The head of the UN climate change secretariat, Yvo de Boer, held a press conference yesterday to mark the halfway point of the Bonn talks.   The meetings in Bonn are meant to make progress on a final global climate change agreement due to be signed in Copenhagen in December.

de Boer summed up the four points of "clarity" that he thinks are prerequisites for a final agreement:

• Clarity on individual greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for industrialized countries

• Clarity on what large developing countries (like China and India) will do to minimize the growth of their emissions

• Clarity on financial support for developing countries on adaptation and mitigation

• A governance structure for adaptation and mitigation aid that gives developing countries a voice in how money is spent.

It's hard to disagree with de Boer's analysis.  At this point there is little clarity on any of these points, but perhaps as the week progresses some broad contours will be revealed.

According to the Morris County New Jersey Daily Record, regional planning efforts in the northwest part of the state have resulted in "stopping sprawl."  The article cites the fact that no new large subdivisions were constructed in the county as evidence of sprawl's demise.

While the economic downturn, depressed housing prices, and the credit crunch may also have had something to do with halting development, the article emphasizes the power of a 2004 state legislative initiative-- The Highlands Act--as being the primary reason.

The Act was established to protect open space and water quality in northern New Jersey.  My understanding is that the seven counties and over 80 municipalities that are located in the Highlands area have to insure that their plans are in compliance with the regional Highlands Plan.  Additionally, the Plan is governed by a regional council that has veto power over large development decisions.

This type of regional decision making power is essential to minimize the negative consequences that accompany the typical fragmented land use decisions seen elsewhere in North America.  If it seems like the Highlands Plan is really influencing the trajectory of development in northwestern New Jersey, it might be a useful model for other states to follow in order to bring some coherence to metropolitan development. 

Normally, governors or state officials who recommend regional planning with teeth meet significant levels of resistance from legislatures and municipalities.  The Highlands Act seems to have been an exception.

Tomorrow US State Department climate change negotiator Todd Stern will head to Bonn to join the UN-sponsored climate change talks.  The Bonn meeting is seen as a key step towards the goal of coming to an international agreement at Copenhagen in December.

On Wednesday Stern gave an address at the Center for American Politics that focused on China and the US-China relationship on the issue of climate change.  During the Bush administration, the US essentially maintained that no global climate change agreement would be possible without China agreeing to significant emissions cuts.  This position has basically been a non-starter with China given the fact that industrialized countries are responsible for the highest percentage of cumulative emissions and their current per capita levels of emissions outweigh those of developing countries such as China.

How the Obama administration is going to address the China issue, therefore, has been a matter of interest.

From Stern's talk it is clear that the US is not going to demand absolute cuts from China.  However, he pretty forcefully said that China can't hide behind its old arguments, arguing that it is not in China's interest to pursue a high-carbon form of development.

He was asked by reporter to clarify specific actions the US might be looking for from China and responded that whatever it is, it must be substantive and verifiable.  To me this suggests that maybe there is some commitment on the table whereby China would reduce energy intensity or hit an emissions target below business-as-usual projections.

We probably won't get too much clarification in the short term, but it is likely that there will be significant behind the scenes discussions in Bonn between Stern and his Chinese counterparts about ways to move forward.

UN-sponsored climate change talks began on Monday in Bonn. The negotiations will last two weeks and represent a step on the path towards a successor to the Kyoto agreement scheduled to be completed by December.

While the negotiations are underway many NGOs are highlighting the domestic positions of various countries. Yesterday, the Climate Action Network held a press conference to discuss the impending decision on levels of greenhouse gas emission reductions in Japan.

Prime Minister Taro Aso indicated that he would announce Japan's midterm (2020) reduction target sometime in the next couple of weeks. The graphic above illustrates the various targets being debated in Japan--everything ranging from a 4% increase from 1990 levels to a 25% decrease.

Japan's decision will undoubtedly influence where other big emitters set their own targets--particularly the United States.

Today a major Japanese business group suggested that domestic industry could meet a 15% reduction. Last month, Aso said that a 25% reduction would be hard to sell politically in the country given the recession. During the CAN press conference, Masako Konishi of WWF-Japan, however, cited a recent public opinion poll that suggested there was strong public support for significant reduction targets.

