine or visualize, and emanate from everyday activities, not an external and hostile source — are not easily acknowledged and are unlikely to become priority concerns for most people.”

Comment 1 (Countdown to Copenhagen)

Tommy — 2009-11-23T12:27:34+00:00

Copenhagen is looking more and more like a potentially disastrous catastrophe should the US and Chinese Administrations fail to commit to making significant changes. None of us want it to fail, but even the organisers are now beginning to thing of contingencies...

http://tommygilchrist.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/why-copenhagen-will-fail/

A force to fight global warming

oheffernan — 2009-11-19T16:59:56+00:00

Olive Heffernan
This week's Nature [subscription required] is the third in a series of special issues celebrating the life of Charles Darwin. It focuses on the dire challenges to Earth's biodiversity — and finds some reason for hope.

Among the numerous biodiversity-related contributions is an opinion piece by Will Turner of Conservation International with Michael Oppenheimer and David S. Wilcove of Princeton University. They argue that natural ecosystems offer some of our greatest tools in mitigating climate change and, as such, must be made a bulwark against climate change, rather than a casualty of it. They write:

REDD is just one of many possible ways to exploit the potential of natural ecosystems to slow climate change and lessen its effects on people. Natural habitats are a hugely valuable tool in the fight against global warming. Use them wisely and they could save many lives and vast sums of money in the decades to come. Abuse them, and much of Earth's biodiversity could be lost, along with the fight against climate change. Urgent action is needed to understand how best to exploit this promise and develop mechanisms that can be woven into the practices of governments, corporations, communities and institutions worldwide.

Turner and co-authors say that natural ecosystems are a clear mitigation option because of their sequestration potential, but also because "the maintenance and restoration of natural habitats are among the cheapest, safest and easiest solutions at our disposal in the effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and promote adaptation to unavoidable changes". See the full article here.

That (carbon) sinking feeling

oheffernan — 2009-11-18T17:36:56+00:00

Daniel Cressey; cross-posted from The Great Beyond

The world’s carbon dioxide ‘sinks’ are not able to keep up with the amount of the greenhouse gas being produced, according to a paper published in Nature Geoscience.

Reviewing the recent literature Corinne Le Quéré, of the University of East Anglia, and colleagues report that between 1959 and 2008 43% of each year’s carbon dioxide emissions have remained in the atmosphere with the rest being absorbed by land and ocean sinks. However in the last 50 years they suggest that the fraction remaining in the atmosphere has increased from about 40% to 45%.

They also found that a 29% rise in carbon emissions between 2000 and 2008 can be attributed to a large extent to burning coal and the growth of the so-called ‘emerging economies’.

“The Earth’s carbon sinks are complex and there are some gaps in our understanding, particularly in our ability to link human-induced CO2 emissions to atmospheric CO2 concentrations on a year-to-year basis,” says Le Quéré (press release). “But, if we can reduce the uncertainty about the carbon sinks, our data could be used to verify the effectiveness of climate mitigations policies.”

Countdown to Copenhagen

oheffernan — 2009-11-17T21:05:41+00:00

Keith Kloor

After world leaders announced over the weekend that no legally binding global warming treaty would be reached at the upcoming Copenhagen summit, the post mortems have started coming in fast and furious. Christian Schwägerl in Der Spiegel writes:

“The U.S. is quite happy to see itself as the leader of the Western world. But when it comes to climate change, America has once again failed miserably -- for the umpteenth time.”

Foreign Policy Magazine asks “Who killed Copenhagen?” and names President Obama as the top culprit, citing his lackluster leadership on climate change since taking office last year. Prominent environmental activist and writer Bill McKibben levels the same charge over at Mother Jones magazine:

“For a year now it’s been clear that the president is not particularly focused on applying the political pressure that would have been necessary to reach any kind of pact, much less one that approaches what the science demands. Despite the deadline of the Copenhagen conference, Obama placed energy second on his priority list, guaranteeing that health care would occupy most of the year. He talked very little about climate, tending instead to talk about green jobs and energy security, and in the process left the door open for climate deniers to have a field day.”

But John Broder of the NYT says Obama is “hobbled” by the U.S. Congress, which is moving glacially on climate change legislation. As Broder writes:

“Without a firm commitment from the United States — for decades the world’s leading emitter of climate-altering gases — other nations have been reluctant to deliver firmer pledges of their own.”

Never mind all that for now, argues Danish prime minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who, according to the Guardian, told world leaders that “we must, in the coming weeks, focus on what is possible and not let ourselves be distracted by what is not possible.” The new endgame, he said:

“The Copenhagen agreement should finally mandate continued legal negotiations and set a deadline for their conclusion.”

Given the heady built-up over the past year, maybe a delay isn’t such a bad thing, argues David Roberts in Grist:

“If the world’s nations had headed into Copenhagen expecting a legally binding treaty complete with targets and timetables, the result would have been disappointment, acrimony, and worst of all, wasted time. By taking some of the pressure off Copenhagen, the two-steps agreement has avoided disaster and maintained momentum. It’s also given the Obama administration time to engage in more climate diplomacy.”

On that last point, the United States and China just released a joint statement on a number of issues, including climate change. The two sides believe that,

“while striving for final legal agreement, an agreed outcome at Copenhagen should, based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, include emission reduction targets of developed countries and nationally appropriate mitigation actions of developing countries. The outcome should also substantially scale up financial assistance to developing countries, promote technology development, dissemination and transfer, pay particular attention to the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable to adapt to climate change, promote steps to preserve and enhance forests, and provide for full transparency with respect to the implementation of mitigation measures and provision of financial, technology and capacity building support.”

Meanwhile, at the World Summit on Food Security in Rome, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the Rome and Copenhagen summits "must craft a single global vision to produce real results for people in real need". As the BBC reports, the Secretary General called for a more co-ordinated approach to the issues, saying:

[there] "can be no food security without climate security".

Mitigation scenario a taste of things to come

oheffernan — 2009-11-17T20:27:48+00:00

Olive Heffernan

I've just returned from a two-day visit to the UK Met Office, where scientists are gathered this week to present and discuss the results of a five-year research initiative known as Ensembles. An EU-funded project led by the Met Office Hadley Centre, Ensembles brought together 66 research international institutes with the express aim of developing climate models and projections and applying the newly developed tools to studying climate impacts on agriculture, health and other sectors.

One of the most exciting outcomes from Ensembles is the development of a climate mitigation scenario and its analysis by a variety of state-of-the-art climate models, many of which include carbon cycle feedbacks. As I explain over on Nature News, this is a radically different approach from the gold-standard climate projections, which are run by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nation's climate body.

Up until now, the IPCC has run models for a range of 'what if' scenarios that make various assumptions about the future, such as the level of emissions, technological and economic development. None of these scenarios account for the impact of policy on climate change.

The Ensembles scenario, known as E1, works the other way around. It assumes that atmospheric levels of CO2 equivalents cannot rise above 450 parts per million if we are to avoid 'dangerous' climate change of more than 2 ºC and then looks at the mitigation that policy-makers would need to pursue to achieve that.

Most of the models suggest that emissions will need to be near zero by 2100 in order to stabilize atmopsheric concentrations at 450 ppm. But the Hadley Centre model, HadCM3, suggests that we'll need to start actively removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere - by artifical or natural means - by 2050, if we are to keep temperatures within a 'safe' level.

Although E1 won't be be used by the IPCC in its next report (AR5), due out in 2013, E1 is the forerunner of a very similar scenario that will feature prominently in AR5.

The full story is here [subscription].

Countdown to Copenhagen

oheffernan — 2009-11-13T16:59:51+00:00

Keith Kloor

The U.S. Congressional climate bill will be tabled until next year, reports The Wall Street Journal. Says Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus:

"It's common understanding that climate-change legislation will not be brought up on the Senate floor and pass the Senate this year."

Just how important is the U.S. climate bill to a climate change agreement in Copenhagen? It’s everything, argues Geoffrey Lean in Grist:

“Never before has such a vital, international treaty depended so crucially on the 535 members of the U.S. Congress. Even previous environmental breakthroughs, such as the Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer or the Washington Convention on Endangered Species, were preceded by U.S. legislation. As such, the rest of the world is experiencing for the first time how its vital interests can be affected by American politics, as senators from coal or oil states object to legislation that would curb emissions from fossil fuels.”

