The State of Affairs

What have I been doing? Reading reading reading...

I am back after five months of blogging abstinence. I started a new job at the University of Cambridge in January, and couldn't blog 'as much' as I used to even though I have a very long commute that would allow me to write a few words. However, I decided to read during my train journey. So here is a brief update on my reading list for anyone who is interested:

• Me before you by Jojo Moyes - the perfect book after I handed in my master thesis. I wanted to read something light and easy where my brain could just relax and glide along with the easy narrative. Romantic and soppy love story. Perfect. 
• Stoner by John Edward Willimas - an absolute Must-Read! I am annoying everyone in my close proximity by telling them to read this marvelous, beautiful, touching book. 
• Us by David Nicholls - light entertainment, amusing and at times sad family story, but somehow not that captivating. 
• Hitch22 by the late Christopher Hitchens - not finished yet, but an interesting and an unexpected simple read by the famous writing and speech virtuoso, with details about his family that are quite surprising. Think what you want about Hitch, but he is a genious in terms of eloquence and sharpness.
• We are all made of glue by Marina Lewycka. A story about a woman living in London who is going through a breakup when she meets an old jewish lady in a supermarket. It was quite entertaining but the writing was at times too reliant on the stereotypical clichés of people with certain cultural backgrounds. 

 

Climate change adaptation

BUT, back to the important things. I returned here to write a few words about the state of affairs regarding our environment and the climate. To be honest, not much has changed since my last entry. Oh, yes, the nations who were at the COP21 discussion table signed the climate deal a few weeks ago on 22 April. 'Record breaking!' they called it. 'A historic day!' But still, Prince's death received more coverage. In all fairness, he was a legend. 

Albeit the less than enthusiastic coverage of the historic signing of the deal, there is a general sense of people slowly awakening to the increasing pressure of having to do something about these matters. This is especially highlighted by China, the largest GHG emitter, who was accused in the past of blocking negotiations and hijacking climate deal talks by then climate secretary Ed Milliband. China is finally looking to take big steps. Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli announced 'a lift of regulations and policies Beijing was rolling out to meet its goals, including a national carbon market in 2017, investment in forests and a network of “zero emission” projects'. 

I am very curious to see what the development is going to look like there. Finally their rigid centralist government structure can be used not only for silencing dissidents, changing and censoring information about their past BUT it could come in useful when implementing rigorous changes in energy consumption and waste management. No arguments between different parties if there is only one! I might oversimplify the situation but I am genuinely intrigued what they are going to do. Also in the light of them hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics in the north of Beijing. A region dry as the Gobi desert.

 

Too late?

But is all of this maybe a little too late? Have the years of CDM and JI mitigation efforts neglected real efforts in the area of meaningful and sustainable adaptation strategies, and only served as a tool for the developed nations to meet their GHG targets? I asked myself this question during the COP21 meetings and even more so after I read this recent article in the guardian titled: Climate change puts 1.3bn people and $158tn at risk, says World Bank - Organisation urges better city planning and defensive measures to defend against rapid rise in climate change-linked disasters.

The poorest nations will suffer the most from climate change induced disasters however at the same time they are the ones least equipped and prepared for what is coming. This is not big news. There are hundreds of articles and scientific papers out there that deal with this topic. There are, among other funds by NGOs, local governments and money from state level, two major money pots which are tied to the UNFCC framework: the Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund. I have to admit I haven’t read too much about these two funds, hence I am not entirely sure why they exist side by side. It would be interesting to see in what way they differ from each other, or whether they cover the same issues which would be incredibly inefficient and another example of how everybody is talking about climate change and its urgency, and everybody is trying as hard as possible to appear busy combatting it, while their entire set of actions so far has been futile. 

Wikipedia, As an extremely low-lying country, surrounded by vast oceans, Kiribati is at risk from the negative effects of climate change, such as sea-level rise and storm surges.

As you can see, I am not too convinced about the process that we have seen up until now in terms of climate negotiations. I wrote in a previous post about the big hoorray!! that followed the COP21 in Paris and how I was quite reluctant to celebrate along since it has to be seen how all of the big promises and pledges will eventually play out and whether we are still looking at solely a row of lip services by different nations, because they know that there are no stringent set of rules and regulations in place that could lead to severe penalties if they do not meet their targets. 

