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AfricaFocus Bulletin
"Running from 28 November to 9 December, [the Durban
conference] will be at least a theoretical chance to restore
faith in the glacial progress towards agreement on an
effective way to slow the human contribution to climate
change," notes a commentator in the Guardian for October 24.
But rich countries and developing countries are deeply
divided. And media attention and public pressure are
flagging, particularly in the United States which remains
the principal obstacle to progress.
A Nielsen poll in August (see below) showed particularly low
levels of concern about climate change in the United States,
compared to other countries surveyed, as well as declines in
concern in China. Although the poll is of consumers rather
than a random survey of populations, the comparative results
are striking, and correspond with the generally negative
political climate in the United States on climate change,
despite repeated confirmation of the seriousness of the
crisis by scientific studies and the frequency of "extreme
weather events."
Major changes in public consciousness on neglected issues
are possible (witness the changes in world and U.S. opinion on
HIV/AIDS following the Durban HIV/AIDS conference in the
year 2000. As yet, however, a parallel outcome based on
widespread activist mobilization following this year's
climate change conference shows little sign of emerging,
despite efforts by some activist groups.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a selection of excerpts
from recent articles, with links to the full text of each,
including links to two action campaigns, one in South Africa
and one in the United States; several overview articles; and
several sources on South Africa's climate change policy,
including release of a new Climate Change Response White
Paper this month.
Two other AfricaFocus Bulletins released today also deal
with climate change issues. One, sent out by e-mail and
available on the web at http://www.africafocus.org/docs11/clim1110.php, has
excerpts from a new international report highlighting two
priority actions that national governments can take on
climate change, namely removing subsidies on fossil fuels
and imposing new charges on international aviation and
shipping fuel. The other, at http://www.africafocus.org/docs11/dur1110a.php, contains the
most clearly written roundup I have found of issues in
the talks preceding Durban, from the always well-informed
Third World Network.
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on issues of the
environment and climate change, visit ++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++
August 29, 2011
http://blog.nielsen.com / direct URL: Nielsen poll of consumers in 51 countries
Today, less than half of Americans (48%) say they are
concerned about climate change, which contrasts sharply with
reported concern in Latin America (90%), Middle East/Africa
(80%), Asia Pacific (72%), and Europe (68%). Among the 21
percent of Americans who are decidedly not concerned, 63
percent indicated they believe natural variation - and not
people - causes climate change/global warming.
"During this period, Nielsen's Global Online Consumer
Confidence Survey found heightened American consumer concern
around the economy, rising gas prices, and debt," said Todd
Hale, SVP Consumer & Shopper Insights, Nielsen U.S. "With
financial concerns still on the minds of many Americans,
they're indicating less and less concern about climate
change and other environmental issues."
In China, concern about climate change/global warming is
higher than in the U.S., but dropped 17 percent in the last
two years from 77 percent in 2009 to 64 percent in 2011.
Meanwhile, concern in India has gradually risen in the past
four years, and with 86 percent of Indians currently
worried, it remains one of the markets most concerned about
climate change in the world."
(1) We Have Faith, Act Now for Climate Justice
Faith leaders - representing all faiths - from South Africa
and abroad will have a strong presence at COP17, supported
by a huge body of young people from throughout Africa who
will join in the "We have Faith - Act Now for Climate
Justice" campaign. Related link:
(2) ActionAid USA and partners The Stand with Africa campaign calls for a just and
ambitious US position in upcoming climate summit in Durban,
South Africa, starting in November 2011.
The Petition
Dear President Obama:
The impacts of climate change no longer just await us in the
future; they are with us today. In the United States, we
have been affected by tornadoes, severe floods, droughts,
wild fires, and heat waves. The Horn of Africa is
experiencing the worst drought in over 60 years. We call on
you to show bold leadership and address an urgent crisis--
the climate crisis--that is disproportionately affecting
people living in poverty--particularly people who have the
least capacity to adapt to changing climates and who have
done least to cause the climate crisis.
The upcoming climate summit in Durban, South Africa, in
November 2011, represents a major opportunity for you to
stand with the worlds' poor and to take bold steps to
address the climate crisis. We call on you to commit in
Durban to:
(1) Durban May Be Last Chance to Stabilise Climate Under Two
Degrees
By Stephen Leahy
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105573
[Excerpts only]
The window to limit global warming to less than two degrees
C is closing so fast it can be measured in months, a new
scientific analysis revealed Sunday.
Without putting the brakes on carbon emissions very soon,
large parts of Africa, most of Russia and northern China
will be two degrees C warmer in less than 10 years. Canada
and Alaska will soon follow, the regional study shows.
"If one is sincerely committed to limit global temperature
increase to below two degrees C ... (governments) committing
to a global peak emission level and peak year makes sense
from a science perspective," said Joeri Rogelj of the
Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich, who
headed the analysis published Sunday in the journal Nature
Climate Change.
Governments will be meeting in Durban, South Africa starting
Nov. 28 to launch the next round of climate treaty
negotiations, which so far have failed to ensure their goal
of less than a two-degree C increase will be achieved.
