Whatever the outcome of the final hours of wrangling at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen, the odds are that the leaders of some of the world's richest countries will earnestly declare that they are working hard to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at 450 parts per million (ppm) and ensure that global average temperatures don't exceed 2 degrees centigrade.
In a final end-game bid, the governments of Saudi Arabia and Australia are frantically trying to shoe-horn support for the experimental Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology into a final agreement from the COP15 conference in Copenhagen. By the end of the first week of negotiations, promoters of the technology failed to win support from one of the major committees of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
But just two days later, draft text prepared by the chair of one of the two 'tracks' of UNFCCC negotiations threw a lifeline to the coal and power generation industries by flagging that whether or not to include CCS in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) as one of the most important issues requiring resolution. Including CCS projects in the CDM would provide a massive financial incentive for the development of trial CCS projects, most of which would be attached to massive new coal-fired power stations in developing countries. And this is just what groups such as the World Coal Institute and the International Emissions Trading Association have been lobbying for.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), a European lobbying industry watchdog, notes that the largest non-government delegation at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen is the 486-strong squad from the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA).
Submitted by Bob Burton on
World Nuclear News, a pro-nuclear website run by the World Nuclear Association, is upbeat about the draft "Danish text" climate change agreement. The text, which was secretly drafted by the governments of the U.K., the U.S., Denmark and Australia, has provoked uproar at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen.
If a captain fell asleep at the helm of an oil tanker traversing dangerous waters, the ship owners and the public would demand that they never be put in command of a ship again. But, despite 12 years of being asleep at the wheel, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a specialized United Nations agency responsible for international shipping, is demanding that it be re-appointed to have sole responsibility for addressing the rapidly rising greenhouse gas emissions from the shipping sector.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
James E. Hansen, one of the leading scientists researching global warming, would prefer that the COP15 climate change talks in Copenhagen collapse than result in a fatally flawed deal. "If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing then [people] will spend years trying to determine exactly what that means," he said. Hansen argues that cutting greenhouse gas emission is not compatible with crafting political compromises.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Channel Four in the United Kingdom reports that, according to official figures, "the number of delegates and lobbyists taking part in United Nations climate change talks has trebled in the past 12 years." Olivier Hoedeman, from Corporate Europe Observatory, observed that "there has been a very substantial increase in the number of lobby groups going to these summits and it’s not as people would probably imagine – it is often business groups rather than environmental ones." At the Kyoto conference in December 1997, there were 3,66
Next week, up to 20,000 people will descend on Copenhagen for the COP15 climate change conference, which aims to negotiate a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. Aside from the thousands of members comprising the 192 national delegations, there will be thousands more lobbyists from numerous industry lobby groups.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Nick Griffin, the leader of the anti-immigration British National Party (BNP), has been selected as one of the 15 representatives chosen to speak on behalf of the European Union at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen. The conference aims to reach agreement on a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the peak nuclear industry lobby group in the U.S., is an enthusiastic promoter of the idea of a "nuclear renaissance." NEI publishes NEI Nuclear Notes, a blog linking to stories hyping the prospects for an expanded role for nuclear power in a carbon-constrained world.
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