http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/329459/copenhagen_in_60_seconds_key_facts_and_figures.html

Copenhagen in 60 seconds: key facts and figures
Ecologist

8th October, 2009

Do you know your COP15 from your CDM? Your UNFCCC from your REDD? If not, you need our 60 second guide to Copenhagen
What are the dates?

7th-18th December 2009.

Where exactly is it?

The Bella Exhibition and Conference Centre, Ørestad, Copenhagen, Denmark.

How many people will attend the conference?

Traditionally, the COP/CMP attracts several thousand participants. At least 10,000 are expected this year. Included in this number are government representatives, observer organizations, government officials, representatives of UN bodies and agencies, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and accredited members of the media.

From how many countries?

Officials and ministers from 192 countries are expected to attend.

How big is the press contingent likely to be?

Previous COPs have attracted nearly 1,500 accredited members of the media. There will be a significant number of press conferences held during COP15. The program for these press conferences will be put together by the UNFCCC, and will be available during the conference.

What’s on the agenda?

The climate agreement for the period from 2012; specifically obtaining an agreement that combines respect for the environment (a reduction in man-made greenhouse gases that have a negative effect on our climate system), living standards and long-term security of energy supply in the best way possible. Concrete proposals will be set out for action by the EU and the rest of the international community.

What predictions have been made for the outcome?

Björn Stigson, President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, has neatly summarised six very different possible outcomes:

1. A ‘real deal’: the US and China provide the driver for a new, ambitious and comprehensive agreement.
2. Business as usual: the various countries follow current national targets.
3. A limited deal: headed by for example the Group of Eight (G8) a deal outside the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is found.
4. A mere prolonging of the present agreement, the Kyoto Protocol.
5. A stretching of the Copenhagen conference (COP15) into 2010.
6. ‘Window dressing’: a grand declaration but no real deal.

What are the key discussion points?

The ‘baseline year’ against which specified reduction targets will be measured, the duration of the second commitment period, ie. 2012 til when?
The proposed greenhouse gas reduction targets themselves for both the second commitment period and beyond.
Whether the agreement will be expanded to include greenhouse gases that are currently excluded from the Kyoto Protocol, for example the international maritime industry and the international aviation industry.
Whether the rules governing the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) will be tightened to ensure environmental integrity and avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions, or whether they will be relaxed to encourage more investment.
Whether the CDM will include as-yet-unproven Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology to receive funding as a way of allowing coal-fired power stations to continue operating and new ones to be built.
An agreement to include measures to curb the rate of deforestation, especially of tropical rainforests in developing countries – otherwise known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).
Discussing a framework to help countries adapt to inevitable climate change. All developed and developing countries should be required to develop comprehensive national adaptation strategies. Financial and technological support should be provided to the most vulnerable developing countries.
Boost to research, development and demonstration (RD&D) of low-carbon and adaptation technologies.
Source: sourcewatch.org and europa.eu

What are the likely stumbling blocks?

The United States in particular has refused to make binding commitments unless major developing economies, such as China, are included in an agreement. Developing countries – most actively represented by the G-77 block – have indicated a willingness to cut emissions, but only if developed countries take a leadership role.

Developing countries are reluctant to accept hard carbon emissions targets as they struggle to grow their economies. Richer countries don’t want to accept hard targets, or be responsible for funding mitigation, if developing economies won’t also accept limits.

Everyone is waiting for the other to act on how deeply to cut their emissions of gases that contribute to climate change. No one wants to standalone.

What key objections/proposals do nations have?

The United States in particular has refused to make binding commitments unless major developing economies, such as China, are included in an agreement.

South Africa won’t consider the next round of climate change talks successful unless rich nations set aside money to help them address global warming. It is calling for financial and technological support.

Mexico has tabled a proposal for aid to be made available to poor countries in their struggle to cope with climate change.

UK proposes each of the G-20 nations find their own way of funding their efforts to control climate change. The position is opposed by India, China, South Africa and Brazil. UK also suggests that all national plans, such as the Five-Year Plans for India, shoudl would be open to international examination. Again, India opposes the idea.

Norway proposes to use funding from industrialised countries’ emissions budgets to generate revenue for international cooperation.

Members of the Alliance for Small Island Developing States (AOSIS) propose increased risk management and risk reduction strategies, including risk sharing and transfer mechanisms such as insurance.

What greenhouse gas reduction target could we consider a success?

NGOs in many industrialised countries are calling for at least 40 per cent emission cuts by 2020, in line with the scientific evidence of the reductions needed to keep below a 2C rise in average global temperature.

See also

Copenhagen Counts homepage
Nick Stern: the US is the only obstacle to a climate agreement
Should the US scrap the Waxman-Markey climate bill?

http://www.utne.com/Environment/Environmental-Cost-Free-Canvas-Bag.aspx?utm_content=10.05.09+Environment&utm_campaign=Environment&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email#

The Environmental Cost of a Free Canvas Bag
When it comes to the environment, free canvas bags aren’t free

September-October, 2009 by Dmitri Siegel, from Creative Review

It’s difficult to pinpoint when the canvas tote craze really started. The concept isn’t new, of course. Public television stations have been giving them away during fundraisers for decades, and L.L. Bean’s “Boat and Tote” has been a New England staple even longer. Sometime during the past few years, how­ever, the environmental appeal of reusable bags and the easy application of graphics catapulted canvas sacks from health food stores to the runway.

