Durban deal — now comes the far, far harder part

 

 

Sent to you by Bhargaw via Google Reader:

 

 

Durban deal — now comes the far, far harder part

via Prep4Civils by Bharath Vaishnov on 12/14/11

This article discusses the aftermath of climate change summit at Durban

• at Durban countries agreed to following
  1. to arrive at a legally binding agreement for both developed and developing nations by 2015
  2. the agreement must come into force by 2020
• the time to arrive at an agreement is short while issues to be resolved are complex

Issues

• getting an agreement that all countries sign up to will be intensely complicated.
• Any new agreement will come down to targets
• By 2015, the world's people will demand greater action as the evidence of future damage becomes clear
  • If energy bills continue to rise as they have, people will eventually start to manage their demand much more efficiently than now
• a temperature rise of 2 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels is estimated to be the limit beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic and irreversible
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculates that emissions must peak by 2020 at the latest and fall rapidly thereafter
• Carbon output must be roughly halved by mid-century, compared with 1990.
• increasing evidence shows that human activity is harming the climate and a clearer picture of what the consequences will be is emerging
• historic emissions is another contentious issues
  1. industrialized countries started burning fossil fuels earlier and so bear responsibility for most of the CO2 already in the atmosphere
  2. However countries that  have invested heavily in renewable in recent years will all want credit for these actions
• Countries with large forests provide a valuable service in absorbing carbon, while others' have less opportunity to use low-carbon power
• India's stand
  1. India insisted that equity — taking into account developing countries' economic capabilities, large populations still to be lifted out of poverty, and low responsibility for historic emissions — must be the foundation of the negotiations.
• However vast quantities of carbon being poured into the atmosphere have made historic emissions less relevant
• US on other hand has insisted that there are other means to tackle climate change than emission cuts
  1. such as black carbon and HFCs, both of which have warming effects

• Funding problem
  1. Developing countries have been promised $100 billion a year by 2020 in order to help them move to a green economy and cope with the effects of climate change
  2. However how funds would be made available has not been finalized yet
• For years, the question of whether countries needed to sign a legally binding international treaty or could simply make national commitments that could later be changed has been one of the most contentious issues.
• At Durban, those arguing for a legally binding outcome won

 

 

Things you can do from here:

• Subscribe to Prep4Civils using Google Reader
• Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites