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Outline: . The Science Weather Climate Brainstorm effects International Response & Past Treaties UNFCCC IPCC Kyoto Protocol COP Foreign Climate Policy (India) Developed vs. Developing. Climate Change. The Science. The Effects. What consequences can we expect?. Desertification.
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Outline: The Science Weather Climate Brainstorm effects International Response & Past Treaties UNFCCC IPCC Kyoto Protocol COP Foreign Climate Policy (India) Developed vs. Developing
Chasing Ice Chasing Ice is the story of one man’s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of climate change. Using time-lapse cameras, his videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Photo Gallery Trailer
UNFCCC:United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change • Since 21 March 1994, most countries joined an international treaty -- the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) -- to begin to consider what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable. More recently, a number of nations approved an addition to the treaty: the Kyoto Protocol, which has more powerful (and legally binding) measures. • The UNFCCC secretariatsupports all institutions involved in the climate change process, particularly the COP, the subsidiary bodies and their Bureau. • The Convention on Climate Change sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change. It recognizes that the climate system is a shared resource whose stability can be affected by industrial and other emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. • The Convention enjoys near universal membership. Under the Convention, governments: • 1) gather and share information on greenhouse gas emissions, national policies and best practices • 2) launch national strategies for addressing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to expected impacts, including the provision of financial and technological support to developing countries • 3) cooperate in preparing for adaptation to the impacts of climate change
IPCC– Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change • Climate change is a very complex issue: policymakers need an objective source of information about the causes of climate change, its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences and the adaptation and mitigation options to respond to it. This is why WMO and UNEP established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. • Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change, its observed and projected impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, although they need to deal objectively with policy relevant scientific, technical and socio economic factors. • 4th Assessment Report (AR)– 2007 • 5th Assessment Report (AR)– Approximately March 2014
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .These amount to an average of 5% against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention encouragedindustrialised countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so. Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.” The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005 (RUSSIA). 184 Parties of the Convention have ratified its Protocol to date. The detailed rules for the implementation of the Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in Marrakesh in 2001, and are called the “Marrakesh Accords.” Kyoto
Result of Kyoto??? Kyoto climate change treaty sputters to a sorry end… Kyoto Protocol aimed for 5% cut in carbon emissions — instead, we got a 58% increase CBC The Kyoto Protocol was an initiative that came out of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. It recognized that climate change was a result of greenhouse gases created by human industrial activity. The idea was that rich nations, which had already benefited from industrialization, would reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the first part of the treaty and developing nations would join in later. Right off the bat, there were problems. The U.S., the world's biggest emitter at the time, signed up but never ratified. VIDEO News…
Conference of Parties (COP) • The UNFCCC was opened for signature on May 9, 1992 after an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee produced the text of the Framework Convention as a report following its meeting in New York. It entered into force in March, 1994. Countries who sign up to the UNFCCC are known and as ‘Parties’, there are currently 192 signed up Parties. • Since the UNFCCC entered into force, the parties have been meeting annually in Conferences of the Parties (COP) to assess progress in dealing with climate change, and beginning in the mid-1990s, to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. • The UNFCCC is also the name of the United Nations Secretariat charged with supporting the operation of the Convention. Since 2006 the head of the secretariat has been Yvo de Boer.
Bali: 12/3/07- 12/15/07 • Bali Action Plan • The Conference, hosted by the Government of Indonesia, took place at the Bali International Convention Centre and brought together more than 10,000 participants, including representatives of over 180 countries together with observers from intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations and the media. The two week period included the sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, its subsidiary bodies as well as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. A ministerial segment in the second week concluded the Conference. • The conference culminated in the adoption of the Bali Road Map, which consists of a number of forward-looking decisions that represent the various tracks that are essential to reaching a secure climate future. The Bali Road Map includes the Bali Action Plan, which charts the course for a new negotiating process designed to tackle climate change, with the aim of completing this by 2009. It also includes the AWG-KP negotiations and their 2009 deadline, the launch of the Adaptation Fund, the scope and content of the Article 9 review of the Kyoto Protocol, as well as decisions on technology transfer and on reducing emissions from deforestation (see the President's closing remarks below).
