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	Global Warming: Broken promises by Andrew Hewett Oxfam Australia   Aug 2010   Climate change is the central poverty issue of our time. Oxfam is seeing the world"s most vulnerable - who have contributed least to climate change - already suffering most from its effects, facing greater droughts, floods, hunger and disease.   The vexed issue of climate finance, owed by high polluters to poor countries is again on the agenda at the UN Climate Change Negotiations, and climate change has been on the agenda of the Pacific Islands Forum in Vanuatu just this week.   Contributing our fair share of international climate finance is not only the right thing to do, it would serve Australia"s own interests well.   Firstly, rather than shirking our responsibilities, honouring Australia"s commitment to so-called "fast-start finance" for developing countries, made in Copenhagen, would help restore trust in the international climate change negotiations.   As the highest developed country emitter per capita in the world, Australia must contribute its fair share to not only help deliver a global climate agreement, but to help guarantee a more secure and prosperous world for all, including Australia.   Clean energy and adaptation investments in developing countries will ensure that rich countries, have more prosperous trading partners, as well as avoid greater poverty and suffering.   Thirdly, acting now is cheaper than acting later; it makes good economic sense. This has been confirmed over and over again by numerous studies; the cost of inaction greatly outweighs the cost of action.   The number of people affected by climate-related natural disasters is projected to rise by 54 per cent to 375 million people over the next five years, threatening the world"s ability to respond. Yet developing countries have very few resources to deal with such disasters.   Australia should want to be a good neighbour to those countries on our doorstep already experiencing saltwater inundation of crops, less predictable rainfall patterns and changing disease patterns.   As one of the hottest and driest continents, Australia has much in common with poor countries around the world most affected by climate change, such as those experiencing prolonged droughts in Africa.   All political parties, therefore, should be acutely aware of their duty to act and lead, not only for the world"s poor, but for their own people. There is, however, one big difference: as a wealthy country Australia can invest billions of dollars in drought assistance to farmers, building pipelines and desalination plants to cushion the blows of climate change at home. Poor people in developing countries don"t have this option. Without financial support, they die.   If climate finance is to have any real value for developing countries, it must come on top of pre-existing aid commitments, otherwise it is simply moving money around.   All countries must commit to providing climate finance that is additional to existing aid commitments, otherwise vital funds are being taken away from poverty reduction, which will put the world further behind on meeting the Millennium Development Goals.   A miniscule 0.05 per cent tax on international financial transactions, dubbed the "Robin Hood Tax", could deliver hundreds of billions of dollars - enough to help pay for their international obligations on poverty and climate change.   A number of developing countries have already made significant steps to reduce their emissions. They have also signalled their willingness to discuss further action - if developed countries provide the required financial and technological support.   * Andrew Hewett is the Executive Director of Oxfam Australia. Visit the related web page
	Current global emissions targets will lead to 4C temperature rise by Potsdam Institute for Climate & news agencies Germany   July 2010   The world is heading for an average temperature rise of nearly 4C (7F), according to analysis of national pledges from around the globe. Such a rise would bring a high risk of major extinctions, threats to food supplies and the near-total collapse of the huge Greenland ice sheet.   More than 100 heads of state agreed in Copenhagen last December to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C-2C (2.7-3.6F) above the long-term average before the industrial revolution, which kickstarted a massive global increase in the greenhouse gases blamed for warming the planet and triggering climate change.   But six months on, a major international effort to monitor the emissions reductions targets of more than 60 countries, including all the major economies, the Climate Interactive Scoreboard, calculates that the world is on course for a rise of nearly double the stated goal by 2100.   Another study by Climate Analytics, at the Potsdam Institute in Germany, suggests there is "virtually no chance" world governments will keep the temperature rise to below 2C, and the rise is likely to be 3.5C (6.3F) by the end of the century.   In both analyses the current commitments suggest a much better outcome than the estimated business-as-usual temperature rise of 4.8C (8.6F), but are well above the 2C maximum the UN hoped would be agreed at the next major meeting this December in Cancún, Mexico - and even further from the 1.5C target many developing nations argue is needed to stop the worst impacts of climate change in their countries.   In its last assessment of the problem in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts that a rise of more than 2C would lead to potential increases in food production, but an increasingly high risk of extinction for 20-30% of species, more severe droughts and floods, and a unstoppable "widespread to near total" loss of the Greenland ice sheet over very long time periods.   However, at 4C it predicted global food production was "very likely" to decrease, "major extinctions around the globe", and near-total loss of Greenland"s ice, precipitating 2-7m of sea-level rise in the long term. As temperatures rose, the severity of floods, erosion, water pollution, heatwaves, droughts and health problems such as malnutrition and diarrhoea diseases would also increase, said the IPCC.   "We"re looking at a level which is much more extreme and profoundly dangerous," said Ruth Davis, chief policy adviser for Greenpeace. "It"s arguable the UN process has become dangerously cut adrift from the science of climate change."   The Department of Energy and Climate Change said that, based on national offers of emissions reductions made in Copenhagen, the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) and other bodies had calculated that it was possible to meet the 2C target, although this would depend on the targets set beyond 2020.   "There"s more work to do if we"re going to avoid a 2C temperature rise which is why we are pushing the EU to cut its emissions by 30%," said a DECC spokesman. "Keeping below 2C is still possible from the high end Copenhagen accord offers, but will require steeper action after 2020."   However, many experts said the much higher temperature-rise estimates were a cause for serious concern that emissions cuts proposed for Cancún were too low and not enough was being done to prepare for further cuts beyond 2020, even though there are still nearly six months of negotiations before the talks.   "We"ve made progress but we"re clearly not headed where we need to be," said Andrew Jones, co-director of Climate Interactive, which is backed by several universities including MIT. "No one is talking about changing any of the 2020 proposals, so we should be worried." Climate Interactive"s model is also backed by a panel of experts including Prof Bob Watson, chief scientific advisor to the UK"s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and a former head of the IPCC.   The Climate Interactive Scoreboard, for which researchers check daily for updates in emissions or other targets which would reduce pollution such as reductions in energy intensity or increases in renewable energy, makes a medium-range prediction of a 3.9C increase in temperatures, with a range of 2.3-6.2C (4.2-11.1F), based on committed targets, and a more encouraging 2.9C (5.2F) average, with a range of 1.7-4.6C (3.1-8.5F) based on "potential" commitments suggested but not enacted by many nations.   Climate Analytics and Ecofys, under the banner of Climate Action Tracker, estimate a range of 2.8-4.3C.   The predictions will be particularly worrying for many watchers because the 2C target was based on research which suggested that at that level there was only a low to medium risk of key changes to the conditions in which humans survive; however an update of the "burning embers diagram" by the authors, published last year by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the US, suggested that at 2C there greater risk in all categories, including a significant to high risk to unique and threatened ecosystems, of extreme weather events and a global distribution of the worst threats.   Reporters: Juliette Jowit and Christine Ottery Visit the related web page
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