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	Climate Change scepticism will increase hardship for World"s Poor: IPCC Chief by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change   Jan. 2010   Climate change scepticism is likely to surge in 2010 and will exacerbate "hardship" for the planet"s poorest people, says Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the UN"s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and one of the world"s leading authorities on climate change.   Climate sceptics gained media attention in the run up to the Copenhagen climate summit after alleging that hacked emails between senior climate scientists showed that an important temperature record was flawed — a charge rejected by governments and international scientific bodies. Pachauri predicts this year would see further scepticism.   "Powerful vested interests are likely to get overactive in the coming months, and will do everything in their power to impede progress towards a binding agreement that is hoped for by the end of 2010 in Mexico City," he said. "Those opposed to action on climate change are working overtime to see that they can stall action for as long as possible."   After a weak deal in Copenhagen, Pachauri warned that allowing scepticism to delay international action on global warming would endanger the lives of the world"s poorest people.   "I believe, in the end, knowledge and science will undoubtedly triumph, but delay in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases will only lead to worse impacts of climate change and growing hardship for the most vulnerable regions in the world, which are also unfortunately some of the poorest communities on Earth."   Pachauri singled out lobbyists in the US for attempting to delay America"s climate legislation, which is crucial for a global deal but is currently stalled in the Senate. Last year the Centre for Public Integrity found that 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence US policies on climate change, while America"s oil, gas and coal industry increased its lobbying budget by 50%.   Pachauri said action from President Obama would be needed on top of Senate legislation. "The passage of legislation in that country [the US] will have to be supplemented with several initiatives to be put in place by the executive branch of the government," Pachauri said.   Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said Pachauri was right on the level of sceptical activity.   "We are already witnessing extraordinary efforts by powerful lobbies, in the US and Australia in particular, which are opposed to the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. There is a strong alliance of ideologically driven right-wingers, who reject environmental legislation on principle, and lobbyists for some hydrocarbon companies, who place the short-term commercial interests of their clients ahead of the wider public interest. Both have the common goal of delaying restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, and both use the tactics pioneered by the tobacco industry, hiding their true motivations behind inaccurate and misleading claims about uncertainties in the science."   The Nobel Peace-prize winning Pachauri called for greater activism and more campaigning to press governments into taking strong action on carbon emissions this year.   "Society and grassroots action would have to come into their own, not only to ensure that human society takes responsibility for action at the most basic level, but also to create upward pressure on governments to act decisively. If such grassroots efforts do not spread and intensify, nation states may not be able to resolve the differences that exist between them."
	Those who emit the most have the greatest power by Steven Hill, Mark Lynas International Herald Tribune & agencies   Jan 2010   Europeans question US commitment to action on climate change, by Steven Hill. (IHT)   The Copenhagen summit on climate change taught Europe a hard lesson about its trans-Atlantic partner. Great hope had greeted President Obama when he replaced George W. Bush at the American helm, but a year later Europeans are realizing that Mr. Obama is going to have a very difficult time delivering on his agenda.   During the Copenhagen summit, the American media portrayed President Obama as a global dealmaker, shuttling from leader to leader trying to broker various compromises. What Mr. Obama was really doing was a lot of fence-mending, because the United States was seen as the principal obstacle - and Mr. Obama as the footdragger-in-chief - that prevented any ambitious agreements from being signed.   Certainly the developing countries, led by China and India, were behaving stubbornly, but for good reason. The United States is by far the largest per-capita polluter in the world. Each American generates about 45,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, twice as much as the average European or Japanese, and 4 to 10 times more than someone living in China, India or any other developing country. China is close to the U.S. in terms of total carbon emissions — each emits about 25 percent of the world’s total — but it has four times more people.   The U.S. demanded that the developing world join in making drastic cuts, but the poorer countries cried foul. As one Indian official said, “First you do virtually nothing to cut your emissions, and then you threaten us [the developing world] with drowning from global warming sea level rise if we don’t cut ours. It won’t wash.”   So it was known all along that the U.S. had to offer something ambitious to start off the bargaining. In a real sense, the success of Copenhagen depended on the United States - that is, on President Obama.   Instead, what Mr. Obama offered was a bait-and-switch. Leading up to Copenhagen, Europe already had committed itself to reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020, and offered to go to 30 percent if the U.S. matched it.   That was a generous offer, especially considering that Europe already has an “ecological footprint” that is half that of the United States because it has done far more than the U.S. to implement conservation and renewable technologies.   American negotiators countered by offering to reduce carbon emissions by 17 percent — but stipulated that it would be 17 percent of 2005 levels, whereas most other countries used the benchmark of 1990 levels. The difference is substantial: In effect, America was agreeing to reduce carbon emissions by only about 4 percent of 1990 levels.   When the U.S. negotiators made this offer, the shock that echoed around Copenhagen was palpable. Everyone knew its ramifications — mainly that China, India and the developing nations would walk away from any significant agreement. So when Mr. Obama finally arrived in Copenhagen, he was in complete face-saving mode.   