A "low ambition" outcome in Doha

Martin Khor

The annual UN climate conference concluded in Doha last Saturday with “low ambition” both in emission cuts by developed countries and funding for developing countries

The UN Climate Conference in Doha ended last Saturday with the adoption of many decisions, including on the Kyoto Protocol’s second period in which developed countries committed to cut their emissions of Greenhouse gases.

Many delegates left the conference quite relieved that they had reached agreement after days of wrangling over many issues and an anxious last 24 hours that were so contentious that most people felt a collapse was imminent.

The relief was that the multilateral climate change regime has survived yet again, although there are such deep differences and distrust among developed and developing countries.

The conflict in paradigms between these two groups of countries was very evident throughout the two weeks of the Doha negotiations, and it was only papered over superficially in the final hours to avoid an open failure.  But the differences will surface again when negotiations resume next year.

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Climate Talks At New Crossroads

Martin Khor warns that it is evident from the Bangkok negotiations in September that the future of global climate change talks hangs in the balance. The prospect of bridging the division within the international community on tackling the problem seems as remote as ever even as evidence of the devastating impact of climate change mounts.

THE global climate change negotiations are at a new crossroads, as evident after the latest round of meetings that ended in Bangkok on 5 September.

‘Crossroads’ because the talks and the emerging climate change regime may go into one of various directions, or else become stuck in an impasse.  ‘New’ because the climate talks have faced crossroads several times before in the past five years.

The Bangkok negotiations of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held over a week, revealed a major split between developed and developing countries on what to do over many issues that the developing countries want to continue to discuss, because they have not been resolved.

Most developed countries, led by the United States, believe there is no need for further discussion because they have been closed off by a decision taken at the last Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Durban, South Africa last December.

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Will Climate Change Crush Agriculture? New Research Challenges Complacency

Frank Ackerman

Is climate change good or bad for agriculture? As recently as the 1990s, it was widely believed that the first few degrees of global warming would boost world average crop yields and food production. Higher temperatures were expected to lengthen growing seasons in temperate regions, while more carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere would act as a fertilizer, promoting plant growth.

The research of the last decade has led to a more ominous outlook for agriculture, as Elizabeth Stanton and I explain in a new paper. Three areas of recent research challenge the older, optimistic picture of climate change on the farm: field research has reduced estimates of the carbon fertilization effect; new analyses identify a strong effect of extreme temperatures on crop yields; and in many regions, changes in precipitation and the availability of irrigation will be the limiting factor for food production.

Carbon fertilization benefits are real but limited. Some plants, including maize, sugar cane, sorghum, and millet, use a distinct style of photosynthesis and experience almost no yield gains from increased atmospheric CO2. For one major crop, cassava, increased CO2 causes sharply reduced yields. Most other crops do have higher yields at elevated CO2 levels – but research with realistic simulations of actual growing conditions has led to modest estimates of the carbon fertilization effect. William Cline has projected that 550 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 in the atmosphere (about a 40% increase over current levels) would cause a worldwide average increase of 9% in crop yields.

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Doha, Fracking and the Green Economy

Edward Barbier

As governmental representatives meet in Doha to negotiate yet again a successor to the expiring 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change, two recent global trends may alter irrevocably such negotiations, and even affect future global warming.  The first is the new shale gas and oil boom in the United States and other regions.  The second is the emergence of the green economy.

As outlined in an article in the UK Guardian newspaper by Julian Borger and Larry Elliott, rapid exploitation of vast shale gas and oil deposits in the United States through new fracking technologies is changing global energy markets and future supplies. In just a few years, fracking has allowed the US to produce 30% of its gas needs, and should account for over half of domestic consumption by the early 2030s. Canada’s development of tar sands could have a similar impact on oil markets.  Australia is likely to rival Qatar as the world’s major exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and West Africa will also become a major supplier.

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The Drought and the Coming Food Price Bubble

As drought ravages the Midwest and the world prepared for its third price spike in five years, Timothy A. Wise sat down with the Real News Network to talk about the implications of the crisis. Drawing on his co-authored report with Sophia Murphy, “Resolving the Food Crisis: Assessing Global Policy Reforms Since 2007,” Wise points out that the international community has failed to address any of the important drivers of the food crisis – climate change, biofuels expansion, financial speculation, the lack of publicly managed food reserves, and strong reinvestment in developing country food production.

The Triple Crisis blog invites your comments. Please share your thoughts below.

Extreme weather events on the rise

Martin Khor

It was lucky the Olympics opening ceremony was not washed out by rain, because heavy rain, floods, heatwaves and droughts are among extreme weather events on the rise this year.

Last Friday night’s opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London was widely acclaimed for its spectacular display.  But besides the brilliant design and smooth implementation, another factor played an important role, and that is luck.

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Can carbon farming make the carbon tax more politically palatable?

Edward B. Barbier

In mid-July, I participated as a keynote speaker at University of Sydney’s 2012 Research Symposium on Soil Security.

A major topic at the Symposium was carbon farming, which is a payment scheme that allows farmers and land managers to earn credits by storing carbon or reducing greenhouse gas emissions on the land. These credits can then be sold to pay for the various carbon storing activities.

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Weather dice is loaded

Sunita Narain

During my weekly conversation with my sister I told her about the unusual searing heat this June, the problems of power cuts and how we are coping in India. She, in turn, told me that in Washington DC, where she lives, there was a terrible storm that damaged her roof and uprooted trees in her garden. They were fortunate that they still had electricity, because most houses in the city were in the dark. She also said it was unbearably hot because the region was in the grip of an unprecedented heat wave. Both of us, living across the oceans, in different countries, with vastly different circumstances, were similarly placed.

Is this, then, what the future holds for us—a changing weather that has no boundaries or preferences. And why are we still so reluctant to make the connection between weather events and a changing climate?

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