Global warming pact set for 2009 after US backs down (Pres Bush caves to PC crowd again)

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) — World climate negotiators set a 2009 deadline Saturday for a landmark treaty to fight global warming after two weeks of intense haggling led to a climbdown by an isolated United States.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who flew to the Indonesian island of Bali for a late appeal for flexibility, praised the deal as a "pivotal first step" to confront climate change, "the defining challenge of our time."

Following gruelling all-night talks, the conference of 190 nations finally launched a process to negotiate a new treaty for when the UN Kyoto Protocol's commitments expire in 2012.

It comes after a year of stark warnings from Nobel-winning scientists, who say millions of people will be at risk of hunger, homelessness and disease by 2100 if temperatures keep rising at current rates.

The United States, the only major industrialised nation to reject the Kyoto treaty, reached a compromise with the European Union to avoid mentioning any figures as a target for slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

The deal instead only makes an indirect reference to scientists' warnings that the world must sharply cut back its emissions to prevent what could be a catastrophic rise in temperatures.

But after the summit went into an unscheduled 13th day of talks, the United States said it would not accept the statement as it wanted developing countries such as fast-growing China to make tougher commitments.

The senior US negotiator, Paula Dobriansky, said she had heard "many strong statements from many major developing country leaders on a greater role in helping to address urgently this global problem."

It "doesn't seem it's going to be reflected in our outcome here in the declaration," she said, explaining why the United States would reject the draft.

Dobriansky was loudly booed by other delegations, and a US environmental activist representing Papua New Guinea said to rousing cheers: "If you're not willing to lead, please get out of the way."

After repeated verbal lashings, Dobriansky again took the microphone and said that Washington would "go forward and join consensus," to the cheers of the conference.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a strong critic of US President George W. Bush's climate policy, said he was ready to ask through his mobile telephone for Chancellor Angela Merkel to intervene with the White House.

"I had already typed the SMS after Dobriansky's first statement but then I was able to cancel it," Gabriel said.

"In the end, nobody wanted to have a failure," including the United States, Gabriel said.

"We have achieved more than we could have expected previously, but it is less than what is needed to meet the urgency of the problem."

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the agreement "a vital step forward for the whole world". He added: "I am delighted that after two weeks of intensive talks the world's nations have agreed on a Roadmap to achieving a new global framework for tackling climate change. The Bali Roadmap is just the first step."

And German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the Roadmap "opens the way to real negotiations on effective measures to protect the climate, and for binding targets" on reducing CO2 emissions.

"Of course, the road to an agreement to succeed Kyoto is still paved with obstacles," she said, adding that she was "convinced" that Bali will bring real progress.

"The joint stance of the Europeans was an important foundation for this good result. Without it, success at Bali would not have been possible."

The agreement came after extraordinary scenes in which UN chief Ban jetted in for a last-ditch appeal, the UN's exhausted climate chief nearly broke down in tears and conference chair Indonesia apologised for a disastrous procedural mix-up.

"What we witnessed today was an incredible drama," said Alden Meyer of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists.

"I've been following these negotiations for 20 years and I've never seen anything like it."

Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the deal showed global commitment and broke down the divide between countries with Kyoto obligations and those without.

"In that sense, what we're seeing disappear here today is what I would call the Berlin Wall of climate change," he said.

Hans Verolme of conservation group WWF accused the world of bowing to US pressure and removing a scientific punch needed to fight global warming.

But he also said the Bali talks would inspire environmentalists and activist nations until the end of Bush's mandate in January 2009.

"We have learned a historic lesson. If you expose to the world the dealings of the United States, they will ultimately back down."

Bush has argued that Kyoto is unfair as it does not require fast-growing emerging economies such as China, the second largest emitter after the United States, to meet targeted emissions curbs.

You would think at least one person could go to that conference and challenge the very notion of man-made global warming and the premise itself that we need to do anything at all. Where is the antidote to Al Gore? Where is this person?

Well, 100 prominent scientists (and the list includes some very distinguished people) co-signed this excellent letter published on December 12th:

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,
Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction
It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.
The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line by government representatives. The great majority of IPCC contributors and reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.
Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:

Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.
The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.
Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.

In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is "settled," significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_timetable_2006-08-14.pdf) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.
The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the "precautionary principle" because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future.
The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.
Yours faithfully,
[ list of 100 signatories and their affiliations ]

It looks a version of the "action plan" that we have agreed to is up on the U.N.'s Bali conference website (although I am not clear if it is the final version of the what they are terming the "roadmap") at Bali Action Plan.

Here's a finding that we agreed to that I found interesting:

Recognizing that deep cuts in global emissions will be required to achieve the ultimate objective of the Convention and emphasizing the urgency to address climate change as indicated in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,

Since the IPCC reporting process has been criticized by some very distinguished scientists, (for instance, see my posting #26 in this thread), I wish that we had not agreed to that particular sentence since it is in all likelihood untrue.

Also, it appears that we have agreed to some sort of permanent fund (the "Adaptation Fund") which is to be financed by the sale of carbon credits:

24. Decides that a trust fund shall be established under the management of the trustee, to be funded by the monetized share of proceeds of certified emission reductions, to meet the costs of adaptation and other sources of funding;

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