 

Turning a blind eye 

There are several levels of inadequacies, inequalities and a huge amount of dishonesty in the arena of climate politics. There is a heap of evidence that big oil companies such as Exxon knew about anthropogenic climate change since the 80s but nothing was done about it. But they don't have to face any penalty, punishment, fee or even reputation loss for that matter. Or do you remember a major headline that went along the lines of Breaking News: EXXON LIED TO US FOR DECADES!!! - that kept journalists and news broadcasters busy. You know, as busy as they were when Britney had her complete meltdown, or when Kim Kardashian wore that gold, no blue dress. Nope. No such coverage for Exxon. I am not trying to bash mainstream media. If someone wants to know about Bieber's latest hairstyle, please by all means, read about it. But I feel we are being bombarded with highly irrelevant news on a daily basis, while the Earth and her climate is slowly but surely showing us her middle finger. Of course the media outlets report on issues they believe attracts most readers (apparently having Jennifer Aniston on the front page of women's magazines results in high numbers of readers). But money plays a vital role here too. Climate change deniers in politics who are backed by people such as the Koch Brothers are operating unchecked because - money. And they can influence major broadcasters too.  

'Reliable Source', by Seppo Leinonen, Flickr

Trump Trumpeter

And now we have Trump. I used to find this orange man with the impossible hairdo quite amusing, then I thought of him as a walking unfortunate embarrassment and now I feel that he is the personified amalgamation of everything that is wrong in this world. Corporate greed with a bully attitude, incredibly uninformed but driven by a hunger for success, prestige and profit. And the most worrying part? He finds support. He is a climate change denier par excellence attributed with all the well known rhetoric we know from them. And he is looking to appoint a fellow climate change denier as his energy minister should he become president. I still hope that the unlikely theory that he is actually a democrat in disguise, who is intentionally being as ridiculous and unvotable as possible, to allow a democrat to win is actually true. But it probably isn't the case. Alas! 

To come back to my initial question, 'what has happened while I was away?', it was a bit unfair to say 'not much'. If we look at developments that have nothing to do with governments and emission targets, I do see promising progress. Such as Elon Musk's electric cars that are becoming more affordable or a number of tech billionaires who came together to launch the breakthrough energy coalition, with the goal to invest in new clean energy start ups. 

Wikipedia, Musk standing in front of a Tesla Model S in 2011

I went to a public lecture called 'Effective Environmentalism' by Paul Ferraro, visiting Professor from Johns Hopkins University, in March this year which was followed by a panel discussion. The panelists were asked, which organisations are worth supporting if you want to help protecting the environment? The big ones such as WWF, or smaller NGOs? One of the panelists answered that in terms of impact, it is the bigger environmental organisations that can make a difference. BUT she added, their impact will never be as big as when one of the big international companies such as Unilever or Nestlé finally implements sustainable and climate friendly measures in their production and logistical processes. Once they decide to take meaningful steps to protect the environment and the climate, the impact will be considerably larger than the efforts made by any NGO. And they can, because they operate with huge sums of money, more money than any government or transnational organisation can come up with to combat climate change. So if there was only more willingness from the big corporate players to invest in clean energy. 

 

Finally...

So, while the big organisations are sticking to business as usual, governments around the world are busy trying to appear worried about the environment, while at the same time not wanting to upset the establishment, there are still some people who actually care. People who worry about biodiversity loss, who work in conservation, who implement climate offset projects around the world, who study ecology, atmospheric science and climatology, just to be confronted with idiotic, uninformed, biased climate change deniers. And then you have a new breed of billionaires. Young people, not pretentious, not driven by money or the idea of building a monument for themselves, but by their passion. And they do seem to care about the world and the people around them and want to engage in a more meaningful and sustainable way. I am not as foolish as to put all my hope in them, but I do believe having them on board on this very slow journey towards a greener future is a definitely a good thing. 

So things are moving in the right direction, governments are slowly but surely feeling the pressure, and some rich billionaires throw their money behind great projects, but it all seems a little too lat - at least for those who are already knee deep in the water. 

COP21 - Quo Vadis?