Graphic designers embraced the form as a venue for messages on a par with the T-shirt. Design blogs became enthralled by the never-ending stream of totes—each one made unique by a clever or beautiful graphic. This glut of bags raises questions about the sustainability of any product regardless of the intentions behind it.

The ascension of canvas, after all, was fueled by the totes’ compelling social benefits. Not only is canvas a renewable resource, but the bags are biodegradable and sturdy enough to stand up to years of use. With global warming emerging as an everyday anxiety, designers and consumers alike latched on to the reusable tote as a tangible step they could take to help the environment. Reusing canvas bags could reduce—and eventually eliminate—the billions of plastic bags that are discarded every year.

The thought is noble, but it’s worth considering the irony: The plastic bag itself began as an environmental salve. Before the introduction of ultra-thin plastic bags in the 1980s, groceries were primarily packed in paper. Plastic was touted as a way to save trees. Within a few years plastic dominated the market. Comparing plastic to paper, it’s easy to see why; the plastic bag is a vastly superior design. It consumes 40 to 70 percent less energy to manufacture, generates 80 percent less solid waste, and produces 60 percent fewer atmospheric emissions. A plastic bag costs a quarter as much to produce and is substantially lighter (so it takes far less fuel to transport).

What is marvelous about an individual bag, however, becomes menacing when it is multiplied to accommodate a global economy. The low cost allowed merchants to give plastic bags away and, despite their strength, they’re routinely double-bagged. Their incredible durability means it can take up to hundreds of years for them to decompose. Although plastic bags are recyclable, in-store programs have barely managed to achieve a 1 percent recycle rate. It is simply too easy and efficient to keep making and distributing more plastic bags.

We could be headed for the same kind of catch-22 with the adoption of the canvas tote. I’m certainly an outlier in this case, but I recently found 23 of them in my house. Most were given to me as promotional materials for design studios, start-ups, and boutique shops; more than one came from an environmental organization; one even commemorates a friend’s wedding. A community group recently delivered a reusable bag to every house in my neighborhood to promote local holiday shopping.

This zeal for reusable bags is inspiring, but it also reveals the fundamental contradiction of the canvas tote phenomenon. Once this gorgeous flat surface presented itself, it quickly became a substrate for messaging, branding, and promotion—and the emphasis shifted from reusing a bag to having one that reflects status or personality.

Judging by the cost, producing one tote is equivalent to producing 400 plastic bags. That’s fine if you use a tote 400 times, but what if you just end up with 40 totes? The environmental promise of reusable bags becomes dubious when there are closets full of them in every home.

Designers are correct in thinking that making a more appealing bag increases the likelihood that it will be reused, but environmental benefit doesn’t come from people acquiring bags. It comes from people reusing them. Successful attempts to reduce the number of plastic bags have all focused (unsurprisingly) on depressing their consumption. In 2001 Ireland consumed 1.2 billion plastic bags, 316 per person. In 2002 the country introduced a PlasTax—at the time 15 eurocents for every plastic bag consumed. The program reduced consumption of plastic bags by 90 percent. This success seems to undercut the strategy of selling reusable totes as a way to help the environment.

In terms of actually reducing the number of plastic bags floating around in our world, programs like the one at U.S. Ikea stores (customers pay five cents per bag and the proceeds go a conservation group) are more likely to have an impact than selling a canvas alternative. The best thing for the environment is reuse—and that can be accomplished just as easily by reusing plastic bags.

This isn’t to trash canvas: The aesthetic power of a single design raised more awareness about the impact of plastic bags on our environment than any government or nongovernment organization. Every well-designed tote had the potential to replace some of the estimated 1,000 plastic bags that each family brings home every year. It is simply unclear if a consumable can ever counteract the effects of consumption. The designs that make each bag unique contribute to an overabundance of things that are essentially identical, while the stream of newness, in the end, discourages reuse. Best intentions are buried under an avalanche of conspicuous consumption.

Just as the remarkable efficiency of the plastic bag transformed a solution into a menace, consumer culture could turn reusable canvas bags into an environmental calamity.

Dmitri Siegel (www.dmitrisiegel.com) is a Philadelphia-based designer and writer. This essay first appeared on DesignObserver.com. We spotted it republished in Creative Review (April 2009), a British magazine that covers all aspects of visual communication. www.creativereview.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/sep/28/population-growth-super-rich

Stop blaming the poor. It’s the wally yachters who are burning the planet

Population growth is not a problem – it’s among those who consume the least. So why isn’t anyone targeting the very rich?