Beginning on Monday in Bonn, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is holding a new round of negotiations. The goal is to get more clarity on an international agreement prior to the year-end talks in Copenhagen.

A couple weeks ago I posted on the document that is being discussed relating to possible changes in obligations from developed countries. The topic of this post is the document being discussed by the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action.

This document is laying the groundwork for what the long-term limits should be for greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere as well as how mitigation and adaptation should be financed and verified in various contexts.

There are several propositions in the document for long term limit goals. The options under discussion range from stabilizing GHG concentration in the atmosphere at 450 ppm all the way to 350 ppm. Each number would be a significant goal. The current concentration is around 388 ppm and scientific models suggest that the number could more than double in the absence of a significant global mitigation effort.

On the issue of mitigation the document has a wide range of time lines and emissions reduction numbers. One provision asks developed countries to decrease GHG emissions between 20-45 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 and by anywhere from 75-90 percent of 1990 levels by 2050.

As a point of comparison: Obama has pledged to reduce US emissions down to 1990 levels by 2020 and then hit the 80% target by 2050.  The Waxman-Markey bill is even weaker, calling for an 83% reduction from 2005 levels by 2050.

Also included in the document were targets for developing countries, including a reduction from "business as usual" between 15-30% by 2020 and an eventual 20% reduction from 2000 levels by 2050.  Large developing countries like China have shown signs in recent days a willingness to deviate from business as usual; but any net emissions reduction obligations will likely be a non-starter.

It will be interesting to see how the various disparities get hashed out over the next two weeks in Bonn.  This is really the first time we are starting to see actual numbers in the negotiation documents.  Optimism is relatively high given the change in US administrations and the opening of a China-US dialog on the subject in recent months.  How delegates from various countries react to the actual numbers in Bonn could give a sense of whether this optimism is nothing more than a chimera. 

US President Barack Obama's announcement yesterday that he plans to increase the fuel efficiency standard for automobiles and regulate their tailpipe emissions is quite significant.

After eight years of federal government inaction, Obama was able to get state goverenments, the auto industry, and environmentalists to agree on a plan that will limit greenhouse gas emissions, (perhaps) enhance the competitiveness of the beleaguered US auto industry, and reduce petrol consumption.

One of the things I found remarkable was the swiftness with which the auto makers abandoned their long-standing opposition to increasing the fuel efficiency standard.  Ever since California requested from the Bush administration a waiver to establish their own emissions standards under the Clean Air Act, the auto industry balked at how difficult it would be to follow a "patchwork" of different state standards.  They never had a reasonable response to the retort that they should simply adopt the more stringent, California standards on a nationwide basis.  

Yesterday, however, the major auto executives stood behind Obama and praised the new regulations.  Whether this is a result of the industry coming to terms with the prospects of a dismal future or an example of Obama's power of persuasion is uncertain.  Regardless, this is a significant development.

I'm surprised this hasn't been picked up in the US press, but the Guardian is reporting that a bipartisan group of US functionaries held several meetings in the second half of 2008 with China's top climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, to find common ground between the two countries.

The meetings apparently started in July and continued following the election of Barack Obama to the US Presidency. Many of the Democratic representatives were high level Congressional staffers or former Clinton officials who now have positions in the Obama administration. These include current White House science adviser John Holdren, Joe Biden's adviser Jim Green, and long-time Democratic State Department hand, Frank Loy.

According to the Guardian, the group proposed that the two countries agree  to reduce emissions by 20% by 2010, cooperate on technological development of carbon capture and storage, and to commit to a global agreement in Copenhagen.  Apparently these terms were looked upon favorably by Xie.

While there has been no publicized agreement between the two countries, Hilary Clinton did announce a "clean energy partnership" with China during her visit there earlier this year.

This dialogue can only represent a positive move for an international climate agreement to be hatched in Copenhagen later this year.

