Climate Camp in London

Raising awareness about human induced climate change

Icenian, new to the idea of a climate camp, visited the London Climate Camp at Blackheath. The people were friendly, visitors were welcomed and the aims and ethos of camp were explained - essentially building a grass roots movement to combat climate change.

Camp decision making was by consensus and all shared in the work needed to keep the camp operating smoothly. There was a programme of workshops open to all, and in attending some of them, it was clear that the facilitators were knowledgeable about climate science and politics.

People attending the workshops, while coming to climate change issues from a diverse range of perspectives, respected the views of others, and discussion was lively.

The London Climate Camp was peaceful with the police mainly represented by a camera overlooking the camp from a tall crane well outside the perimeter.

Climate Camp Blackheath London 2009. Canary Wharf corporate buildings in the background

The climate camp members, young and old and from all social backgrounds, are working to raise public awareness about the effects of human induced climate change, which will have massive impacts on all countries in the world (impacts that include expanding deserts, water and food shortages, sea level rise, storms and flooding, mass migration...) unless the causes of climate change are addressed with great urgency the next few years.

The climate camp movement is trying to draw the attention of politicians and business leaders to the unique and unprecedented dangers posed by human induced climate change, circumstances which need an entirely different scale of political response from governments.

Business as usual is not an effective way forward if the most serious impacts of climate change are to be avoided. The introduction within the next few years, of radical and effective policy measures to combat climate change, developed with worldwide co-operation, is absolutely necessary.

Views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily represent those of climate camp as a whole

CO2 Emissions- theTop Fifteen Countries

CO2 emissions, and emissions growth rates are both important

In 2008 the fifteen top CO2 emitting countries together accounted for around three quarters of global CO2 emissions. These countries merit special attention during the COP15 climate change negotiations as their cooperation is important to achieving a successful outcome.

The trends in CO2 emissions between 1990 and 2008 for the fifteen major emitting countries are shown in Figure7.1 using data compiled by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Figure 7.1 CO2 EmissionsTrends 1990-2008 - Top 15 countries (click image to enlarge)

These data illustrate the massive contributions to global CO2 emissions made by the USA and China, and that since the beginning of the new millennium, China has raced ahead of the USA to become the world's largest CO2 emitter.

The group of countries with the next highest levels of emissions (~0.5 -1.7 thousand million tonnes CO2 per year) is now a mixture of developed and developing countries a distinction which, in relation to GHG emissions, is becoming outmoded since CO2 emissions from developing countries now exceed those of developed countries.

In terms of climate change impact both the absolute values of CO2 emissions and emissions growth rates merit consideration.

In relation to the amount of CO2 emitted, a small percentage reduction from a 'large emitter' represents many millions of tonnes of CO2 per year which are not added to the environmental burden.

The same percentage reduction from a country with moderate to low emissions represents a much smaller quantity of 'CO2 not emitted'. Nevertheless, when summed over many countries, these smaller reductions are also valuable.

However for climate change negotiators, focusing their efforts on persuading countries with large CO2 emissions to reduce them would have more impact as a strategy to achieve mitigation of global warming then distributing their efforts more widely.

In Figure7.1 the steep rise in CO2 emissions from China and also India are evident, and although emissions are high the USA, they do not show comparable growth rates. Despite the inadequacies of the Kyoto agreement, the emissions trends of most developed countries in the top fifteen are not increasing as steeply as those of developing countries.

Figure7.2 CO2 Emissions 1990 and 2008 - Top Five Countries

The rate of growth of CO2 emissions in China and India is staggering, the former more than doubling between 1990 and 2008 and the latter increasing by ~140% (Figure 2). In climate change negotiations, persuading countries with the highest rate of CO2 emissions growth to moderate such growth is vital.

Continuing business as usual in countries with both high and growing CO2 emissions could overwhelm collective emissions reductions made by even those countries with moderate emissions.

Focus on the fifteen

Trying to broker a universal agreement in which all countries preferences are taken into account is the ideal, but it is a complex and time consuming process. Reaching an agreement to mitigate CO2 emissions is urgent so one which can satisfy all countries may not be possible in the timescale needed.

It may be that climate change negotiators would have more immediate impact by focusing on the Top Fifteen emitters of CO2. By persuading those countries with large CO2 emissions to agree to reduce them, and those with the highest CO2 emissions growth to moderate their emissions growth, a solution might be found.




