- Email: [email protected]
Cancún analysis: Dawn breaks on low-carbon world
pete oxford/minden/getty
THIS WEEK
Dawn breaks on the low-carbon world Fred Pearce, Cancún, Mexico
THERE were tears, standing ovations and sheer relief after 12 days of frenetic negotiations. As the sun rose over Cancún in Mexico, sleep-deprived delegates proclaimed the UN climate talks – which had derailed last year in Copenhagen – back on track. The triumph, though, was largely a diplomatic one. No nations promised to cut emissions more than they had last year. The text that delegates applauded was full of promises 8 | NewScientist | 18 December 2010
to settle differences later – differences like the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, legally binding emissions targets and the role of carbon markets. The firmest commitment was to meet again next year in Durban, South Africa. Yet behind the scenes, at side events across Cancún, the architecture of a remarkable new low-carbon world was on display – a world with ambitions as great in developing nations as in the rich world. Dozens of nations, rich and poor, came to Cancún having fleshed out promises made in
beans are not grown on newly deforested land. Meanwhile, researchers from Brazil’s state-backed agricultural research corporation, Embrapa, unveiled a plan for low-carbon agriculture which could, along with banishing deforestation, meet most of the government’s Copenhagen pledge. Gustavo Mozzer said no-till agriculture, which keeps more carbon in the soil, would become the norm for farmers. And ranchers would rehabilitate cattle pastures, turning them from the main driver of deforestation into carbon sinks. In total, over 150,000 square kilometres of degraded pastures are to be rehabilitated in the next decade. In other signs of independent action, the European Union has enshrined in law its promise to cut emissions by 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. In the US, Barack Obama’s Copenhagen promise of a 17 per cent cut below 2005 levels by 2020 was derailed by mid-term elections in October, but the country remains the world’s biggest investor in green energy R&D. And Texas has some of the world’s largest wind farms – –Rainforests saved from the axe– not through any love of the UN or concern for climate, but because Copenhagen, many of which do wind power is profitable. not depend on a UN agreement. California’s cap-and-trade If the talks ultimately founder in law, once seen as a blueprint for a Durban or later, that momentum federal scheme, comes into force might just save a world lacking in 2012, regardless of any UN the authority of a UN agreement. treaty. In Cancún the Governors’ Brazil, which says it will cut “Brazil is to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by deforestation in the 36 to 39 per cent from businessAmazon. Forest loss as-usual by 2020, declared that it is down by 75 per cent” was about to eliminate one of its biggest sources of emissions: deforestation in the Amazon. Climate and Forest Taskforce, Forest loss is down by threelaunched two years ago by quarters, from 27,000 square Arnold Schwarzenegger and kilometres in 2004 to 6500 in state governors around the world, the past year. showcased carbon offset projects Satellite monitoring and better in Acre in Brazil, Campeche in policing have helped. So, too, has Mexico, Nigeria’s Cross River a new national ambition. Last state and Indonesia’s Aceh. week, the country’s biggest bank, The hope is that such schemes Banco de Brasil, said soya farmers can be incorporated into the wanting loans must prove their future UN climate agreement’s
For daily news stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
own scheme for forest conservation, known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. REDD’s rules were broadly agreed in Cancún and Daniel Nepstad of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, a leading forest ecologist, said REDD could go ahead even if the wider UN deal falters, funded by carbon traders in the EU, California and elsewhere. China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is also taking steps to green its economy regardless of what happens in the halls of the UN. Its Copenhagen pledge to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 40 to 45 per cent by 2020 is now anchored in its next five-year plan, which runs from 2011 to 2015. In the past three years, China has become the world’s largest producer of both solar panels
can we still avoid dangerous warming? Bolivia was the bad boy of Cancún. It alone refused to adopt the text. Delegation head Pablo Solon told the conference that current pledges to cut emissions “would mean more than 4 °C” of warming. It would be “ecocide”, he said. It’s not so simple. Stabilising temperatures at 2 °C of global warming – generally agreed to be the threshold for dangerous climate change – will require emissions to be brought down to very low levels eventually. That can happen in different ways. One widely used trajectory says that global
and wind turbines, and is planning its own internal carbon trading scheme. Does all this leave the UN process redundant? Few in Cancún would go that far. Most believe that legally binding
annual CO2 emissions in 2020 must be kept below 44 billion tonnes. Existing pledges overshoot that by 5 to 9 billion tonnes – the so-called “gigatonne gap”. If the gap is never closed, the world is indeed on track for 3 to 4 °C of warming. There are other options. According to the UK’s Met Office, it should still be possible to stop the world warming more than 2 °C by making drastic cuts later on. But the longer we wait, the more drastic the cuts. The cut-off date for action, they say, is 2020. Hold onto your hats.
emissions targets and global carbon trading would bring on a low-carbon economy faster. But regardless of UN rules, many developing nations will want to emulate the “green growth” planned by Brazil and China.
Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi told the conference he wanted Ethiopia to be carbon neutral by 2025, while still becoming a middle-income nation. And Virgilio Viana, director-general of the Amazon Sustainability Foundation told New Scientist he was in talks with Indonesians, keen to export the Brazilian model to their own country. Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics told New Scientist that the talks’ key achievement was to give nations the sense that they were working together towards a common goal – and thus the confidence to pursue their own activities at home. What is agreed on paper may be modest, he said, but regardless “there is now a very powerful momentum towards a low-carbon economy”. Additional reporting by Catherine Brahic n
A language they’ll remember. A gift they’ll never forget. The gift that gets everybody talking this Christmas. Language learning with Rosetta Stone. Our unique software activates the natural language-learning ability we all have. By replicating the way we learnt our first language, learning becomes fun through engaging, interactive activities that encourage you to think in a new language. You will speak, read and write your new language with confidence from the beginning. All without translation or memorisation. With over 30 languages available, there is a gift for everyone.
UP TO £80 OFF PLUS FREE DELIVERY Call 0800 005 1325 RosettaStone.co.uk/NST1 QUOTE ‘NST1’ ©2010 Rosetta Stone Ltd. All rights reserved. Patent rights pending. Offer cannot be combined with any other offer. *£80 off SRP when you buy Level 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 Personal Edition box set direct from Rosetta Stone. £50 off SRP when you buy Level 1, 2 & 3 Personal Edition box set direct from Rosetta Stone. £10 off SRP when you buy Level 1 Personal Edition box set direct from Rosetta Stone. Plus free standard P&P within the UK. Offer expires 23rd December 2010. Prices are subject to change without notice. Six-month money-back offer is limited to product purchase made directly from Rosetta Stone and does not include return P&P. This offer does not apply to Rosetta Stone Online or Audio Companion™ purchased separately from the software product. All materials included with the product at the time of purchase must be returned together and undamaged to be eligible for any exchange or refund.
18 December 2010 | NewScientist | 9
THIS WEEK
Dawn breaks on the low-carbon world Fred Pearce, Cancún, Mexico
THERE were tears, standing ovations and sheer relief after 12 days of frenetic negotiations. As the sun rose over Cancún in Mexico, sleep-deprived delegates proclaimed the UN climate talks – which had derailed last year in Copenhagen – back on track. The triumph, though, was largely a diplomatic one. No nations promised to cut emissions more than they had last year. The text that delegates applauded was full of promises 8 | NewScientist | 18 December 2010
to settle differences later – differences like the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, legally binding emissions targets and the role of carbon markets. The firmest commitment was to meet again next year in Durban, South Africa. Yet behind the scenes, at side events across Cancún, the architecture of a remarkable new low-carbon world was on display – a world with ambitions as great in developing nations as in the rich world. Dozens of nations, rich and poor, came to Cancún having fleshed out promises made in
beans are not grown on newly deforested land. Meanwhile, researchers from Brazil’s state-backed agricultural research corporation, Embrapa, unveiled a plan for low-carbon agriculture which could, along with banishing deforestation, meet most of the government’s Copenhagen pledge. Gustavo Mozzer said no-till agriculture, which keeps more carbon in the soil, would become the norm for farmers. And ranchers would rehabilitate cattle pastures, turning them from the main driver of deforestation into carbon sinks. In total, over 150,000 square kilometres of degraded pastures are to be rehabilitated in the next decade. In other signs of independent action, the European Union has enshrined in law its promise to cut emissions by 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. In the US, Barack Obama’s Copenhagen promise of a 17 per cent cut below 2005 levels by 2020 was derailed by mid-term elections in October, but the country remains the world’s biggest investor in green energy R&D. And Texas has some of the world’s largest wind farms – –Rainforests saved from the axe– not through any love of the UN or concern for climate, but because Copenhagen, many of which do wind power is profitable. not depend on a UN agreement. California’s cap-and-trade If the talks ultimately founder in law, once seen as a blueprint for a Durban or later, that momentum federal scheme, comes into force might just save a world lacking in 2012, regardless of any UN the authority of a UN agreement. treaty. In Cancún the Governors’ Brazil, which says it will cut “Brazil is to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by deforestation in the 36 to 39 per cent from businessAmazon. Forest loss as-usual by 2020, declared that it is down by 75 per cent” was about to eliminate one of its biggest sources of emissions: deforestation in the Amazon. Climate and Forest Taskforce, Forest loss is down by threelaunched two years ago by quarters, from 27,000 square Arnold Schwarzenegger and kilometres in 2004 to 6500 in state governors around the world, the past year. showcased carbon offset projects Satellite monitoring and better in Acre in Brazil, Campeche in policing have helped. So, too, has Mexico, Nigeria’s Cross River a new national ambition. Last state and Indonesia’s Aceh. week, the country’s biggest bank, The hope is that such schemes Banco de Brasil, said soya farmers can be incorporated into the wanting loans must prove their future UN climate agreement’s