Important negotiating documents for the successor to the Kyoto Protocol were released by the United Nations yesterday in advance of negotiating sessions scheduled for early June in Bonn. The documents are compilations of suggestions by various countries seeking to shape the international treaty expected to emerge out of the major negotiations in Copenhagen later this year.

It is interesting to see how these documents evolve during the months leading up to Copenhagen as they give the first concrete sense of many countries' negotiating positions.

Two documents were released yesterday. One focuses on national commitments [.pdf] to greenhouse gas emissions reductions beginning in 2013. The second proposes systematic ways of incorporating land use into the Kyoto successor.

I haven't had a chance to read through the land use document, but the national commitment document is quite interesting. One of the sticking points at Kyoto was coming to an agreement as to which countries would have to reduce their emissions and by how much. With the Kyoto commitment period ending in 2012, this document essentially picks up where the discussions in Kyoto left off, with an eye for developing second commitment period targets.

There are several options being floated, with only one offering explicit country-by-country reduction numbers for the second commitment period. Most of the proposals simply put forward a time line for the next commitment period and an indication of which countries should be covered. One of the main issues that recalcitrant nations like the US had with Kyoto was the exclusion of developing countries, like China and India, from having binding targets. Most of the proposals keep the distinction between the "developed" (termed "Annex I" under the Kyoto Protocol) and "less developed" countries.

Several, however, break down that distinction, suggesting that some countries may push for commitments from all signatories. This does not mean that all countries will have mandatory emissions reductions as Kyoto, for instance, set a precedence whereby some Annex I countries had obligations that exceeded their 1990 emissions.

The document also had some negotiating points on general, global emissions reduction targets. These included proposals to requiring Annex I parties to reduce emissions by 40% from 1990 levels by 2018 or 45% by 2020.

Finally, there was some mention of taking into account per-capita emissions levels. It will be interesting to see where this goes, given that the developing world (headed by China, Brazil, India, and others) argue that they should not be required to have any binding emissions reductions given the fact that per capita emissions are so small. It is the developed world that has the large per capita carbon footprint and should, hence, be most responsible for cutting emissions.

From the standpoint of the US, it is noteworthy that Obama's target of reducing US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 is much weaker than most of the proposals contained in these negotiating texts.

Reuters reports that the UN will be releasing another negotiating document in a number of days that looks to set forth long term (i.e. 2050) reduction commitments.

The Guardian reports that British climate secretary Ed Miliband believes that China is willing to negotiate on the issue of emissions targets given the change in the US position under Barack Obama.

China's position has been that, given the fact that they have such low per-capita emissions, the developed world should bear the burden of absolute reductions.  This was always a deal-breaker for Bush who didn't accept the equity argument of the Chinese.

Miliband--who just finished a series of meetings in Beijing--believes that Obama's flexible stance on the issue has prompted China to perhaps agree to emissions intensity targets as part of an agreement coming out of December's UN-sponsored talks in Copenhagen.

"Emissions intensity" refer to the amount of emissions needed to produce a unit of economic growth.  Under this scenario, China may agree to reduce their emissions intensity as opposed to actual number of total emissions.  This would go a long way towards giving Obama political cover at home where Republican critics of climate change negotiations keep on bringing up Chinese inaction as reason to oppose US emissions targets.

Today's Chicago Tribune has an article discussing the problems facing residents of a new planned community in Oswego, Illinois--a growing suburb on the exurban fringe of Chicago.

I am sure the story is not unique given the severity of the foreclosure crisis and the lack of regional planning that provides incentives for over-development in fast-growing suburbs like Oswego.

The story goes something like this: developer acquires former farmland and gets it zoned for redevelopment, acquires financing based on the assumption that the loan will be repaid with receipts from early sales, establishes homeowners association to fund the maintenance of common areas relieving the municipality from that burden, markets the new development as a "place where community thrives," gets a few buyers but ultimately abandons the site because of lack of sales, leaves the residents with a mess of half-completed buildings and the bill for cleanup.