In lieu of this, “the Obama Administration is considering endorsing a limited short-term climate pact,” reports Juliet Eilperin in the Washington Post. She writes:

“Backing an interim agreement -- which would fall far short of what many European and developing nations envisioned when President Obama took office -- would be an attempt to keep the U.N.-sponsored talks from being viewed a failure, say administration and congressional officials.”

Enough of all this gloomy talk, admonished European Union Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, in a press conference yesterday. As Green Inc. reports, Dimas:

“criticized world leaders who had played down the possibility of a strong outcome at the Copenhagen meeting, suggesting they were too pessimistic.”

Greenland ice and Himalayan glaciers: What’s going on?

oheffernan — 2009-11-13T16:37:34+00:00

Quirin Schiermeier

Rising temperatures cause melting and retreat of large ice sheets, sea ice, and mountain glaciers – that’s pretty much common knowledge by now, as are implications on sea level, ecosystems, water supply and natural hazard risk. But a couple of news stories this week may cause confusion.

That the Greenland ice sheet is losing ice, and that mass loss has further accelerated in recent years, comes as no particular surprise. Using ground observations and satellite gravity measurements, a team led by Michiel van den Broeke from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, estimates that some 1,500 gigatonnes – roughly 1,500 cubic kilometers – have been lost from 2000-2008, equivalent to about 0.46 millimeters of global sea level rise.

Melting rates have accelerated since 2006, with mass loss reaching 273 gigatons of mass per year, equivalent to 0.75 millimeters of sea level rise. Without the moderating effects of increased snowfall, post 1996 mass losses would have been 100% higher, the team writes in a paper in this week’s issue of Science [subscription].

But the cryosphere – those parts of the globe that are permanently or seasonally covered by ice – does have surprises in store. Or so it seems.

Here’s one: Himalayan glaciers (there are tens of thousands of them of) are not – or at least not yet - shrinking as a result of climate change, the world learned this week from an Indian geologist.

“Although shrinking in volume and constantly showing a retreating front, [Himalayan glaciers] have not in any way exhibited, especially in recent years, an abnormal annual retreat,” concludes retired glaciologist Vijay Kumar Raina, formerly of the Geological Survey of India, in a report to India's Ministry of Environment and Forests.

“It is premature to make a statement that glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating abnormally because of global warming,” he goes on.

Following the release of the study – based on observations of 25 glaciers – India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh was quick to challenge the“conventional wisdom" about melting ice in the world’s tallest mountains.

Fellow Indian Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was put out: "We have a very clear idea of what is happening. I don't know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement," he told the Guardian.

The IPCC had warned in its latest report, published in 2007, that Himalayan glaciers "are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate."

So what's going on? I asked Lonnie Thompson, a veteran glaciologist and leading paleoclimatologist at Ohio State University. Here’s what he said:

“First and foremost this is not a peer reviewed report and nothing scientific can be claimed based on 25 glaciers out of over 15,000 glaciers in the Himalayas and 46,300 in the Himalayas and Tibetan region.”

Comment 1 (Greenland ice and Himalayan glaciers: What’s going on?)

Mauri Pelto — 2009-11-13T20:30:49+00:00

So why is this non-peer reviewed Himalayan report by another worth commenting upon, when many very important peer reviewed papers on glacier change are ignored? A read of this Ramesh report indicates the widespread and significant glacier retreat. The report also notes that all the glaciers observed have negative mass balance. After observing the significant and widespread retreat and mass loss the author deems it to slow to be due to global warming, without any real analysis of the climate data or what could be causing the loss. This simply does not warrant our attention. However, the oft quoted the Himalayan glacier may be gone by 2035 is still not a realistic conclusion based on the recent ongoing significant retreat of the many still large Himalayan glaciers. Can we stick to covering better material?