3:00 US Wrecking Tactics at Bali Climate Change Conference Yvo De Boer cried
Warsaw Climate Change Conference - November 2013 About-- Resources-- http://unfccc.int/meetings/warsaw_nov_2013/meeting/7649.php • The Warsaw Climate Change Conference, opened on 11 November, has entered into its second week of negotiations, scheduled to close on 22 November.
President Barack Obama reiterated the need to address climate change on Wednesday in his first press conference since winning reelection, but suggested that any legislative action to curb global warming was likely a long way off. • "I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions," Obama said. "And as a consequence, I think we've got an obligation to future generations to do something about it." • http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/obama-climate-change_n_2131419.html • Mr. Obama jabbed back on Thursday night in his acceptance speech while detailing his energy program, which includes increased investment in renewable energy and higher mileage standards for vehicles. • “And, yes,” the president said, “my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet – because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They are a threat to our children’s future. And in this election you can do something about it.” • That brought cheers from the Democratic onlookers, many of whom had been waiting for Mr. Obama to address an issue that so far has been largely absent from this campaign and the party platforms. • http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/obama-counterpunches-on-climate-change/
Obama Addresses Climate Change In First Press Conference Since Reelection • http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/14/obama-climate-change_n_2131419.html • President Barack Obama reiterated the need to address climate change on Wednesday in his first press conferencesince winning reelection, but suggested that any legislative action to curb global warming was likely a long way off. • "I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions," Obama said. "And as a consequence, I think we've got an obligation to future generations to do something about it."
“God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the west... keeping the world in chains. If [our nation] took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts.” • Mahatma Gandhi
World’s Cheapest Car • Emissions? Tata Nano:
Poorer Nations Reject a Target on Emission CutDeveloped VS Developing • http://www.rtcc.org/2013/04/02/worlds-poorest-could-accept-binding-emission-cuts/ • http://www.rtcc.org/2013/03/25/worlds-poorest-nations-plan-to-take-lead-at-climate-talks/ • The world’s biggest developing nations, led by China and India, refused Wednesday to commit to specific goals for slashing heat-trapping gases by 2050, undercutting the drive to build a global consensus by the end of this year to reverse the threat of climate change. • As President Obama arrived for three days of talks with other leaders of the Group of 8 nations, negotiators for 17 leading polluters abandoned targets in a draft agreement for the meetings here. But negotiators embraced a goal of preventing temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and developing nations agreed to make “meaningful” if unspecified reductions in emissions. • While the richest countries have produced the bulk of the pollution blamed for climate change, developing countries are producing increasing volumes of gases. But developing countries say their climb out of poverty should not be halted to fix damage done by industrial countries. • As various sides tried to draft an agreement to sign Thursday, those tensions scuttled the specific goals sought by the United States and Europe. The proposed agreement called for worldwide emissions to be cut 50 percent by 2050, with industrial countries cutting theirs by 80 percent. But emerging powers refused to agree because they wanted industrial countries to commit to midterm goals in the next decade and to follow through on promises of financial and technological help for poorer nations. • http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/world/europe/09prexy.html?pagewanted=all
www.onehundredmonths.org By using the best estimates of current greenhouse gas concentrations, emission growth rates, conservative estimates for the potentially damaging environmental feedbacks that accelerate global warming, and the maximum concentration of greenhouse gases that might prevent irreversible climate change, it is possible to estimate the length of time until this threshold is passed. Our analysis shows that, assuming that other anthropogenic driven radiative forcings remain constant and the growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions (due to economic growth and increasing carbon intensity of the economy) remains stable – by the end of December 2016 we will exceed an atmospheric CO2e concentration of 400ppmv. Our estimate is cautious. We have used the lowest estimate of carbon-cycle feedbacks. Furthermore, historically, an increase in the Earth's global average surface temperatures of just below 2oC has been considered a ‘safe’14 level of warming. But, with the advancement of global climate models to three-dimensional coupled entities, with ever increasing spatial resolutions, it is now known that the impacts of climate change will manifest in more extreme local changes in temperature. For example, collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet is more than likely to be triggered by a local warming of 2.7 degrees, which could correspond to a global mean temperature increase of 2 degrees or less.15 The disintegration of the Greenland Ice Sheet could correspond to a sea level rise of up to 7 metres.