This seems to be a real hazard of master-planned developments in the midst of a real estate collapse.  I don't know if this is the case with Oswego, but exurban municipalities often count on developers to provide basic public amenities as a condition for the approval of projects.  One of the complaints of residents cited in the article was that promotional materials from the developer indicated that parks, recreational facilities, and a community center were supposed to have been built.  To finance those amenities apparently the developer was counting on revenues from early sales.  When the developer abandoned the project, none of the amenities had been built.

Municipalities are in a tough position.  It is in their interest to approve development which will raise tax revenue and to do it in a way which will minimize costs for the provision of public services.  Costs of normal amenities are borne by the developer and the residents who directly benefit.  However, outsourcing this activity to the market can result in these types of unintended consequences which could actually increase costs to the municipality in the long run:  half-finished developments become eyesores and they could likely reduce property values in adjacent neighborhood. 

Once the real estate market rebounds, it will be interesting to see if suburbs demand certain concessions from developers to stave off this type of problem.  It is probably unlikely in the absence of regional planning since suburban municipalities will likely still be competing for developer investment and find it hard to resist their demands.  There are ways that states and the federal government can provide incentives for more coherent regimes of planning on the part of municipalities--but I'll have to leave that subject for another post!

In the meantime, if anyone has examples similar to what's going on in Oswego, please send them along!

With all of the talk of an impending flu pandemic, the meeting of high-level ministers from the world's "major economies" has not been given much press.  Perhaps this also may be a result of the fact that nothing path breaking was agreed upon in the meetings that just wrapped up in Washington.

According to the official recap released yesteday by the State Department:

There was wide support for considering how best the Major Economies Forum can contribute to a successful outcome at the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December. The meeting included active exchanges on this topic, and participants agreed to continue discussions on mitigation, finance, adaptation and related issues at their next meeting, including exploring shared assumptions. The discussions underscored the need for near term ambitious actions for all, as well as pathways, and the development of mid-term goals for developed countries.

Participants commented on the potential for the Major Economies Forum to support the development of transformational technologies critical to mitigating climate change globally.

The emboldened words reflect that little of substance was agreed upon in this US-sponsored parallel session to the ongoing United Nations talks.  When Bush conceived of these talks a year ago, it was not clear what was going to be accomplished.  Skepticism of Bush's intentions tempered enthusiasm.

With the US rhetoric on climate change shifting under Obama, at least a spirit of participation and pragmatism has been developed.  Yet, major gaps remain between the positions of the US, the EU, and emerging economies.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the EU is frustrated with US and Australian foot dragging on agreeing to an adequate medium term (2020) level of greenhouse gas reduction.

The Chinese envoy was disappointed that the issue of transferring green technologies to developing economies was not even discussed--which is interesting since technology transfer is a major component of the ongoing UN talks.

Fiona Harvey of the Financial Times suggests this omission may reflect a major sticking point between China & India and the US.  Namely, the issue of how to address rapidly rising developing country emissions.  Although China recently surpassed the US as the largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, their per-capita levels are minuscule.  Thus, asking developing countries to make reductions (as Bush demanded) is unreasonable and inequitable.  What is on the table, Harvey reports, is asking developing countries to curb their GHG growth rather than engage in absolute cuts.

Andrew Light and Nina Hachigan at the Center for American Progress have a good post saying that China is giving signals that they are willing to negotiate on this point.

This latter issue will be interesting to watch as leaders from the major economies convene in Italy in July.  If an agreeable arrangement between China and the US can be worked out prior to Copenhagen, there will be significant momentum for the UN meetings to result in a meaningful agreement.

On the campaign trail last year, Barack Obama expressed concern about the practice of mountaintop removal in Appalachian coal mining.  Mountaintop removal involves literally tearing off the top of a mountain to gain access to the coal and dumping the waste rock and soil directly into streams and riparian areas.  As one could imagine, the practice is devastating to forests and water quality in the region.

There are regulations that require restoration of damaged land and safe depositing of waste materials, but the Bush Administration aggressively used its regulatory power to issue rules that were heavily favorable to industry and severely damaging to the environment.

That is why reports that Obama is going to retain a key Bush appointee as head of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement are troubling.  Glenda Owens is the interim head of the agency.  Although she is a career bureaucrat, she has been criticized for lax enforcement of environmental laws and the agency as a whole has had a record during the Bush years of issuing environmentally-questionable permits to mine operators.