Countdown to Copenhagen

oheffernan — 2009-11-10T14:44:54+00:00

Keith Kloor

Passing climate legislation through the US Senate may be tricky, but that hasn’t scared off the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from doing its part. As Stephen Power at the WSJ’s Environmental Capitol notes:

“Congress might be a long way from passing legislation to fight climate change, but the Obama administration appears one step closer to creating its own regime for controlling greenhouse gases.”

Now the President has said he may even attend the UN conference in Copenhagen ---if a deal is at hand. The AP has the scoop:

"If I am confident that all of the countries involved are bargaining in good faith and we are on the brink of a meaningful agreement and my presence in Copenhagen will make a difference in tipping us over the edge, then certainly that's something that I will do."

But if an accord isn’t reached this year, the global climate-change negotiations may be “headed toward the same aimless end” as the notoriously endless ‘Doha round’ of global trade talks, writes Bryan Walsh at Time magazine.

Speaking of something once thought endless, it’s been 20 years since the cold war crumbled in a heap. Now, a certain key historical figure from that time has emerged to implore today’s leaders to “tear down” another kind of wall. In a guest commentary at The Times of London, Mikhail Gorbachev writes:

“Addressing climate change demands a paradigm shift on a scale akin to that required to end the Cold War.”

If there’s going to be such a paradigm shift, it’s safe to say that most environmentalists weren’t betting that the UK would approve a new fleet of “clean coal” and nuclear power stations. As energy secretary Ed Miliband puts it in The Guardian:

"The threat of climate change means we need to make a transition from a system that relies heavily on high-carbon fossil fuels, to a radically different system that includes nuclear, renewable and clean coal power.”

Ready for another puzzler? What’s going on with that Indian government report claiming there is no evidence that global warming has shrunk Himmalayan glaciers? Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, is hopping mad over this, and gives The Guardian an earful, and then some.

"We have a very clear idea of what is happening. I don't know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement."

Finally, in the feel-good story of the day, Politico reports that two U.S. political combatants know how to set aside their differences at the end of the day and share warm and fuzzy gifts. "We are really very good friends,” Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer tells Politico, referring to Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, who has called global warming 'the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.' Adds Boxer: “It’s a good working relationship we have. People are very surprised about it.”

Comment 1 (Countdown to Copenhagen)

Eli Rabett — 2009-11-13T06:11:38+00:00

As has been pointed out multiple times, EPA regulation has always been the hammer that is going to make the Congress take action.

Montreal delegates hold off on HFC amendment

oheffernan — 2009-11-09T16:10:03+00:00

Jeff Tollefson; cross-posted from The Great Beyond

International delegates to the Montreal Protocol wrapped up their meeting in Port Ghalib, Egypt, over the weekend without taking formal action to curb hydrofluorocarbons, modern refrigerants that are also poised to become a major contributor to global warming.

Some 41 countries joined in a declaration in support of regulating HFCs as greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol, according to the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development and the Environmental Investigation Agency. This is in addition to support in North America and Europe as well as Micronesia and Mauritius, which have led the proposal.

Ozone-friendly HFCs represent the culmination of the Montreal Protocol's original mission; regulating them as greenhouse gases would require an amendment expanding the protocol's regulatory umbrella. In Egypt, Montreal delegates called on a technical committee to analyze alternatives to the chemicals in advance of a potential decision next year. For background, see our previous coverage here and here.

Australian agency denies gagging climate researchers

oheffernan — 2009-11-09T14:16:46+00:00

Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), has denied claims that it prevents researchers from publishing work on politically-sensitive issues such as climate change, reports Nature News [subscription].

An ecological economist at the agency, Clive Spash, had a paper accepted for publication in the journal New Political Economy earlier this year, only to find out two weeks later that it had been withdrawn by a CSIRO official because it had not yet been through an internal approval process.

In the article, Spash reportedly criticized carbon trading schemes for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, commenting that they are ineffective even if politically popular.

CSIRO staff are prevented from commenting on matters of policy. The agency has a process in place to ensure that staff only communicate on the results of their research, but Spash argues that such a policy presents real difficulties for academics working in socio-economics. As Nature News reports:

“There's a real issue here about people working in the socio-economic area," [Spash] told one reporter. "It's not at all clear to me how these people are supposed to work and do their job while trying to meet these general guidance principles that have been interpreted at present to say that we're not allowed to comment on any government policy at any level of government, anywhere in the world."