IPS asked Rogelj if government delegates in Durban ought to
set a specific year by which global emissions will peak and
then decline to ensure the two-degree C target will be met.
"Committing to such targets would ensure that we embark
globally on a technologically and economically feasible lowemission
path," Rogelj said.
Rogelj and a group of leading experts show in this state-ofthe
-art analysis that to have a 66-percent or better
probability of staying below two degrees C this century,
global carbon emissions must peak before 2020.
(2) Alex Kirby, "Will the Kyoto Protocol Survive the Durban
Climate Talks," Guardian, October 24, 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk / direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/6doc4lf
[Excerpts only]
Running from 28 November to 9 December, [the Durban
conference] will be at least a theoretical chance to restore
faith in the glacial progress towards agreement on an
effective way to slow the human contribution to climate
change.
There are three main stumbling blocks. One is whether to try
to resuscitate the international climate treaty, the Kyoto
Protocol, whose first phase expires in 2012.
The developing countries want to keep the Protocol, the only
legally binding agreement requiring the rich world to make
necessary (but far from sufficient) cuts in emissions of
greenhouse gases.
The US has refused to ratify the Protocol, saying it won't
accept constraints that do not apply to the world's other
principal greenhouse polluter, China. And China, like other
developing countries, is exempt from Kyoto's provisions.
The European Union and other industrialised countries say
the US will never ratify Kyoto, and that therefore the world
should let it die and work instead on some new and as yet
undefined way to reduce emissions.
Then there's money. Both mitigation and adaptation (reducing
emissions, and learning to live with the consequences of
those you cannot avoid) are expensive, and the developing
world says the rich are not keeping their promises to help
them to pay to pollute less.
The third problem is really stark: how do you reduce
emissions far and fast enough? Kyoto requires developed
countries to cut theirs collectively to around 5% below what
they were in 1990. Most climate scientists say what's needed
is cuts of 80-90% below 1990 by the middle of this century.
(3) Lisa Friedman, "Nations Heading to Durban Climate Talks
Remain Deeply Divided," New York Times, October 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com / direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/3h9ru6r
[Excerpts only]
The 1997 treaty requires carbon emission cuts from
industrialized countries, and the first phase of the
agreement ends in 2012. Developing countries are adamant
that a second commitment period is non-negotiable. Moreover,
they insist any follow-up should closely hew to the original
agreement: Wealthy countries must agree unilaterally to cut
steeper emissions, and poorer ones would cut carbon
voluntarily after financial assistance from the rich.
"Much as some rich countries like to repeat that discussing
scenarios that they oppose is not 'realistic' or
'practical,' they must recognize that there is no point in
insisting on a solution outside of the Kyoto Protocol when
132 parties have strongly declared that they can only accept
a second commitment period as a meaningful outcome," Jorge
Argüello of Argentina, speaking for the G-77 group of
developing countries, said in a statement.
...
Wealthy countries have vowed to deliver $100 billion
annually by 2020 for poor and vulnerable nations to adapt to
climate impacts and develop low-carbon economies. Countries
have been in the process of establishing the architecture of
a Green Climate Fund, agreed to at last year's climate
summit in Cancun, Mexico, to distribute a portion of that
money. But last week, the focus turned to the dollars
themselves, and from where they would come.
Developing countries are largely insistent that the money
come from public coffers in the United States, European
countries, Australia, Japan and other wealthy nations. Many
argue that the money essentially is compensation to poor
countries for the environmental harm industrialized ones
caused by emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for
decades. That's not, however, the way the United States and
others see it -- and they insist developing countries should
have no say in where the money they get comes from.
(1) Link to National Climate Change Response White Paper
October 2011
(2) Patrick Bond, "The Durban Climate Summit: Climate
Justice versus Market Narratives," Institute for Social
Studies, The Hague, 30 June 2011 Too long and dense to excerpt here. Offers a detailed
critique of South Africa's climate policies, as well as the
South African government's role in international
negotiations. Written before the most recent white paper.