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* George Monbiot
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 21.00 BST

It’s no coincidence that most of those who are obsessed with population growth are post-reproductive wealthy white men: it’s about the only environmental issue for which they can’t be blamed. The brilliant Earth systems scientist James Lovelock, for instance, claimed last month that “those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.” But it’s Lovelock who is being ignorant and irrational.

A paper published yesterday in the journal Environment and Urbanization shows that the places where population has been growing fastest are those in which carbon dioxide has been growing most slowly, and vice versa. Between 1980 and 2005, for instance, sub-Saharan Africa produced 18.5% of the world’s population growth and just 2.4% of the growth in CO2. North America turned out only 4% of the extra people, but 14% of the extra emissions. Sixty-three percent of the world’s population growth happened in places with very low emissions.

Even this does not capture it. The paper points out that about one sixth of the world’s population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all. This is also the group whose growth rate is likely to be highest. Households in India earning less than 3,000 rupees (£40) a month use a fifth of the electricity per head and one seventh of the transport fuel of households earning 30,000 rupees or more. Street sleepers use almost nothing. Those who live by processing waste (a large part of the urban underclass) often save more greenhouse gases than they produce.

Many of the emissions for which poorer countries are blamed should in fairness belong to the developed nations. Gas flaring by companies exporting oil from Nigeria, for instance, has produced more greenhouse gases than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa put together. Even deforestation in poor countries is driven mostly by commercial operations delivering timber, meat and animal feed to rich consumers. The rural poor do far less harm.

The paper’s author, David Satterthwaite, points out that the old formula taught to students of development – that total impact equals population times affluence times technology (I = PAT) – is wrong. Total impact should be measured as I = CAT: consumers times affluence times technology. Many of the world’s people use so little that they wouldn’t figure in this equation. They are the ones who have most children.

While there’s a weak correlation between global warming and population growth, there’s a strong correlation between global warming and wealth. I’ve been taking a look at a few super-yachts, as I’ll need somewhere to entertain Labour ministers in the style to which they are accustomed. First I went through the plans for Royal Falcon Fleet’s RFF135, but when I discovered that it burns only 750 litres of fuel per hour I realised that it wasn’t going to impress Lord Mandelson. I might raise half an eyebrow in Brighton with the Overmarine Mangusta 105, which sucks up 850 litres per hour. But the raft that’s really caught my eye is made by Wally Yachts in Monaco. The WallyPower 118 (which gives total wallies a sensation of power) consumes 3,400 litres per hour when travelling at 60 knots. That’s nearly a litre per second. Another way of putting it is 31 litres per kilometre.

Of course, to make a real splash I’ll have to shell out on teak and mahogany fittings, carry a few jetskis and a mini-submarine, ferry my guests to the marina by private plane and helicopter, offer them bluefin tuna sushi and beluga caviar, and drive the beast so fast that I mash up half the marine life of the Mediterranean. As the owner of one of these yachts I’ll do more damage to the biosphere in 10 minutes than most Africans inflict in a lifetime. Now we’re burning, baby.

Someone I know who hangs out with the very rich tells me that in the banker belt of the lower Thames valley there are people who heat their outdoor swimming pools to bath temperature, all round the year. They like to lie in the pool on winter nights, looking up at the stars. The fuel costs them £3,000 a month. One hundred thousand people living like these bankers would knacker our life support systems faster than 10 billion people living like the African peasantry. But at least the super wealthy have the good manners not to breed very much, so the rich old men who bang on about human reproduction leave them alone.

In May the Sunday Times carried an article headlined “Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation”. It revealed that “some of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly” to decide which good cause they should support. “A consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.” The ultra-rich, in other words, have decided that it’s the very poor who are trashing the planet. You grope for a metaphor, but it’s impossible to satirise.

James Lovelock, like Sir David Attenborough and Jonathan Porritt, is a patron of the Optimum Population Trust. It is one of dozens of campaigns and charities whose sole purpose is to discourage people from breeding in the name of saving the biosphere. But I haven’t been able to find any campaign whose sole purpose is to address the impacts of the very rich.

The obsessives could argue that the people breeding rapidly today might one day become richer. But as the super wealthy grab an ever greater share and resources begin to run dry, this, for most of the very poor, is a diminishing prospect. There are strong social reasons for helping people to manage their reproduction, but weak environmental reasons – except among wealthier populations.

The Optimum Population Trust glosses over the fact that the world is going through demographic transition: population growth rates are slowing down almost everywhere and the number of people is likely, according to a paper in Nature, to peak this century, probably at about 10 billion. Most of the growth will take place among those who consume almost nothing.

But no one anticipates a consumption transition. People breed less as they become richer, but they don’t consume less – they consume more. As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance. Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. Anyone who understands this and still considers that population, not consumption, is the big issue is, in Lovelock’s words, “hiding from the truth”. It is the worst kind of paternalism, blaming the poor for the excesses of the rich.

So where are the movements protesting about the stinking rich destroying our living systems? Where is the direct action against super-yachts and private jets? Where’s Class War when you need it?

It’s time we had the guts to name the problem. It’s not sex; it’s money. It’s not the poor; it’s the rich.