For daily news stories, visit www.NewScientist.com/news
own scheme for forest conservation, known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. REDD’s rules were broadly agreed in Cancún and Daniel Nepstad of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, a leading forest ecologist, said REDD could go ahead even if the wider UN deal falters, funded by carbon traders in the EU, California and elsewhere. China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is also taking steps to green its economy regardless of what happens in the halls of the UN. Its Copenhagen pledge to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 40 to 45 per cent by 2020 is now anchored in its next five-year plan, which runs from 2011 to 2015. In the past three years, China has become the world’s largest producer of both solar panels
can we still avoid dangerous warming? Bolivia was the bad boy of Cancún. It alone refused to adopt the text. Delegation head Pablo Solon told the conference that current pledges to cut emissions “would mean more than 4 °C” of warming. It would be “ecocide”, he said. It’s not so simple. Stabilising temperatures at 2 °C of global warming – generally agreed to be the threshold for dangerous climate change – will require emissions to be brought down to very low levels eventually. That can happen in different ways. One widely used trajectory says that global
and wind turbines, and is planning its own internal carbon trading scheme. Does all this leave the UN process redundant? Few in Cancún would go that far. Most believe that legally binding
annual CO2 emissions in 2020 must be kept below 44 billion tonnes. Existing pledges overshoot that by 5 to 9 billion tonnes – the so-called “gigatonne gap”. If the gap is never closed, the world is indeed on track for 3 to 4 °C of warming. There are other options. According to the UK’s Met Office, it should still be possible to stop the world warming more than 2 °C by making drastic cuts later on. But the longer we wait, the more drastic the cuts. The cut-off date for action, they say, is 2020. Hold onto your hats.
emissions targets and global carbon trading would bring on a low-carbon economy faster. But regardless of UN rules, many developing nations will want to emulate the “green growth” planned by Brazil and China.
Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi told the conference he wanted Ethiopia to be carbon neutral by 2025, while still becoming a middle-income nation. And Virgilio Viana, director-general of the Amazon Sustainability Foundation told New Scientist he was in talks with Indonesians, keen to export the Brazilian model to their own country. Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics told New Scientist that the talks’ key achievement was to give nations the sense that they were working together towards a common goal – and thus the confidence to pursue their own activities at home. What is agreed on paper may be modest, he said, but regardless “there is now a very powerful momentum towards a low-carbon economy”. Additional reporting by Catherine Brahic n
A language they’ll remember. A gift they’ll never forget. The gift that gets everybody talking this Christmas. Language learning with Rosetta Stone. Our unique software activates the natural language-learning ability we all have. By replicating the way we learnt our first language, learning becomes fun through engaging, interactive activities that encourage you to think in a new language. You will speak, read and write your new language with confidence from the beginning. All without translation or memorisation. With over 30 languages available, there is a gift for everyone.
UP TO £80 OFF PLUS FREE DELIVERY Call 0800 005 1325 RosettaStone.co.uk/NST1 QUOTE ‘NST1’ ©2010 Rosetta Stone Ltd. All rights reserved. Patent rights pending. Offer cannot be combined with any other offer. *£80 off SRP when you buy Level 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 Personal Edition box set direct from Rosetta Stone. £50 off SRP when you buy Level 1, 2 & 3 Personal Edition box set direct from Rosetta Stone. £10 off SRP when you buy Level 1 Personal Edition box set direct from Rosetta Stone. Plus free standard P&P within the UK. Offer expires 23rd December 2010. Prices are subject to change without notice. Six-month money-back offer is limited to product purchase made directly from Rosetta Stone and does not include return P&P. This offer does not apply to Rosetta Stone Online or Audio Companion™ purchased separately from the software product. All materials included with the product at the time of purchase must be returned together and undamaged to be eligible for any exchange or refund.
18 December 2010 | NewScientist | 9