Source: "Another world is on her way " by Tony Webster from Portland, Oregon, United States - Another world is on her way. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Common

There has been a lot of talk about the upcoming climate change conference which will take place in Paris from the 30 November to the 11 December. But before I am going to talk about what the major discussion points are, who is taking part and what the outcomes are most likely going to look like, I will elaborate a little bit more about the background of the COP conferences and its history. After all we are talking about the 21st conference this year, which means that there have been 20 previous ones, and I am almost certain that before the COP15 in Copenhagen, the general public was mostly unaware of the UNFCC and the climate conferences it organizes. If you are already well informed on the history of the COP conferences then feel free to jump further down where I will attempt to predict the outcome of this year's conference.

A rough guide to COP

How did it all start and why did the UN feel compelled to organize a conference on this scale? Climate change became an increasingly pressing topic over the past 30 years and the first response to work against anthropogenic climate change was the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. One major outcome of the Rio Convention was the adoption of the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC). "This convention set out a framework for action aimed at stabilising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" (as stated here: http://www.cop21paris.org). The UNFCC consist now of 195 member parties. And COP, by the way, stands for 'Conference of Parties', in case you were wondering.

So much about the background, but what is being discussed during the conferences? Well, the main objective is to regularly revisit and review the Convention's implementation process. The first COP took place in Berlin in 1995 and it did achieve some milestones ever since. On 11 December 1997 during the COP3 the Kyoto Protocol was signed, COP11 produced the Montreal Action Plan and COP17, which took place in Durban, saw the creation of the Green Climate Fund.

Source: http://www.cop21.gouv.fr/en/logos/ 

And this year we are going to witness COP21 in Paris. But why does this year's COP21 matter more than the previous ones?

What to expect?

During the COP21 in Paris we will witness for the first time in the history of the UNFCC and the COP conferences the attempt to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, which also involves the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C. People have become increasingly aware about the impending environmental disasters and the devastating effects on weak and poor societies, which can already be felt in various parts of the world. Hence, the media and the general public's interest and attention to the COP conferences have increased over the past years and this year's COP is expected to attract "close to 50,000 participants including 25,000 official delegates from government, intergovernmental organisations, UN agencies, NGOs and civil society" (as stated here: http://www.cop21paris.org).

There is already a stark contrast in the level of commitment by the participating head of state's compared to the COP held in Copenhagen. While the world leaders only turned up towards the end of the two week long conference in Copenhagen, which ended in no clear agreement that could have been signed and without any viable road map, President Obama, Chancellor Merkel, PM David Cameron along with other major world leaders such as Xi Jinping of China and Narendra Modi of India, are expected to attend the conference from the beginning. Furthermore, certain concessions have already been made ahead of the conference. Such as: 

• 40% emissions cut commitment by the EU compared with 1990 levels by 2030.
• 26%-28% emissions cut commitment by the US compared with 2005 levels by 2030.
• China agreed that its emissions will peak by 2030 and decrease thereafter. 

Those targets cover some of the biggest GHG emitters worldwide and it can be said that they will most likely be agreed on in Paris.

COP21 - bone of contention

Source: Fratelli dell'Uomo Onlus 'Energia solare a Malika, Dakar'. 

Even though it does seem like a straight forward deal, there are contentions which will most probably lead to hour long meetings all through the night. Poor and developing nations want to ensure that they receive financial aid which allows them to invest in clean technology that will mitigate GHG emissions, and also funding, that enables them to adapt their infrastructure to climate change damage. They have been given assurance of financial aid which will last until 2020, but the real bone of contention will be what happens after 2020. The poor nations want that financial assurances by the developed nations are made beyond 2020. How this will be done will cause major disagreements. Where will the money come from? Only from the developed nations? From their public purse? Or should international development banks be involved more? What the outcome of these debates will be is rather difficult to predict. And after the terrible terrorist attacks in Paris, there is the possibility that the climate change debates among the world leaders will be overshadowed by discussions on how to combat terror and not so much on global emission reduction agreements and financial aid for the poorer nations

There are definitely high hopes for this year's COP and I will keep an eye on the discussions between the world leaders and also on the civil society movements that accompany the COP21 conference. Maybe we will write history in Paris.