* Footnote
Data are taken from a collation by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). In this post only CO2, not other GHG and LULUCF, is considered .The PBL data includes CO2 from cement manufacture.

Climate Change - The Impracticality of a 'Global 2 Degree C' Target

Global temperature rise is a bad starting point for negotiating climate change targets


The EU, the G8, and many other countries consider that limiting global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius is an attractive goal for climate change mitigation policy to avoid 'dangerous climate change'. If taken as the international basis for setting climate change mitigation targets the use of a global temperature rise limit is likely to pose difficulties for climate change negotiators.

Two degrees Celsius ('2C') is a fine headline target for politicians to sign up to, and a useful slogan for the public, however its translation into practical targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and into desirable levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is more problematic, and there are also those who consider '2C' too high a value.

A global climate change target needs to provide a practical framework for national GHG mitigation targets and actions. Reducing CO2 emissions is certainly the key step to take in combating the effects of climate change, notwithstanding the fact that other GHG emissions - methane, nitrous oxide etc also need to be reduced.

In Copenhagen the international agreement that is most urgently needed is one that sets clear and unambiguous targets for drastically reducing CO2 emissions, since they comprise the largest proportion of GHG.

The task faced by world leaders and politicians - that of translating the scientific information about climate change into politically acceptable and practical national targets - is already difficult and there is a desperate need to put policy in place speedily.

So why use temperature rise as an overall global target as the EU and G8 have done? Framing negotiations in terms of '2C' surely serves only to increase the complexity of the task.

Politically expressed as 'limiting average global temperature rise at sea level to two degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels' a limit to global temperature rise seems a straightforward goal. However, temperature rise as a key indicator focuses on the end result - global warming, not on the GHG emissions that cause it. Global temperature limit is an indicator that is distanced from the practical issues of quantified GHG emissions limitation.

Using a global '2C' target as the starting point for international climate change negotiations could leave open a chain of opportunities for varied interpretations of meaning and inhibit progress towards practical targets.

Targets, if framed in the context of 'global average temperature rise' would need to be mapped to the causes of global temperature rise because, in international negotiations, all parties would need to agree a common interpretation of what a global '2C' target means and how it would relate in practical terms to potential mitigation actions.

Do we really want negotiators to dissipate good will in Copenhagen arguing about possible interpretations of the meaning of '2C global average temperature change' when what is needed is to negotiate quantifiable mitigation targets that can be evolved into practical policy?

Temperature rise relates to atmospheric GHG change by means of best estimates and likely ranges not with certainty*. Such uncertainties would need to be incorporated in any translation from 'global temperature rise' into national targets for practical actions to mitigate human induced warming. Undertaking such a translation process raises the spectre of endless political wrangling over nuances related to temperature rise, rather than negotiation of the tonnage emissions targets that are the heart of the matter.

It is however possible to quantify directly, by country, the millions of tonnes of fossil fuels burnt each year and hence each country's contribution to global warming in terms of CO2 emissions.

In summary

It is more practical to set targets in terms of CO2 emissions, which are the cause global warming, and which connect directly to national fossil fuel energy consumption, rather than work through to reach national targets from '2C' temperature rise.

Targets closely related to the causes of warming can be defined in terms of CO2 (or CO2e) emissions, CO2 concentrations or indeed tonnes of carbon in fossil fuels burnt. Use of these quantities provides a more direct starting point for negotiating climate change mitigation targets than global temperature limits. If required emissions based targets could then be related back, through models, to temperature rise to check that they are consistent with the desired temperature limit.

While global temperature rise appears in the headlines, and the need to mitigate the unprecedented rise in global temperatures is urgent, framing negotiations around '2C' temperature rise is likely to impede progression to a new international agreement and using emissions based targets would provide a clearer route for negotiations.


*Footnote

*Anthropogenic GHG emissions are the cause of the recent rapid global temperature rise but their relationship with temperature rise is not a simple one. The underlying science linking global temperature rise to GHG concentrations is couched in terms of probability not certainty. The climate system is complex and highly variable due to both natural processes and to human induced changes, and is not now in thermal equilibrium. In addition to the known causes of the global warming (anthropogenic GHG), the earth's energy balance is also influenced by uncertainties in, for example, the thermal storage of oceans, changes in albedo as ice sheets disintegrate, the release of methane as permafrost melts, and these effects may be subject to time lags.