Doha: Climate negotiators fail to meet the scientific challenge

Young UNICEF UK campaigners asking Ed Davey to speak up for children before he left for the UN climate change talks in Doha. Photo: Rosie Reed Gold/UNICEF.

On the last day, talks at Doha aimed at securing a global agreement to tackle climate change are providing scant hope, although individual announcements from nations on the sidelines provide some progress.

The central issue, as always, is fairness over who pays.

US lead negotiator, Todd Stern, told the plenary assembly that he wanted to see “the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities" provide the basis of agreement, but that "unless we can find common ground on that principle and the way in which it should apply in the world of the 2020s, we won’t succeed in producing a new Durban Platform agreement”.

The U.S. has a target of reducing emissions by 17% by 2020 compared to 2005 emissions (equal to just 4% below 1990 levels). Its negotiators said that this is unlikely to change. They say they cannot see a way of getting a global agreement for seven years; until 2020.

Like 85% of nations, the U.S. has spurned extending the Kyoto Protocol, leaving a group led by the European Union and Australia to take this forward. They believe Kyoto is no longer relevant because emerging nations led by China and India will have no targets to curb their soaring emissions from 2013.

Delegates have been repeatedly told how dire prospects are. "If anything, the science is telling us it's now getting warmer quicker than we had previously expected," said UK Energy Secretary Ed Davey, who is in Doha. "Our actions as a world are going slower than we had previously hoped."

"The question of climate management is extremely serious," Laurent Fabius, France's foreign minister, agreed. "It appears we have already exceeded the 2-degree limit. If that is the case, there are absolutely catastrophic consequences. We must react." Tackling climate change is "the new challenge in world diplomacy".

But so far, too few countries are making the kind of commitments to cut emissions that scientists agree would keep global warming below the 2 degrees Celsius limit that is estimated to prevent the most devastating effects of climate change.

Many attending the Doha talks are saying that 4 degrees Celsius of global warming by 2100 looks almost inevitable.

Meanwhile, countries debate who will pay to save the planet.

Qatar has offered no money. National pledges by Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and the EU Commission in Doha total over 6.85 billion euros for the next two years, more than in 2011-12.

The UK will be allocating around £1.8 billion aid money to climate finance up to 2015. Ed Davey, speaking at Doha, reiterated the UK’s support for contributing to the $100 billion a year by 2020 commitment of new and additional funds.

Germany and Britain this week launched the NAMA (Nationally Appropriate Mitigating Actions) Facility, to support countries to implement action against climate change. Ed Davey, pledging £25 million from the International Climate Fund (ICF), said it will “help support those developing countries that are taking ambitious action to close the gap to 2°C". Countries will compete for the funding to support their own projects. One in Mexico will go towards sustainable new housing by establishing the necessary framework conditions.

Hosts Qatar did say they will develop a 1,800 megawatt (MW) solar energy plant in 2014 costing up to $20 billion, mainly to power its desalination plants. The country has no naturally-occurring pure water. It will increase the proportion of its renewable electricity generation to 16% from zero. "We need to diversify our energy mix," said Fahad Bin Mohammed al-Attiya, chairman of the Qatari organizers of climate talks in Doha. Qatar supplies Britain with much of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) and is the world's top exporter. But it has not set any targets for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

A senior Saudi Arabia official said his country was taking the climate change issue "seriously. It is implementing carbon capture storage in the world's biggest oilfield, Ghawar, where injecting carbon dioxide back into the field helps to raise pressure and increase oil output, as well as trapping planet-warming gas".

Indonesia announced it has approved a U.N.-led rainforest conservation scheme under Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), that sets aside nearly 80,000 hectares (200,000 acres), much of it carbon-rich peat swamp forest at risk of being felled for palm oil plantations, and rewards its investors, Russian energy giant Gazprom and German insurance firm Allianz, with 104 million tradable carbon offset credits. Each credit represents a metric ton of carbon, worth almost 500 million euros based on current market rates. It is the first scheme of its kind to win formal backing in the country, and the world's first on protecting 'deep peat'.

Back in the U.S., the Obama administration said it is to invest $120 million in developing cheaper batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage. The five year project will establish a research hub with Dow Chemical Co, Applied Materials Inc, Johnson Controls Inc and the Clean Energy Trust.

Still in the U.S., the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reported that from January to October, 46.2% of new electricity-generating capacity installed was renewable. Wind accounted for 77% of this.

But the reality is that all of these announcements are nothing like what is required; they are like using a bucket to bale out the rising oceans.