Spash apparently submitted the paper before an internal decision was made, having become frustrated with the slowness of the process and with wrangling over specific wording.

A CSIRO employee told Nature News last Friday that the incident stemmed more from management styles and conservative interpretation of the rules, rather than from any political pressure.

Copenhagen conference: Call it a wrap

oheffernan — 2009-11-06T17:53:08+00:00

Jeff Tollefson; cross-posted from In the Field

Things are winding down here in Barcelona. The latest negotiating text is out, and everybody is waiting for the final plenary session.

Negotiators seem to have coalesced on what needs to come out of Copenhagen, as opposed to what many would like to see. The basic idea, covered in a bit more detail in my last post, is that leaders could sign an agreement providing decisions on the big issues, including emissions targets, financing, technology, adaptation and deforestation, and then come back early next year to get the details for a formal treaty in place. That might not sound like much, but it eliminates the sense of doubt that was clouding the talks earlier in the week.

There's a bit of confusion in some places, particularly among greens and representatives from developing countries, about what that means, but most see it as a viable solution given that securing a complete, ratifiable treaty might not be possible. Indeed, despite what might be called an air of cautious optimism, the gap between rich and poor countries remains substantial and apparently unbridgeable.

This stark truth was on full display as the G77 group representing developing countries, the European Union and then the United States held back-to-back press conferences giving their assessment of where we stand. I'll take a closer look at the implications of all this in next week's issue, but here's a quick summary: The G77 said it won't support any agreement unless rich countries cut their emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020; the EU said its offer to go up to 30 percent is already aggressive; and the US said its unofficial numbers, which appear in legislative proposals that would reduce emissions to just a few percent below 1990 levels, are both unlikely to change and in line with the science.

I say "apparently" because these are negotiations, and there is a sense that everybody wants a deal. I briefly cornered Alf Wills, a G77 leader from South Africa, to talk about the issue, and he acknowledged that developed countries could always try to bridge the divide with offers of things like money and technology. "That's part of the negotiation," he told me.

Countdown to Copenhagen

oheffernan — 2009-11-06T15:18:10+00:00

Keith Kloor

All hope for Copenhagen seems lost. According to The Times:

“A world treaty on climate change will be delayed by up to a year and is likely to be watered down because countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions are refusing to commit to legally binding reductions.”

So if Copenhagen becomes just another rallying point for worldwide action, then where to after that? According to The Guardian:

“Sources said a meeting in Mexico in December 2010 would be more likely to see the legal treaty sealed.”

Whatever new roadmap emerges from Copenhagen, religious leaders meeting this week at Windsor Castle in Britain have pledged to galvanize their constituents to take action on global warming. Andrew Revkin at Dot Earth notes the “remarkable conclave”.

On the energy front, natural gas continues to be heralded for its various environmental attributes. Recent discoveries of abundant shale gas reserves in the United States, argue Daniel Yergin and Robert Ineson in The Wall Street Journal, transform the debate over generating electricity. They write:

"The US electric power industry faces very big questions about fuel choice and what kind of new generating capacity to build. In the face of new climate regulations, the increased availability of gas will likely lead to more natural gas consumption in electric power because of gas's relatively lower CO2 emissions. Natural gas power plants can also be built more quickly than coal-fired plants."

A broader case was spelled out several months ago by a leading Washington DC think thank, which asserted that natural gas:

"creates an unprecedented opportunity to use gas as a bridge fuel to a 21st-century energy economy that relies on efficiency, renewable sources and low-carbon fossil fuels such as natural gas".

Now, it seems that it has a potential peace dividend as well. Building natural gas pipelines in Central Asia, instead of military transport lines, could bring greater stability to countries such as India and Pakistan, according to this article by Saleem H. Ali and Parag Khanna, in Foreign Policy. There are obvious ancillary benefits for the global climate, since natural gas "is likely to be the cleanest and most cost-effective fuel to meet Pakistan and India’s energy shortfall". The authors add:

"Natural gas development offers a unique opportunity to tackle strategic, diplomatic and environmental goals at the same time.”