(3) Andreas Spath, "SA's climate change plan"
2011-10-26 I'm usually very critical of our government's commitment to
solving environmental problems, but there are some very
positive aspects to the white paper. For starters, it
unambiguously defines the administration's understanding of
global warming by acknowledging that:
It then goes on to spell out SA's vision of a transition to a "climate-resilient and lower-carbon economy and society" which is to be achieved by a combination of adaptation and mitigation. ... Within two years, carbon budgets detailing desired reductions of emissions from high-emission economic sectors and companies will be established, and these sectors and companies will then have to provide plans on how they will cut back their GHG outputs in line with their carbon budget. A number of economic instruments, including carbon taxes, incentives and emission trading schemes will also be explored. ... While the white paper may be full of good intentions, what government is actually busy doing is quite a different matter. It seems to me that if they were truly committed to a greener economy and society, they would not be considering a trillion rand nuclear energy programme, with all its environmental, human health and financial risks, and they would certainly not be building more giant coal-fired electricity plants like Kusile in Mpumalanga and Medupi in Limpopo. (4) South Africa Enacts CO2 Emissions Cap as UN Climate Negotiators to Converge on Durban By Andrew Burger | October 19th, 2011 [Slightly abridged: full text at http://www.triplepundit.com / direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/3t7ah7m] The South African government will enact an emissions cap and new energy industry regulations in an effort to spur development of alternative, clean and renewable energy and mitigate climate change. The new regulations will penalize heavy polluters that don't comply with greenhouse gas emission limits with fines. The new plan was adopted by the South African cabinet of President Jacob Zuma Tuesday in advance of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) representatives from around the world converging on the South African coastal city of Durban later this year in what's set to be the most important round of UN efforts to hammer out a successor or alternative to the 1992 Kyoto Protocol since the UNFCCC's 2009 Conference of Parties (COP) gathering in Copenhagen in 2009. Gearing Up for the UN Climate Change Gathering Due to be implemented over the next two years, the South African government intends to set emissions reductions goals and limits with the key companies in the nation's electricity, fuels, mining and transport industries, according to a Reuters news report. The intention is that these will enable South Africa to achieve its stated goal of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions 34 percent by 2020 and 42 percent by 2025. South Africa is blessed with a wealth of potential renewable energy resources. It's also a nation of people that generally place a high value on innovation, technical expertise, self-sufficiency and nature. Unfortunately, much of this wealth - in terms of both renewable energy and human resources - is being suppressed. Shifting, inconsistent government market and industry policies and regulations, along with persistent opposition from its state-owned power monopoly, continue to conspire and hold South Africa back from realizing the tremendous benefits available by genuinely committing itself to enacting strong renewable energy development policies and climate change action plans. The Coal Monopoly, Government & Renewable Energy Think "Big Oil" and the fossil industry wield undue influence and power over elected officials in the US? The situation may be even worse in South Africa, where the nation's power and energy sector - and all the investment and jobs that go along with it - is controlled by Eskom, South Africa's state-owned national electric utility. Similarly, the fuels industry is dominated by state-owned Sasol. Eskom has essentially held the entire nation's electricity supply hostage as it strives to protect its privileged monopoly position by thwarting renewable energy development and climate change action plans before they can even hatch. The state-owned electric utility holds monopoly power over the entire country's electrical power sector. Virtually entirely reliant on coal as power source, the state-owned utility's ties across the coal power industry value chain, from mining to shipping and distribution, run long and deep. Successive South African governments have publicly embraced the idea of enacting a policy and regulatory framework that would spur and foster development of alternative, clean and renewable energy markets, industry and commercial enterprises. With chronically severe unemployment and under-employment persistently quoted as being in the neighborhood of 25 percent, you'd think South Africa government representatives would all be on-board and plenty well motivated to see such an initiative through to success. Unfortunately, it hasn't turned out that way. Lack of Clear, Consistent, Fully Fledged Commitment South Africa had invested only $125 million in clean energy as of 2009, placing it 17th out of 20 G-20 nations, according to the Pew Charitable Trust's 2010 "G-20 Clean Energy Factbook." That's despite successive South African governments dating back to 2003 proclaiming their commitment to promoting and fostering clean and renewable energy development and climate change mitigation efforts nationwide. "The clean energy sector may benefit from South Africa's commitment to cut global warming pollution 34 percent from its current 2020 trajectory," Pew project researchers noted in the report. "Still, clean energy investments in South Africa remain insignificant. There is insufficient reliable data on installed capacity within the country, and it has thus been excluded from this profile." In 2009, the South African government enacted a renewable energy tariff that's intended to serve as the linchpin of a broader national goal of generating 10,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of renewable electrical power by 2013. The Renewable Energy Feed-In Tariff (REFIT) continues to be challenged and stymied in the courts by opposition and has yet to make a significant impact, however. The next year, the South African government enacted the "Integrated Resource Plan of 2010," thereby setting a goal of producing 17.8 GW of electricity from renewable sources by 2030. That amounts to less than 10 percent of projected 2030 national electricity demand production, a decidedly unambitious goal for a nation that has tremendous potential across the clean energy landscape, be it wind, solar, marine, biogas, waste-to-energy, or just about any other clean, renewable resource. According to Reegle's Clean Energy Information online database service South Africa's government has established the following renewable energy targets:
...
(5) Bobby Peek, "Power to the People" Red Pepper, September
2011 [brief excerpts below] The facts and figures tell a sad and depressing story.
... South Africans have to start challenging this political greenwash and start working on systems that give them independence from big power producers such as Eskom. This would mean getting small local municipalities to start thinking of local energy development for their own needs. It would mean calling for better housing so that in winter people do not lose energy through leaking roofs and poorly constructed state homes. It would mean that individual households get access to affordable energy and don't have to pay up to seven times more for their electricity than industry does. And it would mean ensuring that industry pays the real price of energy and doesn't continue to get the cheapest electricity in the world at the expense of the people. AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter. AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin, or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see http://www.africafocus.org |