"Some sort of agreement will be achieved – it always is," writes observer Giles Parkinson. However, he concludes, "the more that the UN talks fall short of expectations, the more that domestic politics plays into the hands of vested interests".

Next year, coal-dependent Poland will host the talks. Environmentalists expect little progress there either. They are now looking to Paris, which will host the 2015 talks, for realistic progress.

The view from Doha is uninspiring

What we need from our leaders is: inspiration. In Doha, it seems sadly lacking.

If you fly to Doha in Qatar on he Gulf, you pass 35,000 feet over the oilfields of Iran and Iraq.

In the oily blackness of night, hundreds of orange gas flares outshine city lights by a factor of fifty, visible from space.

Kuwait is sparkly island, as is Doha itself, yet another reminder of the power fossil fuel reserves have over the Middle East.

The tiny desert isthmus of Qatar holds not a drop of natural potable water. It makes £106 billion a year from selling oil and gas that hapnes to be under its barren sands. Its residents have the highest per capita income on earth.

They get all their electricity for free. It is used profligately. The urinals in Doha airport are constantly flushed with hot water. All of the country's water has to be desalinated using oil-fired electricity.

It is here, in the Qatar National Conference Centre, where the representatives of most countries in the world have gathered for yet another round of painfully slow, and apparently almost inconsequential, negotiations to curb global levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

The grandfathers of the oil rich elite that runs this state were bedoin, wandering the desert with their tents and camels. Now they own fleets of Lexus 4x4s and Porsches.

I met a senior account manager for a Fortune 400 listed company that supplies process machinery to the oil industry in Kuwait. He held a Jordanian passport and said he believes in climate change. "But what can I do? It's not up to people like me to change the system. Our machinery will work just as well on renewable energy. But here is where the market is".

A wealthy manager of a pipeline maintenance company, in his spotless white schumagg and thoub, told me that he was aware of the talks going on in the conference centre down the road, but for him it was "just another conference". He won't be going.

Next week is one to promote trade, held by the World Chambers Federation, where 12,000 chambers will be represented. He will attend that. Good for business. The following week is a film festival, peddling dreams and escape stories.

All of this is part of the wish of Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, Qatar's ruler, to be a big player on the world stage, to convince the world that Qatar is not just about oil, but culture.

Maybe he does think, like Masdar's leaders, that the game will one day be up for oil. The country is currently spending £20 million, with Chevron and GreenGulf, on a Solar Test Facility, to investigate what technology can best convert the copious amount of solar radiation that falls on this desert land to electricity. It includes a solar desalination plant.

By hosting COP-18, the Emir is hedging his bets. COP-18 means that these annual horse-trading, long-grass-kicking stand-offs have been doing the rounds of nations for eighteen years.

Knowledge of the threat of climate change is not new.

Twenty three years ago, I was asked by Greenpeace Book's John May to write a comic book explaining global warming to young people.

Three years before that, Margaret Thatcher, in the only act for which I unreservedly admire her, alerted world leaders, especially Ronald Reagan, to it.

If only today's world leaders had Maggie's conviction.

At the heart of the story I wrote for John was a conflict between a greedy industrialist and his brother, an enlightened environmentalist. It was based on the Goldsmith brothers, James, the financier and corporate raider, and Ed, the Ecologist magazine's former publisher.

James' son, Zac, is now Conservative MP for Richmond Park, and as good an example of a Green Tory as you will find.

I suppose what I'm saying is, that at the Doha talks, being held in the context of the most dire warnings yet about global temperature rises, it is political leadership that is needed more than ever.

The talks give the impression of being complicated, and they are, but the principles are simple: the developed nations need to cough up and everyone needs to commit.

Politicians need to talk with conviction, echoing President Kennedy with "ask not what the planet can do for you but what you can do for the planet".

Or echoing Churchill, with "We will fight climate change in the factories, in the fields and in the streets. We will never surrender!"

In a word, what we need from our leaders is: inspiration.

In Doha, it seems sadly lacking.

Europe must adopt a 30% emissions reduction target

With any luck we are about to see a shift in action on curbing carbon emissions.

It's not just that the annual United Nations climate change talks, COP-18, begin at the end of this month at Doha in Qatar. Nor is it that with the re-election of Barack Obama there will be a renewed impetus in the American Senate to get a climate change bill passed.

Over on the other side of the world, Australia's Climate Change Minister Greg Combet has said his country will sign up to a second round of the Kyoto Protocol, joining the European Union and just a handful of other major greenhouse gas emitters in recommitting to the world's only climate treaty.

