Red, Green, and Blue

The Sunday talk shows were full of talk about the health care reform fight: are there 60 votes in the Senate? is the public option off the table? are illegal immigrants covered? And, while consensus on any health care answers has been fleeting, everyone agrees on what is the most important question: how is President Obama going to PAY for health care reform?

The White House still lists climate change legislation as one of its priorities, but with Senate action on a bill getting pushed deeper into September - and closer to oblivion for 2009 - greens cannot help but worry that their cause will not only be eclipsed by health care, but also by the economy generally, unemployment specifically, and even foreign policy issues like the escalation in Afghanistan. Read the rest of this entry »

After months of staunch resistance to mandatory emission reduction targets the Indian government has hinted that it is willing to consider a national legislation on voluntary emission reduction targets.

India’s environment minister Mr. Jairam Ramesh acknowledged for the first time that his country needs to take up bold responsibilities in order to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change. The proposed legislation could include emission reduction targets for the year 2030 for the most polluting and carbon intensive industrial sectors.

India has been against mandatory emission reduction targets putting forward two main arguments - one, its per capita emissions are among the lowest in the world and two, taking bold measures to reduce its carbon emissions would adversely impact its endeavor to eradicate poverty. The proposed bill would address both these issues and could serve as a path breaking legislation striking a balance between the economic and social costs and the mitigation measures. Read the rest of this entry »

Mean Joe Green #73: When Climate Change and Health Care Reform Collide

Can “We the People” who got us into this mess be counted on to get us out of it?

…not looking good.

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The European Union has proposed a climate change funding of €2-15 billion every year for developing countries to help them make transition from fossil fuel based energy systems to clean energy based systems. However, EU does not see the advanced developing counties like India and China eligible for this financial help.

EU in its Global Finance Blueprint for Ambitious Action by Developing Nations paper stated that advanced developing countries should contribute to the climate adaptation fund instead of expecting funds for themselves. According to the paper, advanced developing countries posses ample financial resources to initiate and sustain emission reduction programs.

The Commission said that from 2013, it would depend on the carbon market to fund 40% of the money required for climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing nations. The emerging economies should be able to generate 20-40% of the proposed global fund, it said. The remaining—around $22-50 billion a year—will be paid for by the European Union and the rest of the developed nations.

Developing countries have been at loggerheads with the developed countries on the issue of funding for adaptation to clean fuel technologies. Decision to set up an adaptation fund for helping poor and developing countries was taken at the Bali climate conference in 2007. However, the developed countries are yet to act on their promises of aid as they find themselves constrained by the global economic crisis and objections by their own people. Read the rest of this entry »

Oh, they call him a communist. They call him a Red. But the actual problem is that President Obama is too Green. Barack Obama is our first truly Green President.

This is the real reason the fossil industries whose profits are threatened by renewable energy go after him - and stir up emotional opposition groups to threaten him with outlandish attacks. Because he has already implemented or funded an extraordinary string of renewable energy initiatives.

He will likely be remembered as an FDR figure; the president who powered the nation with solar and wind.
Read the rest of this entry »

Cap-and-trade calamity? Au contraire. While the US flounders on regulating carbon, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy is pushing forward with new carbon tax legislation that will only add to France’s edge in the emerging green economy.

With heavy subsidies in place for nuclear power, France already generates 80% of its electricity from non-fossil-fueled sources. The French are also participants in the European cap-and-trade regime. That combination of support for clean technologies and downward pressure on carbon is the same that the Obama White House sees as the critical path to green energy adoption in the US. Progress has been elusive in that regard and things do not look rosy in the Senate this fall. Read the rest of this entry »

The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) may not sound snappy, but its long-term aim is easily expressed: to act as a vegetable ark.  Part of the treaty requires the developed world to fund the preservation of diverse species of food crop around the world.

The funding is provided by richer nations, which have often become variety poor, and given to other nations, which are often poorer but have a wide range of plants which could act as an ‘agricultural insurance’ by maintaining biodiversity in essential crops.

The crops being preserved in this way include potatoes in Peru, corn and beans in Cuba and oranges in Egypt. The varieties need to be preserved to ensure that the planet has a range of foods that are more likely to be able to adapt to challenges ranging from climate change to pollution, from salination to the loss of pollinators like insects to the ability to resist diseases and predators.

Up to 90% of vegetable variety has been lost

Four basic food staples: rice, wheat, corn and potatoes make up more than half the total foodstuffs eaten on the planet, and in this group of staple foods, less than 150 varieties are grown commercially. Wheat has just five major varieties now grown globally on a commercial scale, of the more than 700 recorded varieties, many of which have been lost and others of which are only grown by hobby farmers or in remote districts where the ‘big five’ will not thrive. China alone has lost nearly 90% of the wheat varieties that were grown across the country sixty years ago and India grows only 10% of the rice varieties that appeared in its fields a hundred years ago.

