Update: Rainforest treaty 'fatally flawed'

A vital safeguard to protect the world's rainforests from being cut down has been dropped from a global deforestation treaty due to be signed at the climate summit in Copenhagen in December.

Under proposals due to be ratified at the summit, countries which cut down rainforests and convert them to plantations of trees such as oil palms would still be able to classify the result as forest and could receive millions of dollars meant for preserving them. An earlier version of the text ruled out such a conversion but has been deleted, and the EU delegation - headed by Britain - has blocked its reinsertion.

Environmentalists say plantations are in no way a substitute for the lost natural forest in terms of wildlife, water production or, crucially, as a store of the carbon dioxide which is emitted into the atmosphere when forests are destroyed and intensifies climate change.

Copenhagen Tom Whipple

As climate change legislation creeps ahead in the US Congress, activity prior to the formal negotiations on emissions that will take place in December is picking up. Last Monday a meeting of officials from the major greenhouse gas emitting countries ended with hints that progress is being made in discussion between the rich countries that currently emit most of the greenhouse gases and the developing countries that fear their economic development will be choked off by carbon ceilings.

In the meantime, China and India, which account for one quarter of global emissions, announced a plan for an alternative to the climate treaty that is to be signed in Copenhagen. China remains opposed to specific emissions caps and prefers more general plans to cut emissions in proportion to economic growth. The China-India plan may either be incorporated in any agreement reached at Copenhagen or may become an alternative should negotiations break down.

Beijing is starting to realize that it is among the most vulnerable to climate change as its rivers and crops start to dry up, water tables drop, and sea levels rise. The government is making major efforts to switch to green technologies, but policy is still overshadowed by the perceived need for rapid economic growth and the generally linked need to consume more and more coal and oil.

Ironically, recent polls show public sentiment in the US swinging away from the need to do anything about greenhouse emissions. Part of this comes from the barrage of industry advertising aimed at derailing climate change legislation in the Congress by focusing on increased costs to consumers during difficult economic times.

There are so many forces now at work applying pressure to climate change policy, financial systems, currencies, economic growth, and fossil fuel consumption that a clear outcome to all this is impossible to foresee. It seems likely that major changes will be forced on the global economy within the next few years despite widespread denial of the real problems.

Copenhagen Is Supposed to Fail. DIY! Jan Lundberg

Don't be taken in by Gordon Brown or any other approved savior regarding the climate crisis.

My prediction for the UN Copenhagen meeting is that it cannot and will not do anything but promise policies that hinge on the technofix, instead of actually moving toward the immediate slashing of greenhouse gas emissions. After all, how could any head of state or climate official in a corporate-dominated world really try to cut back on industrial activity to a significant degree? It would be not just political suicide but literally.

The only way that expected discussed "cuts" can be arrived at is by designing theoretical reductions from the switching of energy practices over time. Too much time, too many people, no way to adequately replace petroleum.

It does not matter how sincere or passionate any of the official international compromisers are who "represent' humanity. Their technofix is a lie, and that's what the so-called leaders are signed up for. So shouldn't the rest of us act accordingly, pro-actively? Perhaps a promise of reaction could be issued to them beforehand, announcing that we know they intend to only fail. At least it could make clear to a large audience, somehow, that we know that the process is set up for failure and that we're always being bullshitted.

Keep in mind that the passionate messengers of dire effects of climate change earn trust by identifying the problem, and then they revert to imbeciles or deceivers by claiming the answer is different energy technology to be expanded or developed. Never a cultural change, never the abandonment of the car, or rejection of the whole bankrupt System. A lot of people have been fooled by the technofixsers, the only "good actors" to get a consistent forum in the play of good cop/bad cop (the bad cops are fossil fuels & nuclear business-as-usual). The game is rigged and is a fraud, so another game (culture) is overdue.

What we ultimately do or don't do about climate change will probably be determined by energy supply limitations. The Guardian reports that Global Witness has joined the Peak Oil chorus:

Oil prices hit high but report warns of supply crunch

A report from the non-governmental organization Global Witness - famous for its exposé of so-called "blood diamonds" - pointed to an impending oil supply shock that could be so severe that many of the world's poor countries would simply be shut off from the world of energy by sky-high prices.

Two years in the preparation, Global Witness's report, Heads in the Sand, accused governments of ignoring the fact that the world could soon start to run short of oil. This would lead to huge consequences in terms of price shocks and much higher levels of violence around the world than last year's food riots.

"There is a train crash about to happen from an energy point of view. But politicians everywhere seem to have entirely missed the scale of the problem," said the report's author, Simon Taylor.

...

Taylor said the four key issues about oil - declining output, declining discoveries, increasing demand and insufficient projects in the pipeline - have been apparent for many years.

"But governments and multilateral agencies have failed to recognise the imminence and scale of the global oil supply crunch, and most of them remain completely unprepared for its consequences," he said.

"There has been a decade of dithering and it is now too late to avoid the consequences unless the authorities move like there is no tomorrow."

If we run short of oil, we will likely turn to natural gas, then coal, which will exacerbate global warming. Then again, the world economy may contract enough to offset the carbon emissions from coal, meaning that millions will be out of work, cold and hungry.

Zugzwang