The Kyoto Protocol, negotiated in 1997, required wealthy nations to limit their emission of greenhouse gases by 5.2% on average for the period 2008-2012 from 1990 levels. It is due to expire at the end of this year.

Through the UN climate change negotiations, countries are attempting to thrash out a replacement treaty. If successful, it would be agreed by 2015 and take effect in 2020, and it would include emissions targets for developing nations such as China and India as well as developed countries.

To date, only the European Union and a handful of other small developed nations have signed up to Kyoto 2, which is intended to start in 2013 and continue until such time as when a new agreement comes into effect.

Japan, Russia, Canada and, currently, the US are among the countries refusing to sign up to Kyoto 2. They want a non-binding agreement.

New Zealand has already said it will not follow Australia.

But Kyoto 1 and 2 has been widely criticised. The main candidates for alternative action are a carbon tax activated at national levels, and a network of regional emission trading schemes.

Already, a carbon tax is back on the agenda in the US and the UK.

Republicans are not expected to be enthusiastic; they dislike taxes. The main American proponent of a carbon tax is prominent NASA climate scientist James Hansen. His proposal is to tax carbon at source, whether oil, gas or coal, with a 100% dividend returned to citizens in equal shares, under the principle of the “commons", that every citizen has an equal right to a portion of the sky.

It is estimated that citizens would each get $3,000 to spend as compensation for the tax.

A similar tax has been in place in Canada's British Columbia for four years and is currently under review. The income from the tax is spent on public works.

But how high would a carbon tax need to be to make a significant difference in the consumption of fossil fuels? Consider the amount of tax (60%) already on a litre of petrol. Does it deter us from driving?

Would it make a difference if the price of a barrel of oil was doubled with a $100 tax? That would put up the cost of a litre of petrol to almost £2.

You can imagine the public reaction, even with a cash dividend. The thing is, it’s a blunt instrument. It affects some people more than others.

British Columbia's tax has been introduced gradually and reaches about 5% of the price of fuel. The review will tell us whether or not it has made any difference at all to consumption levels. The jury is yet out.

Hansen distrusts "cap and trade" agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol, and says why in chapter 9 of his book Storms of My Grandchildren.

But that isn't stopping Korea and China from going ahead with their own local schemes emissions trading schemes. On November 15 a presidential decree in Korea will see a mandatory ETS introduced from 2015 for 60% of South Korea’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

The purpose of an ETS is to minimise the cost of meeting a set emissions target. The Korean ETS and most of the Chinese pilot schemes have watched the European Union's ETS become swamped with excess credits and the price of carbon bomb to an ineffectual level.

To prevent this happening in their schemes, they plan to include the use of market stabilising checks and balances to enable them to adjust to external factors such as significant and sustained changes in gross domestic product. These are said to include: a strategic reserve, limitations on banking and borrowing and a ceiling and/or floor price.

Japan has its own scheme, as do Switzerland, New Zealand, California and a number of other American and Canadian states linked together in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the Western Climate Initiative.

If such schemes become more common and the European scheme can overcome its current problems, international trading in permits is an attractive way of achieving reductions at the lowest possible cost. This is because it is cheaper to abate or eliminate a ton of carbon dioxide in some countries than in others, and the market automatically gravitates towards the cheapest solution.

In other words, is not such a blunt instrument. On the other hand, a huge amount of money gets wasted and goes into the wrong pockets.

The question is, whether any of these proposals will get us where we want to be fast enough. The answer depends upon the level of political ambition for the level at which an overall target for, or cap on carbon emissions is set, which in turn depends on the amount of public concern.

European environment ministers met at the end of October to discuss the European Union negotiating position at Doha, and what to do about the EU ETS' glut of allowances.

It emerged from their talks that Europe has already beaten its target of 20% emission reductions by 2020 with eight years to spare.

A leaked draft of the Commission's report on the EU ETS says that there will be a surplus of at least two billion allowances next year, rising in the following years. Removing just 1.4 billion of these would be sufficient to let Europe reach a 30% target by 2020.

This would align the scheme with Europe's 2050 climate goal of reducing emissions up to 95% below 1990 levels.

It's this kind of ambition, at least, which is necessary.

The British government supports a 30% target. It should do, it is already ahead of the game. Officials have been arguing for it for some time.

Europe should immediately adopt such a position and, in three weeks time, take it to Doha and challenge the world to follow suit.