This is not just a loss of diversity – a limited range of varieties means that those grown are more liable to damage by pests or disease. It also leaves many countries open to price hikes in the recently globalised commodity markets, meaning that many people simply cannot afford to buy the staple foods that used to grow in the fields around their houses.

ITPGRFA set up the Svalbard seed-bank last year, and now that a repository for 1.1 million plant varieties exists, it is focusing on the very many crops that can’t have their variety maintained in a seed bank, such as tuberous crops like potatoes.

International treaties depend on funding and have no national accountability

For a long time this part of the ITPGRFA programme looked as if it would never get off the ground because for five years the parties who were funding the seed conservation initiative couldn’t agree how to finance the on-site part of the project nor on contracts that guarantee any commercial use of the diverse species will bring financial benefit to the nations that have been conserving them. And perhaps the best news of all, for those already involved in ITPGRFA, is that the USA may be willing to join the scheme after expressing no interest in it under the previous administration.

Corn varieties courtesy of alecim at flickr under a creative commons licence

Back in late spring, critics on the left attacked the Waxman-Markey bill for compromising on carbon credits even as the right slapped on the “energy tax” label, and - at least if early September is any indication - that label has stuck.

It is not clear that President Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid (pictured left with New Mexico Democrat Jeff Bingaman - another key climate voice) can win a simple majority for carbon-capping climate change legislation this year, with industrial state Dems already defecting, but the lift for Reid and his whips will be even tougher: they cannot overcome a GOP filibuster without a 60 vote super-majority.

If those Senators in favor of climate legislation get the 60 votes they need to block a filibuster and pass a climate bill, they likely can’t do it without a little help from these six. These are the six Senators that lobbyists will be courting, the White House will be pressing, and you should be watching in the coming days and weeks as the Senate addresses climate change. Read the rest of this entry »

The Indian government released a report recently which predicted a fourfold increase in carbon emissions output in the next two decades. According to the government report, India’s carbon emissions would increase to 4 to 7 billion tonnes from last year’s level of 1.4 billion tonnes by 2031.

India’s environment minister, however, preferred to point out another finding in the report. The report predicts almost 100 percent increase in per capita emissions but the minister noted that even with a 3.5 to 4 tonnes per capita output it would remain below the global average. The globally agreed limit of per capita emission for sustainable development is 2 tonnes.

That is the argument that the Indian government has put forward frequently in order to dodge international pressure to reduce its carbon emissions. India maintains that its per capita carbon emissions are way below those of the developed countries and thus it would be unfair to ask it to set mandatory emission reduction targets. Read the rest of this entry »

September isn’t usually the silly season, but this week’s protests are all weird, wonderful, whacky or … missing!

No protest for polluted Peruvian town

On 31 August the union supporting workers at the currently suspended Doe Run smelter in Peru said they would not be protesting after all. They had planned  roadblocks and other protests the following day, to force the national government to fund the reopening of the struggling plant, but so few people turned up to a planning meeting that they are re-thinking their strategy.

Doe Run Peru’s smelter at La Oroya was closed in June when banks cut off credit and the government is refusing to extend the time-frame for a environmental cleanup, which could allow new loans to be negotiated. The plant must meet a 1 October deadline to clean up local conditions and establish better implement environmental controls but it says it lacks the money to fulfil its environmental contract and wants an extension of the deadline to mid 2010.

Around 3,000 employees and a further 16,000 indirect jobs are linked to the plant, which is why local union leaders want action on reopening the plant, even though the town of La Oroya is considered one of the most polluted on the planet.

Naked protest for PR company

On 1 September the London offices of Edelman’s were invaded by six naked environmentalists. The campaigners were protesting the PR firms involvement with Eon who are planning to rebuild the coal-fired power plant at Kingsnorth with two replacement ‘cleaner coal’ plants.

The protestors, some male and naked, some female and wearing knickers, superglued their wrists together in the lobby of the firm, while other protestors scale the roof of the building. The were removed by police carrying blankets.

Rocky protest in Australia

Latvala of Finland took a 2.2-second lead in the 4 September stage of Rally Australia in New South Wales but the first day’s racing was marked by protests.

Environmental activists had already forced the cancellation of two of the 15 stages when state police found boulders on the road at one rally stage. Later that day, the first car to take that stage was pelted with rocks. The driver, Hirvonen, was unharmed but the stage was stopped as there were concerns for the safety of the drivers and spectators.

Two groups, ‘No Rally’ and Peacebus, had already staged a campaign, trying to get the World Rally stage in Australia stopped because they claimed it would damage environment and frighten wildlife in the remote areas in which it is being held, a local government officer also tried to get a court injunction to prevent the rally but failed.

Rally car courtesy of Repco Rally Australia