Another sticking point at Copenhagen was that the developing world insisted, quite rightly, that the developed world should pay for much of the poor nations’ carbon mitigations, since the developed world had caused most of the pollution to begin with.   Here again, Europe stepped up with an initial offering of up to $15 billion a year for the next decade to help developing nations cope with climate warming. Yet the Obama administration didn’t offer anything close to that amount.   A consistent pattern has emerged, where the world has seen more symbolic gestures than accomplishments from the Obama administration.   Even the White House’s biggest achievement has been a disappointment. President Obama signed an executive order to increase U.S. motor vehicle mileage standards to 32 miles per gallon — but not until 2020. That’s a level that European and Japanese cars, which already average 40 m.p.g., have long surpassed, and even China will soon achieve.   Why has President Obama been so unwilling to match his lofty words with concrete deeds? One major reason is the U.S. Senate. Mr. Obama needs 60 of the 100 Senate votes to get climate policy - or any other measure, like health care passed. This means that the 40 Republican senators joined by a single Democrat or independent can block any measure.   Mr. Obama isn’t delivering because he can’t deliver. The majorities needed for major policy changes are too high a threshold, even for someone with Mr. Obama’s political skills.   Following Copenhagen, Germany’s environment minister, Norbert Rottgen, had some stinging criticisms for President Obama, as well as for China’s leadership. “We are experiencing a lack of results and an inability to act, triggered mainly by the United States which, in the case of climate protection, is no longer capable of leading,” he said. “China doesn’t want to lead, and the U.S. cannot lead.”   Europe, on the other hand, presented itself as a unified bloc at the summit, with clear goals and a solid strategy. It already has done much to reduce its own carbon footprint. But Europe cannot solve the problem alone. Since its share of global carbon emissions is only about 14 percent, Europe could stop emitting CO2 tomorrow and global warming would still be catastrophic. Said Mr. Rottgen, “On this issue those who emit the most have the greatest power.”   Dec. 2009   Multilateral environmental governance is not a priority for China, by Mark Lynas.   As recriminations fly post-Copenhagen, one writer offers a fly-on-the-wall account of how talks failed.   Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.   China"s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world"s poor once again.   But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying "no", over and over again. The Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as "a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries". (This from a Sudanese regime that continues to offer impunity to those responsible for the deaths of over 300,000 people in Darfur).   Sudan behaved at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.   Here"s what actually went on late last Friday night, as heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors. Obama was at the table for several hours, sitting between Gordon Brown and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. The Danish prime minister chaired, and on his right sat Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN. Probably only about 50 or 60 people, including the heads of state, were in the room. I was attached to one of the delegations, whose head of state was also present for most of the time.   What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country"s foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world"s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his "superiors".   To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China"s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. "Why can"t we even mention our own targets?" demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia"s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil"s representative too pointed out the illogicality of China"s position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord"s lack of ambition.   China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak "as soon as possible". The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world.   So how did China manage to pull off this coup? First, it was in a strong negotiating position. China didn"t need a deal. As one developing country foreign minister said to me: "The Athenians had nothing to offer to the Spartans." On the other hand, western leaders in particular – but also presidents Lula of Brazil, Zuma of South Africa, Calderón of Mexico and many others – were desperate for a positive outcome. Obama needed a strong deal perhaps more than anyone. The US had confirmed the offer of $100bn to developing countries for adaptation, put cuts on the table for the first time (17% below 2005 levels by 2020), and was prepared to up its offer.   Above all, Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework, so conservative senators could not argue that US carbon cuts would further advantage Chinese industry. With midterm elections looming, Obama and his staff also knew that Copenhagen would be probably their only opportunity to go to climate change talks with a strong mandate. This further strengthened China"s negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure. The Indians, in particular, have become masters at co-opting the language of equity ("equal rights to the atmosphere") in the service of planetary suicide.   With the deal gutted, the heads of state session concluded with a final battle as the Chinese delegate insisted on removing the 1.5C target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by Brown, fought valiantly to save this crucial number. "How can you ask my country to go extinct?" demanded Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence – and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless. The deed was done.   All this raises the question: what is China"s game? Why did China, in the words of a UK-based analyst who also spent hours in heads of state meetings, "not only reject targets for itself, but also refuse to allow any other country to take on binding targets?" The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now "in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years time".   This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China"s growth, and growing global political and economic ascendancy, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming a superpower; indeed its newfound confidence was on striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.   Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China"s century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower"s freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope, the mobilisation of millions, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.
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