It is still unclear whether or not Obama is going to retain Owens.  After the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility put out a press release saying Owens has been tapped to head the agency, the Washington Post reported that the Secretary of the Interior's spokesperson said that she is simply "someone who is being considered."

During the last week climate negotiators from around the world descended on Bonn to engage in talks leading up December's meeting in Copenhagen which is supposed to result in a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol.

The Bonn meeting was the first major international negotiation attended by US President Barack Obama's new climate team, headed by Todd Stern and Jonathan Pershing.

According to reports from the meeting, delegates appreciated the engagement by Stern--which contrasted to the recalcitrant position of the Bush Administration.

However, in terms of actual progress towards Copenhagen, the US position is appearing to fall short of Europe.   While the EU has promoted a 30% reduction of greenhouse gases from 1990 levels by 2020, the US simply wants to reach its 1990 levels by the same date.  Both the EU and the US agree on an 80% reduction from 1990 levels by 2050.  According to USA Today, the US appears to be pushing the idea that the Copenhagen agreement should focus more on 2050 targets--as opposed to 2020.  The problem with this position is that it makes it easy to defer action to the future, which may translate into inaction as political regimes change.

Additionally, the New York Times article seemed to suggest that Obama's team is embracing the Bush position that the US will only agree to binding emissions reductions if China and India do as well.  This position is likely to be a deal-killer for China and India who argue that their per-capita emissions remain low and that for reasons of equity, rich industrialized countries should bear the burden of binding emissions reductions.

The US didn't bring specific numbers on emissions reductions and obligations to the table in Bonn, so it is hard to analyze the full extent of their position.  Later this month, Obama is convening a meeting of leaders of the world's major economies to discuss climate change.  It will be interesting to watch those proceedings closely since they will undoubtedly influence the next UN-sponsored forum which will once again take place in Bonn at the beginning of June.

Last November I posted on a curious--and possibly environmentally devastating--case of neo-colonialism involving Madagascar and the Korean conglomerate, Daewoo. 

The case involved a deal being hatched between the country's leadership and Daewoo whereby the Korean company would lease about half of Madagascar's arable land with the intent of growing export crops for Korean consumption.  As I noted at the time, about 65% of the population in Madagascar was facing chronic food insecurity.  The details of the plan were sketchy, but if the deal went through, likely people in an already tenuous position would be displaced from their land, or forested areas of the country would be converted to commodity cropland causing serious environmental problems.

It appears that the potential deal struck a chord with the political opposition and prompted the street demonstrations that culminated in a military-backed coup last week.  Thus it is noteworthy that the new president, Andry Rajolenia, announced yesterday that the deal is now cancelled.

The political situation in Madagascar remains precarious after the coup, with the US announcing that it was suspending aid.  But it appears--for the time being--that this ill-conceived Korean sell-off is dead. 

The New York Times is reporting that Governor David Patterson has caved to electric utilities by weakening the state's carbon trading scheme.

New York is a member of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which seeks to reduce CO2 emissions from the power sector by a factor of 10% by the year 2018.  The initiative establishes a carbon cap and requires electricity providers to purchase emissions allowances.

My understanding is that each of the states participating in the initiative determine the method of allocating allowances.  The most effective way at determining a price for emissions is by auctioning off the allowances.  Gov. Patterson--after strong lobbying from the utilities industry--has apparently decided to give away nearly $17 million worth of allowances for free.

This is money that would otherwise be used for low-carbon investment.  Patterson's move will also put pressure on other states to give away allowances since the emissions credits are transferable (i.e. if one state gives them away the carbon price is artificially lowered since New York utilities can sell them to utilities in other states for massive profit).

Too many free allocations plagued the effectiveness of the European Union's cap-and-trade scheme during its initial phase.  Patterson seems interested in following that questionable path.

This development is worrisome, as the RGGI is something of a model in the US and will likely influence Congressional deliberations this year on a national cap-and-trade scheme.