CEE Jan-Mar 2012

... accounted for 43 per cent but this is not because they have vacated space. The new growth countries-China in particular– have only occupied what was available. Emission reductions proposed 20 years ago have still not been committed or adhered to. In fact, in most already industrialised countries emissions have either stabilised or increased . In coal and extractive economies, like Canada and Australia, emissions have risen by 20 per cent and 46 per cent respectively. The world has run out of atmospheric space and certainly of time. Will the rich, who contributed to emissions in the past and still take up an unfair share of this space based on their populations, reduce emissions? Or will the emerging countries be told to take over the burden? This is the big question, and an inconvenient one at that. And mind you climate change is not the problem of the present but past contributions. The stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has a long life. This means that any discussion on how the carbon cake will be divided, must take into account those gases emitted in the past and still present. So while China accounts for 27 per cent of the annual emissions, in cumulative terms (since 1950) it still accounts for only 11 per cent. Similarly, India contributes 6 per cent to the annual global emissions, but is only responsibl e for 3 per cent of the stock. The rich countries, with less than a quarter of the world's population, are responsible for some 70 per cent of this historical burden. This stock of gases is responsible for an average global temperature rise of 0.8°C and another 0.8°C in future, which is inevitable. To keep temperature rise below 2°C, the world needs to cut emissions by 50-80 per cent below the 2000 levels by 2050. Now equity is no longer a moral idea, but a tough challenge. It is for this reason that global climate negotiations reached their nadir in Durban. It is for this reason that the US and its coalition are hell bent on erasing any mention of historical emissions from all texts. It is for this reason that the rich world is pointing to the emission growth in China and India, and dismissing their need for development as their obdurate right to pollute. It is also an idea that is difficult to sell in a world distrustful of idealism and any talk of distributive justi ce. Even climate change negotiators do not really believe this form of climate-socialism can happen. They will tell you that the world is never going to give up space, that the world is too mean to give money or technology to poor nations for transition to low– carbon growth. But this is because they forget that dimate change is the market's biggest failure. We cannot use the market for its repair. To avoid catastrophic changes it is essential to reach a collaborative agreement, which will be effective. And cooperation is not possible without fairness and equity. This is the pre-requisite. Take it because we must. Courtesy: Down To Earth, December 16-31, 2012, P3 MUCH MEDIA REPORTING OF CLIMATE CHANGE EXAGGERATES ITS IMPACT, IT'S NECESSARY TO GET REAL NOW BjflJrn Lomborg Head, Copenhagen Consensus Center Extreme weather is often said to be one of the main reasons for taking firm action on global warming. Nowadays, no hurricane or heat wave passes without an activist daiming it as evidence of the need for a global climate deal, like the one that got postponed until the end of the decade in Durban, South Africa . Such claims merit close scrutiny. In 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report on climate extremes that received considerable attention. Two years later, it was discovered that some of the IPCC's key claims, for example, that global warming would cause the immense Himalayan glaciers to disappear by 2035, or halve African crop yields by 2020, were based on statements made in appeals by environmentalist organizations, and were backed by little or no evidence. Despite this error, the IPCC has long been a fairly reliable source of sensible and responsible estimates in an otherwise histrionic debate. Unfortunately, sensible estimates are not breaking news. For example, according to the IPCC, sea levels will rise by a relatively manageable 18- 59 em (7-23 inches) by the end of the century, whereas news organizations and activists regularly claim that we should expect sea levels to rise by metres. The media similarly misrepresented the findings of 29